...thick as two short planks.

Talk about asymmetrical warfare! Krugman plays all five of these boneheads like a cat playing with a mouse and does it without breaking a sweat; not much of a challenge with this group, but hilarious to watch. He hands Will his ass and makes Donaldson wish he had stayed home on his government subsidized ranch.

I'll now remove my metaphor mixing hat.

and sustainable action is to increasingly develop and nurture a new system to replace the old worn out system with demand side economics. Jobs and higher wages are what drives the economy in a democracy built upon a strong middle-class foundation. Obama's plan is refreshing and robust enough to deliver that new system in my opinion. He has repeatedly said it will not happen quickly but the actions we take now with full accountability will meet our crisis in due time. We must advance this new plan ASAP. At the same time we must free up the now frozen credit borrowing part of our banking/business system in order to maintain what businesses are already in place as the new system increasingly comes along at its slower but more sustainable pace.

In his first weekly address as President, Barack Obama discusses how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan will jump-start the economy. http://www.whitehouse.gov/president-obama-del...

Whenever I see Carly Fiorina I feel like I am watching a reality show called "Desperate to be Relevant".
Go away Ms. Fiorina, you know nothing, and therefore you should say nothing.

The other people as far as I can tell deserve no attention because they were defending the policies that got us in this mess in the first place. Some people in our media should lose credibility over time and some should gain it. Unfortunately the same old faces continue to appear and present arguments that I think are outdated. Paul Krugman gains respect from what I see. The others lose.

Two nobel lauriates founded LTCM. Remember what happened to LTCM?
It nearly brought down the financial system in 1998.

Not all infrastructure spending is pork barrel but it is all local. This line has been pushed for 20 plus years and it is wrong. Building infrastructure should not be viewed as unnecessary, or as not needed, or as not essential. We need to replace and build roads, mass transit, water lines, municipal buildings, libraries, schools and all of that type structure.

morning television. Especially classic Disney reruns. This morning we enjoyed watching Professor Krugman and the Several Dwarfs on the Disney Channel.

Agreed Ron, and years are just what Obama has been saying. We cannot get stuck in semantics. A new system is being created and the deflationary cycle will eventually end.

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
— Richard Buckminster Fuller

Tax cuts for businesses may or may not create jobs, and not necessarily in this country. But infrastructure can't be built in SE Asia and shipped over here.

The credit crunch is the result of doubt and fear, but enabled by the belief the financiers can safely sit on their assets, because at least they won't lose any money. Create jobs, therefor increase spending and you will begin to get some inflationary pressure. Then the moneybags will have to loosen the purse strings, or lose worth.

The last boom times arose out of the internet economy. There's nothing that revolutionary on the horizon (and it was largely a speculative bubble anyway.) But alternative energy technologies will provide new oppertunities and stable longterm growth.

We'll get through this, even though it will be tough for a year or two. And we would have more money for rebuilding America if we told Iraq and Afghanistan, "'Bye! Gotta go. Can't afford to stay here. You guys will have to work it out among yourselves."

They're all idiots. My sympathies to Krugman for having to sit with these fools. At least he's getting air time. He's the Occam's Razor of this ship of fools. You have to have a paying job before you can give anyone a tax credit, consumer credit or any other trick that benefits Wall Street or Republicon hacksters.

why should we listen to Carla Fiorini?
she was fired from Hewlett Packard for pushing thru the disastrous compaq deal.
even an idiot like me knew the compaq deal was bad from the start.

Carly Fiorina on the economy?

The GOP said Ms. Fiorina was smart and capable so ABC is giving her vastly undeserved air time.

And George Will telling Paul Krugman about the economy?

Puh-leeze.

George Will should be walking Mr. Krugman's dog.

...to keep the economy humming is the OLD way. We want a new way that is more sustainable. We need Americans saving money and living within their/our means.

Except for Paul, the rest of them were talking about trying to get the economy running with a return to the old way.

With the exception of Krugman, who had to feel like the odd man out in this crowd, each of those people are collaborators with a regime that has literally run this country into the ground to their personal profit. Were it otherwise, they would be as angry as most of the rest of us. In a more sensible era, the lot of them would have been tarred and feathered and run out of town along with the profiteers who got us into this mess.

I lay much of the blame for this at the feet of corporate media and equally complicit Federal Legislative and Judicial branches. I wish I knew what the answer was, but, even if I did, what would it matter? As fatalistic as it sounds we're all just pawns to the wealthy and they are beyond the reach of justice. The fact that these people still have a platform to mislead from bears sad testament to that.

and Paul Krugman.

Thank You, ABC, for providing Mr Krugman five foils that are as knowledgeable about the economy as Jim Belushi is funny.

The other 5 seem to be under the impression that they're making an infomercial for the Romney '12 campaign.

5 pre-recorded soundbits and one guy who's brain is working.

The sad thing is, the morons ran the segment.

OMG did Will really use the hammer and nail metaphor? With a straight face? Thinking he was being clever? So funny.

If I were them I would not invite Paul back on.

,,, whatever you are reading.

How can the economy - especially financial institutions - be hurting if they can afford to hire a designer for $800,000 to refurbish Thain's office and spend $87k for an area rug, $28k for 4 prs of curtains, $87k for 2 chairs?

