Do you also agree with the logic of reading what the f**k you're refuting? You could have saved yourself a post or two.
Also, if you're still bitter about the Goldman thread, go in there and argue with real points rather than TLR. I never said what Goldman and the Koch brothers did was the exact same---it more or less is, but yes there are differences, mostly in scope. Still, just because Koch does it on a much larger and nefarious scale does not excuse Goldman of doing it either. I'm not going to tolerate you sniping at me over other threads, if you consistently show you hold a grudge over god knows what, then that's your beef, but leave it out of other threads.
I just said I agree with you, I'm not refuting everything. Your logic chain is irrefutable. nah, this temper tantrum and the logic fail in the post subsequent to this one (can you spot it?) have definitely been worth the time.
if internet temper tantrums are your thing, cool. I like projecting anger over the internet, but in reality, I could give less of a s*** personally. If I saw you in real life, I'd probably invite you for a beer or something. Now, as to your reading comprehension fail--- followed by When you realized your position was indefensible, because you failed to read my initial post, which contained the exact same information as my second post, which you seem to have no problem accepting. Let's see--- WAIT, except there are some! oh wait whoops, none. I can spot the exact moment too, where you failed to comprehend "more or less". Fine, let me enunciate. What Goldman and the Koch brothers do is of the same nature. Happy? I catch you at one reading fail, you catch me at one writing fail, cool cool. Now, no more mention of the Goldman thread.
Well Krugman who tends to be more correct (and certainly advocates in favor of the average person more) than the Goldman-Sachs conventional biz econ crowd who brought us the crisis, thinks it isn't so serious as the bankers want people to believe. ********** Sunday, June 26, 2011 Krugman on Argentina, Greece and sovereign debt default Paul Krugman has been pointing out how Greece's situation today is similar to that of Argentina in 2001: targeted by bond speculators, not directly in control of their own currency (Argentina's currency was pegged to the US dollar). And when he looks at the comparison of how Nestor Kirchner's government handled that crisis vs. the Greek parties madly embracing economically suicidal austerity, and says Don't Cry For Argentina 06/23/2011 http://thebluevoice.blogspot.com/2011/06/krugman-on-argentina-greece-and.html or June 23, 2011, 1:20 pm Don’t Cry For Argentina OK, I guess I don’t quite see how Argentina’s default, of all examples, can be viewed as a cautionary tale for Greece: IMF World Economic Outlook databaseArgentina suffered terribly from 1998 through 2001, as it tried to be orthodox and do the right thing. After it defaulted at the end of 2001, it went through a brief severe downturn, but soon began a rapid recovery that continued for a long time. Surely the Argentine example suggests that default is a great idea; the case against Greek default must be that this country is different (which, to be fair, is arguable). I was really struck by the person who said that Argentina is no longer considered a serious country; shouldn’t that be a Serious country? And in Argentina, as elsewhere, being Serious was a disaster. .http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/dont-cry-for-argentina/
Obviously the bankers have a vested interest in getting IMF bailouts... A structured default would have been ideal, but it's not going to happen. That said, Greece desperately needs to change its' habits. In fact, a lot of countries need to change. We need to have strong financial regulations and governments that believe in balanced budgets, not this current deregulated free-for-all with governments printing endless amounts of fiat money.
The Argentina comparison is good in some ways but since Argentina wasn't part of a system like the Euro that seems like a huge difference. The argument that I have been hearing is that a Greek default would destroy the Euro system as it would cause a domino effect of defaults. How likely of a possibility do y'all think that is? Also while in Argentina's case the default eventually helped them but if there is a domino effect of defaults from Greece to Ireland given how interconnected the economies are is that something that those countries could recover from?
This is the key. To your first question, it's a very real possibility. We saw this last summer when Greece's problems spread to Ireland, Italy, and Portugal then - so we know those countries are sort of teetering as-is. Greece defaulting would likely cause problems for all of them - and the ECB doesn't necessarily have the resources or the ability to bail all of those countries out (or at least Spain, if it spreads that far). To your second question - it has the very real potential to be Lehman all over again, though maybe not with quite the same velocity - and the ability to put a firewall out potentially by breaking up the Euro or the ECB printing lots and lots of money very quickly. You also have the benefit that people see this coming a bit more and have some opportunity to prepare themselves for it. Without TARP, we'd have seen a disaster here and a hellish depression. Eventually, an economy bottoms out and will recover. But how it would take? No one really knows. It could be quick; it could decades. WW2 saved us from the Great Depression - who knows how much longer that might have lasted without it. The reality is that, if Greece were to default, we'd be in uncharted territory as far as dominos go and how this would play out. All the models in the world can only make guesses.
Actually Krugman has been touting Iceland's devalue & default strategy, and contrasting it with Ireland's euro-austerity straitjacket for well over a year now. But since we're excluding him becuase he invalidates your statement, and anybody else who invalidates your statement - the answer is none! Once again your irrefutable truism that x = y, if y = x wins. You are undefeated in this thread. Keep rolling.
