Paul Krugman, "We are Living in Surreall Times"

[texndaisy]

Paul, you said it is economically impossible to pay off the debt and politically impossible. You forgot about mathematically impossible, too !! lol

[texndaisy]

you're wrong about a lot too. this is Nobel Prize material?

[theNetworkCH]

Coming from Europe, what Krugman says makes eminent sense (except the part about Stockholm being a country). I find it extremely difficult to understand how anyone could disagree with what he says. Do you guys (Austro-Americans) realise how strange you look from across the pond?

[texndaisy]

@theNetworkCH - go listen to Peter Schiff make sense out of what Krugman is pushing. Krugman is so dead wrong in so many ways and Peter Schiff can help you understand that.

[geomonicdotorg]

@pipem4n - You've misinterpreted everything I've written. I am an anti-Keynesian, from the Austrian school.

[silverton7777]

Here is a welfare Professor who never worked in his life been on the public dime his enter carrer. I'm betting never worked in the private economy and has no clue to solving our ecnomic problems who voted for Obama = Bush the third,

[asphyxiafeeling]

Krugman is making a lot of sense here!

All the libertarian friends I have make fun of this guy all the time, I don't understand why!

[geomonicdotorg]

@asphyxiafeeling This Nobel Prize winning Princeton economist did not foresee what is happening now. The fact that he believes that the Europeans have a "social safety net" is ironic, because it ignores the failing net that is holding it up! Greece had one of the biggest safety nets - how is that working out for them? Whole economies are drowning in a tsunami of Keynesian-spawned debt, and Krugman is describing, in hindsight no less, the water required to put out a tsunami!

[aquarius10780]

@geomonicdotorg I just read a book "Confessions of an Ecconomic Hitman" by John Perkins. His former job was to basically bankrupt third world countries so that corporations can then make huge proffits off them- (I can't explain it in the space here) but he said "Now with Iceland, these corporations have descovered how to crack developed countries as well." It's all about the process of PREDITORY LENDING NOT- Keynesian ecconomics- INFACT the problem is NO GOVERNMENT oversight. Greece was duped.

[geomonicdotorg]

@aquarius10780 I'm not confusing government oversight with "social safety net". Government oversight is ESSENTIAL. Government guarantees, oversight or not, is DISASTER. 

[aquarius10780]

@geomonicdotorg I guess my point is the social safety net is vulnerable to distruction because of the austerity measures now imposed which are due to the problems created by this preditory lending. The leaders of Greece where coherced to belive unrealistic predictions of growth that gave the green light to way too many public projects. The construction firms made a killing while the people then get stuck with the debt. Then it comes out of their pensions.BTW this is just a theory-not sure yet

[geomonicdotorg]

@aquarius10780 Those austerity measures are imposed by the very banks that facilitated the problem in the first place. Thus, Greece is LADEN with odius debt as a result. Pensions are affected, but those aren't the social safety nets, insofar as they were paid into by the Greek laborers themselves. Other social safety nets, as part of Greece's own welfare state, are under attack, as part of Greece's borrowing/deficit spending, which is no longer supported by the IMF or banks.

[pipem4n]

@geomonicdotorg

I just explained earlier - it was the government. Of course bankers should have gone down the pipe (shouldn't have lent because knew Grece wouldn't pay) , but again governmet did the wrong thing and imposed austerity instead of declearing bancrupcy.

How can IMF support anything - it's broke, it has nothing but good deal with the printing press. Yes they will lend money thay didn't have - by stealing purchasing power from all the dollars that already are.

[pipem4n]

@aquarius10780

No it's not true, Sosial net is designed to fail. It's a complex entity that needs to be managed by market. Wastefullness, corruption, shortages are build in this system - their inherit featutre is to not work properly. I would give government some work but with simple things - like screwing together pens or sth.

Noone was coerced to believe that Greece is going to grow. It's UE that merged unfitting economies under one body and currency.

