Asymmetrical Information

My goodness! We have a winner in the hoist-with-his-own-petard contest of Krugman critics! I fell out of my chair laughing.

Brilliant!

Bravo! Humorful and noncondescending.

Good take.
Short, but not so sweet.

A shame that you never utter a word about the central point Krugman made in the column: that the kook Right is a good deal more influential in American politics than in French politics -- with the classic evidence being Tom DeLay, effective controller of the House majority whenever he's not delivering speeches to fundamentalists declaring that only Christians are moral. (That speech, by the way, also roused the Houston Chronicle to call DeLay a "theocratic fanatic".) My only objection is that Krugman didn't bother to mention the two reasons for this: the extent of Christian fundamentalism in the U.S. and the South's remaining whiffs of nostalgia for racism.

But then, judging from my stroll through your past columns, you completely misinterpret even Krugman's most elementary economic statements -- whether on supply-siders, Social Security, or the virtues of capitalism -- so it's unsurprising that you'd do the same to his political ones.

Well, I don't mention it because

a) I'm not going out of my way to defend the religious right, but I don't think they are "in control"
b) The fact that France's kooks are more bitterly divided doesn't do anything for me. Actually the left and the right meet at some extreme, sort of like Nader and Buchanan on trade. I wonder whether the Trotskyites are trying to cut a deal with Le Pen now?

If you are looking for someone who took exception to Krugman's characterization of the Republicans, try "Jane Galt". It's also interesting that several supreme court justices that many view as "kook right" may have the most expansive view of free speech. I can't lump all Republicans (or, for that matter, all Democrats) together like this.

I just think Krugman's outrage at the Republicans colors what used to be better economic commentary.

"A friend of mine was invited to a costume party a short time ago. He slapped some egg on his face and went as a Liberal Economist"

- Ronald Reagan 1988

First, Krugman never said that the far Right was "in control" -- he said (and confirmed in an E-mail to me yesterday) that he was saying that it was an important part of Bush's governing coalition.

Second, what roused the Houston Chronicle to call DeLay a "theocratic fanatic" was his announcement in the same speech that anyone who doesn't believe in creationism and Biblical literalism is immoral (which, of course, is standard fodder for Christian fundamentalists, who would be every bit as dangerous as Islamic fundamentalists if they had as much power). Ms. Galt/McArdle completely ignores this in her indignant defense of DeLay. As for Ashcroft, his affectionate tribute to the Confederacy in his famous "Southern Partisan" interview compares very nicely to Le Pen's "the Holocaust was a detail of history " comment. The difference, of course, is that Le Pen isn't yet France's Minister of Justice.

Third (although this is peripheral to you): Ms. McArdle also parrots Andrew Sullivan's endless hysterical attacks on Krugman's payment by Enron, without mentioning the ridiculously obvious central point-- that he's been slashing away at Enron since January 2000 (far longer than any other writer I can think of), which proves that if it was an attempted bribe, it didn't work very well (to say nothing of the fact that he revealed it immediately). This does not say much for McArdle's intellectual abilities, despite her awesome self-confidence.

Fourth: neither you, she, nor any other conservative/libertarian blogger I've run across yet lays a finger (or even attempts to) on Krugman's main objection to Bush -- namely, that his tax cut is outrageously imbalanced toward the rich.

I'm sorry that the attention to Krugman has caused you so much consternation. I hope you realize that there is some significant flattery in the fact that all these folks watch him so closely. I myself used to be a big fan, and still appreciate the occasional writings and his new website. There is nothing so bitter as disillusionment.

What he said was: "The difference is that here the angry people are already running the country." You tell me whether "in control" is a stronger or weaker statement than "running the country".

I was never too worked up about the Enron relationship either. I don't remember him criticizing the company in 2000 (do you mean 2001?), but I'm sure it is possible. One of the writers for thestreet.com was hacking away at it that early, but embarassingly few financial writers caught on.

