Krugman: I am not a derper!

Krugman clarifies the difference between derp and urp.  To urp is just to make a mistake and then apologize. To derp is make a mistake again and again and then claim it is not a mistake despite all evidence to the contrary.  Krugman says that people who claim inflation will increase are derping.

Krugman thinks Bernanke is making a mistake

Bernanke has been saying that the Feb may soon tighten up the money supply since there are signs that the economy is improving.  Krugman think this may be a mistake since employment has still not recovered. Krugman believes that more inflation is needed to truly help employment (by reducing the debt load). With the Feb potentially increasing interest rates this would reduce any future inflation.

Krugman thinks Draghi is naive and there is no debt issue in the USA

Krugman highlights that Draghi (European Central Bank president) believes low inflation is not to bad. Krugman of course takes issue since Krugman argues higher inflation is needed to get out of the crisis. He also offhandedly mentions that Draghi may the be the last ECB president since maybe the Euro won't last much longer. He actually been saying for a couple years that the Euro might not last.

Krugman, by referring someone else's post, restates his point that there is no debt problem in the USA. He backs this up by pointing out that deficits are down and medium term debt projections are not "scary". He also mentions that Medicare spending as a % of GDP is projected to come down and SS is not as critical an issue as most people believe. 

Derp!

Krugman was throwing this word around based on a back and forth between a 'reformed' conservative and diehard conservative.  Need less to say - I had no idea what it meant.  I must have been asleep the past couple years.  Luckily a lot of bloggers have gave some background on it - but still it took me forever to read and understand what they were talking about.  To say ya'll time - basically it means you are so stupid to believe something even when all evidence to the contrary has been presented to you and you keep believing it no matter what.

So Krugman feels the right wing is derpy since all evidence shows their point of view is wrong (economics, climate change, etc) but they still keep believing it and never accept the facts.

Krugman worried about higher bond rates and its getting nasty over California health insurance

Krugman seems a bit worried about the rise in bond rates combined with a lower stock market and higher dollar.  He says this means the market thinks the Feb will raise interest rates too soon - before the economy has truly recovered.

A couple days ago Krugman said the latest healthcare news out of California showed that Obamacare will go better than expected.  Since then there are have been a couple articles - most pointedly in Forbes that have attacked this.  Krugman and his buddies are circling the wagons.  Today he screams at one of the analysts who is pointing out that rates for certain Californians will also go up.  First he says the analyst (Avik Roy) knows his stuff but then says he's being "completely fraudulent" and takes a "cheap, misleading shot.".  After reading both point of views - I can see Krugman's gist that it might be unfair to compare current cheap-o health insurance plans in CA with what Obamacare will provide - but still the fact of the matter is that for healthy people the price does go up.

Krugman comes to ringing defense of food stamps and he debates Newt

In today's column, Krugman explains how important food stamps were during the recession:

1. Helps families and children avoid extreme poverty.
2. Improved the overall economy by injecting money into society when no one else was spending.
3. Is an investment in the country's future since it helps children do better in school since they are not hungry

He then proceeds to delineate how Republicans are trying to cut it since we can't afford it.  The best part is when he uses sarcasm to show how Republicans believe that food stamps were a cause of the economic crisis since they created a culture of dependency.

Krug debated Newt last night in Canada.  Seems Krugman won, as his point of view won over the most of the audience who was undecided. Topic was: Should we tax the rich more?

Krugman vs R&R continues, and he remininsces about Portugal of his youth

The brouhaha between Krugman and the debunked debt v growth authors (Rogoff and Reinhart) has become fodder for mainstream new articles.  An article in today’s WSJ lays out for all how heated the debate has become. Krugman must have gotten a heads up on the article since the day before he posted on his blog that we should be focusing on policy and not hurt feelings.   

Last week Krugman had penned a piece that again battered Rogoff and Reinhart as he had done many times over the past six weeks.  R&R then replied back that he has been “spectacularly uncivil” and also “sloppy”. Krugman’s response pretty much aimed to minimize and end the confrontation, he didn’t apologize for getting personal or for claiming they didn’t make their data available – his response was more academic as he highlighted that his main issue was that they used a hard/fast 90% ratio line to show when debt becomes a big issue.  Krugman feels this particular point has had major policy implications and led governments to be much more austerian than they would have been otherwise.   

In a later post Krugman shows us how bad things have become in Portugal and he is angry.  Angry because he does not understand why the common folk need to suffer under austerity when economics knows how to cure the problem.  The answer he reminds us is modest inflation and having government spend more money to get more capital in the economy.  He then blames R&R (he doesn’t quote them by name here but we can tell who he is talking about) because he feels their papers misled policy makers to shy away from more spending. 

Krugman then has a post where he reminisces about being in Portugal in the 70’s.  Evidently he was there after a dictator was overthrown to help get the economy on its feet.  He tells us how poor it was and then when he returned 25 years later it had become very modern. He uses this as a segue way into how important the current policy debate is because this improvement in lives he feels is threatened by the current austerity.  In posts last year he has even said if austerity continues he worries about a repeat of the 30’s. 

In other exciting topics – Krugman takes the view that the coming implementation of Obamacare will be bad for --- Republicans!  This is quite the contrarian point of view as the press has been full of articles detailing how confusing things are about to become. 

Regarding inflation – Krugman believes we should have a 4% target – (2% is what the Fed currently is targeting). 

Krugman has an interesting discussion on how he doesn’t believe conservatives are allowed to change or update their views on hot topics.  He names some conservatives that have but then says they are branded as former conservatives. What I found most fascinating however was that in order for Krugman to make his point that the right wing is intellectually dead since they don’t allow changing of positions when more evidence comes in, he names examples of liberal viewpoints from yesteryear that some liberals have moved away from to show how the left does allow change.  Some of these liberal points include a) rent control b) airline deregulation c) emission credits and some others.