I owe at least one commentor a hat tip. David Edwards, at Raw Story:
… “I have a structural hypothesis here,” Krugman told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour Sunday. “You have a Republican ideology, which Mitt Romney obviously doesn’t believe in. He just oozes insincerity, that’s just so obvious. But all of the others are fools and clowns. And there is a question here, my hypothesis is that maybe this is an ideology that only fools and clowns can believe in. And that’s the Republican problem.”
__
Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan spoke up in Gingrich’s defense.
__
“We need a little on the pro-Newt side balance,” she remarked. “The base of the Republican Party knows that the establishment of the Republican Party doesn’t like Newt. That’s a big plus.”
__
“It was his time,” Krugman explained. “The Republican base does not want Romney and they keep on looking for an alternative. And Newt, although — somebody said, ‘He’s a stupid man’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.’ But he is more plausible than the other guys they’ve been pushing up.”
Shorter Professor K-Thug: “Respect you in the morning? Lady, they don’t respect you now!”
Click the link for the video, and a photo of His Shrillness suitable for framing.
Suffern ACE
Yeah. It’s been almost impossible to find the “idea man” of the movement since 1998. Fatboy’s barely been hanging on with his modest congressional pension. He’s been such a pariah.
piratedan
@Suffern ACE: well if they had been able to camp out in Tiffany’s, maybe they would have found their “man of the people” while he was busy shopping for the wife, emancipated man that he is…..
Cacti
How big a glass jaw does Mitt Romney have?
So big that the Goopers are now considering a 68 year old re-tread who resigned in disgrace 13 years ago.
Yutsano
I got it off Book of Faces, but it’s hard to say if I put it up first.
@piratedan: Newt’s biggest issue is he has a commitment problem. Which is why he’s on spouse number three as we speak. And she’s starting to wear thin. I wonder how many blond interns he has on his staff.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I see Krugman says it was three conservatives lined up against him: Will, La Nooners and…? Anybody watch the Horror?
JGabriel
Anne Laurie @ Top:
SLAM! Anne Laurie wins the thread before it even starts.
Kudos.
.
patrick II
Is there some award we can give Krugman that is more prestigious than the Nobel? Something like Balloon Juice man of the year? I would like to Xerox that guy and put him on every political talk show in existence.
pete
@piratedan: I didn’t even know they stocked wives at Tiffany’s. How’s the selection?
Nutella
Since Krugman was talking to Noonan he should have said:
‘He’s a stupid woman’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.’
El Cid
Amanpour: “George — fools & clowns?”
George Fwill: “No, I think that’s not uncharacteristically severe on Paul’s part. First, let me make my weekly disclosure that Mrs. Will is advising the Perry campaign…”
MacKenna
Peggy Noonan is like a crack addict searching for that first high. She misses blowing George Bush. Newt will have to do.
piratedan
@pete: …. ‘for the’, not ‘for a’…. but I’m sure that they have plenty of “ambiance” for the discrete shopper…..
Ailuridae
I’m not around here as much anymore but I second the idea of creating a Balloon Juice man of the year. No nominations or anything – just give it to Krugman outright.
I almost feel bad for George Will in these clips. He laughs audibly at both Krugman bits and then has to pretend that he doesn’t recognize the underlying truth of what he said.
JGabriel
Nooners:
Wait. It’s a plus that your shock troops — who, let’s be frank here, make up the majority of the party, because the elite are only elite if they’re a minority — know that your elites don’t like the guy they want?
Lady, I don’t that word ‘plus’ means what you think it means.
.
jl
@patrick II:
I suggest:
“Owner of Very Large Cat(s), Perhaps even Fatter than Tunch” person of the year.
We can send a few sacks of kitty chow as a prize.
I think Krugman would be flattered, and it may help BJ steal him away from that miserable rag and moldy fishwrap, the NYT.
Splitting Image
Don’t sell Newt short. He’s also a scoundrel’s idea of what a man with principles sounds like.
