In Thoughts for the Horrified Paul Krugman takes an unusual step of admitting he is clueless.
Let’s take a look.
So what do we do now? By “we” I mean all those left, center and even right who saw Donald Trump as the worst man ever to run for president and assumed that a strong majority of our fellow citizens would agree.
I’m not talking about rethinking political strategy. There will be a time for that — God knows it’s clear that almost everyone on the center-left, myself included, was clueless about what actually works in persuading voters.
Tuesday’s fallout will last for decades, maybe generations.
I particularly worry about climate change. We were at a crucial point, having just reached a global agreement on emissions and having a clear policy path toward moving America to a much greater reliance on renewable energy. Now it will probably fall apart, and the damage may well be irreversible.
Vacation in the Head
Krugman went on to say “I myself spent a large part of the Day After avoiding the news, doing personal things, basically taking a vacation in my own head.”
After taking a vacation in the head, he came back with the wrong answer.
Caroline Baum commented this way.
Krugman Remains Clueless
The left in general is clueless, but at least one person on the left understands why Hillary lost.
Note: This video is very profane.
Response to Baum
Climate Change
Not only is Krugman clueless about what happened and why in the election, he is also clueless about one of his top priorities: global warming.
Climate change has been taking place in both directions over hundreds of millions of years. We have had numerous ice ages and massive warm-ups lasting tens of thousands or even millions of years.
Now, people suddenly believe the last 100 years are significant. The last 10,000 years may not be significant. And of course the data was manipulated to get the desired result.
Yet, for the sake of argument, let’s assume the theory is correct. History shows that when governments set out to do something, undesired results happen. Affordable health care, affordable housing, and the war on poverty are all prime examples.
The war on drugs turned out to be a war for drugs, and prisons as well.
If there is a problem, the free markets will take care of it. We are already seeing the rise in Uber, solar energy, and electric cars.
The amazing thing about this is the EU protests China’s dumping of solar panels at prices allegedly too cheap. If the EU or US was worried enough they would welcome free solar panels if China offered them.
Uber provides rides on demand. It is an efficient system. Governments everywhere have been fighting Uber. Huge protests and stoppages have occurred in France. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is fighting Uber.
What a bunch of freaking hypocrites!
Al Gore wants to Spend $90 Trillion To Ban Cars From Every Major City In The World.
$90 trillion! What an idiot. How about spending nothing and simply letting the free market compete with driverless, electric powered Uber cars at a cost of $0?!
By the way, the Hill reports Trump Considering Ways to Quickly Exit Paris Climate Agreement.
It will not matter. Whatever the problem, government is not the solution.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
The country needs people like you to steer their ship, Mish.
How could Krugman ever, in my lifetime, see or understand what just happened in this election. I think this is also true for all the people who read him or put his writing in print.
(I was just trying to remember IF I have ever believed or trusted, in any way, anything he has ever written. I can’t.)
Pundits got this election completely wrong, and now we are expected to believe their predictions about the future of the US?
In 2008, experts and pundits were ‘shocked’ by the meltdown, something that many here saw clearly coming for a while.
And these pundits and experts think and believe that they are the smart ones?
“Pundits got this election completely wrong, and now we are expected to believe their predictions about the future of the US?” The best statement summing up all of the so called news this week.
Undesired consequences of government actions? The list is incomplete:
War on Drugs: AKA giving the police excuses to do whateverthehell they want to civilians. The United States learned absolutely NOTHING from Prohibition.
Thanks. Great example. I added this sentence :
The war on drugs turned out to be a war for drugs, and prisons as well.
The War on Drugs is the War on People.
Expect Trump to escalate the war on drugs. Expect Trump to send paramilitary police through residence doors, flash bang grenades , black hoods, laser sights on machine pistols. Expect Giuliani to deliver red meat drug warrior press conferences, and maybe photo-opps with him in leading a drug raid from the turret of a surplus armored personnel carrier, reduxing “casual -drug-users-out-to-be-shot” Darryl Gates.
Or maybe you believe his wall really will stop the horse at the border?
Expect foreign governments to get a full dose of intervention if they defy our prohibition policy.
Again, hope I’m wrong and that Trump’s tough talk about heroin was just hyperbole to win.
Mind-altering drugs are an abomination.
Good script for a Hollywood movie.
And what is YOUR answer the heroin?
Our country has NOT won any war for decades. Why is that?
We have not fought any of these wars with the true intent of winning them. These wars are just managed chaos and crisis to create opportunities.
How can one call it war without killing the enemy ?
Heroin and other society-destroying drugs… the suppliers, dealers, pushers should be executed, period… and that includes the criminal elite and their power in high places of government.
I see that those close to Trump are saying that the most likely person to become Chief of Stall, is Jared Kushner. Put me down for a sigh of relief… Presidencies are often hijacked by a Chief of Staff and cabinet members that isolate the President and steers him into the desires of the deep state policies.
