Geithner or Krugman? which one do you agree with? why7

[Ken Burch]

[FrenchieCat]

1. nobody's got all of the answers.....

No one is all right, and no one is all wrong.
There are various approaches that have been considered.
and as there are unknowns in all scenarios,
some being political, some being economic,
some being international in repercution...
None all good or all bad as well,
If one approach doesn't work, we move to another....like FDR did.

So I agree with Barack Obama for now.
He's made his decision as to what his approach will be for the time being,
and since I voted for him, and I trust him,
and because he clearly stated that the buck stops with him,
my bucks are in support of him.

[Ken Burch]

2. I wasn't actually talking about President Obama

I was talking about Geithner and Krugman.

And I wasn't attacking President Obama.

[FrenchieCat]

3. Where do I say you are attacking anyone?

:shrug:

However, if you are asking about the approach to the current financial situation,
then my post makes more sense then yours does.
Because Why would anyone just simply "agree"?
Are the choices you have given supposed to always be right or something?

[Ken Burch]

4. The point of this thread was simply to ask, between the views of Geithner and Krugman

which view would people here be more likely to take.

(For the record, I'm still trying to make up my OWN mind on that one).

And I did leave "other" as an option.

Perhaps you weren't attacking here, but you do have this tendency to react to any thread in which it is even theoretically possible that something critical might be posted by somebody about the administration as a threat.

You've got to learn to trust people here, Frenchie.

Nobody here is trying to hurt President Obama. Even the critics(and I'm not always a critic, as I agree with a lot that the man has done)are simply trying to make a case for ideas they think would be better.

It's only the Right that's the enemy. It isn't anybody here.

[FrenchieCat]

7. I don't know why you keep defending, as though I am being offensive....

Really quite strange of you! :shrug:

[JTFrog]

5. whynot7?

Just playing devil's advocate here...

:shrug:

[Ken Burch]

6. OK...I added two more options to the poll.

Happy now?

[JTFrog]

20. You were the one who asked

why7

[Ken Burch]

37. Oh, damn. I didn't see the typo until just now. Sorry,

Still "Why 7?" could become a great coded question that scholars ponder for centuries if I play the cards right.

[Undercurrent]

8. .

It's difficult to compare the possible with the pragmatic. In theory anything is possible, but not everything is doable.

For example, possible might be, "A utopian world." While the pragmatic is more along the lines, "The world will always have problems -- murder, greed, pain etc -- and we need to work to minimize these things and care for the suffering."

Krugman is a smart guy, but that doesn't mean he is always right, nor is he in charge of anything, having rejected the possibility of working in the government, or running for office. Being on the outside, Krugman has the kind of luxury afford armchair generals who critique the battle, but don't have to live in the foxhole.

Geithner is also smart, but is actually in the trenches trying to clean up this rotten mess. I don't think his intentions are evil, or that he is a counter agent working for the banks. I think he's trying to do the right thing, and what is doable in a very hostel political landscape of Repub bomb throwers, and snipers.

[MarjorieG]

9. Agree. Problems worse than can admit, now. We are still a gov't needing stimulus/budget to pass.

We need to move forward, because the trillions and quadrillions are just paralyzing without finesse of the numbers. Used to call it creative accounting. That's not evil, just maybe necessary, especially in this political climate. Do we propose stopping until balance sheet better, get blamed for inaction and voted out.

Just wish the bashing of Geithner as tool of Wall Street would stop, and give the benefit to incremental managing until stress tests, etc., and we know more.

[eridani]

21. Fuck that. What Krugman is proposing was done in the 30s and the 80s

If you say it isn't "doable" you are just proposing that the public accept being totally screwed by an untouchable class of overlords.

[MarjorieG]

29. More difficult/global now than 30s and 80s, requiring more time, care, facts known.

I think we'll be seeing definite plans to close/restructure soon.

[TahitiNut]

10. One of the things a facilitator (like a community organizer) learns about ....

... MTTP (managing tasks through people) ((that's a buzz phrase)) is that the chances of making the "perfect solution" work with a cadre that's aligned against it is impossible. While the 'idealizers' (I'm an idealist, not an idealizer) blissfully ignore the players and resources with which any 'leader' must work, Obama must find the 'best' that's not the 'perfect' when the wholesale replacement of HUNDREDS of key players is just not possible. Consensus is essential ... even in the military (the most autocratic of organizations). Finding, forming, and building a consensus is probably the greater part of Obama's job. It might even be regarded as 'democratic.'