[pipem4n]

Suddenly Greek bonds were just as good as German - Greek Gov. said same thing as Krugman - borrow while we can while it's cheap and don't think about repaing. All knew this was the situation yet they lent Greek gov. anyways. Because everyone knew Germans and British and French will bail Greeks out.

So - who made the mess we are in? Government. Greedy polititians that wanted their country bonds to be worth more, and run a Ponzi for a while. Ppl are victims of governments.

[aquarius10780]

@geomonicdotorg I don't know the specifics on Greece but it has all the ear marks of this preditory lending pattern that has been ruining countries since the 1950s. I also feel I'm missing a part of your point. (not your fault) I do feel that now may have been a great time to hire american workers to renew our infrastructure but it's kinda hard to do that when we spend close to a trillion $ a year on military and military related spending. War contractors are pigging out on most of our tax money

[geomonicdotorg]

@aquarius10780 The problem is the collectivized money supply, and who siphons from it. Fractional reserve lending supports commerce at the expense of savers, while deficit spending supports warfare/ welfare at the expense of the same. The dollar is a case of The Fed Owes Nobody, but the Euro and IMF is a case of Nobody Owes Anybody. All countries, jointly and severally liable with each other, while predatory lenders get countries to make losing bets against the house.

[aquarius10780]

@geomonicdotorg Wow, a lot of interesting info to process. But one quick question: aren't all parts of the social safety net (not just pensions) paid into by the Greek laborers?

[geomonicdotorg]

@aquarius10780 Since 1980 Greek has/had a complex, intensely bureaucratic, heavily subsidized and exponentially growing welfare state - a redistribution of wealth based in large part on deficit promises, with welfare "insurance" (it's not insurance, but automatic guarantees without backing) with 66% of social services budget toward unbacked pensions - and more than half of GDP if you look at raw numbers. Predatory lending was to cover pensions that were long since raided.

[pipem4n]

@geomonicdotorg

Stop watching commie propaganda and turn to Austrians. It was government cospiratory actions that took place all over Europe to form EU which let this predatory lending happen. Read the rest of my comments here.

[pipem4n]

@aquarius10780

Bonds - just as good as German, remember? Equal interest rate too - this was and is the core of problem. That is why polititians conspired against their own people, German gov. wanted an empire quite similar to what Hitler wanted - One Euro, One Reich, One Nation.

Greek government wanted to borrow cheap, run the ponzi and steal on gov. projects.

[pipem4n]

@geomonicdotorg

That is not true with real money ex. gold, with a disclaimer - no centrall bank.

You are sadly mistaken if you think it was peacefully and nice with EU emerging. All 3 referendums that were done for Lizbon Treaty (which made EU as a lawful entity) said no to EU. It was passed by governments. Again - missing fundamental thing - you won't be saved by government. It isn't true noone ows anybody in EU.

[pipem4n]

Government's have huge debts to one another - it's a Ponzi scheme. So Greek bonds are someones retirement in Germany. When the scheme collapses this social net you are talking about with such estime, will be everybodys pain. No wealth to support it anymore. We could've lived for credit for some time - now it's over. And it will be painfull, and it will be government fauld.

[pipem4n]

@geomonicdotorg

Examples of such disasters? Like wars and deaths, poverty, hunger, loss of liberty, financial meltdown, loss of opportunity, massive theft by taxation -> it's all governments. I don't need oversight from those guys. Governments ould provides courts of law, but private ones would work propably 10 times better.

[pipem4n]

@aquarius10780

Who did thoe predatory lenders lent to? To government. Oversight over this won't change a thing.

[aquarius10780]

@pipem4n Well, international preditory lending as I understand it makes it "look like" the money goes to the country's government but in actuality it goes to the huge contactors who then build the infrastructure. That is if I even get what happened exactly. I know this type of IMF lending has destoyed countries in the passed but I don't know the specifics on Greece- I just see what looks like the same forces at work. I'm not too sure. I will certainly look into it.

[pipem4n]

@asphyxiafeeling

On what point is he making sense? Point one place because I could speak for hours about how wrong he is in every word he's speaking with.