Knower of economics Paul "Beard-o" Krugman has purchased a nice new $1.7 million three-bedroom apartment on Riverside Drive. Reports the New York Observer! Before the economic crash this money would have bought him only a storage unit, which is why Paul Krugman has lived in a storage unit in East Harlem for the past seven years.


Photographers from the New York Times went to some of those nut-o "town hall" meetings to take photographs of the crazies of America, and when the crazies found out that these camera-wielders were from the New York Times, they pushed them and whatnot! The camerapersons did not shoot them all in the kneecaps, which would have been one way of dealing with the situation.


Young Garrett Graff, who started at Fishbowl DC at the age of like 15 (ROUGH ESTIMATE) and then got a job at Washingtonian, is now the new editor of Washingtonian. He is an up and coming whippersnapper if we have ever seen one. Don't end up a cabinet member recommending foreign wars based on vague Georgetown cocktail party gossip ten years from now, Garrett. That's how they get you.


The New York Times' fake trend story on hipster potbellies has the added bonus of getting quotes from three of America's gayest men's magazine editors, which you can interpret however you want. Dave Zinczenko of Men's Health is pro-abs; Dan Peres of Details says "If we had a slob in the White House, all the hipsters would turn into some walking Chippendales calendar," which is pretty risible; and Aaron Hicklin of Out says six-pack ab obsession is prissy. Hear that, Dave Z? This proves everyone is gay.

Here's what happened today: the medical device and pharmaceutical and insurance companies all got together to release a letter claiming they're committed to lowering health care costs. That is basically what needs to happen for there to be anything resembling universal coverage, because right now we all pay way, way more than everyone else in the world for care that is not discernibly better, and if you're poor, you're paying even more for even worse care, because that is the American way.

But here is the problem: none of the people from those companies actually mean it. When you say "reducing health care costs" what you are actually saying is "reducing the insane profits of medical device and pharmaceutical and insurance companies." So they were standing with Obama claiming to be with him all the way because they know something's going to happen, but once it begins actually happening they will fight tooth and nail to make sure it's piecemeal and ineffective.

Here is some good news: Arlen Specter and a bunch of "centrist" Democrats are flip-flopping, claiming to support a public insurance plan.

Here is the bad news: because of those insane costs, a public plan will look incredibly expensive when the Congressional Budget Office does the numbers. And nothing will get passed in Congress unless it pays for itself—the ballooning deficit increases, while basically inevitable, are going to make it really, really hard for some members of Congress to get on board with anything that involves spending any money for the next four years. But, you know, this is the kind of shit, short of NOT SPENDING TEN ZILLION DOLLARS ON DEFENSE EVERY YEAR, that would drastically cut the huge "Medicare" bit of the deficit.

So... honestly? We have no clue. We keep getting super-excited for a great big public insurance plan, and then we are like "oh wait our Socialist dreams never, ever come true." Bernie Sanders introduces the single-payer bill every year and it just sits there. But, you know, new era! They are holding so many important serious round tables, in congress! Round tables always lead to action!

To sum up, we will continue smoking, drinking, and being uninsured, with the vague hope that eventually the government will take care of us, eventually.

Krugman leads with a Time cover from ten years ago featuring Most Loathsome Financial Villain runner-up Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Lawrence Summers with a headline labeling the trio "the committee to save the world" from a then-impending global financial crisis.

How times have changed.

Never mind the fact that two members of the committee have since succumbed to the magazine cover curse, the plunge in reputation that so often follows lionization in the media. (Mr. Summers, now the head of the National Economic Council, is still going strong.) Far more important is the extent to which our claims of financial soundness - claims often invoked as we lectured other countries on the need to change their ways - have proved hollow.

Indeed, these days America is looking like the Bernie Madoff of economies: for many years it was held in respect, even awe, but it turns out to have been a fraud all along.

That was a Time cover. Newsweek covers, like the current one, picture aboved, are totally different.

"The Rollout Dazzles This Time" was how the Times billed the story on its website. By which the paper's editors meant it dazzled the stock market, for one day: the Dow closed up nearly 500 points, or 7 percent.

That such a "verdict" would define the day's bailout coverage (along with quotes from those receiving the money) should sound dubious to anyone who has scoffed as conservative commentators said the stock market hates Barack Obama, tanking the day after he was elected, the day he was sworn in and the day he signed the economic stimulus package into law.

It should also sound absurd to anyone who remembers how Congress foolishly contorted itself around the stock market's "verdict" last fall. Stocks plummeted after the House rejected a poorly-structured, $700 billion bank bailout. A panicked Senate scrambled to pass basically the same bill, which soon cleared the House and became law.

Just a few weeks later, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson implicitly conceded that the House had been right the first time: He scrapped his initial crap plan to buy up distressed mortgage securities and instead planned a bank "recapitalization."

Five months have passed, and the press is still letting Wall Street — whose dysfunction is, itself, the financial crisis — define the debate. In Monday's front-page bailout coverage, the Wall Street Journal quoted only Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the head of private-equity giant Blackrock and two Republican senators. Oh, and Obama, from his 60 Minutes appearance.

