Paul Krugman: Why I Support Hillary's Vision for Health Care - Not Bernie's | Alternet

Paul Krugman: Why I Support Hillary's Vision for Health Care - Not Bernie's | Alternet:



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Krugman admits that Obamacare is far from perfect, an awkward, imperfect solution that does not work for everyone. But he thinks it would be a mistake for Democrats to expend political capital refighting the battle that gave them their biggest victory in decades. Here's how he lays out his case:

If we could start from scratch, many, perhaps most, health economists would recommend single-payer, a Medicare-type program covering everyone. But single-payer wasn’t a politically feasible goal in America, for three big reasons that aren’t going away.

rise of the machines paul krugman

Paul Krugman: That terrible trillion - San Jose Mercury News

Paul Krugman: That terrible trillion - San Jose Mercury News:

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 As you might imagine, I find myself in a lot of discussions about U.S. fiscal policy, and the budget deficit in particular. And there's one thing I can count on in these discussions: At some point someone will announce, in dire tones, that we have a $1 trillion deficit.

No, I don't think the people making this pronouncement realize that they sound just like Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies.

Anyway, we do indeed have a $1 trillion deficit, or at least we did; in fiscal 2012, which ended in September, the deficit was actually $1.089 trillion. (It will be lower this year.) The question is what lesson we should take from that figure.

What the Dr. Evil types think, and want you to think, is that the big current deficit is a sign that our fiscal position is completely unsustainable. Sometimes they argue that it means that a debt crisis is just around the corner, although they've been predicting that for years and it keeps not happening. (U.S. borrowing costs are near historic lows.) But more often they use the deficit to argue that we can't afford to maintain programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. So it's important to understand that this is completely wrong.

Paul Krugman: Lost Decade Watch

The Daily Advance - Paul Krugman: Longing for the good old days of economic justice

The Daily Advance - Paul Krugman: Longing for the good old days of economic justice

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 It wasn’t so long ago that the name of David Petraeus seeemed destined for a place alongside that of other brilliant generals of the late 20th and 21st centuries. Names like Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell.

Petraeus made his mark at one of the lowest points in the U.S. war on Iraq. He commanded the 2007 troop surge, under orders from former President George W. Bush, and his efforts resulted in what probably was the turning point of the war. The move gave the U.S. military enough strength to put down the insurgency and stabilize the fledgling Iraqi government.

The leadership and foresight demonstrated by Petraeus in those days opened the door to high-profile career opportunities. The U.S. Senate voted 94-0 last year to confirm his appointment as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Some people whispered – as they had in other years about Schwarzkopf and Powell – that the cool resolve and brilliance Petraeus displayed in a theater of war could pave the way to the White House, if he chose to pursue that goal.

Today, that career path looks more like scorched earth.

krugman One reason we should pine over the ‘Twinkie Era’ | Opinion | The Seattle Times

One reason we should pine over the ‘Twinkie Era’ | Opinion | The Seattle Times

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 The Twinkie, it turns out, was introduced way back in 1930. In our memories, however, the iconic snack will forever be identified with the 1950s, when Hostess popularized the brand by sponsoring “The Howdy Doody Show.” And the demise of Hostess has unleashed a wave of baby-boomer nostalgia for a seemingly more innocent time.

Needless to say, it wasn’t really innocent. But the ’50s — the Twinkie Era — do offer lessons that remain relevant in the 21st century. Above all, the success of the postwar American economy demonstrates that, contrary to today’s conservative orthodoxy, you can have prosperity without demeaning workers and coddling the rich.

Consider the question of tax rates on the wealthy. The modern American right, and much of the alleged center, is obsessed with the notion that low tax rates at the top are essential to growth. Remember that Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, charged with producing a plan to curb deficits, nonetheless somehow ended up listing “lower tax rates” as a “guiding principle.”

Economy killers: Inequality and GOP ignorance--paul Krugman

Economy killers: Inequality and GOP ignorance

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America emerged from the Great Depression and the Second World War with a much more equal distribution of income than it had in the 1920s; our society became middle-class in a way it hadn’t been before. This new, more equal society persisted for 30 years. But then we began pulling apart, with huge income gains for those with already high incomes. As the Congressional Budget Office has documented, the 1 percent — the group implicitly singled out in the slogan “We are the 99 percent” — saw its real income nearly quadruple between 1979 and 2007, dwarfing the very modest gains of ordinary Americans. Other evidence shows that within the 1 percent, the richest 0.1 percent and the richest 0.01 percent saw even larger gains.

By 2007, America was about as unequal as it had been on the eve of the Great Depression — and sure enough, just after hitting this milestone, we plunged into the worst slump since the Depression. This probably wasn’t a coincidence, although economists are still working on trying to understand the linkages between inequality and vulnerability to economic crisis.

Here, however, we want to focus on a different question: Why has the response to the crisis been so inadequate? Before financial crisis struck, we think it’s fair to say that most economists imagined that even if such a crisis were to happen, there would be a quick and effective policy response

Paul Krugman: Pink slime economics

Paul Krugman: Pink slime economics

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The big bad event of last week was, of course, the Supreme Court hearing on health reform. In the course of that hearing it became clear that several of the justices, and possibly a majority, are political creatures pure and simple, willing to embrace any argument, no matter how absurd, that serves the interests of Team Republican.

But we should not allow events in the court to completely overshadow another, almost equally disturbing spectacle. For on Thursday Republicans in the House of Representatives passed what was surely the most fraudulent budget in American history.

And when I say fraudulent, I mean just that. The trouble with the budget devised by Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, isn't just its almost inconceivably cruel priorities, the way it slashes taxes for corporations and the rich while drastically cutting food and medical aid to the needy.

