Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

Let there be snark.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Let’s finish the job.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

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39Comments

  3. 3.

    tkogrumpy

    @Boots: Which of course means his ideas will never be used by those in power, because only the incompetent have influence

  6. 6.

    TR

    This will cheer you up — Anderson Cooper mocking Rep. Louie Gohmert about his “Terror Babies” conspiracy.

    And for anyone who still insists Democrats are no better than Republicans — if the GOP retakes the House this fall, this nutjob will be the chairman of the subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.

  9. 9.

    ItAintEazy

    I always assume the phrase “inflation is bad” to be austerity hawk code for “poor folks can’t have too much money.”

  10. 10.

    cleek

    Last, but not least, policy is suffering from an act of neglect by President Obama, who waited until his 16th month in office before offering a full slate of nominees to fill vacancies on the Federal Reserve Board.

    has Obama ever given a reason for this? it seems like a rather egregious failure.

  12. 12.

    Linda Featheringill

    Well, my dears, I see no real reason for optimism about the immediate future.

    Kthug [as you call him] seems to think that the hard times ahead will be temporary, cyclical even. What if they are not? What if it is the downcurve of the inexorable lifetime of a system?

    My own crystal ball shows a shrinking economy ffor a long time, probably thoughout my lifetime. I would really like to be wrong about that.

  14. 14.

    TJ

    @Linda Featheringill:

    My own crystal ball shows a shrinking economy ffor a long time, probably thoughout my lifetime. I would really like to be wrong about that.

    Probably. Although you should still do what Kthug wants to shallow out the dive.

  15. 15.

    Pancake

    Drudge has a small headline claiming that a new poll of economists says that they feel policy makers should cease and desist further governmental actions. FWIW

  16. 16.

    LindaH

    @cleek: I suspect I was because Obama was trying to get some kind of stimulus bill through, some kind of Health Care Access bill through, some kind of financial regulation bill through and was fighting a party that has decided that if they can’t win they are not only going to take their ball home, they are going to torch the playground as they leave. The Republicans have blocked and blocked and blocked every nomination Obama has put forward. They appear to have come to the decision that if Obama’s ideas for saving the country are passed in a way that will have maximum impact, then the people will view the Democrats positively and the Republicans will be in for a long drought in winning elections. They have further decided that they would rather see this country literally crash and burn than allow the Democrats to be seen as doing anything constructive. I actually don’t know if Obama could have gotten those nominees through the Senate, so maybe he focused on doing what he could to mitigate the damage done by the housing bubble crash, the stock market crash, spiraling health care costs and a costly war that he opposed and now has to get out of without leaving a massacre behind when we finally leave. He has to prioritize and occasionally sleep.

  17. 17.

    Zifnab

    @Linda Featheringill:

    Kthug [as you call him] seems to think that the hard times ahead will be temporary, cyclical even. What if they are not? What if it is the downcurve of the inexorable lifetime of a system?

    You’re suggesting we hit “peak economy”? I kinda doubt that. Keep in mind what created the bubbles in the first place. Inflated housing prices and rampaging debt, exacerbated by Wall Street money games.

    The underlying demand for goods and services still exist. There’s no reason we physically can’t return to a normal 90s-era economy. The only question is whether income can be redistributed downward in such a way that the supply of money reaches those people in demand of goods.

  18. 18.

    NonyNony

    @Zifnab:

    Keep in mind what created the bubbles in the first place. Inflated housing prices and rampaging debt, exacerbated by Wall Street money games. … There’s no reason we physically can’t return to a normal 90s-era economy.

    Um – 90s era economy was a bubble. A little thing we like to remember as the “tech bubble”.

    I’m actually not certain what a “normal” economy is supposed to look like. In my lifetime the only “good” economy where I was conscious enough to know what a “good” economy was was the post-recession 1990s. But that wasn’t normal – that was a high growth economy kick-started by a government deregulation of the government-built Internet and spurred on by the twin powers of new technology and incredibly reckless speculative investment.

  19. 19.

    p.a.

    I may just need to stop reading Kthug, because everything he writes is depressing and eventually happens.

    It’s tough being a member of the reality-based community when reality sucks.

    MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Stay the Course! Drill Baby Drill! Muslim/Fascist/Socialist/Communist/Kendonesian President!
    Nah…just can’t do it. Frakin’ rationalism.

  21. 21.