JGabriel
@patrick II:
If you really want to honor K-thug’s punditry, the appropriate honorific would be “Man of the Decade”.
I love Krugman, but he didn’t really get radicalized until Bush released his tax plan in late 2000, and he realized it was: all lies.
THAT is when Krugman really got good — just over a decade ago.
.
JGabriel
@Splitting Image:
On second thought, maybe they’re just synonyms.
.
El Cid
A happy note from Krug-Man’s blog:
From his column for today, also not shrinking:
I too am sick and tired of this bullshit about “technocrats”. Carrying out an ideology which serves the interests of the rich and powerful — even if you’re just trying to, even if you do it badly — isn’t a purely technocratic skill.
The World Bank and IMF more or less had to apologize for the hideously disastrous “structural adjustment” and “austerity” policies their “technocrat” economists opposed on the 3rd world throughout the 1990s — most clearly perhaps in the case of the IMF apologizing for its application of an austerity tourniquet against Indonesia’s population for being in the way of foreign speculators in the Asian financial crisis.
In fairness, though, there is a degree of technocratic skill involved in dismissing at any given time the people screaming at you to listen to contrary empirical evidence, at least, to do so in a sufficiently reasonable sounding manner.
Peter
This is my first time seeing Noonan on video. Serious question, guys: Is she sick? Like, suffering from a real and serious illness? I want to know if it’s okay to make fun of bizarre posture and demeanour.
jl
What disappoints me is that Krugman broke, and spewed out a series of absurd lies, blandishing absurd flattery on the GOP, clearly prostituting himself in order to keep his comfy seat at the corrupt table of power at a network news talky.
Namely:
“But [Newt] is more plausible than the other guys they’ve been pushing up.”
Yeah, right Krugman.
Newt may be many things, many of which cannot be mentioned on a family blog like BJ. Newt is not ‘plausible’ under any definition of that word, not in any context, not by any analogy no matter how stretched, nor any metaphor, no matter how mangled and mixed.
Krugman: fallen pundit tells lies on TV. A sad fall.
Edit: probably Will and Bobo’s doing. I hear they get to name a human sacrifice once a year to stay on the show.
MoeLarryAndJesus
There’s something missing in the GOP race. I think there’s a Mitt Romney scandal that hasn’t come out yet, and I think I know what it is. He fucks iguanas, and someone somewhere has a video of Mitt with his dick in an iguana.
And that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that in the video Mitt high-fives HIMSELF as he splooges.
I mean, that’s just disgusting.
GOP sleuths are still trying to find out if the iguana was male or female.
David Koch
I can’t believe some of you love a “free” trader like Krugman.
6 million good paying manufacturing jobs were shipped to China in the last 10 years due to “free” trade policies championed by Friedman and his economic clone Krugman.
El Cid
@jl: I think Newt is more “plausible” in that he’s actually able to make his crazy stuff sound more reasonable than the other guys saying crazy stuff.
He is. He’s better at doing that than Herman Cain, or Rick Perry, and so on.
I’m not serving Newt by saying that.
jl
@David Koch: I do not love Krugman. He belongs to a group of Keynesians, which includes Stiglitz, Roubini, Galbraith, and a few others, who have good records of making accurate predictions of macroeconomic conditions, backed up by honest data analysis and coherent arguments.
Krugman is also wrong a lot of the time, but on macro seems like less than half the time. Which is a very good record for economics.
Next time Krugman talks about international trade, I might be interested in gripes about what he says on trade.
Warren Terra
@Yutsano:
Newt is known for his willingness to embrace technological solutions, and I’m sure he is knowledgeable about hair dye technology, even if he has opted for a silver coif himself.
JGabriel
@jl:
Nor was Mussolini a leftist in any sense of the word, BUT, he was to the left of Hitler.
I think K-thug meant “plausible” in the sense of Mussolini being “left” of Adolf.
.
jl
@El Cid:
Newt looks like a cross between a lumpfish and an obese naked mole rat. Which is not plausible, in any possible world, but there he is, you can see for yourself.
