Our Netroots Nation correspondents probably have more to tell us, but in the interim, thanks to commentor Amir Khalid for the TPM2012 link:
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on Saturday morning called the current state of the U.S. economy “incredibly awful.”
“If you don’t know multiple people who are suffering, then you must be living in a very rarefied environment,” he said in a brief address to the Netroots Nation conference. “You must be maybe a member of the Romney clan, or something.”
Krugman is out with a new book, “End This Depression Now!”, and he told the progressive gathering that the country’s economic problems are solvable.
“None of this has to be happening. We didn’t have a plague of locusts, we were not hit by a tsunami, there wasn’t some act of God that created this terrible situation. It was acts of man.”…
Krugman concluded that Americans are living under the tyranny of “very serious people” — people like Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, he said. “Solving this depression is not fundamentally an economic problem, it’s a political problem.”
The man keeps himself busy. My pathethic google-fu has not uncovered a transcript of his keynote speech at the Texas Observer‘s 2012 Molly (Ivins) Awards, beyond a note from the Austin American-Statesman’s Michael Barnes:
He made trenchant remarks about the economy and what he feels are misinformed responses the political class. But he also pinpointed the value of the investigative work done by reporters who don’t just act as scribes to the powerful. (Some other famous prizes often reward that kind of insider sleight of hand.)
Has anybody had the chance to read End This Depression Now! yet?
barbara
Yes, I just finished it. The basic arguments won’t be a surprise to anyone who follows Krugman, but in a book he has a chance to really flesh them out. What I liked most about the book was the way he addressed every single feeble argument made by the Austerians and the inflation-obsessives and the advocates for more suffering on the part of the little people, and — in the most polite and thoughtful way imaginable — shredded them into confetti.
I recommend it highly. I feel I know considerably more than I did when I started — he’s a real teacher.
Arclite
Hey Anne Laurie, how come you didn’t go to Netroots Nation? You probably live only 2 hrs drive away…
cat48
I’ve always hated economics. The textbooks were so dry. Unfortunately, with the financial crisis; I’ve been forced to read more & learn more Econ in my old age. I may buy his book eventually but I’m just sick of the whole damn thing right now. The Bagger House won’t pass anything & that makes me angry & frustrated; and the Eurozone crisis fixes are never permanent, so lately I try not to think about it.
Ruviana
I read it too and second Barbara’s recommendation. Krugman is a great explainer, especially for those of us who are quantitatively challenged. It was helpful for some of the European situation as well.
geg6
Krugman is one of the only reasons we still get the dead tree version of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (local columnist Sally Kalson, also too). We get the local rag for obits and the PPG for Krugman.
c u n d gulag
I’m on a waiting list for it at my local library.
So I’m not alone in my upstate NY area – and in and of itself, THAT gives me some hope!
I wish I could buy it, but we can’t afford to purchase books anymore – due to my continued unemployment, and the dreadful economy, don’t you know…
Older_Wiser
Will keep following Krugman online, but put his latest book on my list to get from the library, but have to get through “Showdown” by David Corn, which someone generously sent me, before I tackle anything else.
Anyone else read that one?
Maude
@c u n d gulag:
Books are too expensive. I haven’t bought on for years. The library is just fine.
I won’t do my rant about book prices.
Older_Wiser
I recommend reading excerpts here http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail-inside.aspx?ID=24617&CTYPE=G (linked above, too) although you may not even have to get beyond the few pararaphs in the foreward to actually want to read it.
Even in just describing current economic conditions as a depression, Krugman is spot on.
RossInDetroit
I read all of Krugman’s columns and blog posts but I probably won’t read the book. I know just how bad things are and who’s responsible for it. It makes me furious to know for how little gain for so few people millions of Americans have been brought to their knees. If I spend any more hours on that subject I don’t think I could keep my shit together.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Maude: Then how about a rant about ebook prices, which are rapidly approaching the street price of hardcovers? There is no justification that production and distribution costs for ebooks are close to that for dead tree books, and I’m sure that authors don’t get paid more.
Amir Khalid
Probably, if I catch the promotional discount at Kinokuniya in time.
(Hey, my first-ever mention in a front-pager’s post! Cool!)
Southern Beale
LOL. I’m still reading “Conscience Of A Liberal.” At this rate I’ll probably get to his newest in about 5 years.
So, I found this interview in USA Today with a Coca Cola executive just the worst example of journanimalism ever.