While I might agree (I'm no economist!) that Krugman has a better theoretical (academic) strategy, I seriously question whether Krugman can assess the possibility of accomplishing that strategy with even the majority of key players available -- just replacing SOME of them.

Furthermore, any strategy adopted must be enabled by the existing authority of the government and Fed ... without a wholesale adoption of alternative laws, regulations, and structures. All the talk about Sweden and Japan ignores any material differences in their legal systems and government authority.

We just don't hear anything substantive about these considerations ... having it all distilled down to the Jerry Springer audience level for moron consumption.

[LooseWilly]

11. Wow, a point I hadn't really thought of.

Thank you. It's considerations like these, which I can't help but suspect I haven't thought of... that I have a hard time deciding myself on the subject.
Nationalization would sure feel viscerally satisfying though... but I suspect that, from the outsider point of view, the differences would be too esoteric for most of us to see any real difference.

[Ken Burch]

15. We just had a presidential transition.

Isn't that PRECISELY the time when you COULD have "the wholesale replacement of HUNDREDS of key players"?

Shouldn't this be time when we push the hardest for the greatest changes.

There won't be any real changes after the first year or two. Past then, it'll just be the status quo being locked in place again. No president does anything important in the second half of his FIRST term, let alone his second. That's why, in American politics, gradualism is not an option. Telling people to wait is the same as telling them to give up.

[Adelante]

22. Thanks, good points nt

[PBS Poll-435]

12. Geithner

Because, specifically, he is not Krugman.

[joshcryer]

14. That's such an excellent reason to agree with someone.

...

[PBS Poll-435]

30. Stick with the devil you know

You know?

[HughMoran]

13. Fluffy the Dancing Starfish

...can predict the future as good as any of them, just like a monkey can pick stocks as good as any mutual fund manager.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

16. J. K. Galbraith's

"The Great Crash of 1929" is proving to be so interesting to me in terms of comparing what went on then and what's going on now. We're making so many of the same mistakes and then some. Truly recommend the book: $14 paperback from BuzzFlash. Also want to have a talk with my octogenerian parents to see what they remember from 1930, 1931 when they were pre-teens.

[democracy1st]

19. I'll check it out thanks

[SanchoPanza]

17. No so much Krugman as a collection of "critics".

Most of whom have been focusing on the pricing pitfalls of the PPIP, as well as insisting that this is fundamentally a crisis of insolvency. Treasury and Fed, as well as the banking industry, insist this is a liquidity crisis. Everyone knows why the banks are taking this view, since if they acknowledged that their companies are largely insolvent it would create a feeding frenzy among their creditors. Why Geithner, Summers, and Bernanke believe this is a mystery for the ages.

While I agree with all that, far more concerning to me is the likelihood that the program, as laid out, will result in large-scale fraud among the private participants and a massive transfer of liabilities from the financial sector to the Federal Reserve and Treasury. The possibilities for gaming the system are simply immense.

Jeffrey Sach's recent article at Huffington Post captures my concern almost perfectly: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/the-geithner-summers-plan_b_183499.html

[EFerrari]

18. I'd trust Krugman before the beltway boys or Wall Street

and Geithner is now both of those.

[TayTay]

23. Other: I try not to personalize economic theories

and pretend that complex ideas are actually chances to pick "either/or" in some incredibly stupid and vapid contest.

Both have interesting ideas based on the fact that they both want to see economic conditions improve. They are not involved in some titanic death match of doom. That is an easy out that allows people to create false villains and avoid thinking about the subjects at hand.

[AtomicKitten]

24. DU's 2-centsworth doesn't change the paradigm.

I'm not thrilled with Obama using Clinton retreads, but it is what it is.

The discussion on economic matters at DU has devolved into partisan bickering, a primary proxy war redux, a cartoon.

[Mass]

25. I like when people think that complex questions are a binary state.

This is not about individuals, even though on DU, policy issues have started to look like American Idol. It is about how you will get out of this crisis, and there are an infinite variations on what can be done. None is perfect. All have downsides and upsides. Define your priorities and it will help you figure out what you want to happen.

[mkultra]

26. Krugmans already been proven wrong and a couple of high stake issues

Especially the toxic debt buyup. His claim that no one would buy the debt in the private market has been dashed by Ross.

[Occam Bandage]

27. It's pathetic but predictable

how DU invariably turns a discussion on issues into a matter of self-identification with personalities.