Which is basically inexcusable. Details of the bailout had leaked two days earlier. Economists had already begun blogging about it. Tomorrow's WSJ front-pager is only slightly better, quoting a broader array of players within the financial services industry but no economists or other experts with a less-than-direct stake in how things turn out.

The stock market has become "the media's real-time economic report card," according to a recent New Republic story. The market plummeted after Geithner outlined a bailout plan in February, but so what?

...was the market drop a signal that Obama's plan was bad for the economy as a whole or just bad for bank stocks? The two propositions mean very different things.

This, alas, is the very distinction the stock-mongers on television fail to grasp.

The magazine was talking about notorious CNBC shouting head Jim Cramer. It's kind of pathetic that these days it could be referring to the front page of the New York Times.

In any case, some of those "parasites" in the blogosphere are taking up the slack, see for example here, here, here and here.

No, they are still buried in crosstalk on Meet the Press, of course, because they're filthy liberals. Here is Barney Frank, yesterday, explaining that all the "spending" in the stimulus bill that the Senate centrists stripped out was the "stimulus" bit of the stimulus bill, and that back in the day the Republicans never let the "centrists" do shit, and then Mike Pence is all "whatevs Barney" and Barney is all "you aren't even listening to me asshole" and David Gregory is all "ok let's talk about something else, and also let's have the argument on terms decided on by these self-appointed centrists who have no ideology besides a pathological need to temper whatever their party does with a dash of what the opposing party wants, even if it makes no economic sense."

Do we sound like we've been reading too much Krugman? We have! The Nobel-winning economist has long been the most outraged liberal of the Times opinion section, and he really found his shrill, Bush-hating voice over the eight years of that presidency. And now there's a great big economic crisis and he's a super-smart economist so surely Obama will be consulting with him every day until we're past this! But no, the Times editorial board convinced Tom Daschle to withdraw his cabinet nomination, but no one listens to Krugman, still. He just blogs about how much he hates bipartisanship and how everyone but him is so stupid.

At a certain point you have to acknowledge that liberals are just big losers who can't get anything done. You have to acknowledge this because it is the conventional wisdom, that right-wingers get things done and the liberals just all shout at each other all day.

Number one is Paul Krugman, who is so influential that he never supported Obama in the primaries and continues to use his blog to impotently push for a bigger eceonomic stimulus plan without tax cuts. The Obama Economic Team has steadfastly ignored the Nobel-winning economist, which is why Krugman is a guy to watch this term!

Hah, and number four? It's Flat-Earther Thomas Friedman, the third-grader who somehow ended up with a successful career as a pundit and author. The Forbes summary of his importance is perhaps more correct than they realize, in a scary way:

Behind the seemingly glib sound bites lie opinions that are genuinely influential among the educated, tome-reading public and the Washington establishment.

Simple-minded powerful people enjoy the simple-minded work of this mustachioed free-trader, which is why we are doomed. At least Tommy now cares about the Global Warming, or something, apparently.

The AP obviously wanted some good easy-to-understand pithy quotes from economist types, this year, to round out their list, because the economy has cratered and no one understands what's going on. So they listed two from Krugman:

10. (tie) "Cash for trash." — Paul Krugman discussing the financial bailout, New York Times, Sept. 22.

10. (tie) "There are no atheists in foxholes and there are no libertarians in financial crises." — Krugman, in an interview with Bill Maher on HBO's "Real Time," broadcast Sept. 19.

The problem, as Krugman immediately pointed out, is that he borrowed the "atheists in foxholes" line from Jeff Frankel and the second line is not even a "quote," it's a catchy rhyming saying that can't be attributed to anyone.

And so now the AP has issued its correction. Paul Krugman, not actually worth quoting.

The real scandal is that both quotes were tied for number 10, which means it wasn't even a proper top ten list. Where is your correction of that, Associated Press? They even stuck in an extraneous third "tenth" quote from Donald Luskin, making it a "Top 12" list, and therefore useless as a piece of year-end filler journalism. Shame.

This anecdote about Friedman's massive ego is joke fodder at the Times' D.C. office:

Immodesty occasionally shows; and, when Paul Krugman, his Op-Ed colleague, won the Nobel Prize in Economics, a few weeks ago, I was told that the reaction heard most often at the Times was "How's Tom going to take that?"

Wait until Krugman becomes Secretary of the Treasury! Friedman's really going to be steamed he endorsed the Iraq War!

That's just part of the hypersensitive columnist's overall insanity. The profile opens with Friedman in Greenland near the Arctic Circle, where he is blissfully whaling away on his laptop at all times of day while his wife watches on. We had always wondered why a woman would copulate with the putzy Friedman:

"My dad worked every night," [Friedman's wife Ann] said. "I'm sure that's why I was attracted to Tom, because my dad went back to the office my whole life. That's how I grew up." She reads her husband's columns before they are submitted, and a few times a year she causes him to start from scratch.

The ensuing depiction of the overly repetitive columnist is none too flattering, describing him witlessly coming up with a book idea after a short conversation with Bill Gates and characterizing his golf game: "a fine striker of the ball." That no doubt means exactly what you think it means.

