So, after Krugman is taken down, what other lefty voices should be silenced?

[Zenlitened]

Who's next? :shrug:

[marmar]

1. Butter in the middle and on top, and a large Mountain Dew for me.....

:popcorn:

[Thickasabrick]

2. You dammit!! Down with Zenlitened!!!

Chill....there are certain people here that are so enamored with our new president that they seriously would not notice if "the emperor had no clothes".

It will pass....I hope.

[ProSense]

4. There are also some people so "enarmored" with Krugman

they can't accept any criticism of him. Works both ways, you know.

[Imperialism Inc.]

8. Krugman Shmugman. I don't need Krugram to tell me what is plainly

obvious just from reading the details of the plan. I had that figured out long before I logged in here and found out he wrote a piece about it.

[ProSense]

17. I don't need anyone to tell me that Krugman can't be certain Obama's

plan will fail.

[FrenchieCat]

22. The plan isn't out yet.

Can you posts these "details"......cause I didn't know the White House had published them anywhere.

[Imperialism Inc.]

37. The link below is subscription only .

http://tinyurl.com/dk257n


I can give you a free link to naked capitalism the has excerpts posted. The plan has been leaked over the last week. If the details are different then of course my opinion might change. Krugman and others are of course talking about the leaked details.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/03/private-public-partnership-details.html

Although the details of the F.D.I.C. part were still being completed on Friday, it is expected that the government will provide the overwhelming bulk of the money — possibly more than 95 percent — through loans or direct investments of taxpayer money.

The hope is that such a generous taxpayer subsidy will attract private investors into the market and accelerate the recovery of the country’s banks.

The key protection for taxpayers, according to people briefed on the plan, is that the private investors will bid in auctions against each other for the assets. As a result, administration officials contend, the government will be buying the troubled loans of the banks at a deep discount to their original face value.

Because the government can hold those mortgages as long as it wants, officials are betting the government will be repaid and that taxpayers may even earn a profit if the market value of the loans climbs in the years to come.

To entice private investors like hedge funds and private equity firms to take part, the F.D.I.C. will provide nonrecourse loans — that is, loans that are secured only by the value of the mortgage assets being bought — worth up to 85 percent of the value of a portfolio of troubled assets.

The remaining 15 percent will come from the government and the private investors. The Treasury would put up as much as 80 percent of that, while private investors would put up as little as 20 percent of the money, according to industry officials. Private investors, then, would be contributing as little as 3 percent of the equity, and the government as much as 97 percent.

[girl gone mad]

64. You've already asked for and been given the details..

at least once tonight.

[Thickasabrick]

14. I'll criticize Krugman all day long - but Obama too if I think he's fucking

up...and he is I think seriously fucking up by sticking with Timmeh.

[Zenlitened]

5. Mission accomplished. The Bush Depression...

... has kicked the legs out from under me already. :D

[FrenchieCat]

3. Is Krugman going to stop writing his column or something?

I hadn't heard of this.

[Zenlitened]

10. Not necessary, once his character's been assassinated.

I just can't figure out whether the marching orders are coming from the right wing, or the repub-lite faction of the Dem party.

In either case, it seems like there is a powerful push under way to silence the few leading voices we have on the progressive, liberal left. And lots of folks seem to be falling for it, unaware of the possibility of manipulation.

[FrenchieCat]

15. So you are saying that people cannot disagree with Mr. Krugman?

Why not?
He doesn't seem to have a problem criticizing others.

[Zenlitened]

27. Hmmm... perhaps I'm being too subtle here.

Or just unfunny.

[Jakes Progress]

45. The PP shuns subtlety.

[Imperialism Inc.]

6. Dean Baker is up next.

That dang noticing-the-housing-bubble-while-it-was-happening guy. He acts like being one of the few with a clue and being a long time progressive economist means he can question the President. Bah!

[depakid]

91. DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8285769&mesg_id=8285769

[MannyGoldstein]

7. Howard Dean

Here's the rest of the list: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/01/most-influential-liberal-thinkers/

That Howard Dean character particular annoys me - some claptrap about there being a "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party". It's the third way or the highway, I say!!!