Linda Featheringill
@Amir Khalid:
You asked about electoral votes the other day. Nate Silver has a nice discussion of that topic today:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/where-electoral-forecasts-agree-and-disagree/
Amir Khalid
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
If you think about it, it’s sadly inevitable that e-book publishers and retailers would go from thinking, “Hey, we can save our customers the markup from printing and distribution costs” to thinking, “Damn, we’re leaving money on the table!”
terraformer
There are many parallels between what is happening now and the French Revolution. Rich class taxing everyone but themselves? Check. Tax revenues used for endless wars? Check. Blocking out “the people” from true participation in government and in helping to steer outcomes? Check.
But we don’t teach civics anymore, so the parallels are invisible to most people. So we’ll either a) go through it all again, repeating our past as the old saying goes, b) try to repeat the past, and get creamed by the military/industrial/privatization state, or c) perish, the lot of us. It may be all three.
Linda Featheringill
Ebook of Krugman’s latest book on Amazon is slightly less than 10.00. FWIW.
Rafer Janders
Is he…is he allowed to say that?
Boudica
@Amir Khalid: As a librarian, I am glad to hear so many of you are using your local libraries (although I’m sorry about conditions that may have pushed you in that direction.
As to publishers and ebooks, that is one of my pet peeves. Of the “big six” only two will allow libraries access to ebooks. Harper Collins allows 26 checkouts then the library has to buy a new license. Random House just tripled the prices of the ebooks back in March. So, you can buy an ebook on Amazaon…list price $25, selling price $15….my library pays $75. This for a license (we don’t own the file) which we lose if we ever stop our subscription to the ebook service.
So, not only are publishers reaping the reward of lower production costs, they are keeping the ebook format from libraries, forcing people to buy it if they want the electronic format.
/rant
Mark
In the middle of the book – all new material, but no surprises to anyone who reads this blog.
I bought it for Kindle, but for all of you guys complaining about book prices, just pirate it. If you like it, make a donation on Krugman’s behalf.
SiubhanDuinne
@Linda Featheringill:
Just downloaded it. As soon as I finish Rule and Ruin, I’ll read K-Thug.
kay
@Linda Featheringill:
I agree with him on everything but Virginia. I think Obama’s a clear favorite in Virginia.
I love newspapers, I buy them, I think we’d be screwed without them, but I am so tired of them protecting “their own” (media).
They NYT has a piece on the “private sector is fine” flap and it’s headed, “Republicans jump on 6 words”.
You know, that isn’t what happened. The sequence of events is important in a factual recitation, and while it is true that Republicans jumped on the 6 words, it is also true that members of the media pulled out the 6 words and jumped on them, at that event. Media went first. They were out in front of the people they’re supposed to be covering. Not good.
Maybe that’s not important, but that’s what happened.
Freemark
I want to read it but I’m afraid to. I already get so frustrated with the purposeful stupidity here in southern Pennsyltucky that if I read his book I’m worried my head will explode.
Not to mention that, at the age of 43, I just quit my job to finish getting my degree in Physics. I’ve worked the last 20 years in retail sales and I was making, literally the same dollar amount of money I made 15 years ago and didn’t see it getting any better. Now I’m worried if I won’t be worse off when I graduate, especially with my loan debt.
I think Krugman’s book may so depress me that I’ll just crawl under my bed and suck my thumb.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Amir Khalid: Prices go up, sales go down, piracy increases, money wasted on DRM schemes that don’t work, profits stay the same or drop. Music business, movie business redux.
beltane
@Comrade Scrutinizer: I will join you on any rant involving ebook prices. My husband bought me a Kindle for Christmas but I’ve only been able to bring myself to use it to download free books from Project Gutenberg. Everything else I want to read always ends up being the same price for the Kindle version as for the paperback version, and with the paperback version I can easily lend them out to my mother and mother-in-law. Ebooks only are worth it to me when they are significantly cheaper than real books.
I paid $13.99 for a pre-ordered hardcover of the new Hilary Mantel book, the same price as for the Kindle version.
handsmile
My favorite paragraph from the TPM link is the one in which Krug’thulu skewers the neocon editor of the NYT Book Review, Sam Tanenhaus. (Haven’t schlepped outside yet to get the paper, but evidently there is a tote-baggerish review of End This Depression Now.)
Under Tanenhaus’ watch, that once lively and polemical section has become a bastion of conservative opinion on political/economic affairs books and insipid in its reviews of other genres. A sad decline, it’s now little more than the equivalent of “Sunday Styles” for recent books.