    StringonaStick

    I recall some money guy making the point that the 1990’s hot tech boom economy was unfortunately accepted as the “new normal”. His point was that any slowing to the pre-1990’s pace would feel like going through the windshield. Given recent recession experience, it is now through the windshield and slamming into the building 20 feet away.

  22. 22.

    Ben Lefebvre

    The worst part is that he has that smile plastered across his puss in his photo. All that gloom and doom, and his face just looks out at you like, “Can ya believe this?!”

  23. 23.

    mclaren

    Three graphs that will freeze the lymph in your glands:

    Anomolous capacity shrinkage. Sounds esoteric, actually bone-chilling.

    Median weeks of unemployment plotted from 1965 to 2010. Note that after 24 weeks, people become unemployable, for all practical purposes.

    What Americans are spending their money on this recession.

    Harvard economist Umair Haque has this to say about that last chart:

    “Could there be a clearer–and perhaps more heart-rending–picture of an economy in deep, systemic, structural decline? Probably not.

    “What people are spending more on, in relative terms, as incomes dwindle–what they’re substituting spending for, as budgets decline in
    real terms–are the most basic of necessities.

    “Oh, and goods for which monopoly power allows incumbents to reap fat profits, sans meaningful innovation of any kind (hi, telcos).

    “Needless to say, consumption patterns like these bode (very) ill for the next decade–because they fail to support a single one of the structural changes (new industries, new institutions, new markets, the
    localization of capital flows, risk sharing, etc) necessary to spark the rebirth of prosperity. Instead, they point to a Ponziconomy–where people and societies run harder and harder, only to move backwards.

    “It’s a vicious circle, a bad equilibrium, a game of musical chairs–a masquerade of wealth creation. Except the masks are coming off.”

    America is now starting to outsource all its high-skill high-wage work overseas, from chip design to
    reading hospital x-rays to programming to robotics to basic research in genetics and computer science and materials science. If you thought the late 2007-early-2008 collapse was bad, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Wait till this next round of outsourcing kicks in and your high-skill high-wage job disappears…along with millions like it. You’ll see America’s tax base go off a cliff.

    Google the 30 May 2010 Newsweek international edition article “Europe: The Big Squeeze.”

    In the years ahead, sizable numbers of skilled, reasonably well-educated middle-income workers in service-sector jobs long considered safe from foreign trade—accounting, law, financial and risk management, health care and information technology, to name a few—could be facing layoffs or serious wage pressure as developing nations perform increasingly sophisticated offshore work.

    From Newsweek International Edition, “The Big Squeeze,” op. cit.

    This article sums it up:

    “…From an economic perspective, the only thing the Feds can claim with any certainty is that the Stimulus produced a bunch of economic data points that were questionable in authenticity (GDP, inflation, employment, etc) many of which have since been revised lower (GDP again).

    “If the best evidence you can come up with for justifying Stimulus spending is a bunch of accounting gimmicks, why even bother spending the money at all? I mean, if you want to measure success by just fudging a bunch of numbers, why not SAVE the money and just crank out a bunch of nonsensical data from thin air?

    “Indeed, why not say that we’ve got 17% GDP growth and employment of 500%? Sure our economic researchers would lose all credibility, but they’re already doing that anyway, and at least by simply making stuff up we wouldn’t be ruining the US’s balance sheet and wasting money in the process.

    “This real issue with US economic policy today is that no one in a position of power actually has a clue how to address the structural issues in the US economy. Either that, or they willingly ignore the obvious for the sake of career risk, choosing instead to take a “wack a mole” approach to handling economic issues: applying the same solution (spend money) to every problem that raises its head.

    “The fact of the matter is that the US economy, on a structural basis, is BROKEN. Starting in the early ‘70s, we outsourced our manufacturing and began shifting to a services economy (particularly financial services). We also outsourced our wealth to Asia, OPEC, and Wall Street.

    “Because of this, the average American has seen his income dramatically in the last 30 years. This is obvious to anyone with a functioning brain. Forty years ago one parent worked and people got by. Today both parents work (if they can find jobs) and still can’t have a decent quality life.

    “THESE are the items that matter for economic growth: jobs and income. If you want people to have money for them to spend and consequently boost economic growth, they need to have decent jobs that pay them well.”

    For the full text, google the article “The only things that matter…and no one talks about” at zerohedge.com.

  24. 24.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @NonyNony:

    I’m actually not certain what a “normal” economy is supposed to look like.