I noticed a commenter suggesting on an earlier thread, in anticipation of the GOP adding a swimsuit competition to the debates, that Newt might wear a thong.
Another commenter said if that happened, he/she might go blind (whether spontaneously or because of an involuntary self eye gouging reflex, I do not know).
But, that is the kind of threat Newt poses to this nation.
Alison
Dang. Anyone know who said that? Because that is a great line.
David Koch
@jl:
Yeah, stripping the manufacturing base so oligarchs can make even more billions on slave labor in China, as they rape the environment, is a “gripe”. Tell that to the people occupying Wall Street.
El Cid
@jl: Obviously I was heartily endorsing Newt Gingrich and defending the man’s virtues. The nature of his policies entirely escaped my notice.
I know who the fuck Newt Gingrich is. Just because someone uses the fucking word “plausible” isn’t some sort of endorsement or approval, god-damnit.
JGabriel
@jl:
… if you take away the lumpfish and give the fat naked mole rat a naked walrus head.
.
jl
@David Koch:
Are you another DougJ spoof troll? You are calling the harshest critic of China, and US trade and currency policy with China, who is allowed to speak from an official pundit platform, a friend of oligarchs and immiserating trade with China.
Cripes, DougJ, sober up before you go trolling.
willard
@jl: There is a difference between being “plausible” and being “more plausible than the other guys”. So who would you nominate to be more plausible than the other non-Romneys?
Cain? Perry? Paul? Santorum?
jl
@JGabriel: Thanks. See. Newt is totally implausible. Case closed.
I will never believe another word the sell out and corrupt LIAR Krugman says.
He called Newt Gingrich plausible!
Krugman, lying friend of China US trade death escape yacht oligarchs! A bad bad, bad bad bad, bad bad man, also too.
Edit: I am going to sleep. My comment damning Krugman for calling Newt plausible was a joke. I didn’t mean it.
David Koch
Ralph Nader was on CSPAN tonight with Pat Buchanan.
Dynamic discussion how trade and corporatism is killing America. Buchanan also has a really interesting theory on Israel and the CIA framing Iran. Nader explains brutalty of the west bank occupation of Palestinians and Christian. Views that are rarely allowed on media.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/PatBucha
David Koch
@jl: Post one link showing Krugman criticizing US Trade. It’s the exact opposite. Krugman bashes anyone who opposes “free” trade.
And yes, he is a friend of oligarchs. He had no problem taking Ken Lay’s money or working side by side with Bernanke at Princeton.
ant
OT
Frum’s got an amusing screed up….
http://nymag.com/news/politics/conservatives-david-frum-2011-11/?mid=nymag_press
fun read.
Warren Terra
@jl:
@David Koch:
Krugman’s ideas on trade have been evolving. People who want to accuse him on this basis usually cherry-pick quotes from a decade ago, and in recent years he’s walked back somewhat – though I don’t pay especially close attention.
RE “taking Ken Lay’s money”, Lay helmed one of the most highly touted investment companies in the business, and they (the company, not Lay personally) paid Krugman a lot of money in his professional capacity as a wordl-famous economist to consult with them. All of which was disclosed, and none of which caused him to pull his punches on Enron. That’s pretty weak stuff.
Regarding Krugman’s “willingness to work at Princeton”: Dude, get a grip. Princeton is a pretty fantastic school, and it’s an easier commute to New York than MIT, his previous institution; quite possibly also a cushier gig. I have my problems with the class bias of the Ivy League’s student body, which is if anything most pronounced at Princeton, but it’s undeniably one of the best faculties in the country, and it has one of the best university presidents in the country (I’d have liked her for NIH or Education when Obama took office).
Warren Terra
@ant:
It’s the same things Frum’s been saying for about three years now – but all in one place, as a coherent and well-structured essay (and in a major magazine; possibly it’s benefited from either careful editing or just the greater effort put into a piece intended for significant distribution). Definitely worth a read.