Eli Rabett
America elects has ballot lines, Paul Krugman has centrist ideas, a marriage made in heaven, shall we help??
beltane
@handsmile: I abandoned the NYT Book Review over a decade ago in favor of NYRB. I thought it was just me growing older and wiser, but I’ve since learned that it was really a case of the NYT Book Review growing shittier and shittier.
Elliecat
Bob McChesney will interview Krugman on his radio show “Media matters” today at 1 p.m. central time. You can stream it. The link also has podcasts of lot of other interviews of interest to progressives.
superdestroyer
@Freemark:
Physics requires a PhD and post-doc to be employed these days. And with the coming downsizing of the Department of Defense and the death of nuclear power in the U.S., there will be fewer people employed in physics.
The question for Krugman is what is everyone support to do for a job after the defense cuts begin and healthcare begins to cut jobs. I have always found it odd that Krugman is more concerned in the 700k cut in local and state employees while he show zero concern for the coming downsizing in defense and health care.
Trakker
I’m halfway through the book and each page frustrates me so much that I frequently have to put it down and pace for awhile. Good exercise but it’s been hard to finish the book.
Villago Delenda Est
This. Just this.
A good start would be tumbrels for Bowles and Simpson.
Followed by tumbrels for the entire fucking Village.
Steeplejack
@barbara:
Agreed. If you follow Krugman’s column and blog, there is nothing earth-shattering in the book, but it fantastic as a one-stop compendium of his complete argument and positions with all the supporting detail.
His detractors like to peck away at his columns and blog posts with niggling complaints like “But what about x?” or “You forgot about y.” And often Krugman ends up saying “I covered x last week” or “But y isn’t applicable here.” In the book he brings it all together. “Okay, mofos, here’s x, y and z, with all the supporting details and reasons why y isn’t applicable. Suck it.” Although he doesn’t phrase it exactly like that.
Is it a book for the ages? No. But it’s a good book for right now.
Baud
@Freemark:
I’m jealous. I hope it all works out for you.
handsmile
@beltane: (#28)
Few things make me happier than opening the mailbox to find a freshly-baked edition of the NYRB.
Must say though that of late I’ve grown uneasy at the number of Village journalists invited to befoul its pages (e.g., Anne Appelbaum, Michael Kimmelman, Joseph Lelyveld, Ezra Klein). Nevertheless, it is an indispensable publication.
Here is a link to an amusing recent (March) NYT feature on NYRB editor Robert Silvers, “Editor Not Ready to Write an Ending.” A peculiar kind of tribute, as much of the article focuses upon who will be successor to Silvers (particularly after the death of heir apparent, Tony Judt).
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/books/robert-silverss-long-reign-at-the-new-york-review-of-books.html?pagewanted=all
Mnemosyne
@superdestroyer:
The very first Baby Boomers have only just turned 65. How are you picturing healthcare jobs going down when we’re about to have a huge wave of elderly people who will need healthcare? If anything, the problem is that we’re not prepared for the wave and will struggle to find enough qualified people to fill the pharmacy, nursing, home health, etc. jobs that will be created.
Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne:
Never mind and thank you.
mistermix
@Mnemosyne: I just cleaned out moderation.
I was at the Krugman keynote and one thing he mentioned that you guys might be interested in is that he saw an advance of the NYT Book section review of his book, and it criticized him for not paying proper respect to the gravitas of the VSPs who he criticized. That, of course, is what’s important, not the economy or the suffering that’s going on.
patrick II
With elections coming and the FED continuing to sit on it’s hands, does anyone think that perhaps the centrist man of good heart regrets appointing republican Bernanke to sit as FED Chairman?
Baud
@patrick II: That’s about 1,132,203,293 on the list of things I think about.
Bex
@beltane: I’m halfway through “Bring Up The Bodies” (from the library). Cromwell wishes he could get a job in some other country right now.
Frankensteinbeck
@beltane:
Ebook pricing for the legacy publishers is not based on short term profits, although it IS short-sighted as Hell. It’s an attempt to slow down or kill the ebook market. The Big Six have an overwhelming infrastructure advantage in the paper book market, and they rely on it heavily. Barrier for entry for small presses in the ebook market is extremely low, and the legacy publishers really do not want to have to compete.
patrick II
@Baud: So, what’s numbers 1 and 2?
lamh35
I know people who watch political shows, so I don’t have to, and a little twitter birdy told me that Rick Santorum said this on This Week:
I know a lot of teachers and parents who’d beg to differ.
