Ron Paul vs. Paul Krugman on Bloomberg TV

Ron Paul - "Governments aren't supposed to run the economy, people are supposed to run the economy."

Paul Krugman - "I'm a believer in capitalism."

It was Paul versus Paul on inflation, government spending and the role of the Fed on Bloomberg TV ealier today.

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Comments

[MP]

Paul Krugman - "I'm a believer in ckapitalism."

FTFY

[Hugh Akston]

Paul Krugman - "I'm a believer in capitalism."

As opposed to the Free Market, I imagine.

[Episiarch]

No, he just forgot the word "crony". Probably just slipped his mind.

[BakedPenguin]

So Krugman is the King of Empty Promises?

[Episiarch]

SLIPPED MY MIND

[The Kids In The Hall]

We laughed.

[Pro Libertate]

No, no. Here's how the Nobel laureate defines capitalism: "a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party." The party, of course, is the Democratic Party.

[Mizchief]

It's the combination of both parties working to gather to cancel out the needs of the individuals while both giving more power to the ruling class.

[Ice Nine]

Don't be surprised, Mr. Swain, to see Old Mex storming in here demanding a sombrero tip.

[shrike]

Krugman's only good line - "Milton Friedman would be Far Left to the nutcases on the Far Right today".

(paraphrase)

'End the Fed' is just so totally stupid only gynecologists and other meatheads support it.

[Old Mexican]

Re: shriek,

'End the Fed' is just so totally stupid[...]

Because for shriek it is self-evident the idea is stupid. I mean, it's just stupid! Even asking "why would that be stupid?" is stupid!

Never mind the Fed has never ever achieved any of the goals for which it was purportedly created, or that the Great Depression wa called "Great" because all previous depressions, before the Fed, were not.

[shrike]

The Fed has achieved price stability since its inception. The exception (the 1970s) was due to an executive decision by Nixon to go off the gold peg.

That had to be done, by the way. We didn't have the gold to maintain the swaps.

[Old Mexican]

Re: shrike,

The Fed has achieved price stability since its inception.

What price stability, you moron? Did you forget The Great Inflation of 1917-1921?

The exception (the 1970s) was due to an executive decision by Nixon to go off the gold peg.

It wasn't "just" going off the gold peg, nitwit. The Fed had inflated so much to pay for LBJs war that the peg could not be sustained - that means there were too many dollars, which means inflation. Even if Nixon hadn't unpegged the dollar, the result would've been the same inflation in the 70s.

That had to be done, by the way. We didn't have the gold to maintain the swaps.

Translation: "The U.S. could not honor her obligations so Nixon simply gave everybody else a big 'Fuck You' and defaulted on the promise to pay."

Which is what inflation is used for by government: To default on the obligation to pay the same dollars that were lent originally.

[yonemoto]

The Fed has achieved price stabilityshafting the poor since its inception.

FIFY. Shrike, why do you hate the poor?

[tarran]

Shrike hates the poor because he is a New England (Rockefeller) Republican.

[Brutus]

Shrike is from Georgia, but he's still a dipshit with his tongue firmly on Obama's asshole.

[tarran]

He says he is from Georgia, but he admits to supporting Scott Brown and liking George Bush's policies. Shrike is a Rockefeller Republican.

[darius404]

Do you REALLY think that a "stable rate of inflation" is THE SAME THING as "stability"? Because that's what the Fed has been doing.

[John]

Yes he does. Don't forget Shrike is retarded. But he makes up for it by being demonic.

[Francisco d Anconia]

And he hates babies.

[Brutus]

Price stability?? The dollar has lost about 95% of its value since the Fed came about.

[Sevo]

shrike|4.30.12 @ 6:11PM|#
"The Fed has achieved price stability since its inception...."

Holy cow! Ever hear of the great depression?

[Red Rocks Rockin]

The Fed has achieved price stability since its inception.

LOL at this goonfiction.

Gallon Of Gas: $0.14
Gallon Of Milk: $0.36
Loaf Of Bread: $0.07
New Car: $360.00
New House: $3,395.00
Ounce Of Gold: $20.67
Ounce Of Silver: $0.54
Yearly Income: $1,359.00

Good thing the Fed ensured we're still paying those prices, right dumbass?