By the way, this is a single-page link for it, which format I find preferable, though it lacks some of the comment features if you’d prefer to engage with the commenters there.
David Koch
@Warren Terra:
Fine. Prove me wrong. I dare you. Post something – anything – showing him modifying his position on “free” trade. You can’t. Because it doesn’t exist.
willard
@ant: Frum is one of the few sane Republicans remaining in a position of some prominence, though he has stated his intention to leave the GOP if they don’t dial down the crazy.
Sly
Having a vast motivational gulf between Republican Party leaders and Republican Party foot soldiers is definitely a big plus, though not for Gingrich or anyone else who wants to be president via the Republican Party nomination.
@David Koch:
For some reason I am suddenly reminded of the story about when noted Austrian economist/curmudgeon Ludwig von Mises called Milton Friedman a communist at some conference shortly before storming out of the room.
Warren Terra
@David Koch:
yeah, that one’s a doozy. Took me nearly two minutes, mostly because my first search didn’t include the word “free”.
I won’t link to it directly – more than two links triggers Moderation, iirc – but the first four Google hits are all sympathetic to tariffs, regulations, and other restraints on trade, and the third includes this passage:
Note in particular the text I bolded, the first line of the passage – in particular, note “used to be” and “mostly”
Better trolls, please.
Splitting Image
Krugman attributes the line “He’s a stupid man’s idea of what a smart person sounds like” to Ezra Klein, who was originally talking about Dick Armey.
Krugman applying the line to Paul Ryan
I submit that the line applies more to Newt and Ryan than Armey, since a greater number of people – of a certain kind – seem to think Newt and Ryan are smart.
SixStringFanatic
@Warren Terra: And don’t you just love the debate tactic of “I just gagged up a bunch of bullshit. Now it’s your responsibility to go prove that it’s bullshit”? Particularly useful when the trolls don’t want to engage the topic at hand.
Calouste
The euro is the culimination of the romantic dream of post WWII Western European leaders who wanted to integrate their countries closer so that they wouldn’t have a war every fucking generation that killed millions of people.
There’s a lot more behind the Euro than the narrow economic vision that Krugman has.
xian
@David Koch: Glenn, are you back to sock puppetry again?
David Koch
@Warren Terra: Oh please. Better reading comprehension, please.
He says in that post “The results suggest, as I have been arguing, that it’s wrong to dismiss Chinese exports as not really being in competition with US production.”
Yes! Of course! Chinese exports are obviously in competition with US products here in the US and overseas. That’s something you learn in grade school. Products compete with each other for sales.
Somehow he thinks recognizing a basic fact that two products on a shelve are in competition makes him against free trade. How so?
Does he take the next step and oppose “free” trade with China — no. Of course not. He only recognizes price sensitivity in product sales. He doesn’t call for a tariff or import restriction.
For goodness sakes. Krugman has even admitted that trade restrictions with China would create domestic jobs, but he still refuses to endorse them. So yes, he still puts his precious trade ahead of domestic employment.
And he only supports a carbon tariff to reduce carbon emissions not trade or job imbalances. And even then, he says he only supports carbon tariffs if everyone participates and would oppose them if they only targets the largest polluters, because that would be unfair. Holy Christ.
xian
@Calouste: you can’t have an EU without the Euro?
Calouste
@xian:
The predecessor of the Euro, the
DeutschmarkECU, dates back to 1979. Monetary integration in the EU has been going for quite a while. Of course the ECU had the same issues as the Euro, some of the member countries (UK, Italy, Greece) elect idiots to government.Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Peter:
Some people have said she’s a boozer, and she was apparently what passed for a party girl back in the Beltway of Bush I, but my own take is that she’s deluded enough to think that her schtick is effective and engaging. I have never used the word “winsome”, but I think the Magick Dolphin Lady imagines that all that purring and simpering is “winsome”. To me, she’s the Dolores Umbrage of American Punditry.
Who woulda thunk that the tag team of Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson would represent a high point for ABC’s political coverage?
bin Lurkin'
@xian: There are countries in Europe you can ride a bicycle across in a day, what would the USA be like if every state had its own currency?
