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Krugman attempts to rewrite history?


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2013 Jan 18, 2:50am   2,751 views  13 comments

by IDDQD   ➕follow (0)   💰tip   ignore  

In today's blog post he wrote: "Remember, Rush and others furiously denied that there was a housing bubble — that was all made up by the liberal media.".

Did any mainstream media really report on housing bubble before it popped? All I remember is fringe lunatics like Patrick and Dr.Housing Bubble on obscure blogs in dusty corners of the interwebs. Every "serious" outlet, liberal or not, was cheering "new normal". Is my memory failing or subj?

#housing

Comments 1 - 13 of 13        Search these comments

1   Ceffer   2013 Jan 18, 2:57am  

This is called retro active prophecy, much loved by economists attempting to shore up their failed projections.

Nobody remembers what anybody said, so you can claim to have predicted the future on many occasions to reel in suckers to your current cause/exploitation/sales pitch.

Perfect hindsight turned into perfect bullshit.

2   Bonus Gift   2013 Jan 18, 3:04am  

I remember what he wrote: “To fight this recession the Fed needs…soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. [So] Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the NASDAQ bubble.”
Paul Krugman, August 2, 2002 (New York Times)

3   david1   2013 Jan 18, 3:08am  

Umm..Krugman provided a link in the blog post today that showed Limbaugh saying precisely what Krugman claimed he said in 2006.

Now Limbaugh wouldn't have been able to claim the bubble was made up by the liberal media unless someone was actually claiming it, right?

I guess Limbaugh could have taken the reporting done on obscure blogs like Patrick and HousingPanic and attributed that to the liberal media...the fact is he provides a link showing Limbaugh clearly in the "Bubble-denier" camp.

This is what Krugman is claiming - he is claiming that the guy who is questioning his stance on the deficit and debt ceiling is the same guy who claimed there was no housing bubble.

4   uomo_senza_nome   2013 Jan 18, 3:17am  

Krugman did spot the speculative bubble in 2005.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/27/opinion/27krugman.html

And certainly he does understand bubbles.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/things-that-arent-bubbles/

The point, whether prices are involved or not, is that the expectations of individuals add up to an aggregate impossibility.
Bubbles are in fact, natural ponzi schemes.

The biggest weakness that I see in Krugman is he ignores banks in debt and leverage.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/minksy-and-methodology-wonkish/

Now, I’m all for including the banking sector in stories where it’s relevant; but why is it so crucial to a story about debt and leverage?

LOL. Seriously, an accomplished economist like Krugman wants to ignore banks when we talk about debt and leverage?

The cynical part of me thinks that economics as a profession is corrupted by the financiers. Finance is rent seeking by seignorage.

5   uomo_senza_nome   2013 Jan 18, 3:19am  

david1,

do you know of any economic model that considers distribution of rents?

do you think that financiers funding economics departments could have anything to do with accomplished, smart economists like Krugman to ignore the problem of rents?

http://azizonomics.com/2013/01/16/of-wages-and-robots/

6   david1   2013 Jan 18, 3:37am  

uomo_senza_nome says

do you know of any economic model that considers distribution of rents?

Personally, I believe Krugman addresses rents without calling it such, in his calls for highly progressive tax rates and elimination of lower tax rates on capital. He doesn't want to be labled a Communist after all so he avoids any call for limiting private ownership of resources.

I certainly think the source of their funding is not only a plausible, but likely, reason for unilateral silense among economists.

7   uomo_senza_nome   2013 Jan 18, 3:42am  

david1 says

his calls for highly progressive tax rates and elimination of lower tax rates on capital.

That barely addresses the root causes for the malaise today, which is financialization of the economy, credibility trap, regulatory capture and the complete lack of systemic reform.

Simon Johnson seems to have lost hope on the left that he's calling for sensible reform from the right.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/the-legacy-of-timothy-geithner/?ref=business

8   david1   2013 Jan 18, 4:02am  

uomo_senza_nome says

which is financialization of the economy, credibility trap, regulatory capture
and the complete lack of systemic reform.

Right. Though if he, or any mainstream economist comes out wsupporting that, he will not only lose any funding he has from the financial industry, but will also be labeled a Communist.

Baby steps, I think. Krugman has a bit of the ear of some powerful guys making policy decisions. Change back to the left will only happen incrementally, as the shift to the right did. Anything drastic - and he is labeled a Communist - and is dead to left-leaning policy makers.

9   leo707   2013 Jan 18, 6:11am  

IDDQD says

That's the problem: I don't remember any "Democrat-controlled liberal media" reporting on housing bubble. And I remember people saying: "I will believe in housing bubble when I see report about it on CNN". Maybe my memory is failing indeed.

Yeah, I don't remember it either, but Rush is not known for accurately reporting what the "liberal" media is actually reporting. Krugman is however accurate in quoting Rush.

http://bighousingbubble.blogspot.com/2006/04/limbaugh-says-media-made-up-housing.html

10   nope   2013 Jan 18, 6:16am  

Who gives a shot what rush Limbaugh has ever said? You don't need to be a Nobel prize winning economist to know when he's saying something that's bullshit: its ALL bullshit.

11   leo707   2013 Jan 18, 6:17am  

Kevin says

Who gives a shot what rush Limbaugh has ever said?

Unfortunately about 20 million Americans.

12   lostand confused   2013 Jan 18, 6:24am  

Limbaugh is nothing but a shock jock and I doubt if he is really a conservative. He has a good schtick going-no different than any other media personality.

Now what I found funny during the last election was Clinton making ads for Obama decrying deregulation, offshoring etc. etc. Dude-you signed NAFTA and repealed Glass-Steagall act-come on!!

But yes , politicians are even lower than used car salesman. They will tell you what you want to hear-it is just a job with a ton of benefits and income to them. I think if all of us started to treat these critters as the public servants that they are-we would be much better off. If you hired a servant/employee and if all he/she did was come and point fingers at others-would you be fighting for him or firing him and yelling at him?

13   MsBennet   2013 Jan 18, 6:25am  

Rush isn't expected to know what a bubble is. He's not an economist! Anyway Rush was addicted to Oxy-Contin about that time, so he was probably having RE euphoria.

I remember years ago Krugman was on KGO radio in SFBA and he said he getting out of the stock market. This was before the period the stock market went up so massively.

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