Paul Krugman: Paul Ryan is the biggest con man in Washington not Donald Trump

I think we can all agree that this is a resounding endorsement of Paul Ryan, whether or not you like him.

Krugman: did not read

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Paul Krugman

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This guy said some Kurt Eichenwald level insane tweets during election season. He's mentally unstable.

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Paul Ryan is the biggest con man in Washington not Donald Trump

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I tend to agree.

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And it’s important to keep the horror of our political situation up front, to keep highlighting the lies, the cruelty, the bad judgment.

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Now it's time to start?

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At the same time, however, we should be asking ourselves how the people running our government came to wield such power. How, in particular, did a man whose fraudulence, lack of concern for those he claims to care about and lack of policy coherence should have been obvious to everyone nonetheless manage to win over so many gullible souls?

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We've been asking this since Obama's first election.

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You see, until very recently both news coverage and political punditry were dominated by the convention of “balance.”

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So.. while I read the slug and thought--this may be a rare time I agree with Krugman, he drops this stupidity.

After a whopper like that I just can't take him seriously.

Krugman, the Nobel committee, The NY Times, the MSM, Obama, and the DNC are just a provencial libtard circle jerk with delusions of grandeur!

Do you really care?!

Reading Nassim Taleb nuke Krugman is one of the great joys of life.

For once I agree with Krugman.

We lack leadership and that's because the media props up puppets for the special interest groups, not real leaders who can get the job done for the people.

The healthcare flop wasn't Trumps fault nor do I blame the freedom caucus. It lies solely on Ryan and the establishment for putting out a shite bill and leadership not having the balls to use enough parliamentary tricks and deal makings to get it passed.

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For once I agree with Krugman.

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Better put an expiration date on that. He'll flip the other way at any time. He's made a career of taking both sides of an issue--then patting himself on the back for being right.

Krugman vs. Krugman

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[] Krugman 2003 [deficit at 3% of GDP, 10-year deficit projection $1.8 trillion]: "I'm terrified ... we're looking at a fiscal crisis that will drive interest rates sky-high ... the conclusion is inescapable ... the task is simply impossible ... the fiscal train wreck, is already under way." Or,

[] Krugman 2009 [deficit at 11% of GDP, 10-year deficit projection $9 trillion]: What's to worry? The Ozzie & Harriet era of government finance will be easy enough to bring back. Just stabilize the debt in terms of GDP and be happy!

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Bush baaaaad, Obama goooood.

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The numbers? The deficit in fiscal year 2004 -- $413 billion, 3.5 percent of the gross domestic product.

Back then, a disapproving Krugman called the deficit "comparable to the worst we've ever seen in this country. ... The only time postwar that the United States has had anything like these deficits is the middle Reagan years, and that was with unemployment close to 10 percent." Take away the Social Security surplus spent by the government, he said, and "we're running at a deficit of more than 6 percent of GDP, and that is unprecedented."

...Fast-forward to 2010.

The numbers: projected deficit for fiscal year 2010 -- over $1.5 trillion, more than 10 percent of GDP.

This sets a post-WWII record in both absolute numbers and as a percentage of GDP. And if the Obama administration's optimistic projections of the economic growth fall short, things will get much worse. So what does Krugman say now?

We must guard against "deficit hysteria." In "Fiscal Scare Tactics," his recent column, Krugman writes: "These days it's hard to pick up a newspaper or turn on a news program without encountering stern warnings about the federal budget deficit. The deficit threatens economic recovery, we're told; it puts American economic stability at risk; it will undermine our influence in the world. These claims generally aren't stated as opinions, as views held by some analysts but disputed by others. Instead, they're reported as if they were facts, plain and simple."

He continues, "And fear-mongering on the deficit may end up doing as much harm as the fear-mongering on weapons of mass destruction." Krugman believes Bush lied us into the Iraq War. Just as people unreasonably feared Saddam Hussein, they now have an unwarranted fear of today's deficit.

Questions: Didn't Krugman, less than six years ago, call the deficit "enormous"? Wouldn't he, therefore, consider a $1.5 trillion deficit at 10 percent of GDP mega-normous? Didn't he describe the economy with 5.5 percent unemployment as "weak"? Isn't the current economy, at 9.7 percent unemployment, even weaker? If the 2004 deficit was "comparable to the worst we've ever seen in this country," wouldn't today's much bigger deficit cause even more heartburn?

Nope. Now a huge deficit is actually a good thing: "The point is that running big defict

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We lack leadership and that's because the media props up puppets

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The media... the media.... the media