Warren Terra
@David Koch:
You said:
With essentially no effort, I find a post in which he explicitly says that he is in normal circumstances less of a free trader than he used to be, and that in extreme circumstances like those in which we find ourselves the answer may not be free trade at all.
So you respond by cherry-picking and parsing from among the search results to find a brief passage you can interpret to fit your prejudices – not that I bothered to read it carefully enough to consider whether your characterization is accurate. Frankly, I’m not terribly inclined to debate economic theory (it’s not something I’m terribly knowledgeable about) and still less inclined to debate specific quotes from Krugman (least of all out of context). But least of all am I inclined to debate you, at least until you admit that your initial challenge was met, and your dismissive assertion of its impossibility was erroneous.
Warren Terra
@Calouste:
Not really fair. Berlusconi is a crook and a buffoon, but probably not an idiot. Moreover, Italy doesn’t have a budget problem: it has an interest-rate problem. I don’t know who managed their budget, and doubtless it could have been better, but they simply weren’t a fiscal fantasyland like Greece. Italy’s debt burden was completely manageable at normal interest rates; it’s only when the panic set in and the lenders started demanding 6 or 7 percent that Italy faced a budget disaster.
willard
@Calouste: Krugman has been arguing for tighter integration within the Eurozone. My understanding of Krugman’s argument is that the current arrangement is unstable, as this crisis has demonstrated. The EU either needs to unify politically or the EU will revert, catastrophically, to its previous state.
debbie
@jim, foolish literalist:
I had it on. It was Matthew Dowd, who seemed pretty down on all the Republican candidates. I thought Krugman was great.
Warren Terra
@bin Lurkin’:
Did any of the European microstates have independent currencies before the Euro? Looking at a list of European countries by population and land area, the smallest one by population that had an independent currency (not fixed in value to that of a neighbor or colonial overlord) was Iceland (300,000 people), which is rather isolated and is rather larger than your criterion; the smallest one by land area is Slovenia (20,000 square kilometers), which had an independent currency for nearly two decades.
David Koch
@Warren Terra:
Krugman also says in the paragraph you posted
Really. Who believes that? Who believes losing a GM plant in Michael Moore’s Flint Michigan to China will lead to new similar jobs? Who believes outsourcing IT jobs to India will lead to new jobs of equal pay?
Talk about voo doo economics. I shouldn’t be surprised considering Krugman worked as a staff economist to Reagan. Reagan used to say, if you could balance the budget by cutting taxes. Now Krugman says outsourcing jobs reasonably leads to new jobs elsewhere in the US. No. No. In reality, what happens is outsourcing jobs reasonably leads to new profits to the 1%. And the 1% won’t reinvest their windfall in the US, but rather overseas.
And you worship this guy sellin “free” trade snake oil.
That’s the whole basis of economic inequality. Plants are shipped to China. They owners increase their margins, and their wealth skyrockets. While those who lost their jobs find employment with lower and stagnant wages. And thus a gulf of income inequality emerges.
Warren Terra
@David Koch:
I’m sorry, are you still talking to me? I thought I made it clear that I was not interested in your blovations until you responded to my assertion that I had met your challenge.
David Koch
@Warren Terra:
He said the exact opposite. pull up the post. He says: “Yes, and under normal circumstances I still mostly am. But these are not normal circumstances!”
But putting aside that you got this backwards, the fact is in the post he didn’t provide any examples on how he’s changed.
My initial challenge has not been met. My dismissive assertion of its impossibility stands.
Unfortunately you don’t know this due to lack of reading and economic comprehension. I should have known. Only a poor intellect as yours can be such a Krugman supporter.
Warren Terra
@David Koch:
“I still mostly am” means “I am less than I used to be”
And the “under normal circumstances” means “under some circumstances I’m much, much less of a free trade advocate”.
This has been Remedial English For Trolls. No charge.
