Let’s party like it’s 2007
by digby
Krugman succinctly points out how cynical, bad faith, hyper-partisanship pervades every last corner ofconservatism:
Thinking about Trump’s attempt to bully the Fed, I found myself remembering the open letter by a who’s who of conservative economists (plus some “economists”) accusing Ben Bernanke of “currency debasement” 1/ https://t.co/1jZBEcL7AQ— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) December 26, 2018
Four years later, Bloomberg went to ask signatories why they were wrong; none of them — not one — would admit having been wrong 2/ https://t.co/zOgl4DzkV5— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) December 26, 2018
But my question is, why aren’t we seeing an open letter from right-leaning economists calling on Trump to lay off the Fed? After all, demanding an easy money policy when unemployment is 3.7% is a lot more likely to cause inflation than easing at 9.4%. But, crickets 3/— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) December 26, 2018
This goes hand in hand with denouncing deficits when the economy really needed fiscal support to being just fine with them when they result from tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, even though now would be a good time to rein in debt 4/— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) December 26, 2018
As @delong has been emphasizing, what we’re learning is that there is a complete lack of intellectual honesty on the right side of the spectrum, even among seemingly respectable professional economists. It’s all punish the economy under Obama, let’s party under Trump 5/— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) December 26, 2018
They are all liars.
Just look at the “Club for Growth” types like Stephen Moore backing Trump to the hilt despite having pent decades ranting about free trade and now holding themselves out as protectionist working class heroes sticking it to the man. “Makers not takers” remember?
If we survive this debacle, it’s going to be very tempting for the media to blame everything on Trump and declare that we much go back to “normal.”
No. That “normal” paved the way for Trump. It’s gotten us into trouble over and over again. It’s the whole movement, the whole party, the entire philosophy and worldview that is corrupt. They have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do before they can ever be trusted to argue or negotiate in good faith. A lot.
If you value what we write here, I hope you’ll consider supporting the blog with a couple of bucks. If you’ve already donated, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you haven’t and would like to, the paypal buttons are on the sidebar and below as is the snail mail address.
Buckle up everybody. It’s going to be a very bumpy New Year!
cheers — digby
Digby’s Hullabaloo
2801 Ocean Park Blvd.
Box 157
Santa Monica, Ca 90405