Krugman Pounds Away At Geithner’s Recycled Toxic Assets Plan
By SusanUnPC on March 25, 2009 at 9:15 AM in Economic Stimulus, Economy, Governance, Health Care, Obamatopia, Obamatopia Mirage, President Barack Obama, Toxic Assets, Workers
Here’s Paul Krugman, on camera, on Geithner’s “toxic assets” plan, announced Monday: “This is something they can do without legislation. They found a way that they can in effect put the public on the hook for a TRILLION DOLLARS for this stuff without actually getting any approval.” It can be done through the FDIC and with TARP “residue.” (See our discussion of Krugman’s same-day column.)
BELOW, you and I time-travel back to March 2008, to the sweltering primaries, to Hillary and Barack battling the “brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art” of presidential primaries warfare. There, we see economics professor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, in March 2008, sizing up and dressing down Barack Obama: “Why has Mr. Obama stumbled when it comes to economic issues?” (And has anything changed, or has he learned anything, in one short year?)
First, here’s the Nobel Laureate as a blunt instrument hammering the plan on PBS’s Charlie Rose Monday (March 23rd) for “an update on the economy with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Paul Krugman and Joe Nocera.” Krugman’s condemnation of Geithner’s recycled-from-Paulson “zombie” plan is stunning:
Paul. You’re the man. You nailed it yesterday. And, Paul, one year and 16 days ago (March 8, 2008), you had it all figured out:
Why has Mr. Obama stumbled when it comes to economic issues? Well, on health care — which is closely tied to overall concerns about financial security — there is a clear, substantive difference between the candidates, with the Clinton plan being significantly stronger.
More broadly, I suspect that the Obama mystique — his carefully created image as a transformational, even transcendent figure — has created a backlash among those unconvinced that he’s interested in the nuts-and-bolts work of fixing things.
Ohio voters were more likely to say that Mr. Obama inspires them — but more likely to say that Mrs. Clinton has a clear plan for the country’s problems.
And Mr. Obama’s attempt to win over workers by portraying himself as a fierce critic of Nafta looked, and was, deeply insincere — an appearance particularly costly for a candidate who tries to seem above politics as usual.
Isn’t that remarkable. Paul predicted — perfectly — the central problems of an Obama presidency:
- A lack of interest in the “nuts-and-bolts work of fixing things”; and
- A lack of sincerity — in fact, he comes across as “deeply insincere.”
That sums it up for me. The major question is why the hard left, which had adored Paul Krugman for years, turned on him immediately when he dared to criticize Obama as unreal and disinterested in WORKING at governance.
Hell, during the Tuesday night press conference, he didn’t even want to be bothered with working at explaining what he’s not doing.
Here’s a second segment from Charlie Rose’s show Monday night. “The economy continued with Daniel Alpert is a managing director of Westwood Captial and Thomas F Steyer is Co-Managing Partner of Farallon Capital Management.”
FOR INVETERATE READERS ONLY: Boy, if you want to see some historic predictions made, glance through our archives from Spring 2008 on the primary battles involving Hillary, Barack and John (Edwards), and Paul Krugman’s and our commentaries on all three.
Paul Krugman had Obama pegged, and so did we at No Quarter.
And, you know, we’re not pleased that we’re correct. For the sake of this country, we wish we had been wrong.
But you can’t take a guy who’s never worked hard at anything — except campaigning so he can win something — and turn him into an intense, involved chief executive of the most powerful nation on earth and in history.
The guy either has the work ethic, or he doesn’t.
This guy doesn’t.
Worse than his laziness are his disinterest and his disconnectedness. Which showed during the March 24th press conference, as he got restless and his answers became more and more mechanical, and it was clear he wanted to be anywhere but there because the reporters’ questions bored him. It’s hard, make that impossible, to work hard at anything if you don’t care.
The guy either has the passion, or he doesn’t.
This guy doesn’t.
And neither 1) work ethic or 2) passion and caring can be taught, especially to a middle-aged dog, nor can they be imparted through a magic potion.
Most certainly, they cannot be feigned. Every sentient American has the sniff and scratch ability to detect a FRAUD.
P.S. Unless they wear rose-colored glasses, but those people don’t count because they’re hopelessly clueless, and rational dialogue is impossible until they rehabilitate themselves and rediscover their critical thinking capabilities.
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Great post…but the biggest problem is that he really has a lot of contempt and hatred for America. He has insulted and assaulted our Declaration of Independence and Constitution so many times that it’s ridiculous that any real American voted for him. He’s a jerk. Period.