Look, you’ve got two choices here: Krugman is for no apparent reason blatantly lying about the evolution of his own thoughts on free trade – or you were wrong to say his views haven’t evolved.
And instead of facing that choice you want to get me to join with you in parsing individual phrases from a guy who in a given year might produce a book, 80-100 columns, and 1,000 blog posts. Good luck with that.
bin Lurkin'
@Warren Terra:I’m aware of the fact that even small nations in Europe had their own independent currencies, evidently at some point they decided that was less than an optimum situation.
Not to mention you didn’t answer my question, what would the USA look like if every state had its own currency?
I submit that it wouldn’t look much like it does today.
There’s a reason that balkanization is not generally considered a good thing.
harlana
look, i just spent half the weekend watching innocent people get doused in the face with pepper spray, i’m not yet emotionally ready for the Noodlings of Noonan!
MTiffany
Speaking of Mittens…
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z233/mtiffany71/Mittensistheonlychoice.jpg
Warren Terra
@bin Lurkin’:
You seem to have misunderstood me. You said:
My point was that although such countries do exist in Europe, they’ve never really had their own currencies. The closest you come are places like Slovenia. A good bicyclist might manage to cross Slovenia in a day, but it is a sizable country (2 million people) and it only had its own currency between the collapse of Yugoslavia and the creation of the Euro.
I’m not disagreeing with your main point, I’m saying that the parallel you drew was poorly chosen.
xian
@Warren Terra: remember that the underlying goal of any troll is threadjacking.
Warren Terra
@xian:
True enough. But it’s the middle of the night, a fairly dead time at Balloon Juice, and I was in a mood to tussle with the troll, to see if they could see reason. And my impression in the past has been that this particular troll has its lucid moments.
xian
@Warren Terra: No, I totally understand. I do it too, and one extra fun troll feature is that meta- discussion of the troll still successfully drowns out the core point.
In this case, that core point (as I see it), is “look at this excellent pushback against Republican enormities.” Whether motivated by purer-than-thou leftist dysfunction, double-secret right-wing ratfucking, or sheer orneriness, a counter-thread about the flaws (perceived or real) in the messenger of said pushback is a great way of dampening the progressive momentum otherwise possible when we rally around strong, focused messages.
xian
@bin Lurkin’: we had that once and it was not as good! I’m in favor of certain large structures, tempered by other forms of devolution (it’s debatable whether a continent-scale country is governable – shit, even California is borderline).
I generally like the idea of the Euro (though I do miss the motley old European currencies a bit, just from a sentimental point of view), but my understanding is that currency union with a central bank (fiscal-policy union) has always been a somewhat tenuous structure.
dsc
from yesterday’s GOS (Lawrence Lewis):
Xenos
@Warren Terra:
Belgium and Luxembourg, which are certainly diurnally transvelonavigable, had their own Francs pegged to the French Franc for decades before the financial chaos of the 1930s. They were part of the Latin Monetary Union, as were, for a while, the Greeks and Italians. The Euro was a way to tie these countries, along with France, to Germany and thereby allow a truly common market. It was not very novel, but rather was a way of getting back to some well seasoned and popular ideals.
I would argue the problem with the Euro has more to do with the Germans being a part of it than any other country.
bin Lurkin'
@Warren Terra: The record for crossing the USA by bicycle is eight days and a few hours..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Across_America
I live in the largest state East of the Mississippi and a really strong rider could cross my state within 24 hours.
Xenos
@dsc:
Yes, but if Newt wins NH all hell will break loose. In a good way.
Warren Terra
@bin Lurkin’:
Piffle. Yes, a really strong rider can go 200 miles in a day, or whatever, and thus “diurnally transvelonavigate” many states or countries. But then you’re counting wealthy countries and states with many millions of inhabitants as meaningless flyspecks to be casually biked through. The simple fact is that the smallest European countries did not have their own currencies, and testing the limits of the bicyclist is just a way to weasel out of your own construction.
bjacques
Haw! Haw! Haw! (to quote Jack Chick). Holy crap, how did that get on the air? George Fwill’s was pretty free with the hammer shots, even allowing for his wife working for Perry. The 11th Commandment (Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill Of A Fellow Republican) is well and truly dead.
