Thin-skinned Krugman Defends NYT Censorship

Yesterday, New York Times columnist and blogger, Paul Krugman, played cheerleader for Benny the Wanker's corrupt actions in continuing to reduce interest rates (see post below.) Krugman's post was picked up by the Economics Blog at the Wall Street Journal where a commenter called Krugman's opinion a "typical jew response to monetary policy."

Krugman edited his post to include a link to the origin of this comment and opined , "Now you see why comments on this blog have to be moderated."

Umm... no, I don't, Paul. While the comment may be offensive to you and doesn't add rationally to the discussion, it does not justify censorship, which is what "moderation" means at the New York Times blogs. Censorship by a publisher implies that the publisher is not to be trusted to present the whole range of opinion and since Krugman supports that it is reasonable to be suspicious of his opinions.

Because Paul Krugman gets paid very well for allowing businesses to publish his opinions publicly, one would be justified in thinking that he would he would have a greater respect for free speech and the First Amendment and develop a reasonably thicker skin to boorish opinions opposed to his. I am rapidly losing respect for him, which is important because he is one of the few voices who usually argues effectively against elitist economics and its false propaganda.

Nothing Liberal About This

Today on his blog ,"The Conscience of a Liberal", Paul Krugman cheers Benny the Wanker and the Feddies for slashing interest rates and emphatically recommends more. Low interest rates didn't get us into this mess and they are completely appropriate to get us out Krugman opines. I say opines because he makes no argument. He sets up a strawman and knocks it down. He is most certainly not a liberal in this stance. He is quite simply a supporter of the "criminal" behavior which got us here.

Interest rates are ridiculously low if the lender is forced to lend money at a rate which does not include adequate return for risk of default and for inflation. At 1%, a rate which Krugman cheers, there is neither. The lender is swindled here, forced to lend its deposits as quickly as possible to generate sufficient income to pay its bills regardless of risk. Twice threatened the lender must make poorly qualified loans and perhaps go out of business when the loans are defaulted on, or hold its money and go out of business because it cannot generate enough income to pay its bills.

Faced with this situation, lenders created the "criminal" loan-bundling vehicles, the creators of the sub-prime crisis, in order to survive by passing the "criminally" mandated, uncompensated risk on to others.

Krugman thinks this is just wonderful. I think Krugman is more than just wrong. I think he is intellectually dishonest here. He knows better.

By the way, don't look for cogent comments to his blog entry. The people that control those censor and/or delay comment until it is no longer useful.

Making Promises He Can't Keep

U. S. Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff promises that the Guantanamo prisoners charged in connection with the 9/11 bombings will receive fair trials and full due process. That's nice. It brought to mind Bush saying that Saddam Hussein would be given a fair trial and then hanged, but there was something else here that struck me as just plain wrong: these people will be tried by military tribunal. The U.S. military reports to the President through the Secretary of Defense not the Secretary of Homeland Security. So, Chertoff, who has no authority in the matter, has no right to promise anything in connection with it. He is, in fact, just advancing Bush Administration propaganda which is meant to take the edge off the arguments against this new surge to murder.

Anyone who has become even lightly acquainted with U.S. military justice through experience or study knows that there is little to no fairness in it and little to no justice. Military courts are more susceptible than any other U.S. court to producing the results desired by those in power.

Trials?

Some prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are to be tried by the Pentagon on charges of "Conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, terrorism and providing material support for terrorism". Aside from having these murderers tried by our murderers in one of our least free, just, and accountable institutions, there is the problem that the charges listed above sound an awful lot like what the Bush Administration has been doing for at least the past 4-5 years. So when will all of our lying, murdering slugs be tried?

Benny the Wanker III

An unscheduled, huge (three-quarter point) cut in interest rates? With inflation running high and trending upward these nasty beasts are fueling it while trying to save their corporate masters by giving them time to sell off their stocks at propped up rates. Propped up by crushing any incentive to save, invest or spend. Saving at low rates with much greater risk is just plain stupid as is investing when the risk of failure is so high and the return so small. Spend, spend, spend when the near-term future is most certainly black? We're not that stupid. Coffee cans tucked to the back of shelves will be filling up in hopes that there will be enough for food and shelter.

So what's it all about? Free or nearly free money is what it's about. Got to create another huge bubble. The thieves and con men deserve another helping. Benny's masters will raid the banks one last time before America groans and falls to its knees, victim of the Republican criminal empire which of course includes those disguised as Democrats like Clinton and Obama.

U.S. Bank: Zero Star Service

My wife and I have been trying to end our business with this criminal corporation for years. It only took hours of sitting and waiting to close checking accounts, but it took a few years to consolidate our IRA accounts so that we could transfer them without incurring separate exhorbitant fees for the transfer. Today was to be the day. I had all the information for the other bank to whom the money was to be transferred, but U.S. Bank was there to make it as tough as possible. They refused to fill out the transfer papers insisting that the other bank must initiate the transfer. The branch manager was adamant. Well, that was contrary to all our prior experience and we had been warned by people at the other bank that they were having trouble getting transfers from this branch in that way. Seems the transfer requests kept getting "lost" in the mail or arriving a day late. U.S. Bank renewed the cd's at a much lower rate and held the owner's money captive. They told us to have U.S. Bank initiate the transfer to be safe.

U.S. Bank advertises "5 star service guaranteed". I understand what that means after years of dealing with them at the Nameoki Branch in Granite City, Illinois. It means come on in and bend over a desk, we'll service you at our pleasure. Grrrrr....

Benny the Wanker II

It seems leading economists have extremely short memories or immunity to facts as they fail to call out Benny for his intention to lower interest rates, yet again. It was the extremely low interest rates along with a never-ending supply of corrupt financial industry folks that gave us the housing bubble, the mal-mortgage market, and the foreclosures, bankruptcies and the tanking of the American economy. Benny's solution to these problems is to recreate the exact conditions that created them: low interest rates, cheap money. I guess, there must be more money for the financial criminal class to skim off before America goes under. Shame on you, Benny, charlatan, facilitator of thieves.