[depakid]

9. Frank Rich!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/opinion/22rich.html

[bajamary]

16. hope you're got to stop him

How are you going to stop him?

Duck tape on his keyboard?

Excellent....stop him before too many people read him....oops, I mean before too many people agree with him....oops, I mean.........

[LittleBlue]

11. Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald are next.

Or were they first? I can't recall.

[FrenchieCat]

20. Why can't these folks be criticized, considering that they do their fair share?

I'm not understanding the concern on this.

Are we supposed to only criticize the President, but no one else?
Isn't the President the one that can actually make a difference in our lives,
as opposed to these folks? Why are they supposed to get more consideration?

[LittleBlue]

23. Not at all, they are definitely open to criticism.

I just find it funny that before about two months ago, there was no criticism at all toward them. Mostly unquestioning praise while they excoriated the Bush Admin.

[FrenchieCat]

28. Perhaps these are the growing transition of going from an administration

that no one likes, to an administration that one believes will listen if one talks loud enough.

[Cha]

87. Strawman and

hyperbole. Pathetic.

[camera obscura]

50. Taibbi is not on the same level as Greenwald or Krugman

just IMO

[druidity33]

68. i don't understand that...

He uses visceral language, yes. He names people and calls them out. He does not include specificity often enough to my liking. But that's not his job. He works for Rolling Stone. His job is to write kick ass articles that shine light on nasty doings with humor and blunt objects. Why do folk expect more from him?

But in relation to Krugman and Greenwald, Taibbi is just as often "spot on" in his appraisals. He's more caustic though, and i think some folk find that distasteful. Yes he is a "GonzO" journalist... but that has excellent connotations to me.


:shrug:

[camera obscura]

78. I'm all for caustic and visceral, I just think he does it badly. He is not as clever as he thinks.

For example, his ridiculous misreading of Eric Holder's "race speech", where he sniggered on TV that Holder must have been high, because he suggested that nothing had changed in America since the '50s. In fact, Holder had said just the opposite, that so much had changed from the '50s, but we still had a ways to go.

[druidity33]

86. then it's a matter of taste

I don't recall ever feeling like Taibbi has misled me or for that matter done anything other than offer his effusive and sometimes overblown opinions. But i, unlike you apparently, enjoy his diatribes. He manages to convey with words quite well what i've held in my gut often enough... and in a timely fashion too. I look for his pieces.

I don't have television however, and never "see" him. I only read his work. Maybe he's prone to saying stupid things out loud? Can't fault him for that... otherwise you'd have to have a problem with Biden too.

:shrug:

[bajamary]

12. next...off with Frank RIch's head !

from Frank Rich's column from Sunday's NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/opinion/22rich.html )


"...why has there been so little transparency and so much evasiveness so far? The answer, I fear, is that too many of the administration’s officials are too marinated in the insiders’ culture to police it, reform it or own up to their own past complicity with it.

The “dirty little secret,” Obama told Leno on Thursday, is that “most of the stuff that got us into trouble was perfectly legal.” An even dirtier secret is that a prime mover in keeping that stuff legal was Summers, who helped torpedo the regulation of derivatives while in the Clinton administration. His mentor Robert Rubin, no less, wrote in his 2003 memoir that Summers underestimated how the risk of derivatives might multiply “under extraordinary circumstances.”

Given that Summers worked for a secretive hedge fund, D. E. Shaw, after he was pushed out of Harvard’s presidency at the bubble’s height, you have to wonder how he can now sell the administration’s plan for buying up toxic assets with the help of hedge funds. It will look like another giveaway to his own insiders’ club. As for Geithner, people might take him more seriously if he gave a credible account of why, while at the New York Fed, he and the Goldman alumnus Hank Paulson let Lehman Brothers fail but saved the Goldman-trading ally A.I.G.

As the nation’s anger rose last week, the president took responsibility for what’s happening on his watch — more than he needed to, given the disaster he inherited. But in the credit mess, action must match words. To fall short would be to deliver us into the catastrophic hands of a Republican opposition whose only known economic program is to reject job-creating stimulus spending and root for Obama and, by extension, the country to fail. With all due deference to Ponzi schemers from Madoff to A.I.G., this would be the biggest outrage of them all."

