December 31, 2003
BLOOD CHILLED
Consider, if you dare, the mindset of an individual able to form this thought, let alone decide to publish it under their own name:
Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean was a momentous event.
Paul Krugman is terrifying.
Posted by Tim Blair at December 31, 2003 01:24 PMNah, not terrifying - the more the far left sounds like raving lunatics, the more harmless they are. Let's tally:
1. Madeline Albright actually says that perhaps the Bush admin had Saddam locked up for months and just trotted him out for political timing.
2. Howard Dean suggests that perhaps the administration knew Sept. 11 was going to happen.
3. Krugman thinks an endorsement from Al Gore gets anyone excited outside of Washington, DC and a little office in princeton, NJ.
Jebus f'ing Christ. I think the right is winning the culture war.
I mean, read salon.com over the past couple of months - even those moonbats haven't had the energy to publish anything other than mostly movie reviews. And they've even only managed to work in a few half-hearted Bush is evil allusions into THOSE.
Krugman sounds like the wicked witch of the West immediately after getting a bucket of water in the face.
Posted by: Bill at December 31, 2003 at 01:34 PMThat column's nothing. Dig this one which contains this dispatch from the Krugman Universe:
An unusually large number of people have given up looking for work, so they are no longer counted as unemployed[...]Really. So people who aren't working... are actually working. I've really got to try that on my boss one day.
(Granted, I think that what he meant was that people who quit looking for work were simply not being counted because they weren't reporting to the unemployment bureau, but then he uses this non-measurable pseudo-number to prove that the US jobmarket is in the toilet. Well heck, I think I'll use the number of dates I never had in college due to the fact that I wasn't a leggy blond to prove that blonds don't, in fact, have more fun.)
PS: the link to the Krugman article is from Hoystory.
It is a bit of a betrayal of Lieberman, as this Filibuster cartoon notes.
Posted by: Andjam at December 31, 2003 at 02:14 PMI seem to remember pretty much everyone saying at the time that this was a pretty major thing - dispelling the idea that Dean was the outsider, adding gravitas to his campaign, etc. etc.
Certainly the Wall Street Journal, hardly known for its outrageously liberal views, thought so.
Oh, and as for the employment figures, you can attempt to measure them by comparing the total active population, the number of jobs and the number of people claiming unemployment benefits. And it's hardly a new trick to build or modify a system which undercounts the real number of unemployed people - governments have been at it for years.
Posted by: Sam Kington at December 31, 2003 at 02:48 PMIt seems sometimes that no gibbering, drooling leftie will ever need toilet paper as long as Krugman's around.
Posted by: mojo at December 31, 2003 at 05:25 PMI certainly thought the Gore endorsement was a big event in the primaries, it marked the end of Dean's outsider status, sent a very clear message that he's making the inside connections now. Maybe Krugman would be less pooh-poohed if he simply added the phrase "in the primaries" after that, looking at the article I thought it was implied.
Posted by: Chris at December 31, 2003 at 07:32 PM"But history will not forgive us if we allow laziness and personal pettiness to shape this crucial election."
Umm, Mr. Krugman? You are not shaping the election. But, I do believe that you would recognize personal pettiness, as a purveyor of high-quality pettiness yourself.
Posted by: Rob at January 1, 2004 at 12:07 AMPaul Krugman is terrifying.Nahhh - Paul Krugman is nuts. (Fits right in with Gore and Dean.) Posted by: Barbara Skolaut at January 1, 2004 at 06:53 AM
As far as unemployment goes, even during boom years there's a pool of unemployed people who are unemployed because they want to be.
Posted by: Full Auto at January 1, 2004 at 07:21 AMYes, Full Auto, I was wondering whether Krugman was counting anyone who doesn't have a job now but had one once as being involuntarily unemployed. I left my fulltime job voluntarily a year ago to stay home (I do some part-time work, but not nearly enough to qualify as fully employed). I wonder if I'm the sort of person he's including in the list of people who never went to the unemployment office :).
Posted by: Sonetka at January 1, 2004 at 11:23 AMAndrea,
You are on the right track attacking Krugman's job market point, but you've tied herself up into conceptual knots trying to unpick his argument.
Allow me to straighten you out.
Krugman claims that the US labour market is "the worst job market in 20 years", alluding to the recent decline in the US's employment-population ratio and labour force participation rates.
Krugman is normally on the money, and I would hate to be identified with the fools over at the KTS.
But my professional diligence trumps my political partisanship, so I would concede that, this time, Dr K's aim is not true.
The US's employment-population raio in the worst for 10 years.
In 1983, it troughed at 57.1%.
In 1993, it troughed at 61.4%.
In 2003, it troughed at 62.0%.
It appears that, for the time being, the US economy is capable of fixing itself, despite the best bankruptcy-prone efforts of the Bush admin.
You see, it pays to have a symapathetic critic visiting your site, even if he occasionally carries on like an insufferable bore.
& to think I just wanted to make fun of Krugman's wacky turn of phrase.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 2, 2004 at 07:46 AMAndrea,
Your parenthetic wisecrack-qualifier reads as follows:
(Granted, I think that what he meant was that people who quit looking for work were simply not being counted because they weren't reporting to the unemployment bureau, but then he uses this non-measurable pseudo-number to prove that the US jobmarket is in the toilet.)
This is either a conceptual quagmire or post-modernist self-parody. Either way Krugman is not going to be in tears before bedtime.
If you want to score some hits on the BSDs, use live bullets.
At least now you have some factual reality to gnaw on whilst you wait for your next meal of easy left-wing meat. Posted by: Jack Strocchi at January 2, 2004 at 03:29 PM
Jack, it's not that important. I was simply pointing out his syntax. My parenthetical comment was a qualifier indicating that I understood what he was trying to get at. What is your fucking problem? You are once again picking a fight with me out of thin air. Let it go, you're getting anal.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 3, 2004 at 01:50 AMNo problem.
Only trying to set the record straight.
Just the facts, maam.