From thedailybeast.com,

The other big ticket items Thain purchased include: $87,000 for an area rug in Thain's conference room and another area rug for $44,000; a "mahogany pedestal table" for $25,000; a "19th Century Credenza" in Thain's office for $68,000; a sofa for $15,000; four pairs of curtains for $28,000; a pair of guest chairs for $87,000; a "George IV Desk" for $18,000; six wall sconces for $2,700; six chairs in his private dining room for $37,000; a mirror in his private dining room for $5,000; a chandelier in the private dining room for $13,000; fabric for a "Roman Shade" for $11,000; a "custom coffee table" for $16,000; something called a "commode on legs" for $35,000; a "Regency Chairs" for $24,000; "40 yards of fabric for wall panels," for $5,000 and a "parchment waste can" for $1,400.

I don't like to admit it, but hating George Will has been a minor habit of mine... can we *please* get some new talking heads?

... there should be a mandatory license to become a bobble head after a proficiency test.

That should keep some of the experts like O'Reilly, Hannity, Scarborough, Cavuto, Limbaugh, Malkin, Ingraham, Glenn Beck and others back doing what they were inefficient at before that, and do it live.

O'Reilly used to be a school teacher he says, and his command of the english language sux.

Hannity used to mix cement and wash pots and pans before kissing republican asses.

He says in the Interview:

"One person's portfolio is another person's necessary infrastructure investment"

The liquidity trap is precisely when people prefer not to buy long-term assets and prefer liquidity. so their portfolio is not someone else "necessary infrastructure investment".

Keynes called it the liquidity preference. I explain it in a more mathematical way in my tract:

A Specific Application of Employment, Interest and Money.

So, precisely, in a Liquidity Trap the Keynesian paradigm I=S doesn't apply.

If so, how could Professor Paul Robin Krugman graph the IS-LM curve of a Liquidity Trap?

How can you rely on his analysis for policy prescription?

How can he solve a problem he does not readily understand.

Let's take Professor Paul Robin Krugman for what he is: an excellent columnist.

The Only short-term solution for the present crisis is:

The Credit Free, Free Market Economy.

There's this women. She's a UCLA law school drop out. She gets a job at AT&T, sleeps with and marries a high-level sales executive, Frank Fiorina, and is subsequently moved up the ranks to VP of Marketing. In 1999, she BS's her way into the CEO spot at HP, for the most part because HP, a exemplary technical company, felt it need more of a marketing/sales twist to compete in the BS dot com era. That she was a woman worked to her benefit.

She subsequently came in, put the word INVENT under the HP logo as her first grand gesture. Due to her disdain for technology (that she didn't understand) and engineers (her insecurity about her lack of knowledge), she proceeded to try and fire as many HP employees as possible to replace them with Indian & Chinese engineers at 20 cents to the dollar.

Because of the "respect for the employee" culture that was ingrained into the HP by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, Falurina met with resistance. After three years, with the economy faltering in 2002, and looking very likely to fail, she decided to distract attention away from her failings by doing something "huge" and proceeded to overpay for a failing, dying company – Compaq – in a mega-merger.

After much justified resistance, the merger was approved by shareholders only after Falurina, at the last minute, bought off Deutsch Bank’s votes to approve the merger (her actions resulting in lawsuits against her). Included in the approved merger was the authority go lay off HP employees to take advantage of the “synergies” (classis Carly BS terminology) that the merger was supposed to provide. She subsequently started to purge HP “Bay Area” engineers and employees, some of the best, highly patented, and productive, and keep Compaq Texas-BS artists, the same ones that had caused Compaq to fail. Compaq’s corrupt CEO, Michael Capellas, took his golden parachute from the merger and went on to WorldCom, which he subsequently destroyed and sold to Verizon. Compaq could have been purchased for 1 tenth the price if purchased a year later.

In 2005, 3 years after the merger and 6 years Falurina's arrival at HP, HP’s stock has fallen 75%. HP’s employees were completely demoralized by her reign of terror. Falurina was fired.

As many know on this board, Falurina went on to be an economic advisor to John McCain’s campaign. A staunch Republican, Falurina was hoping to secure a spot in any McCain administration. She failed.

So now, Carly Falurina is a economic pundit on ABC - a national broadcasting company. Major influence. They put together a team of economists, journalists, pundits, for a program discussing the economy, and this is the best they can do folks...

Falurina has one formidable strength – she’s good as selling herself. All her career advances can be attributed to that. But just like George Bush, if you look at her record, what you see trailing behind is an enormous wasteland and the putrid stench of failure.

I love the look of confused consternation/indignation on Donaldson's face as Krugman schools him as if he's saying "You-you can't be questioning the common wisdom!?!"

...the enemy of good.

Also, a good portion of our debt comes from rich folk tax cuts and that includes large corporations that aren't paying their fair share. The argument USED to be if we raise taxes on them they'll leave ....well...their still leaving and half of fortune 500 didn't pay taxes at all.

Japans dept is 100+% of their GDP, we can do the same and pay down the debt as long as we start good fiscal policy when we're OUT of this mess.

because I just purchased 2 mint condition early 1983 mauve velour Queen Anne chairs at our neighborhood Habitat for Humanity garage sale for $50.00.

...we can't continue spending at the rate we've been spending. Without savings, we're all much weaker.