[BlooInBloo]

13. But wait - I thought criticism was PATRIOTIC? HAHAAHAHA!!!!

Not if you're criticizing Krugman, apparently.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

So funny how ihateobama people ALWAYS forget their own "dissent is patriotic" squawking when it's someone who they agree with.


(In the hopes of forestalling a particular idiotic responseAnd I happen to mostly agree with Krugman on the Geithner issue.)


EDIT Clarified first sentence.

[Zenlitened]

25. But don't you understand, there's a conspiracy, I tell ya!

It's the... um, the bitter ocelots, or somethin' :scared:

And, there's no such thing as dissent... only "hate."

[Imperialism Inc.]

29. I don't think the poster is complaining about criticism of Krugman.

More like the witch hunt and the fair weather friends who want to toss Krugman out because they don't like what he is saying. I haven't seen any reasonable defense of the latest plan. I will say that at least ProSense has posted some thoughtful critiques of any nationalization efforts but not anything in defense of the plan.

They are going to give non-recourse loans.

From Investopedia:
What Does Non-Recourse Debt Mean?
A type of loan that is secured by collateral, which is usually property. If the borrower defaults, the issuer can seize the collateral, but cannot seek out the borrower for any further compensation, even if the collateral does not cover the full value of the defaulted amount. This is one instance where the borrower does not have personal liability for the loan.

So the funds have nothing to lose. If it goes bad they walk away. They are putting up 20% of 15% (3%) of their own money. That 3% plus any loan payments they make before they realize what they bought is trash is all they are on the hook for. When they walk away the government gets stuck holding the bag.

[BlooInBloo]

36. BWAHAHAAHAHA!!!!!

"I don't think the poster is complaining about criticism of Krugman."

"More like the witch hunt and the fair weather friends who want to toss Krugman out because they don't like what he is saying."



It's funny because you said those one immediately after the other.


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Imperialism Inc.]

39. There is a difference between rational criticism and knee jerk reactions

that offer no rationale for why he is wrong. I'm sorry I didn't explain that well enough for you the first time. I thought the rest of my post explained that but I guess some people just read what they want to see.

[BlooInBloo]

40. Please stop. I can't take the irony. I'm meeeelllllttttiiiinnnggg!!!

:rofl:

[Imperialism Inc.]

41. I think the problem is your reading comprehension.

I'm sorry you are unable to understand the difference between criticisms which give reasons and arguments and those that only go after someone because they disagree with Obama. At this point though it is clear that such complex notions :eyes: are over your head.

[BlooInBloo]

57. Maybe that's the problem.

[natrat]

67. and if perchance there are any profits they get way more than 3%, something like 17x leverage

socialize the losses privatize the gains

[girl gone mad]

65. uhh...

"Dissent is patriotic" has ALWAYS referred to dissent of bad GOVERNMENT policies.

It doesn't make any sense at all if we apply it in the way that you mean.

Criticism of Krugman is fine, but it should be based on substance. I have yet to see one substantial and valid critique of Krugman's recent writing on DU.

[Mithreal]

66. Too true. nt

[uberllama42]

73. First of all, Krugman is not president

So it wouldn't make any sense to say that criticizing him is patriotic. He's an academic, and criticizing him is an academic exercise.

Second, I haven't heard anyone criticize Krugman for a good reason. It's never "I disagree with Krugman because of X" or "Obama's plan will work because of Y." It's always "How dare he criticize our president" or "Why is helping the right wing" or "He said that already. If Obama's not listening, it's time for Krugman to shut up and sit down." It seems like all of Krugman's critics here are merely up in arms because he disagrees with the president.

[xchrom]

18. oh there's plenty of people who'll babble

on about any of obama's critic's.

there can be no dissent.

[bajamary]

19. Agreed, no dissent EVER

Those who dissent shall............

[Drunken Irishman]

58. Seriously?

All I see on this board is dissent. Are you even paying attention or what?

Who the fuck is silencing anyone?

