[kj] OT: Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman onthe economic crisis

[Brendan]

Is it just me, or does anyone else get a mental impression of insecure
older white guys paying younger males to draps their nutpurse over their
face when they hear the term tea-bagging...?

Please tell me it's not just me, my therapist's To Do list is already a
yard long ;)


> Brendan, you would probably like this. James K. Galbraith debating

> tea-bagger leader Dick Armey, just came out today (May 1, 2009):

>

>

> Causes of the Crisis

> James K. Galbraith | May 01, 2009 | Commentary

>

> Editor’s note: These remarks were delivered to a meeting of the Texas

> Lyceum in Austin on April 3, at a debate between University of Texas

> professor James Galbraith, an Observer contributing writer, and former

> Majority Leader Richard Armey, chief instigator of the recent Astroturf

> “tea party" protests. Armey had begun his remarks by noting that his

> rule in life was “never trust anyone from Austin or Boston,” and

> proceeded to declare his allegiance to the “Austrian School” of

> economics, a libertarian view that regards public intervention in

> private markets as socialism.

>

> GALBRAITH:

>

> It is of course a pleasure to be with you today. I was born in Boston,

> and I am proud of it. And I have lived 24 years in Austin—and I’m proud

> of that.

>

> Leader Armey spoke to you of his admiration for Austrian economics. I

> can’t resist telling you that when the Vienna Economics Institute

> celebrated its centennial, many years ago, they invited, as their

> keynote speaker, my father [John Kenneth Galbraith]. The leading

> economists of the Austrian school—including von Hayek and von

> Haberler—returned for the occasion. And so my father took a moment to

> reflect on the economic triumphs of the Austrian Republic since the war,

> which, he said, “would not have been possible without the contribution

> of these men.” They nodded—briefly—until it dawned on them what he

> meant. They’d all left the country in the 1930s.

>

> My own economics is American: genus Institutionalist; species:

> Galbraithian.

>

> This is a panel on the crisis. Mr. Moderator, you ask what is the root

> cause? My reply is in three parts.

>

> First, an idea. The idea that capitalism, for all its considerable

> virtues, is inherently self-stabilizing, that government and private

> business are adversaries rather than partners; the idea that freedom

> without responsibility is a viable business principle; the idea that

> regulation, in financial matters especially, can be dispensed with. We

> tried it, and we see the result.

>

> Second, a person. It would not be right to blame any single person for

> these events, but if I had to choose one to name it would be a Texan,

> our own distinguished former Senator Phil Gramm. I’d cite specifically

> the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act—the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act—in 1999,

> after which it took less than a decade to reproduce all the pathologies

> that Glass-Steagall had been enacted to deal with in 1933.

>

> [...]

>

> Rest at: http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=3031

>

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