{"id":2516,"date":"2008-10-13T22:12:48","date_gmt":"2008-10-14T03:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=2516"},"modified":"2008-10-13T22:19:22","modified_gmt":"2008-10-14T03:19:22","slug":"or-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2008\/10\/13\/or-else\/","title":{"rendered":"or else&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<br \/>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/firedoglake.com\/2008\/10\/13\/nobel-memo-to-america-turn-away-from-the-far-right\/\">Nobel Memo to America: Turn Away from the Far Right<\/a><\/strong><br \/>  By: Stirling Newberry<\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\">Giving the Nobel Memorial prize to Paul Krugman was not just recognition of his theory of economic geography, but a strong message. This would not be the first time, nor will it be the last time that those awarding the prize have sent a message. One part of this message is on trade and globalization, and why developed nations should not fear global trade, another, however, is more direct and more blunt: it is about a changed world. <font color=\"#200020\"><strong>In a year which has seen more tumult in not only the markets, but the basic institutions that support them, it is a message that the United States can no longer maintain an exceptionalist policy. <\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"><font color=\"#200020\"><strong>It is a message that the Era of Reagan is Over writ in large letters. A message that Europe sees the Republican Party as having turned dangerously towards politics and policies that are coming close to spiraling into the abyss<\/strong><\/font>&#8230;<\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"> One of the people who needs to heed this message is Ben Bernanke, who has been one of the worst central bankers in a developed nation since the Second World War, and to whom Paul Krugman has been a good deal kinder than the record perhaps allows for. That message is that he cannot both be supportive of certain ideological outcomes, and save the banking system&#8230;<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">When I read that one of my favorite columnists, Paul Krugman, had won the Nobel in Economics, I was amazed. Not that he&#8217;s not a wonderful thinker [and a right-thinker]. I&#8217;m just not used to hearing that people I&#8217;ve ever heard of winning that honor &#8211; particularly someone who is a New York Times columnist. I actually wondered if it was a message myself, specifically this message &#8211; <font color=\"#200020\"><strong>the Era of Reagan is Over<\/strong><\/font>. I think that the people who write about Reaganomics or ideology or the &quot;greed is good&quot; era are being too kind. Reagan and the Bushes have given us 20 collective years of the same formula:<\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">\n<ul>\n<li>Cut taxes, particularly for the rich<\/li>\n<li>Deregulate everything to give the Capitalists free rein<\/li>\n<li>Spend wildly, particularly for Military Contracts<\/li>\n<li>Ignore the resulting soaring National Debt in the process<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" hspace=\"5\" height=\"125\" width=\"196\" border=\"1\" align=\"right\" src=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/images\/china_card.jpg\" \/>This is not an ideology. This is <font color=\"#200020\"><strong>conscious criminal behavior<\/strong><\/font>. Add to that the fact that they are behaving as if they were given a Chinese Credit Card with no limit &#8211; so the absurd debt is to China and other emerging countries entering the world market. And the comment that <font color=\"#200020\"><strong>Europe sees the Republican Party as having turned dangerously towards politics and policies that are coming close to spiraling into the abyss<\/strong><\/font> is equally naive. We&#8217;re not spinning into an abyss. We&#8217;re already there, and we took the rest of the world with us. We&#8217;ve been fleecing the world, and it has finally caught up with us.<\/div>\n<p> <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"><font color=\"#200020\"><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" hspace=\"5\" height=\"81\" width=\"136\" border=\"1\" align=\"left\" src=\"http:\/\/tbn0.google.com\/images?q=tbn:Tsb7MpJ-LT8LtM:http:\/\/www.pcr.uu.se\/database\/images\/world_green.gif\" \/>Paul Krugman<\/strong><\/font> is a World Economist, not someone narrowly focused on just the American Economy. So, the Reagan\/BushI\/BushII Administrations&#8217; <font color=\"#200020\"><strong>Project for the New American Century<\/strong><\/font> is what&#8217;s being repudiated here. This will not be an American century, it will be a World Century. Krugman was chosen because he&#8217;s an innovative economist, but the underlying message from Europe is clear &#8211; <font color=\"#200020\"><strong>the United States can no longer maintain an exceptionalist policy<\/strong><\/font>.  The 20th Century was the American Century. Either we get on board the World Economic System as a <u><font color=\"#200020\"><strong>participant<\/strong><\/font><\/u> in the 21st Century, or else!<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nobel Memo to America: Turn Away from the Far Right By: Stirling Newberry Giving the Nobel Memorial prize to Paul Krugman was not just recognition of his theory of economic geography, but a strong message. This would not be the first time, nor will it be the last time that those awarding the prize have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}