Paul Krugman: Obama's Wimp-Out On Ozone Will Actually Hurt The Economy

Business Insider ^ | 09/02/2011 | Henry Blodget

[Hacklehead]

“Krugman argues, would have forced companies to spend money to improve their pollution control equipment. This spending would have boosted the revenue of companies that make the pollution control equipment, encouraging them to pay their people more and hire more people. The people hired would spend some of the money they made. And that, in turn, would help pump some life back into the economy.”

Who knew that merely pumping some money into pollution control equipment would save our economy. It takes an ivy league education and a Nobel Prize to conclude that.

I am not (yet) a nobel prize winner but exposure to
Krugmans ideas has taught me to think like one. Here is my Krugmanesque economic plan. Have every family give $5000 to the family living in the house next door to them. The family receiving the money will see it as a windfall and spend it, thereby stimulating the economy. It’s certanly as brilliant as anything krugman has conceived.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Advice from the Crudman.

[The Theophilus]

He also argues that [not imposing new and unnecessary regulatory costs and burdens on Americans] will actually hurt the economy.

This dude is a total fraud and proof that the Nobel committee is completely incompetent in following through on the mission of Alfred Nobel

Krugman correctly observes that "tighter rules, would have forced companies to spend money to improve their pollution control equipment.". But these same companies could also refuse to do the work, and be subject to fines and penalties, litigate the matter and have it tied up in courts, or shut the whole non-compliant plants down completely. Fines and penalties feed government which doesn't add value or increase wealth in any way, rather government destroys wealth and discourages the creation of it; dittos with lawyers - yet another parasite class that only destroys and discourages wealth creation; and shuttering a business and selling off non-compliant assets for pennies on the dollar is the definition of wealth destruction.

The idea that anyone should be "forced" to make questionable capital spending, particularly from a government that excels in questionable if not downright wasteful spending, is anti-American and totalitarian. If Krugman wasn't a Jew, he would fit in well with Hitler and Stalin's ways of thinking as yet another arrogant thug who believes that your liberty and property is Krugman's play thing.

Krugman slavishly adheres to the the "broken window fallacy" and that the company has not improved its situation, it is only out more money plus the downtime where no energy can be produced.

Krugman believes that the consumers are tapped out of money, and so he looks for someone else to rob, thus he announces the Great Lie: "And it's not as if companies can't afford to upgrade their pollution-control equipment, they're sitting on mountains of cash.".

Those "companies" he is speaking of are public utilities that are monopolies subject to intense government regulation on the rates they can charge power consumers. If they are sitting on mountains of cash, the next meeting of the rate regulators are going to be demanding reductions in utility rates - this while energy costs are at an all time high as fuel continues to be wildly expensive.

Furthermore, the companies might just be holding on to any money as part of dealing with tightened lending policies for big ticket items like power generation plants. If Krugman's dream of "forcing" companies to squander their reserves on wasteful regulations and equipment that exists only to appease, for a moment, extreme anti-American, misanthropic environmentalists then that is money not available to invest in "green" technology, or actually something useful like a new power plant.

Then I also want to know, are the pensioners and the institutional investors supposed to accept lower returns on their investment in utility companies just because the "glazier" needs to repair some broken windows?

Krugman's ideas are either not thought out, or he truly is a sinister enemy of the American people and should be properly made irrelevant.