We are emerging from 8 years of economic social engineering. The free market won another one.
aka pending bond market collapse and big fun for the EU and ECB trying to exert more social engineering over natural, basic human behavior. History says they will fail and it should start soon. Brexit and Trump started the snowball roll downhill. Imagine … European debt being repriced to market over a 12 month period. Popcorn time.
Not so fast. Nothing quite like what a committed Eurocrat will do to keep the wheels from falling off. We will be shocked by the actions they take to survive and some might even work or delay for a while.
In all honesty, I was always in the school of the Fed being the wizard of Oz, and that they just followed the market while pretending to set it. In ’08 to ’16, I think they proved me wrong when they just walked in with unlimited bids. I was impressed. Not as impressed as I get when watching a dog lick his balls, but impressed nonetheless.
Agree somewhat. Imagine a high stakes game of hot potato where the loser get the blame for the mess by virtue of the fact they were on the job or in office when the bottom finally fell out. The next 12 months will be a continent wide game of hot potato for the blame of who blew up the Eurozone; the current job holders who dropped the ball or the long linage of previous ilk who filled the basin with sludge. The big challenge will be stalling until current terms of office begin to expire and a few suckers can be recruited to take over the various helms.
“European debt being repriced to market over a 12 month period.”
Don’t scare the children.
I have so many friends who mock my zealot like fervor towards free markets. In return I belittle them for not understanding that there is no other alternative.
Now what truly amazes me are the hardcore socialist/commie dumb*ss mudda da f**k*rs who complain about their completely untrustworthy and corrupt government without seeing the problem that lies therein.
No matter how hard and forceful they try to defeat the free market, eventually, the free market will free itself from those forces. There are all kinds of repercussions from detering the free market, including poverty, misery and wars. Moral of the story: Let the free market take us where it wants to go and let it be our friend to guide us.
Well Spoken!
Wrong. Freedom is the historical rare exception. Free markets are not inevitable, and markets do not, will not and cannot free themselves .
Free markets and freedom contradict human nature, and humans must think there way past tribalism. Jim Crow persisted because segregationists valued separation more than economic prosperity. They were willing to pay for the satisfaction of staying separate from others.
Freedom can be a human value; it is not a force of nature. Man is perfectly capable of crushing free commerce (or any other interaction between men) forever if he chooses to.
disagree somewhat. Political oppression has been universal over time. Markets always pop up and figure out how to best work in the current environment. Yes, excesses can develop when people figure out how to exploit various situations to the detriment of others. Free does not mean ‘anything goes if you can get do it’. Fraud laws exist and so do other limits. These boundaries exist because not having them limits economic expansion tremendously.
“Man is perfectly capable of crushing free commerce (or any other interaction between men) forever if he chooses to.”
Thing is, there is nobody called “Man” who is in a position too make that choice. Instead there are many men. And as long as those of them who choose a more free market path, economically outperform those who choose a less free market one, eventually the ensuing economic outperformance will bleed over into military might. The US from it’s founding is an example. As is the fall of the Soviet Bloc.
More generally, there are no “we” making decisions. No “Mankind”, “Man”, “Humanity”, “Us”, “The West”, “Women”, “The Workers”, etc., etc. Away from the childish fantasies of less than literate progressives, all decisions are made by individuals. Not sleight of hand aggregates. “We” never make decisions. All “we” do is fight and squabble, until we get so tired of it, that all but one of us agree to stop fighting the decision made by someone else. Who is also just an individual. Never an aggregate.
The free market cycle (business cycle) is also predictable, just like climate cycles. Preparing and planning for the inevitable is a much better use of capital and energy than trying to manipulate the markets and people. However, bureaucrats get elected based on selling the myth that they can manipulate everything, including human behavior. The passions of man have never changed, and are quite predictable.
I encourage you to investigate the work Armstrong Economics has done with Socrates. It also predicted Brexit and Trumps rise, along with all the major events over the last 20 years. If we use this revolutionary database and AI model to take a step forward, we may be able to stop repeating the same mistakes that have occured throughout history.
You may not be interested in free markets
But free markets are interested in you
Doesn’t free markets encompass free trade also? But to listen to Trump supporters, they want to pull the USA head back into a turtle shell and go protectionist, thinking that will bring back blue-collar jobs.
wild misrepresentation of Trump’s trade position(s).
he (and his supporters) want BETTER trade deals, not zero trade. there is absolutely nothing wrong with trade deals that promote (rather than destroy) onshore/local/distributist production. maintaining a strong, dynamic manufacturing base is a matter of national defense, too.
financialized corporate strip-mining of jobs & resources (globalization) has moral & ethical limits… Trumpsters (like most peoples around the world) are the embodiment of those limits.