    I’m not sure there is any such beast. Every decade I can think of from 1861 to present has had something peculiar about it. This probably goes back even further than that, but my off the top of the head knowledge of mid-19th cen economics is a little sketchy. But I can safely say you could randomly pick any decade out of the last 150 years and I can tell you why that wasn’t a “normal” period, i.e. it cannot be used as a template for how things should be.

    I think the whole concept of a “normal” economy is turning out to be one of the big lies of neo-classical economics.

  25. 25.

    Violet

    @NonyNony:

    Um – 90s era economy was a bubble. A little thing we like to remember as the “tech bubble”.

    Don’t forget “irrational exuberance.”

  26. 26.

    Stuck in the Funhouse

    “If the best evidence you can come up with for justifying Stimulus spending is a bunch of accounting gimmicks, why even bother spending the money at all? I mean, if you want to measure success by just fudging a bunch of numbers, why not SAVE the money and just crank out a bunch of nonsensical data from thin air?

    oops

  27. 27.

    tkogrumpy

    @mclaren: That’s awesome work! Thanks. It goes without saying that part of it’s awesomeness derives from the fact that I agree with it.

  28. 28.

    Stuck in the Funhouse

    @tkogrumpy:

    It goes without saying that part of it’s awesomeness derives from the fact that I agree with it.

    Me too, but wasn’t about to admit it. Upset the cosmic jeebus.

    {{{Mclaren}}}

    edit – besides it’s Friday the 13th

  29. 29.

    Jim in Chicago

    @tkogrumpy:

    Any idea why this is? A good economy is the key to winning future elections. Why would the advice of someone who has been consistently right be continually rejected for that of bozos like Geithner who keep failing/falling up?

    I’m not questioning that this happens in Washington, just trying to understand why.

  30. 30.

    Rick Taylor

    Economist Brad Delong has stated two rules regarding Paul Krugman:

    Rule #1. Paul Krugman is always right.

    Rule #2. If you think Paul Krugman is wrong, see Rule #1

  33. 33.

    Bob Loblaw

    @cleek:

    has Obama ever given a reason for this? it seems like a rather egregious failure.

    Various reasons, I would think.

    1. Without reconfirming Bernanke first (big mistake, as usual), his administration was worried the “market” would revolt at a new regime change during a recession. Also, Kohn didn’t retire immediately, so I’m sure the administration thought it had plenty of time to take care of other things first.

    2. Obama doesn’t actually know shit about the economy. He knows the by-the-book economy, but since the economics profession is largely snake oil, this doesn’t actually get you very far. Neoliberal orthodoxy has failed.

    3. The FOMC was never a priority from the beginning. That’s where the fairly random Raskin nomination comes from. When your hiring practices are “let’s find some committed consumer advocate to be on the board, I don’t really have any opinion on who,” this doesn’t usually work out so quickly. They appear to have done next to no advanced scouting on the nominations, and are playing from behind.

    4. Like all good little politicians, this admin knows who pays them. And it’s not foreclosed homeowner associations (which don’t exist) or even some of those mythical community organizing groups he lionized.

  34. 34.

    gene108

    Should we take what Krugman writes about Bernanke with a grain of salt?

    After all Bernanke was Krugman’s former department head at Princeton and the person, who hired Krugman to work at Princeton.

    Assuming Bernanke is part of the nexus of corporate-Wall-Street-whores, infesting the government, how credible then is his former underling’s opinion of him? Hmmmm…I wonder.

  35. 35.

    dj spellchecka

    i took a peek inside the wingnut bubble earlier today to read “paul krugman, comic genius” by r. emmett tyrrell, jr, where he claims that paul ryan is right and k-thug is wrong…..i lost track of the number of comments that basically read “krugman’s an idiot.”

  36. 36.

    lynnlightfoot

    Alas, Paul Krugman is Cassandra. Ever since he began writing his column for the NYT in 2000, he has been warning against each approaching evil. Like Cassandra, he’s right, and also like Cassandra, he is not heeded.

  37. 37.

    MNPundit

    What happened Cole? I thought Obama was passing shit left and right and solving problems and getting shit done and everyone who ever said different was a whiny Hamsher lover.

  39. 39.

    DPirate

    I think he is wrong to think that Obama and the Fed can actually do anything more. They’ve played all the cards out already. Short of the helicopter option, it’s all over. All they can do now is paint a rosy picture and hope people believe it.

    I find it amusing that Krugman isn’t playing along.

    PS I need to win the lottery so I can move to Argentina.

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