As for David Frum, well, he owns a big chunk of the mess his beloved party–and, thanks to it, the whole country–became. His 11th-hour show of apostasy might have gotten him kicked off the Wingnut Welfare Express, but outside the cult, it looks like he’s just arguing for a nicer shade of lipstick to put on the pig.
It’s been a good Monday.
MarkJ
Boy is Peggy Noonan an idiot. How long does one have to spend as a party fundraiser, strategist, lobbyist, candidate and politician before one is considered a part of the Republican establishment? Because that’s Newt’s resume over about 3 decades. Is she stuck in the late ’80 and still thinks he’s a newly arrived rebel in Republican circles?
The republican establishment hates Newt? He IS the republican establishment. I guess that makes them all self-haters, which makes sense as they have ample reason to hate themselves.
Lurking Canadian
Is Krugman trying to get himself fired from the NYT? Imagine the pearl clutching going on there today. “Liberal bias! Oh no! Partisanship! Horrors!”
Hawes
Here’s THE pic of “Krugman” worth framing:
http://av.r.ftdata.co.uk/files/2011/09/Krugman.jpg
scav
And Crooks & Liars has an easily downloadable clip of the Only Fools and Clowns bit for those that want to play it over and over.
bin Lurkin'
@Warren Terra: And yet you still have not answered my original question.
To wit: What would the USA look like if each state had its own currency and there were no universal currency?
henqiguai
@bin Lurkin’(#82):
Probably like the United States’ precursor environment of the colonial period and the actual US into the early 1800s. Or, if the United States had become, into the modern period, a functioning confederacy of independent nation-states, rather than the tightly integrated federation of mildly autonomous subunits of a single political and economic entity. Basically, your question is purely speculative and is the purview of social science academics and alternative history fiction writers.
Though given your scenario I feel comfortable making the claim that one group in particular in the financial industry would be major moneymakers – money-changers (would probably have been significant drivers in the development of mechanical calculating devices…)
xian
@MarkJ: I think what she really means is that the money people don’t trust him — too erratic and so unlikeable.
xian
@dsc: in fact, there was an item in Mike Allen’s tip sheet this morning that basically said that popularity of Republican candidates in Iowa is directly proportional to how little time they’ve spent meeting voters in the state. Basically, the more the voters get to see of *any* of the candidates, the less they like them.
Contrast this with Obama’s experience where he came from behind basically one small meeting with voters at a time.
Quincy
I watched the whole show and it was brutal. As much as I enjoyed seeing Krugman essentially call the others idiots to their faces, he used up his few moments on those insults and wasn’t given the opportunity to refute some of the awful lies coming from the other talking heads. In particular, it appeared to me that Will, Noonan, Dowd and Amanpour at one point essentially agreed that the supercommittee Republicans had made an exceedingly generous compromise offer containing all of the new revenue the country would ever need and that the whole thing was failing because of Democratic intransigence on entitlements and lack of leadership from Obama. It wasn’t even both-sides-do-it garbage, it was much worse. I hadn’t watched a morning show in months and am not sure I’ll have the courage to suffer through one again any time soon. If what I saw is now par for the course, we’re better off with them covering only clown car candidate poll numbers and sex scandals. It’s less damaging.
Catsy
@bin Lurkin’:
This is a question that is not even worth trying to answer, because its premise–the idea that you can somehow compare in any meaningful way the constituent states of a young Republic that has been a single integrated economy for almost its entire history with a group of sovereign nations with over a thousand years of having individual identities and economies–is an incredibly silly and shallow one.
Peter
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I can definitely see where they would get drunk from. Her behavior is remarkably like that of a particularly dopy drunk.
Paul in KY
@patrick II: How about ‘The Tunchle’? It would be alot bigger than the Nobel (at least spaitially).