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Really? Because I thought that was one of the stupider lines of the evening.

When did the "far-left" start supporting school vouchers, low inflation, privatizing Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security, getting rid of affirmative action, or any of a number of issues important to Friedman?

"Free to Choose" hasn't exactly been embraced by the far-left.

[shrike]

Not what he said.

He said Friedman would be Far Left to the NUTCASES ON THE RIGHT.

But not to the left itself.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Still stupid.

Entitlement reform, school vouchers, and getting rid of affirmative action wholesale are as "far right" as it gets.

[The Derider]

You have not read Sheldon Richman on this website.

He's against school vouchers because he wants the state completely divorced from the education market. He's against entitlement reform because he wants to eliminate all entitlements.

[Sevo]

"He's against school vouchers because he wants the state completely divorced from the education market. He's against entitlement reform because he wants to eliminate all entitlements."

Yes, and?

[heller]

You just got faced by the Derprider!!!11 LOL

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Libertarians are "far right"? LOL.

[fearsomepirate]

Because taking 40 years to balance the budget and leaving the structure of the bureaucracy untouched is way, way to the right of Friedman.

Krugman lies so much about history that I suspect he received his training in the old Kremlin.

[KPres]

"Krugman's only good line - "Milton Friedman would be Far Left to the nutcases on the Far Right today".

(paraphrase)

'End the Fed' is just so totally stupid only gynecologists and other meatheads support it. "

Well that's interesting, because Milton Friedman thought we didn't need a central bank either. His policy recommendations were about how he thought it should be run if you're going to have one.

Alan Greenspan felt the same way.

[Spencer]

That whole Gawker article was written by a... I can't think of the proper word to describe that partisan stupidity.

[R]

Mendacious twunt?

[Sam Grove]

Friedman did eventually change his mind a bit: http://www.fff.org/freedom/0399b.asp

[JimDee]

I liked the part when Krugman said that the Fed's policies have no effect on gas and food prices. Or when he said that it's getting hard to tell the difference between money and non-money.

Krugman's a genius. He tells everyone.

[shrike]

Well, oil, coal, and natgas prices are all down since the Fed went into intervention mode in 2008.

Really, its comments like this when rational people begin to suspect Paulbots as cultists.

Ron Paul has been wrong on inflation for 25 years and still yaps about coming "hyperinflation". Its time for the old coot to retire with a shred of dignity left.

[JEP]

Yes, prices going down could only be the result of Fed intervention. It wouldn't have anything to do with innovation, improving efficiency, or supply going up. Even assuming you're right, it clashes with the "Oil prices are crazy high!" shit the American populace is being fed.

the rest of that doesn't even deserve a response

[shrike]

I didn't say that, asshole.

Supply/demand is everything. And "printing money" is a fucking stupid conspiracy theory which is quickly followed by HYPERINFLATION cries from Glenn Beck/Ron Paul types.

If we are "printing money" and dropping it from helicopters why are prices falling?

[JEP]

Prices fall because the buying value of the currency has increased or because the cost of production has gone down.

If you follow your shitting logic, why doesn't the US treasury just print off a sheet of $1000 bills for every man, woman, and child?

"Printing money" refers to, of course, the actual printing of money by the treasury, but also to the practice of fractional reserve banking and to the Fed expanding and contracting the money supply through the interest rate.

Less than 5% of the currency is physical, the rest is just electronic bits sitting on a bank server somewhere. When a bank gives a loan, it just increases the digital amount of credit in the account, thus adding more money into circulation - inflating the money supply.

Educate yourself, fool.

[Old Mexican]

Re: shrike,

And "printing money" is a fucking stupid conspiracy

Except when Bernanke accepts he's printing money...

...Ooops!

[shrike]

Of course someone prints money in the physical sense.

But the idea that reams of bills (or digits) is made up and handed out willy-nilly is absurd.

They create money to buy bonds in discrete manner? Sure. Who cares?

Create a billion and buy a billion dollar asset? Fine. Its a wash or win for the taxpayer.

[darius404]

But the idea that reams of bills (or digits) is made up and handed out willy-nilly is absurd.

Except for quantitative easing. Are you really THAT ignorant?