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/paul-krugman/paul-krugman-pink-slime-economics/article_e07baea1-f8f3-54a4-842f-14348fe4cdb8.html#ixzz1qz7phBpN

Paul Krugman: The austerity debacle

Paul Krugman: The austerity debacle

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snip of article

Last week the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, a British think tank, released a startling chart comparing the current slump with past recessions and recoveries. It turns out that by one important measure — changes in real GDP since the recession began — Britain is doing worse this time than it did during the Great Depression. Four years into the Depression, British GDP had regained its previous peak; four years after the Great Recession began, Britain is nowhere close to regaining its lost ground.

Nor is Britain unique. Italy also is doing worse than it did in the 1930s — and with Spain clearly headed for a double-dip recession, that makes three of Europe's big five economies members of the worse-than club. Yes, there are some caveats and complications. But this nonetheless represents a stunning failure of policy.

And it's a failure, in particular, of the austerity doctrine that has dominated elite policy discussion both in Europe and, to a large extent, in the United States for the past two years.

OK, about those caveats: On one side, British unemployment was much higher in the 1930s than it is now, because the British economy was depressed — mainly thanks to an ill-advised return to the gold standard — even before the Depression struck. On the other side, Britain had a notably mild Depression compared with the United States.

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/paul-krugman/paul-krugman-the-austerity-debacle/article_db34aa0a-effc-5ecb-86e1-8e9ac21ca9d5.html#ixzz1l3aoQqow

Paul Krugman: Panic on Wall Street

Paul Krugman: Panic on Wall Street

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from article:

It remains to be seen whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will change America's direction. Yet the protests have already elicited a remarkably hysterical reaction from Wall Street, the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a percent.

And this reaction tells you something important — namely, that the extremists threatening American values are what FDR called "economic royalists," not the people camping in Zuccotti Park.

Consider first how Republican politicians have portrayed the modest-sized if growing demonstrations, which have involved some confrontations with the police — confrontations that seem to have involved a lot of police overreaction — but nothing one could call a riot. And there has in fact been nothing so far to match the behavior of Tea Party crowds in summer 2009.

Nonetheless, Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, has denounced "mobs" and "the pitting of Americans against Americans." The GOP presidential candidates have weighed in, with Mitt Romney accusing the protesters of waging "class warfare," while Herman Cain calls them "anti-American." My favorite, however, is Sen. Rand Paul, who for some reason worries that the protesters will start seizing iPads, because they believe rich people don't deserve to have them.

Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor and a financial-industry titan in his own right, was a bit more moderate, but still accused the protesters of trying to "take the jobs away from people working in this city," a statement that bears no resemblance to the movement's actual goals.

And if you were listening to talking heads on CNBC, you learned that the protesters "let their freak flags fly," and are "aligned with Lenin."

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/paul-krugman/article_b416e6b0-f90b-5ea1-9f64-7e978c694af0.html#ixzz1aTUYSagc

Paul Krugman: Obama must lead on debt ceiling Medicare

Paul Krugman: Obama must lead on debt ceiling

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from article:

"For Medicare, with all its flaws, works better than private insurance. It has less bureaucracy and, hence, lower administrative costs than private insurers. It has been more successful in controlling costs. While Medicare expenses per beneficiary have soared over the past 40 years, they've risen significantly less than private insurance premiums. And because Medicare-type systems in other advanced countries have much lower costs than the uniquely privatized U.S. system, there's good reason to believe that Medicare reform can do a lot to control costs in the future.

In that case, you may ask, why didn't the 2010 health care reform simply extend Medicare to cover everyone? The answer, of course, is political realism. Most health reformers I know would have supported Medicare for all if they had considered it politically feasible. But given the power of the insurance lobby and the knee-jerk opposition of many politicians to any expansion of government, they settled for what they thought they could actually get: near-universal coverage through a system of regulation and subsidies.

It is, however, one thing to accept a second-best system insuring those who currently lack coverage. Throwing millions of Americans off Medicare and pushing them into the arms of private insurers is another story.


Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/paul-krugman/article_42f4550b-49cc-56e1-aad6-3b648c8ff541.html#ixzz1TDzillVh

Paul Kurgman:--Krugman June 14. 11

Paul Kurgman:

note Paul's name mispelled by Post Dispatch in early write. It is Krugman not Kurgman

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snip from article:

Paul Krugman | Posted: Tuesday, June 14, 2011


"Every once in a while a politician comes up with an idea that's so bad, so wrongheaded, that you're almost grateful. For really bad ideas can help illustrate the extent to which policy discourse has gone off the rails.

And so it was with Sen. Joseph Lieberman's proposal, released last week, to raise the age for Medicare eligibility to 67 from 65.

Like Republicans who want to end Medicare as we know it and replace it with (grossly inadequate) insurance vouchers, Lieberman describes his proposal as a way to save Medicare. It wouldn't actually do that. But more to the point, our goal shouldn't be to 'save Medicare," whatever that means. It should be to ensure that Americans get the health care they need, at a cost the nation can afford.

And here's what you need to know: Medicare actually saves money — a lot of money — compared with relying on private insurance companies. And this in turn means that pushing people out of Medicare, in addition to depriving many Americans of needed care, would almost surely end up increasing total health care costs.

The idea of Medicare as a money-saving program may seem hard to grasp. After all, hasn't Medicare spending risen dramatically over time? Yes, it has: Adjusting for overall inflation, Medicare spending per beneficiary rose more than 400 percent from 1969 to 2009"
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