“Free market won another one”
… Bwaaaaaaaahahaha!
Proof of Krugman’s cluelessness: “I particularly worry about climate change”…
Each day his worries start with the sun rising in the east…..”why in the east?” Every single day…..is it a conspiracy????? And the government refuses to do anything about it!!!! It’ll just keep happening, on and on, day after day….it’s MADNESS I tell you!!!!!
I don’t worry about climate change. I’ll be dead before it has any major impact. But I will be sorry to miss the cesspool state of FL getting covered by the ocean waters.
You’re gonna have a long wait, jackass.
Hillary, Stein, Bernie, and the entire Left are equally clueless, which proves they are incapable of objective, independent thought. How is one supposed to communicate with such incoherence?
Mish, you are so right about so many long term trends, and yet you are blind and in denial regarding the reality of climate change. A real pity.
There are 3 big questions:
Has there been a rapid warming of the Earth’s surface over the last 50 years, compared to past rates of change? Look at any long term chart leading up to the present and you will see for yourself the resounding yes. Putting all these graphs to a great conspiracy by hundreds of thousand of scientists and weather people is preposterous and dangerous. Talk to weatherperson. They can verify for you a lot of the data.
Is it caused by human activities? This is fairly basic science regarding the effect of various heat-absorbing gases in the atmosphere, and there is no scientific doubt on this issue. Another yes. This is like the Ozone hole and CFCs. Science wasn’t difficult, and once accepted solutions weren’t hard to find.
What should be done about it? This is a difficult question, and your solution might be a good one though probably not enough in my own opinion. But denying the previous two answers is not the right way of considering solutions.
While I didn’t think about it at the time, (when I was 13 or 14) Winters were cold. It didn’t worry me, I just rugged up. Over the years I have noticed that winters are getting warmer, not so many frosts and more rain, but it hasn’t worried me. I put on a raincoat. I live in a cooler climate so any increase in summer warmth is appreciated while those who live in warmer areas pack up and come to my area in summer. (and I to them in winter.)
I see those who are convinced the world will collapse under the coming heat wave spurred on by academics on good money to advance that theory and then I see Mt Etna explode and do more harm to the environment than all the worlds cars. I see earthquakes do immense damage to societies and stupid wars the kill millions and displace many more and yet I am supposed to put out my wood fire, kill my cows and stop all other “earth unfriendly activities” so Gore and Co can fly the world spewing their rubbish.
sorry, blind Freddy can see the world is getting warmer but in my opinion, the way to tackle bad corporate behavior is to target the polluter not the average guy through taxes that never do a thing.
In the first instance work with serious polluters to bring their pollution under control. If that has no effect make them pay for someone else to do the job. If that raises their costs, too bad, if they raise the prices too much, someone else will produce the goods in a climate friendly manner at an acceptable price or if that is not possible we will either have to pay more or go without and find a substitute.
1. Volcanoes (on average) produce about 1% as much CO² as do human activities.
2. Climate science has reluctantly been forced to accept the idea that a crisis is brewing. Nobody goes into climate science because there is such a killing to be made. On the contrary, the real money is in climate denial, sponsored by companies with billions to spare.
3. A carbon tax would be revenue neutral, displacing the tax burden and making less destructive goods and services preferable. Why not trust the free market? Because when the bill comes due and there is 6 metres of sea level rise, the people who put the CO² in the air will be dead, there will be no way to pay (refreeze billions of cubic kilometers of sea on the Antarctic), and our descendants will be stuck without another earth to buy for the dollars we supposedly saved.
Wrong on most all counts. Nearly identical warming rates prior to 1950, when, per the IPCC, there was not adequet emissions to affect global average temperature. GAT.
Ask weathermen? They are called meterologist, and over 50 percent think CAGW is not a problem.
Yes, so CO2 is a GHG. This does nothing to tell us if there will be catastrophic rates of warming. The IPCC admits that current understanding of cloud formation is piss poor, as well as current understanding of many affects on GAT. (Global Average Temperature, such as solar affects.
So what do we know? We know the IPCC predicted that the troposphere MUST warm about 20 percent faster tben the surface, and the tropical troposphere, about 35 percent faster. Yet the tropsphere is warm88mg MUCH slower then the surface, barely warming at all, a pause lasting from 1998 to the 2015-16 El Nino, and now undergoing rapid cooling, removing the statisticaly INSIGNIFICANT warming due to a large El Nino. Summary; GMW has ocurred at less then 1/2 the predicted rate by the IPCC, and at 1/3rd the rate predicted for the atmosphere as a whole. Observations Trump ( play on words intended) theroy!