[Jordan]

"Create a billion and buy a billion dollar asset? Fine. Its a wash or win for the taxpayer."

Then why not have the government print off enough money to buy every asset in the country? God, you are a fucking dumbass.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

But the idea that reams of bills (or digits) is made up and handed out willy-nilly is absurd.

How the fuck do you think the Fed became the largest holder of government debt, dumbass?

[KPres]

"Supply and demand is everything"

No shit, that's why the money supply should be managed by private competing banks, since no central planner can ever know what the price (ie supply/demand) of money should be.

[The Derider]

None of those banks can, either.

[Ryan]

You missed the point.

[Sevo]

The Derider|4.30.12 @ 8:04PM|#
"None of those banks can, either."
No, and they don't have to. The market will set the rate and the banks will respond to those signals.
I know this is hard for one-cell brains to accept.

[heller]

You just got faced by the Derprider!!!!!11

[The Derider]

If a bunch of banks can respond to market pressures, a central planner can too. And they do.

[Hey You Don't Say That]

Arrrgghh! (sighs) *Face palm*

[Sevo]

shrike|4.30.12 @ 6:23PM|#
"I didn't say that, asshole."

No dipshit, you didn't. You *implied* it and then griped at being called on you bullshit.

[Rasilio]

Glenn Beck and Ron Paul are wrong about Hyperinflation but not for the reasons you think.

On 1/2/1941 the Dow stood at 151
On 12/30/1960 the Dow stood at 615
On 12/31/1980 the Dow stood at 963
On 12/29/2000 the Dow Stood at 10788

So basically from the Great Depression through 1980 the Dow grew by ~600%, Then from 1980 through 2000 it grew by 1120%.

True we did have a productivity expolsion driving some of that growth. but really that was no greater than the productivity explosion of the 50's - 60's.

So what did drive the growth in stock prices for the last 30 years?

Inflation.

We have not seen significant consumer price inflation because for whatever reason all of the new money being printed by the Fed for the last 30 years stayed in the financial markets and only a tiny fraction of it has made it to the consumer markets.

We can see this by comparing the growth in stock prices above to the growth in the Money supply over time

Money supply by M2
On 1/1/1961 the M2 stood at 314
On 1/1/1981 the M2 stood at 1606
On 1/1/2001 the M2 Stood at 4591

So from 1960 - 1980 stock prices went up by 50% while the money supply increased by 500%, then from 1980 - 2000 Stock prices increased by 1120% while the money supply only grew by 300%

Clearly something happened in the 80's or early 90's that caused new money to stop flowing into the consumer market and pool in the financial markets, had that not been the case we would be seeing significantly higher inflation than we have been

[Old Mexican]

Re: shrike,

Well, oil, coal, and natgas prices are all down since the Fed went into intervention mode in 2008.

You're an idiot. Either that, or you've been living under a rock. The Fed has been in full intervention mode since the 1990's.

Really, its comments like this when rational people begin to suspect Paulbots as cultists.

It's comments like yours that make rational people begin to suspect you're totally ignorant of economics.

Ron Paul has been wrong on inflation for 25 years

Really?

and still yaps about coming "hyperinflation".

When the Chinese achieve their goal of making the yuan the new reserve currency, come back and talk to me about those Confederate War Bonds, papa O'Hara.

Idiot.

[JimDee]

> Well, oil, coal, and natgas prices are all down since the Fed went into intervention mode in 2008.

Measured by the value of what dollar? What cost a buck in 2002 now costs about $1.30. "Intervention mode" will make things worse in the long run, like a junkie being told to keep getting a fix rather than taking care of the actual problem.

As an aside, you display a flaw in your logic by assuming I trust Ron Paul merely because I dislike Paulie Krugbunny. Ron Paul is a politician. Only idiots trust politicians.

You also display that you're kind of a jerk just for making the assumption and running with it.

[DesigNate]

That's SOP for shrike. If you don't agree with him he breaks out the name calling and ad homs.

[fearsomepirate]

He's starting in 2008, the very tippy-top peak of oil prices right before the crisis. They've been rising upward steadily since early 2009 and simply haven't reached their 2008 peak yet.

http://www.oil-price.net/

[Zeb]

I agree that the hyperinflation predictions are a bit over done. But moderately high inflation is bad enough.

