{"id":192672,"date":"2009-03-06T18:37:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-06T23:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/03\/06\/paul-krugman-is-freaking-out\/"},"modified":"2009-03-06T18:37:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-06T23:37:00","slug":"paul-krugman-is-freaking-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2009\/03\/06\/paul-krugman-is-freaking-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Krugman Is Freaking Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Specifically, he is freaking out over the “let them eat cake” policies of Mssrs. Geithner and Summers with regard to the insolvent banking giants<\/a>:<\/p>\n

….Policy is stuck in a holding pattern.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how the pattern works: first, administration officials, usually speaking off the record, float a plan for rescuing the banks in the press. This trial balloon is quickly shot down by informed commentators.<\/p>\n

Then, a few weeks later, the administration floats a new plan. This plan is, however, just a thinly disguised version of the previous plan, a fact quickly realized by all concerned. And the cycle starts again. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He is referring, of course to Geithner’s insistence that the big sh%$pile has an “artificially depressed value”, and Ben Bernanke’s denial of zombie financial institutions, including AIG (!).<\/p>\n

These, quite honestly delusional preconceptions have a very real cost, as the Nobel prize winning economist notes:<\/p>\n

But this refusal to face the facts means, in practice, an absence of action. And I share the president\u2019s fears: inaction could result in an economy that sputters along, not for months or years, but for a decade or more<\/span>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(emphasis mine<\/span>)<\/p>\n

Personally, I lay even more of this at the feet of Lawrence Summers than I do either Geithner or Bernanke: He was one of the most vociferous free-market mousketeers, and his professional life has been marked by failure and misery left in his wake<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course, Summers will come out of this clean, as he has mastered the art of failing up even more than Dick Cheney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Specifically, he is freaking out over the “let them eat cake” policies of Mssrs. Geithner and Summers with regard to the insolvent banking giants: ….Policy is stuck in a holding pattern. Here\u2019s how the pattern works: first, administration officials, usually speaking off the record, float a plan for rescuing the banks in the press. This …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[973,1004,1002,1089,985],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-finance","category-good-writing","category-recession","category-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192672"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}