February 22nd, 2009
If, like me, you’ve been consumed by news of the economy, with all of its dark and somber predictions, you probably have been searching for a metaphor or narrative to capture how it all feels.
As an example of the type of dire predictions that we’re hearing, in his latest column Paul Krugman referred to a passage from a Federal Reserve meeting where it was commented that, “[P]articipants anticipated that unemployment would remain substantially above its longer-run sustainable rate at the end of 2011, even absent further economic shocks; a few indicated that more than five to six years would be needed for the economy to converge to a longer-run path characterized by sustainable rates of output growth and unemployment and by an appropriate rate of inflation.”
The bottom line is that we’re in for a prolonged period of economic pain; and, while the recovery package that president Obama will help, it simply will not be enough to, as Krugman put it, stop the pain.
David Sirota, writing on the same theme, puts it far more poetically and, having driven the route, my mind’s eye immediately recognizes the imagery and landscape:
Why did President Obama choose to come all the way to Denver, Colo., to sign the economic recovery package this week? Did he throw a dart at a map?
[...]
This is the presidential candidate who launched his campaign at the site of Abraham Lincoln’s historic “house divided” speech and who delivered his own famous address on race at Philadelphia’s Constitution Center. So it’s a safe wager that the president had a metaphor in mind when he celebrated the bill’s passage along the Front Range. And what a perfect metaphor it was: The setting told America – if subtly – that the toughest terrain is yet to come.
Denver, after all, is more than a heartland locale that screams “outside the Beltway” – it is an outpost that warns visitors. From 19th century pioneers to 20th century beatniks to 21st century roadtrippers, most cross-country travelers on romantic odysseys west believe they’ve almost completed their voyage when they first hit the Denver city line. They look at the tumbleweed and ranchland on the outskirts of town and tell themselves they can smell the Pacific Ocean’s salty mist. Then they see that wall of snow-capped peaks and realize the most grueling trek is still ahead.
That’s where we are right now – in the euphoric, sky’s-the-limit journey that began on election night, America is standing here in Denver contemplating a menacing horizon.
The stimulus bill, while essential, was merely our gentle rise up through the Great Plains. In unleashing a flood of deficit spending and avoiding tax increases, the legislation didn’t threaten moneyed interests, didn’t alter the existing economic topography, and therefore didn’t attract the withering hostility from business groups that typically prevents hope from becoming change. While Republican potholes slowed the trip, the bill’s refusal to ask anyone for any sacrifice guaranteed its ratification.
From here, though, the highway starts looking like Interstate 70 at Idaho Springs – steeper and more treacherous. The avalanches of corporate money, and the gale-force gusts of lobbyist opposition that the stimulus evaded will now be ever-present as bills to tighten financial regulation, strengthen union rights, limit carbon emissions and transform our health care system begin marching forward.
[...]
The road called “reform” that cuts through this craggy political landscape is littered with legislative corpses, as these interests have done – and will do – everything possible to protect their bottom line. Obama seems to know this reality, saying the stimulus bill is only “the beginning of the end” of the economic emergency. He is carefully plotting his next tactical decisions – when to stage particular climbs, which passes to traverse, what cliffs to avoid. But with the stakes so high – with unemployment rising, the health care crisis worsening and the planet on the brink of incineration – one decision must be a foregone conclusion: the decision about whether to proceed.
Turning back now, or staying here in Denver for fear the ascent is too tough, is no longer an option. We’re past the point of no return.
I wonder what things will be like when I and my fellow travelers arrive at the Pacific.
February 7th, 2009
This is discouraging … Essentially president Obama, in the name of misguided bipartisanship, sacrificed the effectiveness of the much needed American recovery package, a.k.a, the stimulus bill:
[T]o appease the centrists, a plan that was already too small and too focused on ineffective tax cuts has been made significantly smaller, and even more focused on tax cuts.
According to the CBO’s estimates, we’re facing an output shortfall of almost 14% of GDP over the next two years, or around $2 trillion. Others, such as Goldman Sachs, are even more pessimistic. So the original $800 billion plan was too small, especially because a substantial share consisted of tax cuts that probably would have added little to demand. The plan should have been at least 50% larger.