[Evil Otto]

Well, oil, coal, and natgas prices are all down since the Fed went into intervention mode in 2008.

Global economic collapse tends to have that effect, in addition to the things other commenters have mentioned.

Gold has shot up 75% and silver over 100% during that same timeframe. To what do you attribute that?

[fearsomepirate]

Way to take the peak of the bubble as your starting point. Are you dishonest, or are you really this stupid?

[Sy]

"Well, oil, coal, and natgas prices are all down since the Fed went into intervention mode in 2008."

Hello, low demand. Meet my friend, high supply.

You're so god damn retarded it's unbelievable.

[T o n y]

RP, like so many religious believers, presumes that the world is actually just simple enough for him to understand.

[Old Mexican]

Re: Tiny,

RP PK, like so many religious believers mountebanks and charlatans, presumes that the world is actually just simple enough for him to understand.

Fixed it, more accurate.

Krugman: "Inflate! Inflate! Inflate!"

That looks simplistic enough to me, Tiny.

[MP]

FFS Tony, you think Krugabe accepts the limitations of his intellect?

[Xajow]

RP, like so many religious believers, presumes that the world is actually just simple enough for him to understand.

Actually Ron Paul argues against that kind of thinking. This is why he argues against federal control of complex things like the economy. Is this not obvious to everyone?

[Zeb]

Yeah, it's amazing that people can interpret what he says that way. The whole point is that the economy is too complicated for a person to understand which is the whole reason why it is a bad idea to try to control it.

[Ryan]

It is obvious to everyone who thinks. Leftists don't live in reality, and part of their philosophy is that anything they say is true. Why? It just is.

[T o n y]

You can't advocate for "no policy." He's advocating a specific set of policies. They are choices. He chooses them because he's an idiot.

[KPres]

Yeah, because Krugman's "run deficits!" outlook is sooooo nuanced...

You probably think it is, eh dumbfuck.

[KPres]

Oh, and I'm pretty sure its RPs recognition of how complex the world is that drives his opposition to monopolistic central planning regarding the money supply.

[T o n y]

If you watched the video you would have seen that Krugman was a deficit hawk during the time Bush was exploding the deficit. He makes clear that this is a special time--he calls it a depression--and that necessitates government spending to return to strong growth. That's not that hard to understand, but it is apparently too complex for shiny metal standard advocates.

[Mykeuva]

Tony,
It's funny that's what you get from Paul's argument. It shows a severe lack of comprehension on your part. Paul believes that precisely because the world/economy is such a complicated thing, that it should not (indeed cannot) be managed by a select few. It is actually Krugman, and those with the same philosophy, that believe the economy is relatively a simple thing in that it can be managed by so called top men.

[Sam Grove]

RP, like so many religious believers, presumes that the world is actually just simple enough for him to understand.

You obviously haven't paid attention to him. Ron Paul doesn't think ANYONE can possibly have the information to run the economy. The information is distributed throughout the economy and people use the bits they know to guide their economic behavior.

It is Krugman, et al, who believe they can manage the economy guided by their macro numbers.

Your claim is massively in error and further evidence of your cluelessness.

[CatoTheElder]

If Tony had actually listened to Ron Paul, he would understand that it was Ron Paul who criticized PK and other statists for their pretense of knowledge.

Tony, like so many religious believers, presumes that the world is actually simple enough for PK, Ben, and Barack to understand and manipulate it in a constructive way.

Ron Paul does not make a pretense to such knowledge. This is a difficult concept for statists like Tony because they worship at its altar.

[T o n y]

"We have a knowledge problem, therefore we should base our currency on shiny metals"? He is advocating a specific set of policies. The economy may be too complex to perfectly manage, but we have learned a thing or two in the last 150 years. RP rejects all of that knowledge, because he is a loon and an ideologue.

[Emmerson Biggins]

Ya, he is advocating policies which assume the maximum knowledge dispersement, and the least trust in experts and top men. Hence your initial point is exactly wrong. You dumb fucking moron.

[Old Mexican]

No, shriek - the best line from Krugman:
"We can't see the line between money and non-money [sic]."

