Krugman must literally have people coming in to his office telling him how to spin things. It is in my view impossible that he could be this consistently stupid.
My focus is on solving problems, but I certainly not innocent of intellectual estheticism. In this case, it is interesting to observe the texture of what he is doing, how he is massaging the facts. What he has done here is invert the actual facts in a quick, even deft way. This is in some respects one of the more clever columns I have seen from him. The flat earth analogy is one I had thought of, too, although I prefer my cyanide analogy.
What you have to do is pull these words from the page, lift them, and imagine them floating. Now, pull up in your mind the actual numbers.
Contrast, for example, the “projection” that we will achieve record tax revenues in 2014–which will necessarily involve something on the order of record tax increases–with the claim that
The facts of the crisis over the debt ceiling aren’t complicated. Republicans have, in effect, taken America hostage, threatening to undermine the economy and disrupt the essential business of government unless they get policy concessions they would never have been able to enact through legislation.
Despite the supposed “victory” of this debt ceiling negotiation, radical tax increases are already on the way. They can’t be stopped at this point, even by an Act of Congress, until 2013. Nothing ending Obamacare, which is the source of these projected increases in revenue–all of which plus borrowing will be spent immediately–can get through the Senate right now.
What made the Democrats feel like their fingernails were being pulled out was a drop, a tiny drop, in an ocean of blooming debt. If you want an analogy, how about the BP spill getting bigger, and Democrats calling for the leak to be expanded. We are not only going in the wrong direction, people like Krugman are calling for us to go FASTER. This is not insanity: it is wickedness. He is trying to engineer the wholesale destruction of the international economy. What motivates him I will leave to others.
The simple reality is that the increase of some $9 trillion over the next decade is a BEST CASE scenario, absent large change of the sort I expect to see in 2013. By that time–2020–we will be paying some $1 trillion in INTEREST annually. In looking at that number, keep in mind that until very recently an entire budget of $2 trillion was a lot. Look at that tax table.
This money, in turn, will either be borrowed, or taken in taxes. Taxes, in turn, not only damage economic productivity, but they are unnecessary, when used to support unproductive government, which is most of it.
Note in that regard the use of the phrase “business of government”. As Calvin Coolidge said “the business of America is business”. The business of America is NOT government. The more of it we have, the farther we are from the ideals of our nation, and noble ideals they were and remain.
What Leftist propagandists literally do, in my view, is make lists of catch words they know appeal to conservatives–and persons of common sense more generally–and consciously insert them in ironic and inappropriate ways to make the indefensible appear sound, and the idiotic appear wise.
Obama is not a centrist. He is a cynical pragmatist. He knows that as long as he stays in office the march towards overturning the Constitution and political liberty continues. To stay in office, he has to pretend to be a moderate. Yet, all the while, whether he is golfing, fete’ing himself, watching videos of his speeches, or watching Bugs Bunny cartoons, his people are pushing his agenda. We are being bankrupted. Money is changing hands in shadowy ways to shadowy people, for purposes we may never uncover.
Krugman: I can see why you are flighty and nervous. In another day and time you would be a chain smoker on TV. Question is: where will you be 20 years from now? You assume you will be a part of the New World Order, but you are dealing with people lacking consciences. How can good come from the destruction of truth in any form? It can’t, and it won’t. You have your use now, but do not assume you have any value to anyone past your immediate expediency.
Why not work to create a world you would want to grant to people you care about–I have no idea if you have children or even like women–and why not care about ALL of humanity, rather than a small elite?