Baud
@patrick II:
1. What’s for dinner?
2. What more can I do to help the Democrats win in November?
lamh35
So a friend of mine tweeted about Don Rickles telling a racist joke about POTUS. My first thought was “wait Don Rickles is still alive”, my second thought was “isn’t racist jokes Rickles” thing anyway, and my final thought pretty much articulated really well by booman here:
But Don Rickles Isn’t Funny
by BooMan
gbear
@kay: I was thinking the same thing when I saw that “Republicans jump on 6 words” headline in the NYT. It was the media that pounced on it first and turned it into a freak show. The republicans just piled on after the fact. Self-awareness – the NYT hasn’t got it.
PurpleGirl
@Mnemosyne: Because we will be told that healthcare is too expensive and to save money we will have to do with fewer people working in the sector. It is a people intensive field and the only place “to save money” is in compensation and they (upper management) will cut the staff, regardless of needs. So it takes longer to get your prescription or to see the doctor… you’re not working, you have the time to wait around, don’t you?
Maybe I’m just feeling cranky today but I don’t believe that healthcare will keep adding jobs in the future, at least not at non-boutique medical facilities.
Yutsano
@gbear: Don’t even look at Ariana’s ego site. They spin the whole thing as a total positive for Willard while getting in Obama’s line as well.
patrick II
@Baud:
We have the same top 2. But with Fiscal and monetary policy being the two basic ways to help the economy, and with fiscal locked out by a republican congress who’s goal is to keep the economy slow, Bernanke doesn’t rate too far down my list. He has the power to actually do something — although not without criticism from the right. I watched Greenspan goose the economy for republicans, and now we have Bernanke, who knows better,holding back and I wonder at his motivations. Is he too moderate or too political? Or Both.
gbear
@Yutsano: I never go to Huffpo or GOS.
lamh35
Romney Adviser Takes U.S. Political Debate Overseas
.
Baud
@patrick II: I’m not as confident as you about what Bernanke can do. I just don’t know enough to have a view. But there’s nothing we can do about him in the near term. Voters can vote the GOP out of office this November, so that’s what I’m focused on.
superdestroyer
@PurpleGirl:
I know that Krugman knows that single payer healthcare will led to a huge downsizing in healthcare. Applying medical economic ideas to healthcare means fewer procedures, few facilities, and fewer employees. IN addition, more than 500K employees in the healthcare insurance industry would be gone.
Add the more than 1 million defense workers scheduled to be laid off and Krugman actually supports reducing the civil work force by more than 1%. I doubt that no matter how much deficit spending their is on road paving and bridge building, it will not make up for the job loses in defense, healthcare, and energy.
andy
Yep. Good book. When the history of all this is written it will be about a Right controlled by men so desperate to turn the clock back to before the New Deal that they were literally willing to destroy the nation. Because the fact of the matter is doing the right thing by people actually saves money and makes the country stronger (for example, single payer). Our problems are all fixable but the tragedy is that there are so many dedicated NOT to fixing them because for them the inequality is the point- the thing absolutely essential to maintaining their power and position.
Firebert
@superdestroyer: You may have a perfectly lovely ass, but I doubt it’s a good place to be pulling your numbers from.
PurpleGirl
@superdestroyer: I don’t mean a change in employment under a single payer system. (I don’t believe we are getting single payer anytime soon.) I mean just under the current system — at some point employment will be cut as the only way to keep profits up or costs down. For example, hospitals merge or are closed as being not needed and that means that jobs are cut. The needs of people are still there, but the powers that be decide that their profits are more important.
Defense jobs wouldn’t translate to road construction but they could translate to transportation research concerning trains or more efficient vehicles. But the powers that be don’t have the vision to see how to do that and don’t have the will to do that.
Omnes Omnibus
@kay: It is an important difference and people should hammer on whenever they have a chance.
Maude
@PurpleGirl:
If the ACA goes through in 2014, there will be more patients. That will call for more people working in healthcare. And of course, it will free people to start their own businesses as the healthcare won’t be tied to an employer.
You said it well about Defense.
I have this cold thingy that has made me miserable for almost a week. It’s getting better today. I wondering something was going around.
trollhattan
@Baud:
What a snob.
One of countless things I like about Pierce is with every mention of Santorum he adds, “And have I mentioned recently what a dick he is?”
Truer words….
superdestroyer
@Firebert:
OK, how many people do you believe are currently employed in the health care insurance industry? Do you really think many of them will still be employed in the single payer system that Krugman supports. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/why-not-single-payer/
Also, how many fewer defense workers do you think there will be if Krugman got his defense spending cuts http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/more-on-defense/
superdestroyer
@Maude:
If the reimbursements are less, then there will be fewer employees. The ACA gives CMS the ability to eliminate a huge number of jobs of lowering reimbursement rates below cost so that healthcare providers will stop doing them. That is the only way that the system can save money.