That is his deep, dark secret that will be more and more evident. The “clinging to God & guns” comment was a clear clue. He bitterly resents certain segments of the American population. Goes double for MEchelle.
I’m beyond pissed about this!!!
“Beyond pissed?” We have every right, as Americans, to get up every morning and feel proud of who we are. Does anyone here feel that way now? Hell no. No of course not, because the people in power don’t like us, don’t want us to succeed and are hellbent in destroying us. Think back to the days when you thought you would wake up to HRC or McCain/Palin. Makes you puke, huh? This is a disgrace. Just a vile frigging disgrace.
I feel like pissing on them with my
Cheese wheel
At least one Senator in the leadership is willing to revisit eligibility issues he declared resolved just three months ago. Every day comes a new fissure in Obama’s armour and one can only pray the pressures will accumulate exponentially to a critical mass sooner rather than later.
http: //countusout.wordpress.com/2009/03/25/dr-orly-taitz-will-meet-with-senator-jon-kyl/
What I would like to know who financed the plan for him to president. And who is really calling the moves politically.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones just came out with his film THE OBAMA DECEPTION in which he connects the dots to reveal who/what may, in fact, be behind both the Obama and Bush presidencies. Although a bit alarmist, this film is definitely food for thought and gives an historical account of the domestic and international forces driving globalization.
Check out his film (1hr 51 mins)and website at infowars.com
We were right — 0bambam is as bad as many of us predicted he would be.
0bambam is a pathetic mess — and he is NOT a leader.
I won’t even speak to 0bot in-laws — at this point I don’t care if I ever speak to them again.
shall we take bets — how many people are going to claim that they really didn’t vote for the ONE — until only a handful of hardcore 0bots remain, drinking the kool-aide.
Hello NW,
I have stopped going to my local church down the street as they were almost 90% for Obama. Now I’m back at my conservative catholic church where I fit in real well.
I just don’t want to see these sheeple anymore.
There is only so much one can do for obot relatives. It takes TOO much energy for me to pretend with them anymore. Let them handle reality for awhile solo….
how many people are going to claim that they really didn’t vote for the ONE
LOL!! so right. The ” I told you so” factor in this has been so hard and fast, the obots cannot get away from it LOLOL!
It’s my understanding that the people who own the Fraud, bought him the White House, and are intent on destroying America are a couple of crapstains like George Soros, Felix Rohatyn, etc. They are really bad scumbag people who the Fraud is answering to.
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2009/3609rohatyn_vs_obama.html
This will open your eyes. Very scary times friends.
And here’s the SNL vid that has been scrubbed, allegedly by Soros himself, off of NBC and the net. It calls Soros the owner of the Democratic Party. Ya’ got that right. Oh, yeah, two more bat crap crazy lefties…Herb and Marion Sandler.
http://djkonservo.wordpress.com/2008/10/07/saturday-day-night-live-bailout-press-conference-satire/#comment-9939
The link might help LOL…
I read a lots of things here saying the China will do this and China will do that and the USA will have to do this and that. But what everybody is forgetting that China holds Close to 2 Trillion dollars in treasuries and they are stuck. They can’t dump them because if they start selling them they will be come worthless before they can get rid of even a small fraction of them. If they stop buying them then they will be in the same situation.
Also China has a much bigger problem then the US treasuries. They have 100s of millions of people out of work. Their crop production has been greatly affected by climate change and poor management of their resources. Also China is not of one people as many believe. There are hundreds if not thousands of tribes in china with distinct languages and customs. When you put all this together what more likely to happen is that China will breakup once the financial system collapses.
The USA might go through a rough time but we are more united then the rest of the world could ever imagine. After all we only have two parties that should tell a lot by it self.
There is really only one lesson that everybody should take away from all this. If things get tough here (USA) you don’t want to live anywhere else.
Great point John Smith. Though China has been around for quite a while. It may take more than financial recession, even depression to break up China.
And yes, there is a lot here that we take for granted. At the same time, we don’t want to take our unitedness and strength for granted either.
John Smith-
I disagree that we are united!
Minorities elected BO for their own purpose and to advance their agenda.
As you read this blog and others, it is clear that many are against the decisions emanating from this administration, and think they could be disasterous in the short and long term.