So, while president Obama played the bipartisan Washington game and wooed republicans, the GOP (Grand Obstructionist Party) just gave the finger to the president and a big FU to the country.
October 13th, 2008
Like many progressives I’ve read and followed Paul Krugman for a number of years now, and consider him, not only prescient about the Bush presidency, but brave for speaking against the Iraq war when it was politically dangerous for public figures do so. To date, Paul Krugman has been thoroughly vindicated on economic policy, the Iraq invasion and, too, the catastrophe that is the Bush administration.
It is because of my respect for him that I’m sincerely happy to read that Paul Krugman has today been awarded the Nobel prize in economics:
Paul Krugman, the Princeton University scholar and New York Times columnist, won the Nobel economic prize Monday for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect trade patterns and the location of economic activity.
Krugman has been a harsh critic of the Bush administration and the Republican Party in The New York Times, where he writes a regular column and has a blog called “Conscience of a Liberal.”
[…]
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences praised Krugman for formulating a new theory to answer questions about free trade.
“What are the effects of free trade and globalization? What are the driving forces behind worldwide urbanization? Paul Krugman has formulated a new theory to answer these questions,” the academy said in its citation.
September 5th, 2008
Krugman, once more, insightfully describes what may very well be at play in the minds of the uber-conservatives that we saw in display at the republican convention this week:
What the G.O.P. is selling, in other words, is the pure politics of resentment; you’re supposed to vote Republican to stick it to an elite that thinks it’s better than you. Or to put it another way, the G.O.P. is still the party of Nixon.
One of the key insights in “Nixonland,” the new book by the historian Rick Perlstein, is that Nixon’s political strategy throughout his career was inspired by his college experience, in which he got himself elected student body president by exploiting his classmates’ resentment against the Franklins, the school’s elite social club. There’s a direct line from that student election to Spiro Agnew’s attacks on the “nattering nabobs of negativism” as “an effete corps of impudent snobs,” and from there to the peculiar cult of personality that not long ago surrounded George W. Bush — a cult that celebrated his anti-intellectualism and made much of the supposed fact that the “misunderestimated” C-average student had proved himself smarter than all the fancy-pants experts.
And when Mr. Bush turned out not to be that smart after all, and his presidency crashed and burned, the angry right — the raging rajas of resentment? — became, if anything, even angrier.
And, again, Krugman poignantly asks the bottom line question:
Can Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin really ride Nixonian resentment into an upset election victory in what should be an overwhelmingly Democratic year? The answer is a definite maybe.
Yeah, I know, I didn’t want to hear that either. It’s going to be a bumpy ride from here until election day.
May 26th, 2008
Well, it’s happened, after reading hundreds of thousands of Paul Krugman’s words, he’s finally put together a string of words that I disagree with.
Here’s the tricky part, I don’t disagree with his description of the situation, but I completely disagree with his prescription. First, his description of the symptoms:
Mr. Obama will be the Democratic nominee. But he has a problem: many grass-roots Clinton supporters feel that she has received unfair, even grotesque treatment. And the lingering bitterness from the primary campaign could cost Mr. Obama the White House.
To the extent that the general election is about the issues, Mr. Obama should have no trouble winning over former Clinton supporters, especially the white working-class voters he lost in the primaries. His health care plan is seriously deficient, but he will nonetheless be running on a far more worker-friendly platform than his opponent.
From this, what does Krugman conclude? First, he reasonably suggests that both the Obama and Clinton camps need to come together, but then he goes too far. Here’s Krugman’s recommendation:
What about offering Mrs. Clinton the vice presidency? If I were Mr. Obama, I’d do it. Adding Mrs. Clinton to the ticket — or at least making the offer — might help heal the wounds of an ugly primary fight.
I just don’t see this happening because having Sen. Clinton on the ticket would undermine Sen. Obama’s major themes: Change and consistent opposition to the Iraq war. Now, are there practical reasons to offer Sen. Clinton the VP position? Yes, clearly. The question is, do the practical reason out weight the thematic and substantive reason that don’t make Sen. Clinton a good fit during a change election? And in my mind that question is already settled, and the answer is, No, Sen. Clinton would subtract more than what she would add to the Democratic ticket during this election cycle.