Krugman knows that many of his proposals will lower private sector employment. He just does not seem to care.
Yutsano
@superdestroyer: Apparently you think private insurance will not exist in a single payer system. I can’t think of one example in the world where that is true. Even the UK has private insurers. So yes a lot will go out of business but they will still exist.
trollhattan
@PurpleGirl:
If my econ ed-you-katin’ is still viable, defense spending has the lowest multiplier effect so there are far better (in terms of economic benefit) uses of the same monies or more to the point, all other uses have more economic benefit.
Don’t know how it compares against tax cuts for zillionaires.
Tokyokie
@lamh35: R. Glenn Hubbard, of course, is the POS who comes off far and away the worst of anybody interviewed in the Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job.
superdestroyer
@Yutsano:
OK, a few boutique health insurance companies will still exist but most people working in health insurance will still lose their jobs.
Maude
@superdestroyer:
CMS has the ability to crack down on bad procedures now. They protect patients who need hospital care.
I get the CMS emails about changes.
@Yutsano:
What you said.
Tokyokie
@superdestroyer: The savings to be realized under a single-payer system would mostly be achieved through eliminating expenses associated with complying with health-insurers’ protocols. With an aging population, the demand for medical procedures — and thus the employment levels of those directly involved in delivering those procedures — isn’t going to diminish anytime soon. A single-payer system would also make procedures that are not currently economically feasible for those currently without or with inadequate health coverage, further increasing demand for those who provide such services.
Private-sector healthcare providers may continue to seek efficiencies through mergers, although these tend to remove excess capacity from the system, usually that intended to provide high profit-margin procedures in relatively high-income neighborhoods. Cost savings can also be achieved by spinning work traditionally performed by MDs to nurse-practitioners, from nurse-practitioners to RNs, from RNs to LVNs, from LVNs to CNAs, etc. However, whereas this might affect the need for MDs (and then only those who are not highly specialized), it will not much affect the employment of those further down the line in delivering healthcare procedures, because, after all, that is what healthcare providers are paid to do.
Amir Khalid
@trollhattan:
For you, I fix.
Joey Giraud
@superdestroyer:
Oh Boo-hoo. Corporate health insurance employees are some of the most useless, overpaid incompetents on the earth.
We would be better off to pay them half as much to sit on the floor and finger-paint.
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
Much mo bettah. And this is why I’ll never be a Charles Pierce.
Carol from CO
@Villago Delenda Est:
Tumbrels? Please explain this term. I can understand what you’re saying from the context, but I don’t understand why you used this word. Did you mean tumbled?
gene108
@superdestroyer:
We’ve seen what happens, when the DoD downsizes. We went through this in the 1990’s, with the Cold War Peace Dividend.
There’s better uses for the money than making sure we have the biggest military evah.
Just from food for thought. Greece’s GDP:
Link
DoD budget:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States
Our defense budget is twice the size of Greece’s economy.
America isn’t a poor nation, yet we act like we’re broke, which is bullshit.
We’re the richest country in the world.
We’ve just done a piss poor job in allocating resources and spending so much on defense is part of the problem.
liberal
@handsmile:
Sure, Appelbaum is atrocious and idiotic. But IIRC Lelyveld was an oldie-but-goodie.
Soonergrunt
@Carol from CO: From the Wikipedia article:
Bruce S
ETDN! is a must-read, even if you’ve been following the columns. It organizes The Professor’s arguments systematically, adds depth and coherence and gives you some organized tools to rebut bullshit, if you find yourself in that position. The single best book to date if you want to follow the macro aspects of where we currently stand in this crisis. It’s a pretty easy read and short, as these things go. Not a slog compared to something like Smith’s Econned! or Graeber’s Debt. Pretty much a “need to know” for concerned citizens rather than a treatise.
Recently I’ve been reading a bunch of academic articles on securitization and loan servicing in context of anti-foreclosure work (long story short, the servicers are screwing the INVESTORS, no less – not just the homeowners) so this was like a beach book in comparison.
Bruce S
@Amir Khalid:
Santorum a “colossal dick”? I doubt it. I’d put my money on “giant asshole.”
Rob in CT
Guys, in case you’re not aware, “superdestroyer” is a right-winger who believes:
1) The US is quickly becoming a 1-party (Democrat) state, due to demographic destiny.
2) This is horrible. The brown hordes will vote themselves all of whitey’s money.
In other words, don’t bother.