He certainly deserved his prize in Economics... Decidedly so.

[ThemAPPLEs]

Let's see if we can sort out Krugman's money/non-money conundrum.
Hmmm... Dollar bill on the table = money. Lump of dogshit on the lawn /= money. Quantitative easing #X ----> dollar bill = = dogshit on the lawn?, so then, "We can't see the line between money and non-money [sic]." could just make sense.

[CatoTheElder]

The simple fact is that, with the workings of the modern central bank, Krugman can't even define what money is anymore.

This should bolster everybody's confidence in the Fed.

The Fed has so contorted the very concept of money that a Nobel laureate in economics uses words like "non-money". Very re-assuring.

[Tman]

Today Milton Friedman would be on the left of the current argument over economic policy?

[shrike]

Yeah, if you missed the "debate" Krugman/Friedman correctly argues that the Fed exacerbated the Great Depression by not intervening enough. The Fed drove FED FUNDS interest rates up to 5% then.

The Fed (Bernanke) apologized to Milt and Anna in 2002-03ish as correct and said it would not happen again.

[Old Mexican]

Re: Shrike,

Yeah, if you missed the "debate" Krugman/Friedman correctly argues that the Fed exacerbated the Great Depression by not intervening enough.

The "correctly" being an opinion from your own crop. The FED created the bubble that led to the recession; however, the Depression was not the result of not inflating enough, it was the result of the interventionist policies imposed by the Hoover and Roosevelt governments. The only result at that time of the sort of inflationary process as we are seeing today would've been even higher inflation than what people suffered during the last years of Hoover and first years of Roosevelt.

[Tman]

Except that's not what Friedman was saying. He was saying that the intervened too much in the beginning (raising rates) and then not enough towards the end (increasing money supply).

Japan tried the "zero interest rates and quantitative easing" policy in 1998 and that was an abysmal failure.

No one could possibly argue that increasing the monetary supply today will do us any good in our current situation. We wouldn't ever have anything to balance supply with and inflation would soar like it did in the 70's.

The overall point Paul is making is that the Fed has TOO MUCH influence to begin with.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Friedman's views on monetary policy changed considerably from the beginning of his career, to the end. Even at his most liberal, I doubt he would have been a fan of ad-hoc Bernanke style policy.

[Tman]

This is true, and I've seen him change on other issues as well, but the idea that Friedman believed -ever- in Keynesian-type centralized monetary policy is pretty ridiculous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9DH07MBG_w

[Almanian's Evil Twin]

I've seen him change on other issues as well

AHA! So Friedman is...Romney. Verrrrrry interesting.....

[CatoTheElder]

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?

[fearsomepirate]

And he sure as heck was never a fan of fiscal stimulus. That was kind of the whole point of the Monetarist Revolution. Nor did he think, like Krugman does, that government mandates and regulations create prosperity.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Krugman isn't stupid, he's just a liar and a hack. He made a hobby of attacking Ol' Milt in the early 00s (and, gracelessly, when he died), and has never seen Friedman as anything but someone who was far to the "right" on economic issues. It's just part of the overall strategy to paint libertarians and conservatives as unhinged psychopaths with unprecedented and dangerous ideas about restoring even a modicum of fiscal sanity to government.

[hk]

He certainly comes off as a hyper-Keynesian whether he admits it or not.

[hk]

Krugman, I mean.

[CatoTheElder]

I doubt Uncle Miltie would approve of this chart. http://research.stlouisfed.org.....SL?cid=123

FWIW, Anna did said that she disapproved of Ben's easy money policy and that Ben should not have been reappointed. Milton was unavailable for comment.

[Old Mexican]

Ron Paul - "Governments aren't supposed to run the economy, people are supposed to run the economy."

But you see, for people like Tiny there, the world is so complex that leaving such things as the economy to actual people would be barbarous. Nah, such complex things as the economy should be left to sage and wise overseers looking at charts and computer screens to make decisions about what to produce, where and when.

Yet we're supposed to believe that RP is the one that thinks the world is simple, according to Tiny.

"He's ironically impaired," said Leonard.

[CockGobbla]

Television isn't Krugman's best medium.

It's only through print that his buffoonery can reach its full, shit-flipping potential.