Sassy, “minorities,” as you say didn’t put Obama in office. Recall that except for African-Americans, minorities (of which I’m one) across the board were staunch HRC supporters. It was mainly, African Americans, the youth (i.e. students) and well off white liberals and Independents who voted Obama in — all with the help of ACORN who committed voter fraud in strategic states such as Florida, Ohio, Indiana, etc.
ANOTHER person who doesn’t want to work for Geithner.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123792884135530101.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
Susan, great post, that first video with Krugman is required viewing for everybody. During the campaign everything about 0bama was encapsulated in one word experience. People who supported him did not stop to question why a 46 year-old man did not have solid job experience not necessarily for the presidency (how could anybody have that?) but for anything else. His handling of this crisis has shown that he is a wimp just like Krugman says (but also an ignoramus). But we knew he was a wimp who just wants to eat his waffles and warned everybody.
not a bold leader but a wimp,
not knowledgeable,
not hard working,
incurious because he doesn’t care(this is probably the most important like you say)
He and his handlers know all this and they are busy trying to hide as much of this as possible. Instead of earnestly trying to find a good fix for the problem they are going around trying to hide his shortcomings which are numerous.
Excellent post, Susan. Your research is always inspirational.
Obama is a narcissistic personality disorder–he fits the bill perfectly. He’s bored because inside his head is the conviction that he is above those tedious details, and those tiresome questions about his governance–not because he is really bored, but because they imply that he is not perfect. Narcissists cannot deal with failure.
He never developed a “work ethic” because his charm has allowed him to schmooze and fake his way to the top of the heap. With Obama, it’s all about the show, the “razzle dazzle”, the “winning.” The rest is always someone else’s problem. But, because it was always all about the show for him, he hasn’t been around learning the nuts and bolts of finance, or even history, much less governance.
A narcissist can be very dangerous when his ego is threatened, or his psychological defenses [superiority] are vulnerable. Those ego defenses are imperative to the fragile narcissist, and the vigilance they must keep up to keep from exposing themselves, creates incredible stress. On 60 Minutes Obama laughed to relieve that stress; but he won’t forget that Steve Kroft called him on it. Narcissists are vindictive towards anyone who threatens their carefully constructed illusion.
Krugman may not be the most popular guy on No Quarter, but as a liberal, I love the guy. Explains complex economic topics in simple terms. You breeze right through his writing due to his easing writing style. And he’s been right all along about Obama. A true critic, someone who will criticize when necessary. That goes for liberals and conservatives.
Lies is what we like, honesty is a put down. Obama won the election because he lied 3 times as any other candidate. Now things are going back to normal because again the lairs are winning again. Yippee! The liars win! Yippee!
You are so correct, Lark. Hillary simply wasn’t willing to lie. She had to be true to herself and to her carefully-thought-out programs and policy statements.
That’s why she refused to apologize broadly for her 2002 vote, unlike John Edwards who was willing to do whatever it took to capture the Daily Kos crowd and all their money. And the farms of blogs under Kos.
She knew some things about that vote. She knew she voted as she did on the best available information at the time. She knew she had given a brilliant, and thorough, floor speech warning the president NOT to go to war. She knew that, if she’d been president, she’d have NEVER blithely marched off to war in Iraq. And she knew that, as president, she would have moved heaven and earth before she even began to contemplate launching any war.
But that’s too much. Those four sentences above were too much for the Kos crowd to get — unconsciously prejudiced against Hillary as they were due their unknowingly having been brainwashed by the virulent rightwing hatred of the Clintons. They tried to portray Hillary as a pro-war candidate. And had no trouble looking past all of her past statements and speeches and her campaign discussions related to the war. They don’t listen. They form an “attitude” and their brains shut down.
Obama told them what they wanted to hear. And they bought the bullshit about his 2002 anti-war speech, so little noted in Chicago that it wasn’t written up in newspapers or shown on Chicago TV news shows. So unimportant that no one recorded it in audio, let alone video. So missing that Obama had to go into a recording studio and recreate that speech — and we’ll never know if that’s really what he said that day.
They paid no mind to Joe Wilson, who actually REALLY FOUGHT against the war — and in the belly of the beast, in Washington, D.C.
And Joe — in his superb primary-era op-eds that we republished here at No Quarter — told us how he looked EVERYWHERE for anyone to aid his fight against going to war. Joe Wilson was one of the few public, and very famous, faces fighting against the war. Barack Obama surely had to be aware of Wilson’s desperate fight. But he not only never saw or heard from Barack Obama, he never heard a single word about Barack Obama.
