Krugman's Reply

A lot of people must have notice the same obvious points that I did because Krugman has posted a new blog post responding to the critics. He admits that there has been a rise in federal employment under Obama but that has been outweighed by a decrease in state and local employment. Okay, but why did he even think that the earlier graph helped make his case? I agree with the point that state and local government workers are the workers such as policemen, firemen and teachers who actually do the things that we depend on. They are being laid off because state budgets are so bloated that they can't afford to pay for the essential services they are supposed to be providing. He doesn't mention the role that state mismanagement or overly generous pensions play in the state's budget woes. He then points out that the government got much larger under Eisenhower, Johnson and Nixon but has been much more steady, relative to population, since then. Of course, the large number of new bureaucrats hired during those administrations are still there. We haven't shrunk since then. Why did we need so many new government workers after 1950?

This Guy won a Nobel Prize?

Sometimes Krugman comes across as incredibly stupid. In two recent blog posts he says things that strike me as pretty dumb. Here, he says, as he has before, that is is "deeply illogical" to propose a cut in future benefits in social security in order to prevent future cuts in benefits. What he calls "deeply illogical" is what most reasonable people would call "planning." If you know that in twenty years Social Security is going to face a massive shortfall, isn't it wise to make changes now so you avoid a very disruptive, massive cut? If you can change the formula for social security increases so it increases more slowly then there won't be a massive cut all at once. Isn't that what people who create budgets and forecasts are supposed to do? Why is that illogical? If you know you are going to lose your job or suffer a future cut in income, doesn't it make sense to start saving now to prepare? Isn't it better to slow the increase in benefits so people have a long time to prepare rather than suddenly stick them with a cut? Wouldn't any normal, intelligent person realize this?

In this post, he points to a graph that is supposedly a better debunking of the claim that the government growth is out of control. He claims that conservative critics of government are falsely using the temporary spike in government employment to claim that government is growing a lot. However, even ignoring the two spikes in the graph for the 2000 and 2010 censuses, the graph clearly shows the government employment is increasing much more rapidly since 2008. From 2000 to 2008, ignoring the census spike, government employment went from a little under 1.9 million to a little under 2.0 million, an increase of 100,000 jobs. From 2008 to the end of 2010, again ignoring the census spike, government employment went from under 2.0 million to 2.2 million, an increase of a little more than 200,000 jobs. So in three years the government added twice as many jobs as they did over the 8 years between 2000 and 2008. Krugman doesn't even address what the graph plainly shows - a government growing at a must faster pace over the past few years.

Holder Going After the Small Fry

The New York Times reports that Attorney General Eric Holder is ignoring fraud at the big Wall Street firms and going after penny-ante stuff. I'm glad someone is noticing this and writing about it. As the article states, "If the government spent half the time trying to ferret out fraud at major companies that it does tracking pump-and-dump schemes, we might have been able to stop the financial crisis, or at least we’d have a fighting chance at stopping the next one." His efforts are described as a "public relations push." This is the New York Times reporting, not some anti-Obama blog.

Althouse v Rush

Ann Althouse makes some good points against Rush Limbaugh in arguing that he is gratuitously insulting a certain kind of man and all women. She's right, but its very common in our culture. In high school, nerdy and non-athletic guys are frequently called girls. If you can't throw well, you throw like a girl. However, many non-athletic men who don't fit the typical male stereotype have made great contributions to society. Julian Assange should be criticized or praised based on his actions in posting all of these leaks on Wikileaks.

I'm also interested to learn that Ann Althouse and Rush Limbaugh were born on the same day January 12, 1951. January 12 is one day before my own birthday. Hmmm... maybe that's why I've grown to like my fellow Capricorn Ann so much.

Regarding Wikileaks, Judge Napolitano makes has some good arguments supporting Assange. He's doing it on Fox News, showing that Fox does have some diversity of opinion.