[The Derider]

And for Paul, it's newsletters.

[Warty]

PWND

[hk]

They both sound like dipshits in print, but Krug is a radical Keynesian, so he has much more ground to make up if they talk about Economics.

[RonnieJamesDiocletian]

Ugh. The "Bynzetine" Empire most certainly _did_ fight wars. Nothing like historical illiteracy to reinforce the expectation of crackpottery.

[Old Mexican]

Re: RonnieJamesDiocletian,

The "Bynzetine" Empire most certainly _did_ fight wars.

What RP meant was that the Byzantine Empire did not fight wars the way the Romans did or for the same purpose. The Byzantine emperors relied much more on secret agents, intelligence gathering and espionage to fight her enemies than did the Romans, who instead relied more on conquest as their primary source of income.

[RonnieJamesDiocletian]

Not to go back and forth on the specifics of history, but the Byzantines were very aggressively expansionist when they were powerful enough to be and had an emperor of a certain mindset. See Justinian's reconquest of Africa and Italy and Basil II's horrifyingly brutal campaign against the Bulgars.

At any rate, to tie any of this to claims about soundness of money is really tenuous and makes RP sounds like a fool.

AND, in point of fact, the Romans stopped being militarily expansionist with Augustus (with the brief exception of Trajan) and the reduction in the silver content of their coinage did not begin until then... and only reached the nadir of worthlessness in the late 3rd century.

[fearsomepirate]

Agreed, RP was just plain wrong here. He could have made his point effectively if he'd said the Byzantines couldn't embark on wars when the treasury was empty, which is true.

[GILMORE]

I really would have preferred a Thunderdome version. Hopefully with Krugs eventually getting owned with a flamethrower, or chainsaw. Needed much more blood, screaming. Maybe some CGI could fix that.

I also think Krug's first argument lacked any argument. He just said, "Government HAS to intervene!" No explanation why. It just does. QED!

[Almanian's Evil Twin]

Maybe some CGI could fix that.

*whispering*

[Almanian's Evil Twin]

Maybe some CGI could fix that.

*whispering*

[Almanian's Evil Twin]

Wow, that was weird. What I MEANT to say was, "You don't want to summon -ichael May -ay Bay...."

That's what I get for leaving my mouse at work. I'm no good with the touchpad...

[Old Mexican]

Paul Krugman - "I'm a believer in capitalism."

[Ken Shultz]

This is like Libertarian Celebrity Death Match.

[CuriousGeorge]

Pretty sure that would require two libertarians...which is definitely not the case here.

[Jerry]

My comment from the earlier thread:
There is no hyperinflation because Russia, China and Japan are
still buying up the debt. But the inflation potential is there,
just look at this scary graph: http://research.stlouisfed.org.....s/EXCRESNS.

[shrike]

That chart shows why our banks are stronger more than anything.

[Jerry]

It doesn't make sense for banks to hold excess reserves. The only reason why they do is probably because of massive deleveraging in the shadow banking system.

[A Serious Man]

That was actually a pretty good debate.

[sage]

Are you serious, man?

[A Serious Man]

Almost always. I was once voted the worst audience participant in the history of Cirque de Sole. I did not find their buffonery amusing.

[David Emami]

Validity of the ideas aside, I have to sadly say that Ron Paul didn't do too well in this debate. I agree with him pretty much 100% on domestic issues, but he came across as doddering. Also, the bit about Roman currency devaluation was probably so obscure to most viewers that it made Krugman's response to it sounds clever.

[Zeb]

That wasn't bad. I thought Ron Paul did pretty well. But I fear that he might come off as a bit crazy to people who don't know what he is talking about. In such a brief format you really have to say things in shorthand quite a bit and a lot of the arguments that Ron Paul makes really need a lot of explanation if you are not already familiar with the economic theories he subscribes to.

[Evil Otto]

But I fear that he might come off as a bit crazy to people who don't know what he is talking about.

Unfortunately, that's true of Dr Paul's speaking in general.

[Michael]

"We're not even quite sure where the line between money and non-money is."

Keep this in mind the next time somebody you're talking to starts singing the praises of Paul Krugman; Nobel Prize winning, omniscient economic super-genius.