See. Obama gave a little speech, one of many, at a single rally that was so unimportant that he had to recreate it in a recording studio.
And based on that, those fingers-in-their-ears hotheads at Kos helped elect him president.
Susan — your comment here is brilliant and you should make a separate post out of it!
Off-topic a bit, but it looks like Sean Penn will be playing Ambassador Wilson in the upcoming movie. I thought George Cluny would have been a much better pick, especially if Sharon Stone was to take the Valerie Plame role.
Obots do not like reality….let me say that again, Obots hate reality. Hillary is reality’s poster girl.The reasons I voted for her are the very reasons obots hated her. They still hate reality. Their biggest beef with Barry is he’s total unsuitability is making them face reality …yucko
Yes, the current “party” system encourages and rewards this type behavior. Obama was the most liberal senator of them all. But, as soon as Obama got the nomination, he started to posture himself as a moderate going into the general election. Notice that nobody from the press questioned this at all, the inconsistencies of the “air raiding villages” line and the blatant disrespect for the flag and hate America speak during the primaries made him the darling of the far left and assured his nomination. During the general election however, it was as if he was a changed man. He even had the nerve to try say that McCain “would not even go to the cave in Pakistan where Bin Laden is hiding” as if he wasn’t already briefed at that point that we already did have military people in Pakistan. So yes, as our “system” grows and grows… those who are keen in ways to “game” that system are prospering. Obama is the poster child for gaming the system. Thing is, he is probably proud of it as are most of his loyal supporters. It tingles their legs to see his “game”.
I agree that Krugman explains the issue very well.
I had followed his writings for some years, and find his take on this President to be straight-forward and honest.
It’s always encouraging to see someone who will swim against the tide to uphold their convictions!
Forgive me for skimming through the previous posts, but didn’t Krugman support Obama in the general election ?
Sure. I mean, as an alternative to John McCain, of course he would. Krugman is a liberal and will not be supporting conservative McCain ideas.
But in the primaries, he criticized Obama rightfully so.
So you’re admitting Krugman is little more than party hack polemicist who writes whatever is convenient for political argument and believes everything Republican is inherantly evil ? Which make for obviously terrible political strategy, but also very bad economics.
Besides, I heard the prize was for Keynesian macroeconomics which is an area he had never done any substantive work on. And yet the guy has enough popular appeal as a writer and halo effect as a Nobelist to get quoted as gospel by defenders of the stimulus package without a critical thought. It’s just beyond stupid. I hope he’s satisfied pushing his own name at the expense of the country.
Oops — sorry, that should obviously be NOT for Keynesian macroeconomics…
He’s an independent liberal author who criticizes Democrats and Republicans. So I think you’re off.
And he won the Nobel Prize for international trade theory and economic geography, an abstract branch of macroeconomics where he mathematically modeled common, but interesting economic trade situations. It wasn’t a politically.
Krugman was an internationally renowned economist before he became a NY Times columnists, having taught at MIT, Stanford, and Princeton (and still is currently a Princeton professor).
I understand that conservatives would not like Krugman’s ideas, but to try to diminish his Nobel Prize is ridiculous. He earned it.
When he got his prize, yes he did . I love the Kruger…but the timing of both prize and all aboard Barry Express was interesting
Krugman was an HRC supporter.
Try pointing that out to the Kool-Aid brigade!
Did anyone notice the completely blank look of confusion on Geitner’s face when Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachman asked him to cite where in the Constitution he is given the power to do what he has done through Treasury? He honestly had no idea that the Constitution would be remotely relevant. He actually did a double-take, like where on Mars did this woman come from? He tried twice to give answers about the Congress and it’s laws. He never did get that the Constitution had anything to say.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. Deeply shocked, in fact. It filled me with a sense of doom.
He honestly had no idea that the Constitution would be remotely relevant
Well it hasn’t been relevant for years now….obots thought somehow that would “change”.
Kind of off-topic…and I apologize. To any/all Kindle owners, Krugman’s blog is available @ $.99/mo.
>>> Isn’t that remarkable. Paul predicted — perfectly — the central problems of an Obama presidency:
1.A lack of interest in the “nuts-and-bolts work of fixing things”; and
2.A lack of sincerity — in fact, he comes across as “deeply insincere.”
I have ALWAYS thought that Krugman was, as we said when I lived Down South, “one smart sumbitch.”
Too bad Krugman’s not SECTREAS.
Practically everyone here foresaw the same outcome. We obviously believed more strongly than he did that those qualities would be more crucial than a party label.