Now let’s look at the real theory MISNAMED “climate change.” The theory is CAGW. The C, the G and the W are MIA. Zero, exaxtl ZERO increase in global sea level rise, ( per global tide guages known to be geo stable. ( land neither rising or falling)
Exactly zero global increase in droughts, floods, hurricanes, etc…
The argument pro CAGW fails on BOTH the Prediction of warming vs observations, and completely fails on predictions of harms, vs observations. What do observations show from this natural atmospheric gas necessary for all bio-life on earth. Thanks to additional CO2 every crop on the planet now grows about 17percent more food on the SAME amount of land with NO increase in water required! Wow!
The above is a very brief summary of why tens of thousands of PHD scientist reject CAGW. Very few of the false “consensus” scientists know anything about. amospheric physics. They simply theorize about attribution studies of potential affects should the theorized warming rates actuall happen. ( failed computer models of affects based on failed computer models of theoretical warming) Turtles, all the way down. However their paycheck is based on tax collectors desired results.
Always the same little set of non-facts (models are in fact quite accurate), contradicting the predictions and conclusions that Exxon scientists (!) made in the late seventies. If you are so convinced, do some research and write a paper disproving something. That is THE way to make a name for yourself in science. Simply agreeing with previous studies does not get you any credit. You must come up with new data that extends our understanding or come up with new theories and data that changes our understanding.
My facts are based on national global data and charts, and peer reviewed science. I have zero need for credit, so ???
Hi Oren,
This is one for you: http://notrickszone.com/2016/09/05/distinguishing-between-safe-or-dangerous-warming-is-easy-dangerous-warming-is-red/#sthash.x9i2aind.dpbs
Mann’s hockey stick was discredited for a number of good reasons.
I know that people’s claims on the internet that things were warmer before (they were) and as quickly as now (they were) are just words to many. The post that I linked to shows you temperature reconstructions from 20 peer reviewed papers from many places in the world. If you look at them carefully they tell a story.
Agree. Mish is a numbers guy. Let him show why a guy like Richard Muller of the Berkely Earth project (who was a sceptical physicist) came to conclusions that align with previous research using a different methodology. NOAA and NASA and other institutes publish all their raw data in addition to corrected data. For the trend, the corrections don’t matter, they just straighten out regional anomalies. The corrections take place for very good reasons, which are well documented (and are actively discussed, criticized and revised). Show where the corrected data is erroneous and why the original data was more accurate. Show how this is significant for the trends… Show where the US Air Force was actually cashing in on climate science funding in the fifties when it falsely claimed that water vapor and CO² was blinding its heat seeking missiles when not programmed to use other wavelengths than those in spectra where infrared radiation is purportedly absorbed by these gasses in the upper atmosphere.
Market forces will of course eventually prove that a fossil-fuel fueled civilization is not cost effective, but by then too much capital will have been misallocated and squandered to be able to continue producing human civilization or even human life, because the existing credit facilities are not discounting the costs at the proper rate.
You can’t change people’s minds with science and facts. It has to be emotional and ideological.
“Has there been a rapid warming of the Earth’s surface over the last 50 years, compared to past rates of change?”
No. There have been rapid changes in the geological past. Also there has been a false claim of rapid rise recently. The El Nino peak of 2016 was barely higher than the peak of 1997. There was a rapid run up into the current peak, but it was followed by a rapid drop, just as 1997 was.
Hillary lost the female Voter.
“And it’s all about Climate Change.”
No, it’s not. American Women vote with their pocketbook more than anyone on the Planet…and I mean working class women. Once they saw through the actual RESULTS of 8 years of “The Obamas” they deep sixed Hitlery and voted Trump…and yes they did vote unlike me who was insufficiently enraged on voting day even though I said I would vote Trump. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Having spent quality(and fun) time with women who work though I really think the Democratic Party is going to be out in the Wilderness for a LONG time.
But these girls are just like the Military…”you promise you better deliver” too…so President Trump is off to a really bad start with all these insiders running amok.
When you say “this is what I’m gonna do” you better do it when women are involved.
This is a lesson the Democrats seemingly are never going to get though.
Hillary sure didn’t.
Talk about a crushing defeat.
I can only pray she isn’t more alone than I am….
Uber is a predatory company and pays 0% interest on its loans interest
because it sucks up to Wall street. 0% interest has nothing to do with “free markets” but everything with market rigging by the U.S. government, courtesy Federal Reserve. If interest rates go to “normal” it is bye-bye Uber.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-25/uber-loses-at-least-1-2-billion-in-first-half-of-2016
Having said that: great idea. I use it myself.
Long & summary is no one has a clue with change likely in multiple arenas.
Apparently the West might be dead. I’m always last to find out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/world/europe/germany-merkel-trump-election.html?_r=0
Trump is batting 1.000 so far…The idiocy of the left is on parade.
The elite and their well paid scions are too well educated and focus on vested interest statistics, weighted opinions and influence promulgated by emotion.
Biology defeats logic and maybe we need more metaphors.