[Reterr]

41. And yet you never have a problem with the 50+ threads of Obama's "chill the fuck out" pic

In response to just about anything. It is the dumbest fucking response I have ever seen.
What the hell is that if not turning a discussion of issues into a personality thing? Yet we are never supposed to notice that *some* Obama supporters seem to not be interested in anything but Michelle's dresses, Obama's coolness etc.


Occam Bandage, I sometimes agree with you and sometimes I don't. But, the one thing I will give you is that you don't seem like an intellectually dishonest person.
If you are fair, you would admit a lot of the stupid (or at least inane) threads on DU are from some die hard Obama supporters who call anyone who disagrees with Obama a Freeper or seriously overuses that moronic "Chill the fuck out I got this" pic.

Look, I get that Obama's popularity has significance since it plays into future electability etc. I like the guy too and I do so want him to succeed. But, he really should not make the mistake of believing too much in the infallibility of his own charm and popularity and hope that even in these hard times that will pull him through.

At the end of the day tired, broke people are not going to stay with him in enough numbers to win an election if he makes mistakes on the economy, alienates the left-wing of his base (because they do exist) etc. That is the reality some "pragmatists" of this board don't seem to get. He will not get as much rope as Bush had merely because times are harder. That is the reality like it or not.


I am not sure why it generally seems assumed that those squarely on the side of the most centrist positions of the Democratic Party (whether it is because "The public" is so centrist-as though that were set in stone; or because you are generally centrist in your views) are smarter and more intelligent/have more educated opinions or whatever on this board. I see stupid things coming out in somewhat equal numbers from both sides of any issue.

[bdamomma]

28. Krugman will be on Rachel's show tonite.

[Phx_Dem]

31. Because I don't think nationalizing banks should be the first option,

and Krugman is too socialistic or far to the left for me. I think that would be huge mistake, as a first option, and one that the Dems would probably never recover from. Krugman may know about economics, but there is almost always more than one way to do something and he doesn't know squat about getting a bill through Congress.

Also, I think Geithner's a extremely intelligent man who know's what he's doing. Double ditto for President Obama. Obama doesn't want to nationalize banks if he doesn't have to, and for Krugman to lay it all on Geithner as if it's all up to him, is ridiculous. I think it's more along the lines of Geithner and/or Summers come up with a plan and Obama decides whether he wants to go with it or send them back to the drawing board.

When referring to Krugman's Nobel Prize, which is very impressive by any measure, people should remember that he won it for his theories on World Trade, not recessionary economics or banking. No matter how you slice it, it's an incredible achievement, but I don't see how it makes him more knowledgeable about banking than other well-respected economists, many of whom agree with Geithner.

[Uzybone]

32. Fluffy the Dancing Starfish

he knows more about the economy than 99% of the people on teh internets.

[GoCubsGo]

33. Neither. Both.

The truth is always somewhere in the middle. I'm sure they are both right on some issues, and wrong on others.

[rucky]

34. That's like deciding whether to bet on red or black at a roulette table. n/t

[Ken Burch]

39. That's the 21st Century American economy for you.

n/t.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

35. I don't even know that they disagree. Geithner doesn't have a free hand.

Geithner may think Krugman is right, yet have been informed that nationalizing the key money-center banks is not an option.

Who knows?

It is an error to assume that anyone in a government position just says whatever they think about things.

For instance, Larry Summers did a PR tour for the stimulus bill taking about how it was just right. Then, as soon as it passed, he went on a tour of hair-raising speeches identifying demand as the most pressing concern... precisely the point many were making in saying the stimulus was insufficient.

Did Larry Summers really think the stimulus was just right? Doubtful. But it was better that it pass than not pass, so of course he promoted passage.

I'm cool with the idea that government officials are not always un-filtered and candid. Comes with the job.

[tledford]

36. Krugman -- we actually need to spend MORE to stimulate the economy. eom

[high density]

38. Geithner, for the most part

There's no downside to at least trying his plans. Worst case scenario is that we have to do what Krugman has been advocating anyway (mass receivership.)

[TankLV]

40. Krugman - he's got all the FACTS and a PROVEN TRACK RECORD on his side...

I'd trust this NOBEL LAUREATE over a hack who probably helped cause this mess any day...

[Dawgs]

42. Geitner, because he's actually responsible for his actions.

Krugman is trying to sell his product.

[blindpig]

43. Other.

Karl Marx.