Paul Krugman: The Media Keeps Not Doing The Left's Work For Them

Kruggie the Whale Issues Proggie Whine #46: That the Press Doesn't Scream Out "You Lie!" at Every Word a Republican Speaks, Including the "A's" and "The's"

All indications are, however, that Campaign 2012 will make Campaign 2000 look like a model of truthfulness. And all indications are that the press won’t know what to do — or, worse, that they will know what to do, which is act as stenographers and refuse to tell readers and listeners when candidates lie. Because to do otherwise when the parties aren’t equally at fault — and they won’t be — would be “biased”.

Goshers! It's almost as though Truth is more complicated than a single eschatologically-minded ideology can contain! Also, that Journalists are maleducated bobo twits who couldn't form a syllogism with two premises and a conclusion.

But you knew that. (h/t: Memeorandum)

Paul Krugman is Super-SMRT, And Other Observations: a Long-Promised Fisking

His Krugman-ness in the NYT:

Mark Thoma sends us to the new Journal of Economic Perspectives paper(pdf) on optimal taxes by Peter Diamond and Emmanuel Saez. It’s a tough read (I’m still working on it myself), but there’s one discussion that I think helps make a useful point about current political debate.

Useful to whom?

In the first part of the paper, D&S analyze the optimal tax rate on top earners. And they argue that this should be the rate that maximizes the revenue collected from these top earners — full stop. Why? Because if you’re trying to maximize any sort of aggregate welfare measure, it’s clear that a marginal dollar of income makes very little difference to the welfare of the wealthy, as compared with the difference it makes to the welfare of the poor and middle class. So to a first approximation policy should soak the rich for the maximum amount — not out of envy or a desire to punish, but simply to raise as much money as possible for other purposes.

I was going to say "optimal for whom?" but Paulie K. kindly spells it out: the "optimal tax rate" is the optimal tax rate for the government. It maximizes the revenue of the state, and it's ability to engage in "other purposes." That phrase, however, is not so clear: what are these "other purposes"? How well are they performed? How well is that performance even measured? If the people decide that the government no longer needs to perform them, can they get their money back?

Paul Krugman Has Just Become Worthy of My Attention

I hope you noticed that I didn't write anything this morning that was critical of anybody on either side of the aisle. 9/11, in my opinion, ought not be a partisan affair. There is an obligation to avoid the usual push-pull of politics to mark the occasion. Yesterday, Barak Obama was not the figure of ridiculue I usually reduce him to; he was the President of the United States. That means something.

But Paul Krugman can't play by those games.

I normally ignore this clown, because he's, well, a clown. However smart he may be on the subject of economics, in politics he's a banal bridge-burning pile of paint-by numbers un-reflective leftism. And I can't say I find his prose worth the aggravation.

But since this jumped-up numbers nerd, this theory-slut, this galloping dunderhead who can barely contain his heartsick crush on totalitarianism, cannot keep his powder dry for a day, I'm coming after him. None of the fiskings I let fall on that pimple E.J. Dionne will be half of the slapping-around I intend to throw down on this ass. The time has come.