It would be hard to deny that the bulk of the dollars from any marginal tax relief in the top bracket goes to the wealthier taxpayers. The tax base is so skewed (the top 25% pay about 84% of all taxes, I think I saw recently) it could hardly be otherwise. I think arguments in its favor went more to 1) equity (returning it to those who pay), 2) the fact that the new rates form a marginally more progressive rate structure within the population of people who pay taxes, thanks to the drop from 15% to 10% in the bottom bracket and 3) the idea that it would stimulate growth.

My own view on the relationship between tax cuts and long-term growth is it cannot be proved or disproved. But I do believe marginal rate reduction stimulates growth and investment.

We're rather small bugs here my friend. You might want to focus your ire on Caroline Baum over at Bloomberg. She has an audience.

Cheers.

(1) I'll agree that "running the country" is an ambiguous phrase in itself -- but earlier in the column he made it entirely clear that he meant the screwball Right is running the country in SOME respects: "In this country people with views that are, in their way, as extreme as Mr. Le Pen's are in a position to put those views into practice" -- his examples being DeLay and Ashcroft, who are undeniably very major players and very extreme.

(2) You're right about the date of his earliest Enron criticism: it was January 2001, although I thought I'd seen earlier examples. (My only excuse is that it's hard to remember the details of all those Times coumns.) At any rate, this fact by itself makes the hysterics of Sullivan, Mark Steyn et al totally ridiculous -- as I say, if it really was an attempted bribe it fizzled spectacularly.

(3) Regarding your tax rate arguments:

(A) The one from "equity": if the rich are paying more taxes, that automatically proves they should get bigger tax cuts. Well, my God. Extend that argument to its logical conclusion and the richest and poorest American should be paying exactly the same total amount in taxes -- after all, surely the rich deserve tax cuts exactly equal in size to the greater amount they pay. If you don't believe this, then you're obviously left with the question of just how much more they should pay -- and the "ethics" argument gives you no guidance about that.

(B) It is, of course, perfectly possible to drop tax rates for the lowest bracket without the uglier aspects of Bush's plan.

(C) Obviously higher tax rates have -- at some point -- a discouraging effect on growth (as Krugman has explicitly said). But he (and many others) have pointed out the devastating fact that the Reaganite supply-siders, virtually to a man, announced that Clinton's 1995 tax hike on the wealthy would cause the economy to shrink. ("Forbes" magazine urged investors to pull their money out of the soon-to-be-shrinking U.S. economy and put it into -- you guessed it -- Japan.) Bush's tax plan pretty much reverses that 1995 tax hike, which indicates very strongly that it will cause more net harm than good.

(4) I'd like to apologize for my totally irrelevant cracks elsewhere about your lousy grammar; my only excuses for that are (A) at the time I wrote them I still had steam coming out of my ears, which interferes with my thought processes; and (B) your grammar really IS lousy frequently. (Like Dave Barry, I favor the death penalty for anyone who consistently misuses apostrophes.)

Bruce writes:
"Second, what roused the Houston Chronicle to call DeLay a "theocratic fanatic" was his announcement in the same speech that anyone who doesn't believe in creationism and Biblical literalism is immoral (which, of course, is standard fodder for Christian fundamentalists, who would be every bit as dangerous as Islamic fundamentalists if they had as much power)."

But according to Krugman, they do have as much power.

That aside, apparently someone needs to run to the dictionary and look up "theocracy." Holding strong religious beliefs may make someone kooky; it doesn't make one a theocrat.

Bruce writes:
Bruse Moomaw wrote:
"Second, what roused the Houston Chronicle to call DeLay a "theocratic fanatic" was his announcement in the same speech that anyone who doesn't believe in creationism and Biblical literalism is immoral (which, of course, is standard fodder for Christian fundamentalists, who would be every bit as dangerous as Islamic fundamentalists if they had as much power)."

I take exception to that analogy. I happen to -be- one of those far-right conservative Christian kooks everyone is so terrified of these days, and I would -never- send my children off to blow themselves and others up for the glory of God, or any other reason I can think of. Christians, as a whole, tend to value life far more than that. Even the life of those we disagree with.

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