Even Einstein dreamt his vague solution before honing it with mathematics – and it is likely that it is the maths that is in question for the allusion of certainty.
O/T Missed this from msm, maybe not reported, France has shut down near half its nuclear reactors (1/2 of its 70% production) for inspection ( for a year to year and half). Side article in Spanish only reported it because France is now importing energy forcing up prices
http://economia.elpais.com/economia/2016/11/12/actualidad/1478977591_728274.html
Google gave no clear articles on this when searched quickly.
G. News only provided this on front page
http://www.ecowatch.com/france-nuclear-power-shut-down-2086414462.html
Ha. Krugman seems to be as clueless about politics as he is about economics.
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
LOL.
I happen to think you (and Trump) are completely wrong about climate change. However, I do appreciate his HONESTY, rather than lying and just running his mouth saying he’ll do something about it as Obama has and Hillary was.
Neoliberals will never allow real action on the issue because they (like you) unfortunately, see endless economic growth as the be all and end of all problems in a resource constrained world.
Human enginuity is endless, and so is productivity improvements, if govt gets out of the way and let’s freedom grow. Remember, there is a difference between pollution and climate change. One we can do something about, the other not so much. There is a reason that the poorest countries are the most polluted.
You are limiting your thoughts by thinking about known, limited resources. Look at thorium-based nuclear energy as just one example. You will never be taken seriously by anyone, except the Left, as long as you believe man can manipulate earth’s climate. We are already seeing signs that the new mini ice age is getting closer, which the Maunder Minimum predicts will start in 15 years. Examples include the amount of ice formation in Antarctica and off the coast of Syberia.
Aliens are the solution! I am hoping they return to Earth as Ancient Aliens keeps saying they will and then they eat Trump and all the politicians in Washington..
Go to youtube and search for “earth greening”. Carbon dioxide is food for plants. This has been well known by agricultural scientists for many years. Satellite pictures show it too.
Extremely good representation of what is happening to America and why Trump won!
Mish,
The video though very profane was simply great. I just ignored the profanity to enjoy the video as it rightly exposes exactly what is wrong. It is a cabal at work among:
1. Intellectuals, who think too much of themselves, who feel that their education makes them superior, that common man because he is less-educated does not have a right to think or more likely he cannot think or if he thinks, he is always wrong and that the others have to follow their thinking. If you don’t you are not right. Actually being educated should make you humble because you will then be able to understand how little you know and how often you can be wrong.
2. Politicians, who think that they can fool all the people all the time. Imagine our plight if we cannot boot these guys out every few years, even though booting the existing one out is a better deal. They cozy upto the very people who use the existing system to eviscerate common man, while pretending to act for the benefit of the common man (look no further than Obama’s ‘Change we can believe in’ – TARP, bailouts, ZIRP, slap on the wrist for companies and individuals). The right word for such guys are rascals.
3. Bureaucrats and Regulators: The very guys who are supposed to protect the common man cozies up with the politicians and help them in the job of screwing millions and allowing companies and well connected lot to get away with murder (Corzine, Hillary – to name a few). Again it is done for the benefit of common man – remember (ZIRP is good for savers, prudent people, retirees, if you do not know)! Moreover there is no need for accountability (Fed-If we had not done this Americans will be begging on the streets) – whether it will work, what time frame, if it does not work what should be done and who is responsible. The right word for these guys is again rascals.
4. Media: These guys are supposed to show it as it provides check on misdemeanors. Instead these guys show us what they want us to see and expect us to believe it too. Have you ever heard what are the problems of ZIRP on the media, it is always Fed is not going to raise rates, so stock market has risen 500 points. Who the f**k cares? Any questions on is it good for people, what are the repercussions, what are its unintended consequences – ZILCH. Again the right word for these guys is rascals.
Now add a few billionaires who have successfully milked this system to the above mix and you have a full set of rascals who will keep telling us what we should do, how we should vote, what is good for the country, it is their way or no way, why they only know etc.
Now you can easily understand why people are sick and tired and have shown it in the only way they can without resorting to violence.
It is about time.
Great summary.
I’m just glad they put subtitles in American so that those of us who don’t speak British would be able to watch.
Do you know what I hate the most. People who are so educated that they speak in acronyms that are unreadable to the average person that they turn off.
(plain Language) if you can’t talk normal English, shut your trap.
“even though booting the existing one out is a better deal” above should read as “even though booting the existing one out does not necessarily get you a better deal.”
Mish: Being able to edit in say 5-10 min will be helpful!
Free market forces don’t work in health care because there is no free market. Bumrungrad hospital in Thailand can’t open up a satellite hospital in Kansas, and staff it with inexpensive Thai trained doctors. Uber can’t set up a network of inexpensive Uber trained medics who come to your house to treat you. Most importantly, people can’t go the do it yourself route, and send away to Amazon for some self prescribed antibiotics or Lipitor.