[The Derider]

Is an ounce of gold in your pocket money?

[heller]

LOL Derprider PWNS again LOL!!!!1

[The Derider]

Still waiting for an answer. I guess it's not that easy to tell what's money and what's not!

[Emmerson Biggins]

"It is the most marketable good which people accept because they want to offer it in later acts of impersonal exchange."

This does not allow for more than one thing to be considered "money". So I'm not sure I can behind it 100%. But I don't think I've heard a better definition either.

If I were to make my own definition, I think I'd change it to:

"Any marketable good which people accept, at least in part, because they want to offer it in later acts of impersonal exchange."

[Mykeuva]

After watching, I thought Krugman was a bit dishonest because I thought I remembered Friedman's position on the Fed as something like: get rid of it, but short of that, this is what it should do.

I wanted to check and a quick google search led to:

http://thecounterpunch.hubpage.....serve_Bank

"Region: If you were advising the Federal Reserve, what would you say are the unsolved economic problems of the day?

Friedman: One unsolved economic problem of the day is how to get rid of the Federal Reserve."

[Mizchief]

Yea I liked the bit about how in the papers he wrote just for the other economist that the fed didn't do enough and what he told us commoners was different.

[Suthenboy]

After reading through all this it seems to me that krugnuts, shreek, and dickrider have some trouble telling money from non-money because they dont know what money is.

[fearsomepirate]

You forgot double digit inflation at the beginning of the 1950s.

[Xerxes]

Do YOU support the economic policies of the emperor Diocletian?

[wef]

Emperor Julian, yes.
Last emperor worth anything.

[John]

Justinian was quite good. Julian was a very smart and interesting guy though.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Justinian was energetic, ambitious, and interesting, but I don't know if I'd call him a "good" leader. Most of his achievements were in terms of short-term conquests paid for through political and economic stability. His was the last grasp for Byzantine ascendancy, but he probably would have been better off improving the country internally instead.

[John]

He fixed the laws.

[John]

Has anyone seen MNG post registration? Is it possible he was a Mary Stack sock puppet?

[Francisco d Anconia]

You are obsessed with Mary Stack.

Rejoice, the witch is dead.

Anyone go to her site since she was cast out? I wonder if she blogged about it or just let it go?

[JW]

She locked it down, perhaps deleting it, after being outed.

[JW]

Nope.

Of course, we haven't seen P Brooks either. Hmmmm.....

[John]

But Brooks said he would stop posting if they ever had registration. Brooks struck me as a man of his word. MNG never said anything like that. He seems to have disappeared.

[heller]

She still reads. Brandeis's Department of Community Standards and the security staff (lol!) keep getting emails from her about the things I write. They won't answer because they think she might come onto campus and start shooting things up.

[Red Rocks Rockin]

Brandeis's Department of Community Standards and the security staff (lol!) keep getting emails from her about the things I write.

It's gotta be tedious getting dozens of emails repeating the same three primitardian tropes.

[Spoonman.]

Holy crap, that is hilarious.

[John C. Randolph]

If inflation could benefit an economy, Zimbabwe would be the richest nation on earth. Krugman is an idiot.

-jcr

[John]

And the 1970s would be looked upon as a golden age as opposed to those horrible low inflation 1980s. I don't think Krugman is that stupid. He is just that depraved and dishonest.

[AlmightyJB]

You can't hey a Nobel prize without those qualities so what's he supposed to do?

[AlmightyJB]

get a Nobel prize. Damn, I need to stop trying to type in the dark, that's two in a row.

[John]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....paign.html

Navy Seals not so fond of Obama taking political credit for their work. Of course it is in the Daily Mail and not from one of the US court poodle newspapers.

[VG Zaytsev]

At the 6:00 minute mark Krugnuts says that he liked the America of Jim Crow and wants to go back there.

[Sevo]

That would be his (patented) "Treaty of Detroit"?

[n8]

Who's the short bald actor from the 80's, the villian in Princess Diaries (I'm young)? Krugy sounds like him when he gets all squeaky and high pitched.

[Monty Crisco]

That would be wallace shawn.

[tim_lebsack]

Paul Krugman wants to go back to the world his parents lived in post-WW2.
Good luck with that.