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Topic: Paul Krugman on economy etc
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| UGoGirl | Posted – 7/29/2007 10:57:22 PM | show profile Nice to see a journalist in the MSM getting it. I like his last line: "... reality is settling in. And there?s one more thing worth mentioning: the economic expansion that began in 2001, while it has been great for corporate profits, has yet to produce any significant gains for ordinary working Americans. And now it looks as if it never will." **** Yesterday?s scary ride in the markets wasn?t a full-fledged panic. ...So it wasn?t the sum of all fears. But it was the sum of some fears ? three, in particular. The first is fear of bad credit. ... ... I?ve written less about oil prices, so let me emphasize two points about the oil situation. First, we?re now in our third year of very high oil prices by historical standards ... Second, unlike the energy crises of the past, this price surge has happened even though there hasn?t been any major disruption in world oil supply. It?s pretty clear what?s happening: economic development is colliding with geology. The ?peak oil? theorists may or may not be right in asserting that world oil production is already as high as it will ever go - ... - but finding new oil is getting a lot harder. ... So why did people seem so shocked by a few more bad housing and oil numbers? What I guess I didn?t realize was how deep the denial still runs. Over the last couple of years a peculiar conviction emerged among some analysts - mainly, for some reason, among those with right-wing political leanings - that the housing bubble was a myth and that the real bubble was in oil prices. Each new peak in oil prices was met with declarations that it was all speculation - like the 2005 prediction by Steve Forbes that oil was in a ?huge bubble? and that its price would be down to $35 or $40 a barrel within a year. And on the other side, as recently as this January, National Review?s Buzzcharts column declared that we were having a ?pop-free? housing slowdown. ...Anyway, now reality is settling in. And there?s one more thing worth mentioning: the economic expansion that began in 2001, while it has been great for corporate profits, has yet to produce any significant gains for ordinary working Americans. And now it looks as if it never will. NYT July 27 |
| JCB | Posted – 7/30/2007 2:21:49 AM | show profile Actually, Krugman isn't a journalist, he's an economist. (He wrote my International Trade college textbook.) That's why he "gets it." |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 7/30/2007 8:39:46 AM | show profile Well then he's one economist who doesn't insist that the market will take care of everything. As in, if the price of oil gets too high, we'll either find more or substitutes will come in. Yes, substitutes will come in but it's all a problem of scale. As I indicated in another post, if ALL arable land were converted to biofuels, it would only provide something like 30% of all fuel. And yes we'll switch to more fuel efficient cars but it takes time to change the entire fleet... |
| j.hodl | Posted – 7/30/2007 10:05:17 AM | show profile Corny Joke With all the heavy promotion of corn-based fuels, you'd think that its the wave of the future. But at present, if the entire U.S. corn crop was converted for burning in cars, it would amount to less than 12% of the fuel we currently use in our motor vehicles. And conversion to fuel would eliminate all the other use of corn in our food supply, including baked goods and fattening farm animals for meat. And corn is even finding its way into plastics, medical supplies, shoe polish, even as a substitute fuel in fireplaces. In some areas of Washington State, the pollution from wood-burning heating systems is so bad that tax incentive are offered to convert to less-polluting systems that burn shelled corn. And we cannot even hope that if all corn was converted to fuel that it would all go to alleviating the U.S. fuel crisis. Firms making corn-based fuels are already promoting export sales to Japan, China and other nations. |
| harryfred | Posted – 7/31/2007 9:02:42 AM | show profile Yes Krugman is an economist. His book "Pop Economics" is excellent (which he wrote before he was an op-ed writer). |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 7/31/2007 9:19:17 AM | show profile j.hodl, there's an interesting article in this month's Rolling Stone about the ethanol scam (particularly corn ethanol) and the massive corporate welfare for companies like ADM! Corn's a total loser, other biofuels are problematic, but much more promising. In the end, from what I understand there's no way we can create enough liquid fuels and that we'll have to greatly reduce demand and gradually electrify our transportation system (e.g., plug-in hybrids). |