First, a rebuttal to Krugman's argument itself as to the shining example of Iceland. I'd always found that one a bit weak...mostly because, well...the Economist puts it best. Second, I read the article in question--- http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/the-icelandic-post-crisis-miracle/ Look, suffice it to say that you are confusing economic matters again. Allow me to demonstrate why we can exclude Krugman's argument as one for inflation. I'll start with the first thing... yes, there is a distinction between inflation and devaluation. They are two sides of the same coin, but they are distinctly two sides. The best way I have to explain it is that devaluation charts the benefits that are gained to the economy through currency value loss relative to other currencies---mostly, for exporting economies (it should be noted that losses are graphed with imports), through a gain in exports boosted by a weak currency, and in the case of defaulting bondholders, a loss in value of the bonds denominated in the home currency. Inflation is different. It charts the losses that are experienced by the people within the country due to a weak currency and the flood of home currency into the money supply by zealous buyers of exported goods, which lead to a general loss of purchasing power through increases in the price level that are only relevant to the home currency, and not other currencies. Very infrequently does it chart gains---and only in the cases I have mentioned (small, controlled inflation+avoiding deflation). So, for example, China's exporters benefit from devaluation of their currency, since importers are more willing to buy with cheap Renmibi relative to other currencies, but China's people suffer from the resulting high inflation because their Renmibi relative to just its' own purchasing power cannot buy the same amount of goods and services anymore. This is the inflation that the Chinese are always trying to keep in check. Devaluation can cause inflation. But they are two distinctly separate concepts. So to say that Krugman is advocating for inflation---when in fact he is arguing for a devaluation strategy and implicitly saying so in the name...is to once again, confuse the cure with the side effects and to claim that advocating for devaluation is advocating for inflation, when it clearly isn't. It is like saying that economists who advocate for loose monetary policy are also advocating for inflation as a cure...this simply isn't true. Currency devaluation is what Krugman is after---he extols the fact that Iceland recovered based on it. It is implied that he thinks greater exports, and the partial default that devaluation results in (since bonds are denominated in home currencies, and the Krona was devalued, Iceland ended up paying less relatively speaking on the bonds it did not completely default on, though that was pretty much a giant FU to lenders) is beneficial. Nowhere---not in the name, not in the article, not in his blog---does he extol the virtues of the inflation that follows. In fact, he is eerily silent on the topic as a whole, mostly because he knows that is the one unpleasant thing about his whole proposal. In fact, Krugman squarely comes to my view that inflation is good only in small, controllable doses. While he certainly counters inflation hawks who constantly worry about it and use it as an excuse to cut whatever, he also says... http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/british-inflation-a-teachable-moment/ implicitly saying that when inflation is too high, it is not a good thing. He hopes for a drop in inflation, like any rational economist. I read Krugman regularly. He's a big fan of spending, but nowhere have I seen him come out and say...more inflation is good beyond that small and controllable amount every central bank sets. Now, that said, I am a fan of structured defaults. I would not be completely averse to printing more money or to devalue the currency in Greece's case...it would not be the first thing I'd recommend, since it leads down a slippery slope (and surely the fundamentals of an economy as bad as Greece need to be corrected for there to be any significant changes anyways). The whole point is moot though, because Greece can't do any of these things. I am forced to conclude you largely agree with me, but you chose to single handily try to attack me on one point. I have to conclude you were looking for economics lessons. I'll take it as a compliment. (EDIT: Changed up the explanation a bit, since it was a little sloppy. It's more technical now, but more accurate, for the 1 or 0 viewers interested, heh.)
Who doesn't believe that some of Greece's public employee benefits should not be cut back. the whole system over there sounds corrupt.
Yeah, the whole country has major problems and lived way beyond their means for a long time. But austerity has been pretty incredible over there. I don't know about the benefits side of it, but between last year and yesterday's austerity measures, I think all government employees took 30%+ pay cuts. I can't imagine what would happen here if we tried that.
Obviously not. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/the-penalty-for-default-the-payoff-to-austerity/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/iceland-ireland-again/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/comparative-peripheral-suffering/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/bloomberg-on-the-icelandic-miracle/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/hard-currencies-soft-heads/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/ice-and-fire-update/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/lands-of-ice-and-ire/ I told you I agreed with your statement 100 times - you have constructed it to be infallible and bulletproof and ratproof on many levels. I'm glad you finally came to that conclusion though -there is hope for you yet.
Sam, I clicked on the first and second article and got this... Nowhere do I see a defense of inflation. In fact, it reinforces my point that he's going for devaluation rather than inflation. It's clear you haven't read my post about the differences between the two. I don't see your point in bringing these articles up. In fact, I don't see the point of you even trying given that... Sam, at this point I am barely reading you, just glimpsing/skimming whatever amusing attack point comes to your mind. If you're still bitter about previous threads, so be it, but it's getting laughable. I'm having a good time, aren't you, fighting over this one point where I seem to have to instruct you about basic economic concepts, while you constantly bring up Krugman article links that reinforce my point. Your constant scheming about my statement has been amusing too. First it's contestable (you obviously chose to pick a bone about it), now it's infallible---I haven't changed it one bit from the beginning.
INdeed- i"ve read maybe 15% of what you've written on this - learned my lesson in the other thread. Congrats - see above.
hey Sam, this is where you go grab a beer and wonder whether or not it's even worth reading 15% of my posts if all you can muster is that you only read 15% of my posts. I'd actually rather you read 0% of my posts, and just be done with it. Instead of snipping one or two points just to satisfy your lust for internet supremacy...or something.