You people are paranoid freaks sometimes. I love it. You give me endless hours of entertainment.

[AlCzervik]

53. Zing!

:thumbsup:

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[leftofthedial]

24. Anyone who dares criticize Obama's corporate masters should be silenced.

Forever.

He still has not done away with king george's dictatorial presidential powers.

Keep that in mind before you open your dissenting yaps, you traitors to the Obama.

[bajamary]

31. Yes, No Dissent

No Dissent ALLOWED regarding President Obama (aka Hope & Change)

[rcrush]

32. +3

I give 3 +'s to your comment.

[bajamary]

35. thank you

Merci beaucoup (oops, that's French - lefties like French) Sorry

[ProSense]

33. Or is it anyone who dares criticize Krugman.

Seriously, what is the OP about, and the lockstep with Krugman?

[leftofthedial]

79. With whom are you in lockstep?

Larry Summers? Tiny Tim Geithner? Goldman Sachs? Citicorp?

[Drunken Irishman]

59. Who's been silenced?

Please give me a list of those who were criticizing Obama, but can't now because someone stepped in and silenced them.

Furthermore, isn't that all we ever do on DU anymore? You know, bitch and whine about Obama 24/7?

I guess I don't follow here...where is the goddamn silenced critics? Or are you, like so many on DU, using a hyperbole to try and get your pitiful point across?

Yeah, that must be it.

Unless there is some heavy sarcasm being employed here. Then you're very witty and I bow down to your awesomeness.

If not, well I pity you all. :/

[HughMoran]

61. You won't get a response, it's the inflamed rhetoric in the accusation that matter

When you just know it's going to be negativity central before you read a response based on the UserID, it's iggy time.

[leftofthedial]

62. "should" is a word that has a meaning.

you've got the pity thing going on though. I'll give you that one.

[biopowertoday]

77. LOL

[AlCzervik]

26. I love Krugman, he's been correct for a long time.

[Better Believe It]

30. Anyone that Wall Street representatives dictate

[RollWithIt]

34. Watching people express outrage at criticism of anyone, Obama, columnists, TV people

Always amuses me.

[alcibiades_mystery]

38. Krugman spent the nineties excoriating the left

How quickly we forget.

[FrenchieCat]

42. He was a big Clinton Supporter......during the primaries......

yet, according to some, Clinton is partially responsible for the deregulation bill he signed....although I think Clinton tried to make it as least offensive as possible considering.

[bajamary]

44. Bill Clinton deregulated

It was Bill Clinton who deregulated the financial markets, so much of our gratitude should go to him.

Thanks, to Sweet Billy C.

[FrenchieCat]

47. He didn't do it alone. Actually, the Republican congress wrote up the law

and passed it. Clinton simply signed it. Certainly he erred....but his hands are not as dirty as those who actually thought about and wrote up that bill.....

Here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8278459

[bajamary]

43. See...he can't be trusted

that's why he should be censored.......no dissent allowed, EVER

[alcibiades_mystery]

48. Oh, can the self-righteous bullshit

Krugman is not being censored. Only cowards yell censorship when others disagree with them, though this seems to be the favored trope of a particular brand of anti-Obama Democrat. For those of us in the trenches during the alternative globalization struggles of the 1990's, we know damn well how Saint Paul operates. The notion that he is a "lefty" is what is in question, and you can either debate that like an adult, or you can sit there and cry "censorship" like a pathetic little child who didn't get his way. Whichever, I really don't give a fuck. I've had my ass in the tear gas while Saint Paul was selling happy globalism backed by the police forces, so tell me about Saint Paul and his poor, poor position as oppressed voice in the wilderness some other time. Fucking pitiful.

[bajamary]

52. oh, my a hero

Oh, my you're a hero and the best kind of hero, self righteous.

Chill out young one.

I was in the trenches long, long before you were ever born.

I worked months and months in the trenches to elected Obama.

The self righteous DU people - those that seem to have had large glasses of Obama Kool Aide are the real whiners.

You haven't lived through any trench struggle.