It's no wonder Roubini has earned the nickname Dr. Doom. One website suggests a Halloween mask of his unsmiling visage. And the New York Times chose a photograph (left) of the Stern School 'permabear' to go with this description. "With a dour manner and an aura of gloom about him, Roubini gives the impression of being permanently pained, as if the burden of what he knows is almost too much for him to bear. He rarely smiles, and when he does, his face, topped by an unruly mop of brown hair, contorts into something more closely resembling a grimace."

It's time to call bullshit. The image of Dr. Doom may satisfy the needs of the media and partygoers this Halloween—but Roubini is anything but dour. The 50-year-old Iranian-Jewish economist is a promiscuous Facebook friend who draws a cosmopolitan crowd to the frequent parties at his Tribeca loft—an apartment with walls indented with plaster vulvas, incidentally. As this party photograph shows (right), the professor's gloomy public image is entirely at odds with his playboy lifestyle. In a Facebook message, Roubini makes no apology:

Dear Nick, I work very very hard and I also enjoy life. My home is also partially a cultural salon where I host book parties, debate and election night events, independent film screnings, live music nights, theater/performance acts, fashion shows, dinner parties and even plain old fashioned dance parties.

I have this professional Dr Doom nickname but I am quite a cheerful person with a few close friends and eclectic group of friends who, like most New Yorkers, are members of the creative class. The innovations of lawyers and bankers can be as creative as those of visual or performing artists, at times too creative you may say given the current financial meltdown. So I live life to its fullest. To paraphrase Seinfeld; anything wrong with that?

Just like when Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace prize in 2002! Carter won supposedly for working "to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development" but everyone knew it was just because the international community hates George W. Bush and former president Carter can't stop complaining about Bush.

Of course, Krugman still thinks he won this prize for his "economics," but he knows full well that the recognition won't silence the people who read his writings just to call him a communist or whatever:

“I think we’ve learned this when we see Joe Stiglitz writing,” Mr. Krugman said, referring to the winner of the economics Nobel in 2001. “I haven’t noticed him getting an easy time. People just say, ‘Sure, he’s a great Nobel laureate and he’s very smart, but he still doesn’t know what he’s talking about in this situation.’ I’m sure I’ll get the same thing.”

Oddly, at The Corner, that hothouse of conservative self-delusion, the only response so far has been cautiously complimentary:

Let's Just Get It Out of the Way Now [Jonah Goldberg]

Congratulations professor Krugman.

Update: A lot of readers write in to tell me the prize must be a joke, that it's political etc. I have no idea whether, or how much, politics entered the decision — though politics often does. But I think folks need to know that Krugman really is a very serious and respected economist. I have no idea how his academic work has held up since he became a pundit. But people have been talking about him getting a Nobel for years. Look, Noam Chomsky's a great linguist. Being good at your academic specialty has never been a great indicator of your political acuity.

Expect this moderate response to be walked back as the day progresses, perhaps first with an anti-Krugman email or two (maybe from unnamed "economists"!) reprinted without comment. Eventually someone will chime in with a sarcastic Carter reference, and it will all culminate this afternoon with a ten-paragraph screed by Andy McCarthy or something.

More serious (and even less serious!) conservative commentators are similarly nonplussed, as it's hard to paint the economics prize committee as an unserious political organization. Which is a sad, sad statement on the current Conservative Movement, really. When their front-line idea warriors are allowing a bunch of fruity foreigners to claim the unhinged Krugman is in some way an important and serious thinker, there's no heart left in the fight.

Especially when he's an influential member of the shadow government of economists who are somehow convincing this administration to "listen to experts" instead of just doing whatever they find politically expedient! After weeks of hectoring Treasury Secretary Paulson on the benefits of socializing the banks, Krugman's basically won, with the Bush Administration pretty much signing on to the totally commie British Plan.

All in all, it's a very timely Nobel Prize, as Krugman is now in a great position to lead the international conspiracy of serious economists who are trying to convince the Bush administration to do something totally antithetical to their ideology to solve this crisis before it's too late.

2. Paul Krugman. It's called a razor! And why don't you iron your one suit once in a while?

1. Choire Sicha. GET A JOB, HIPPIE.

(The rest of the pundit class looks precisely as well-fed and content as they actually are.)

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

autumn dreams
i didn't wake up until noon today, which sucks, cause i was supposed to go to lunch with jenny 8... oh well. she'll prolly get over it, but i can't reschedule for tomorrow cause i'm supposed to visit judy and i have to get there before keller — he just talks and talks until visiting hours are over. doesn't matter that much, i guess. i'm jsut visiting cause everyone else is. i never really know what to say to judy. but i should go cause i have to write a column about a transportation bill or something.

man oh man, i love the new sufjan stevens (sp?) album *soooo* fucking much..
current mood: sleepy
posted by: jtierney 9/28/05 12:45:06 PM

arrrggghh
god i hate barney calame so so so so so so much he thinks he's so smart.

i can't really talk about it right now.
current mood: mad
listening to: joni
posted by: krug-man04 9/28/05 11:15:34 AM

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