Monopolies have been granted, which prevent any possibility of free market solutions in the sector. Bankers then print super inflation in the labor intensive sector, which millions of people can’t afford. The poor just don’t have the option to prescribe their own Lipitor to treat themselves as best they can, like they can change their own air filters on their 20 year old cars.. They can’t go to a Thai medic for budget treatment. If the poor can’t afford to shell out megabucks, they have no alternatives.
The only way to get a true free market in medicine is to open up the field to anyone, including do it yourselfers. Let the free market figure out who offers the best care for the best price. Some people can only afford to buy a used subcompact car, and drive themselves. Others can afford the chauffeured limousine that our health care sector is now.
Well it’s true that there is no party to medical transactions that benefits from cheaper solutions. However, even with competetive pricing, it is still very helpful to have drugs where the ingredients are labelled and where you do not yourself need to test every possibility for possible long term risks, or where doctors have no credentials you can trust. Enforcing existing law would go a long way: public posting of pricing [competition] and charging everyone the same price.
If Trump and the USA cannot do something about the absurd medical rip-off, there is no way out of a fiscal dead end.
An example – antibiotics – there has to be regulation else we have vigilant resistive strains emerge even more quickly.
ADMETOX -absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicology need to be documented for drugs (and indeed household chemicals), else very real damage can occur.
It does need regulatory intervention. The free market doesn’t work where the outcome can be terminal health damage or environmental disaster. An adult is needed in those sandboxes.
We need regulation far less than we need transparency and accountability. If we spent less effort trying to prevent bad things and more holding those who do bad things accountable, we would have a far more efficient system of EVERYTHING. We have social networks now that create massive transparency. All we need are clear concise rules and quick and just adjudication.
We have bought into this notion of protection rather than accountability…..for our own choices and those of others.
There is a free market sector in healthcare- supplements. You can buy pills off the shelf that range from useful (vitamins) to useless (homeopathy) to toxic (any number of poisonous ingredients- see recent news reports).
Should we extend these lack of standards to the rest of healthcare?
Milton Friedman had it right….”put the government in charge of managing the Sahara Desert and in 5 years we’d run out of sand”. Spot on.
Bullshit. Look at the military. Look at the IRS. Want to see chaos? Look at third world countries where corruption prevents them from getting the infrastructure up to the level needed to run businesses competitively (they already have the cheap wages). Government certainly is not the solution for many aspects of life, but complex societies have never functioned without. There is good governance and bad; part of the challenge is limiting government to the types of things where it can be functional. Don’t send the army to build schools. Don’t send the police to enforce morality. Don’t expect cooperation and organization to arise from corruption and chaos.
Private enterprise would do a better job than government at most organizations, as long as the unions didn’t become involved. I’m a working small businessman [farmer/rancher] with over 50 years experience in my field and I would much rather deal with people who can be fired for incompetence or laziness than government employees. And I do know about dealing with the real bullshit, not the academic bs.
The assault on Trump has begun from all the far left leaning bloggers. They do not want to even give the man a chance and he is a condemned man already because he and his vice president elect do not conform to their standards. Unite the country they will cry until the next election.
Krugman is just like most other left leaning intellectuals, he thought Hillary had this in the bag. How dare people vote for Trump!!! Stupid rednecks and white people. Listen to their rhetoric! They forgot women, latino’s, black’s are working class people as well and they too voted for Trump or stayed home as Hillary was damaged goods.
My young ladies that worked at my bakery saw right through the Dem’s plan and were pissed that Bernie got railroaded and bought out to shut up by the DNC. They would have voted for Bernie and time after time Bernie won the popular vote according to the exit polls only to have Hillary win. The DNC rigged the DNC election for their anointed one and thought that women like the blacks would make this a historical occasion and vote for Hillary. The DNC is a meritocracy of the intelligencia trying to tell the rest of the country how to live because they think they are smarter then everyone else. The electoral college works keeping the large metropolitan coastal areas from running this country. I am dumbfounded at how smart our founders really were.
I was in a conversation with some friends of mine in Oregon and basically giving them crap for wanting to leave the USA. I got slammed as Greg pointed out 43 counties voted for Trump but the coastal regions like Portland has a larger population then the rest of the state.
the so-called smart people bought the media and oversampled pools to make Hillary look good and they called the rest of the country stupid. Maybe we do not like being herded after all.
When it comes to government latching on to science and bad things happen. The biggest example in history was The war on Fat and cholesterol that led to the Food Pyramid and Transfats. Heart disease soared as did obesity and diabetes.
The science turned out to be wrong in the end but bureaucracy takes forever to turn around and millions will die (have died) as a result.
Will Trump put his debt restructuring experience to use? The debt can NEVER be paid off. Only austerity can result from trying, which continues the payment of interest to bankster donors. If Trump is truly not in the pocket of banksters, he would restructure the debt, including haircuts and swaps, and unleash the capital sitting on the balance sheets of municipalities across this country. Investigate CAFR’s. Do you realize govt is the biggest stock holder, not to mention the largest landlord. Why would we want the most inefficient and corrupt enterprise owning anything?
On AGW, there is a study which showed that it would be much cheaper and cost effective to adapt to the changes rather than to try to prevent them.
Assumes you are fully aware of what those changes will be. What if the areas that produce most of the food are no longer able to, or at least not at a high enough quantity? And other areas that can now produce don’t have adequate infrastructure?
Adapting may mean purposefully killing off significant numbers of our fellow humans and taking their land.
I think trump will be like my brother in law. He went to a government blue collar job and quit after two weeks. He said he could not handle the frustration of all the delays. Trump will experience the same delays as he tries to accomplish anything at all. Look for him to go Obama route and use the pen and phone. Bush set a precedence for its use, Obama expanded it and trump will take it to new heights.
Just remember that humans are a cold weather species having evolved over a receding ice age in the last 200,000 years. Talking about climate change over the last 10 million years has little relevance to our evolution. When the warming comes we will literally be toast.
“Just remember that humans are a cold weather species”
Humans have no fur. Humans are actually an equatorial species.
Only by artificial means can humans live outside the equatorial zone.
My suggestions to Paul Krugman; Declare your sexual orientation. To progressives that appears to be important and flexible depending on their feelings. You appear to dress like a male of our species. I understand that by declaring this that I am using hetero-normative labeling, and in so doing am at risk for damaging your feelings as well as those of others co-habitating in the broader biosphere. Feel free (ESPECIALLY if triggered) to seek a safe space and regard this next series of suggestions as a salve (or salt, whatever shape your perceptions are assuming at this moment) for any injury that my first statement may have caused.
IF you declare yourself as a MAN, THEN I suggest that:
1. Your grow a pair (most men know what that means – if unfamiliar, the Urban Dictionary online may help you).
2. Feel the influence of ‘the pair’ and stop acting like a petulant child.
Donald Trump did and said what he thought that he had to to win this election. He won. He hasn’t enacted any policy or passed any legislation yet has he? I remember a younger Barack Obama running for president, the junior Senator from the corrupt state of Illinois, who never held a private sector job, never had proposed any meaningful legislation prior to his taking the White House, who counted as ‘a father to me’ the contemptible Jeremiah Wright who openly shouted “GOD DAMN AMERICA” during his church services, and whose political role models included Saul Alinsky. Whose eligibility to run as a ‘natural born citizen’ was first questioned by Hilary Clinton, and who stepped into office with a Democratic Party lock on both the Senate and the House of representatives, and despite that could not pass a single budget in SIX YEARS.
Now some may say that some of these features existed because the Republican Party lacked the ability to feel the influence of their own ‘pairs’ (individual and collective), which may have led to Mr. Trump taking the party nomination. I happen to agree with that point of view. By the way, how has the national debt changed over the last 8 yrs? I seem to recall a junior senator in 2008 calling the ballooning government debt ‘irresponsible and unpatriotic’. How did he address that? If memory serves, the problem is remarkably worse – under his leadership – and the leadership of the political status quo.
Remember all the protests and rioting that occurred after President Obama’s 2 elections? Yeah. Neither do I. And guess what? The world did not end then, and neither will it now.
3. Act on the surge that the pair provides. Go to the gym. Stop watching television, especially the news, nowadays it is little more than agenda driven entertainment; NEWS-ade. Do your job to the best of your ability, and take pride in your work, and responsibility for your actions. Learn to improve yourself, and when you do, share with others that may need assistance. Build up your communities starting with you.
4. Once you declare yourself as a man, there is no going back. We all have bad days, but stating that you are going to be Caitlyn today is just a dodge. Make a choice and stick to it. That’s part of being a man.
By the way, speaking of men, has anyone seen our ‘leader’ lately? You know, taking the podium to re-establish calm in the face of this ‘impending disaster’? The only disaster I see right now are urban progressives destroying their own neighborhoods and credibility. I guess being a progressive means not having to take responsibility for your actions, as reinforced by our current batch of electeds. Speaking of which, looks like our President has been triggered, and is in his safe space. (reference item # 3 above)
It is very simple. Krugman is not an economist. He once was but is now a political talking head with a large following that gains him MONEY.
With a following that is largely upset by Trump’s victory, he is talking to his followers and giving them what he thinks they want to hear.
He needs to hold onto his followers or he will suffer a large loss of income.
Politics and Economics are joined at the hip and cannot be separated. Krugman choose his herd and wants to be out front to pick up the cash. So it is normal for him to lean more to the political side rather than the economic side.
“The war on drugs turned out to be a war for drugs…”
The war on terrorism has turned into the war for terrorism, as well.
“History shows that when governments set out to do something, undesired results happen. Affordable health care, affordable housing, and the war on poverty are all prime examples.”
Newton’s law. For each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Even after their humiliating loss, Krugman, and the rest of the establishment, including the mainstream media, have not learned a thing, which should not be a surprise for a bunch of insane people that kept repeating the mistakes of the past. They continue to parrot the same propaganda, which is fine with me, as it only makes their hole deeper. However, make no mistake, these sociopaths will never give up, which is why anyone that broke the law needs to be locked up, including the “queen of corruption”.
Jonathan Pie is brilliant. The two of us will probably never agree on anything from a political point of view, but this rampant speech just nailed it to the very point.
Haven’t seen anything even remotely comparable in the German or Austrian mainstream media.
As for climate change… if you want an expert opinion, here is info my [NASA scientist] brother sent me via email. {He is a member of a Houston Climate Study Group.]
” The truth lies between those who say there is no global warming caused by humans and those who say the Earth and mankind face rapid and certain catastrophe. My view is that we cannot ignore future warming, but response should be measured, phased, and carefully thought out.
Some points:
1) CO2 produced by fossil fuel burning does cause warming, as does land use practices, cement making, and other ways humans alter the surface.
2) The oceans have been absorbing half of CO2 emitted. Via limestone deposition, they are the ultimate end of dissolved CO2. They also absorb heat. These effects are poorly quantified.
3) By itself, CO2 produces modest warming, about one deg centigrade (1.8 Fahrenheit) for a doubling of atmospheric CO2.
4) The greater effects are produced by feedbacks of the warming. There are many; some warm, some cool. For example, warming evaporates more water into the atmosphere, and that water is a greater greenhouse gas than CO2. But more atmos. water produces more clouds, which reflect sunlight back to space and cool Earth.
5) Many of these feedbacks are poorly understood and some probably not known.
6) Long-term variations in the Sun are generally ignored, as are other natural factors (e.g. changes in ocean currents or cloud cover).
7) The “doom predictors” use computer models of future warming. These model predictions are all over the map, but in past have predicted more warming than occurred. Models range from about 2 to about 8 deg-C total warming for each CO2 doubling. The truth is likely between 2 and 3. But politicians and Greens adopt numbers of 5 to 8, which are unlikely.
8) Renewable energy (solar and wind) are intermittent, and often not predictable (Sun behind cloud; wind stops blowing). Storing renewable energy is very difficult and that is not likely to change soon. (Today’s options are pumped hydro or huge battery groups.) That means fossil fuel plants have to be kept operating in reserve. So more power plants are needed than before.
9) Coal plants cannot be started up quickly, as needed for backups. That leaves natural gas. From fracking the US has a growing NG supply, but not the rest of the world. It requires enormous funding to retire all coal plants, build new NG plants, and new renewable facilities.
10) Further new transmission lines and grid lines to distribute are needed. And when the fraction of renewable into a grid exceeds about 20%, new problems and costs arise. We are talking $$trillions here. It must be a slow phased process.
11) Nuclear energy, which is NOT intermittent and produces no CO2 is being ignored or phased out around the world.
I could go on and on. But you get the picture. Replacing fossil fuel energy is a very difficult, expensive, and disrupting process. It will probably require many decades. And electrical power is only part of fossil fuel CO2 production. There is transportation (oil) and business and home heating (coal, oil and gas). Together these are even bigger than electrical power. ”
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Hi Mish,
Climate change does matter! Humanity dumped more than 3 trillion tons of CO2 in the last 250 year after the rise of the Industrial revolution. And temperatures are rising, setting records year after year, month after month. At least at the other side of the Atlantic, I mean in Northwestern Europe. Burning of coal, natural gas, oil to sustain modern way of living. Next generations will have to take the burden of our wrong management of the Earth.
Indeed, during the interglacials, the warmer periods between the Ice Ages, temperatures did rise due to melting of land and sea ice, glaciers and permafrost areas, so GRADUALLY releasing CO2. Read GRADUALLY during periods of ten thousands of years. Modern societies do release the same amount of CO2 in just 250 years. That’s a 200 times faster! Resilience of Mother Nature to absorb CO2 is enormous, but it can not deal with this attack of humanity. So I think there you go wrong in your statement.
I do read your comments on Mishtalk with pleasure and interest, I do agree most time. But in Europa we take another vision on climate change. By building more wind parks in the North Sea, solar parks and energy saving at home. And it will mean we need a more sober way of living. That helps for us and our kids.
Regards,
Michiel Takens, The Netherlands.
What kids ?
White Europeans are self-sacrificing to save their European nations and the planet to be inherited by third worlders who won’t give a damn about you, your green childless zero population nonsense or the planet.