[alcibiades_mystery]

54. Whatever

You're acting like an clown now, that's all I know. Censorship. Keep up the fucking whine. The guy writes for the NY Times, and there are 100 Krugman threads on this board for every column he writes. Maybe if you would engage in an actual argument rather than crying like a fucking baby about imaginary oppression, you wouldn't come off like a know-nothing ideologue.

And yes, I forget the ultimate axiom: only baby-boomers ever REALLY struggled politically. "Young" Gen-Xer's like myself weren't getting thrown in jail and facing down riot cops for our political beliefs. Or we were, but that was under the Presidency of the Great Clinton, so it wasn't real. Because all was GREAT under the Great Clinton. Right. We've all heard this story before.

[JTFrog]

69. If you've really struggled through the trenches, why do you carry right wing's water?

Obama Kool Aide? We all know where that comes from.

[OKNancy]

85. good post

nothing to add... except all this hand-wringing is really getting old.

[amborin]

89. Krugman has always been a leftist, big union supporter, too

[chill_wind]

46. Well..K.O, no doubt...Rachel Maddow...the ACLU...Glenn Greenwald

anybody at any indy media site anywhere asking stupid nosy policy questions like ProPublica or the The Washington Independant.. or McClatchy... all the *other economic know-nothings* like Dean Baker, James Galbraith, Joseph Stglitz.....I'm sure that's just scratching the surface in 10 seconds or less...

[anonymous171]

49. Wait. Expressing disagreement with Krugman = Silencing him. WTF!?

[Zenlitened]

56. Blame the ocelots.

[inna]

51. rec#8 here, but.... Krugman is NOT taken down, in any way, shape...

...or form. :)

[Uzybone]

55. This idiocy knows no bounds

[Jennicut]

60. Oh geez. Its called debate. Some people cannot handle it.

How dare we criticize Obama! How dare we criticize Krugman! Bite me.

[Danger Mouse]

63. All of em. Let's go to work.

[NJmaverick]

70. Krugman compared Obama's supporters to Nixon's people

He is nothing but a bitter PUMA with a NYT's column

http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2008/20080211150350.aspx

[La Lioness Priyanka]

75. and a nobel prize. nt

[NJmaverick]

76. That is not all that impressive, his dishonest use of hyperbole is far more telling

[Bonobo]

71. Is it "Build your own Strawman" night? Why didn't anyone tell me?

Pathetic and artless fail.

You, err, suck at the game you're trying to play.

[NJmaverick]

72. You think he would be an expert after constructing so many strawmen

[La Lioness Priyanka]

74. do you think some random anti-intellectual idiots on du can really take krugman down?

\

[Teaser]

80. Yeah the death squads are warming up.

so fucking stupid.

[polichick]

81. Lots of people would like to shut up Al Gore - maybe we could glom on...

After all, that global warming doom and gloom is so inconvenient!

[Cha]

82. Who the fuck wants to silence Krugman?

I'm sure Obama doesn't..that doesn't mean I think he's special.

[JeffR]

83. Just got off the phone with Krugman. He said he's never heard of DU.

It seems he's not worried that a bunch of anonymous posters on a political website are going to "take him down". Maybe he's just being brave, of course...:eyes:

[OKNancy]

84. Who is silencing him? Every other thread is about him

and it looks like a lot of discussion is going on. Perhaps some people don't like it when Krugman is criticized... that could be it.
It works both ways I guess.

[stillcool]

88. He's got the microphone...

I'm sorry some people don't like what he has to say. Does that impair your hearing?

[Hansel]

90. I'd like to see him taken down...

from the pedestal that some here have him on. What's up with that?

[Luminous Animal]

93. I don't think that they are putting him on a pedestal.

I think that people are trying to understand what is going on here and Krugman has been, for 8 years, an excellent source of explaining complex economic issues to DU and others on the left. Now that he disagrees with Obama's economic strategy, many folks here, rather than offer constructive criticism of Krugman's criticism, attack him with insults and smears.

There are many progressive economists who have had an appreciative audience here on DU for years... most of them now are offering some pretty harsh criticism of Obama's economic plan. The difference between then and now, vis a vis DU's reaction, is that they are now criticizing a Democrat.

[bridgit]

92. Me

:kick: