Detailed Abstractions

What are the odds that a government agency tasked with identifying research priorities, research performance management, and reviewing the impact of completed research will come up with a solution that doesn’t involve the government?

Today & tomorrow the EPA are meeting for just this reason (@eScienceNews):

…The goal of the meeting is to develop a collaborative framework to ensure future research and development dollars are spent wisely and in a coordinated manner….

Of course it doesn’t really matter what the answer is, because “spent wisely in a coordinated manner” is almost mutually exclusive to good R&D.  As should be expected by now, the EPA is wasting money on answering a question for which recent literature already exists.

Back in 2001, a Jack Welch underling, W. James (Jim) McNerney, Jr was hired as 3M’s CEO.  In the fanfare associated with being a protege of Mr. Welch, when Mr. McNerney joined 3M, investors had high expectations of pushing some of the GE magic onto the 3M culture.

One of the first and most prominent of these culture changes Mr. Mcnerney instituted was a heavy does of SixSigma.  From the beginning, leading business thinkers were asking whether pushing a very creative culture into the narrow focus of SixSigma might not work.  Or at least, it should not include the whole company.  Sure, use SixSigma for accounting procedures, but leave out R&D.

Of course proponents of SixSigma disagreed.  If it can help manufacturing and then be translated to service related products, why not R&D?

Regardless of the writing public, 3M went forward with implementing a SixSigma policy that included training all workers to a Green-belt level and use SixSigma methodology for every department, including R&D.  How’d it fare?

As you’d expect, the results are mixed.  But asking former 3M scientists, engineers, and the like?  Overwhelmingly they tend to agree it wen too far (@DesignNews):

…While 3M emerged financially stronger from the McNerney era, many long-time 3M researchers, engineers and scientists chafed under the strictures of Six Sigma. Critics argue that excessive metrics, steps, measurements and Six Sigma’s intense focus on reducing variability water down the discovery process. Under Six Sigma, the free-wheeling nature of brainstorming and the serendipitous side of discovery is stifled. Proponents contend such methodologies’ rules keep researchers on track and accountable for producing. Striking the right balance between the application of Six Sigma and unencumbered research is often seen as key….

In fact, a then board member and the former 3M scientist who developed Post-It Notes stated that he believes that in the SixSigma environment, Post-It Notes would simply never have been developed.

History is also rife with examples.  In the book, Sex, Science and Profits: How People Evolved to Make Money,  written by Terence Kealey (review @ Reason.com):

…Kealey shows in nearly every case the crucial inventions of the past two and half centuries were called forth by markets, not invented by scientists working from ivory towers. These include the steam engine, cotton gin, textile mills, railroad engines, the revolver, the electric motor, telegraph, telephone, incandescent light bulb, radio, the airplane—the list is nearly endless…

In fact, a government-funded research paper showed public money can hurt innovation.  Mr Kealey writing about it(@AllBusiness.Com):

…n fact, the evidence shows otherwise. In 2003, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published The Sources of Economic Growth in OECD Countries, reporting on a comprehensive regression analysis of the factors that might explain the different growth rates of the world’s 21 leading economies between 1971 and 1998. This indicated that only privately funded R&D led to economic growth, and that publicly funded R&D did not. Worse, the public funding of R&D crowded out private funding, and thus slowed economic growth…

No worries though, I’m sure the government will tell you, that this time is different.   Just ask them.  They completely understand it’s failed many times before, but what you (read: citizens) are too ignorant to understand, is that those failures were under other people and not the worldly, brilliant, omniscient, and yes, even death-defying leaders of today.

& if that doesn’t work for you, remember that it’s “Green”, which we all know are now established unqualified goods.  As such, regardless of how much money taxpayers have to spend to subsidize “green” stuff, the end results are worth it.

Last, but certainly not least, if both of these arguments don’t work to mitigate your concerns, welcome to the club: Disgruntled Americans Against Government Stupidity (DAAG)

If you’re anything like me, you too are getting nauseous about the “public option” in the health care debate.  One day it exists, the next day it will never exist.  The day after, it’s required…

Well, apparently legislators might have a compromise to pass a bill including an “opt-out public option” (@theHill.com):

Democratic senators continued to remain bullish on the chances of creating a government-run public option as part of health reform….

…Schumer echoed the calls of several senators who this week said that Democratic negotiators has garned the 60 votes necessary to invoke closure on the measure. Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) last week put it in even stronger terms, saying that Reid had 60 votes for a “robust” public option.

…According to Schumer, Reid “is leaning strongly” toward including a provision that would allow states to opt out of public health insurance if they want to keep private insurers.

Schumer added that the liberal senators are “able to live with” an opt-out public option under which states could decline to participate in a public program….

So there we are;  in a compromise between moderate and liberal Democrats only, a public option seems likely.  Not only has the White House and Democratic leadership dropped any pretense of working across the isle, but people at large seem unwilling to question the claims of their leaders.

One suc spurious claim, is that this option will result in increasing competition:

…”We need some competition for the insurance companies,” Schumer said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” A government-run insurance plan would “have to play by the same rules as the insurance companies and it would negotiate rates with the providers,” Schumer said. Having a public option would bring competition to states that only have one or two insurance providers, Schumer said….

Proponents everywhere continue to take this stance, even though a public option is logically inconsistent with their stated goal of increase competition.

If Mr. Schumer and others truly wanted to add some competition for insurance companies, adding a new company would not be necessary.  In deed, removing the laws the disallow selling of insurance over state lines doesn’t cost the tax payers one single dime, yet increases competition dramatically, both in the total number of competitors and the speed at which they can begin competing.    Additionally, given the benefits a public option will have over its private competitors, this isn’t really competition.

As Michael Tanner wrote over @ Cato, this support for a public option isn’t likely what it seems (@Cato):

Cognitive dissonance is defined as holding two completely contradictory ideas at the same time.

That seems to be the case with the American public, with a new poll showing rising support for a so-called public option in health care, even as the public continues to oppose greater government control over the health care system….

All in all though, the Democrats hands seem to be very strong hand right now with recent polls showing 57% of the country expressing approval of a public option.   With uninformed voters, an uninformed and uninformative press, and politicians more worried about winning than engaging in honest debates, this compromise might soon become law.

That’s freedom for you – as unfortunate as it seems, whether most people truly understand what the public option entails is irrelevant.  So long as they are willing to approve things they know little about and skip any hard work necessary to critically analyze the problem and various solutions, this new government boondoggle will just continue going forward.

Over time I’ve come to the conclusion that where news entities fail miserably is in their analysis with international politics.  Most pundits, writers, journalists, etc, seem to be able to semi-grasp domestic policies, albeit still in the usual, overly simplistic, fits-to-the-narrative type of way, but lose all rationality with respect to international affairs.

Interestingly enough, I think their failures in both domestic & international analysis stem from the same basic cause, oversimplification.  But it would seem that the degree to which it effects each type of analysis differs due to the lack of incentives private interests have in resolving inaccurate reports on international issues.

Thinking about the counter thought to international policy, domestic policy, we see incentives existing to resolve press inaccuracies.  For instance, if the press pushes inaccurate opinions and analysis which oversimplifies a given topic, a special interest group or two, plus at least one political party, and finally non-profits everywhere will try to enlighten by showing the fallacy of the common narrative.

This is because people rightfully see domestic issues as more directly impacting their lives.  The corollary is that our politicians, our leaders, our special interests, and our non-profits tend to focus where we as a society focus.

The problem that can stem from this seems intuitive – inaccurate press on international issues should be held as highly suspect, but get printed without much serious disagreement.   Since very little counters popular wisdom, this gives the press a power to change opinions and as well as spread myths.

This leads to all kinds of odd conclusions, with large swaths of people all over the planet prone to believe in things without substantial proof nor any degree of rational logic.

For instance believing that western countries are somehow to blame for poor countries with constant internal strife and corrupt governments which inefficiencies and lack of resources.  Or said another way, people all over believe in a zero sum game.  This is true not only in the international sense, but also when dealing with immigration and free trade issues.

Mistaken assumptions such as zero-sum games also lead to beliefs about what one thinks a President can actually do, versus what reality tends to dictate what will actually be done.  This leads to politicians making believable, yet highly impossible claims about given international situations.  This has been done to all recent Presidents, including President Obama when pulling a missile defense shield out of Poland & Czechoslovakia was made to appear as a rash decision amounting to abandoning our allies, when in fact it wasn’t a bad decision when concluding what options were open and what were the greatest threats to our security and security in the region (wrote about it here, though Mr. Obama went and said it had nothing to do with Russia… which was just amazing… wrote about that here).

It leads to pundits everywhere snidely remarking how this action wasn’t “tough” or that action was going to anger others because it was “unilateral”.  With little recourse, journalists  print all sorts of things without taking into any account the actual framework through which any given action action was taken, under what circumstances, with what available options, or really they just leave out anything resembling actual analysis.

Unfortunately, it seems no organization is immune.  A recent piece published in the Economist titled  Even greater expectations discussing the idiotic Nobel Prize Committee decision, is a far cry from the analysis for which the Economist is known.

They rightfully begin with the question the world was asking, “Is it premature to give Barack Obama the Nobel peace prize, less than a year into his presidency?”, but delve quickly into non-international events dressed up to seem as if change had already happened:

…Most broadly, he has sought to engage with opponents, saying that America would “extend a hand, if you unclench your fist”, for example to those who were earlier dismissed as an “axis of evil”. Somewhat to the discomfort of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had bolstered his domestic support by vilifying America as an aggressor, Mr Obama has proposed holding talks about nuclear affairs, removing a precondition that Iran first abandon enrichment of uranium. Mr Obama made withdrawal of American forces from Iraq one of the main pledges of his election campaign and has since overseen a slightly quicker run down of troops than was envisaged by Mr Bush. Towards North Korea, too, Mr Obama has dangled the prospect of bilateral talks and closer engagement.

Regarding Russia Mr Obama has developed a policy of notably warmer ties, dubbed “hitting the reset button”. Relations had become especially frosty towards the end of Mr Bush’s presidency when war broke out between Georgia, an ally of America, and Russia…

Continuing with this as reasoning:

…Yet Mr Obama’s main achievement is a change of tone in foreign policy. A speech given in Egypt in June was an eloquent call for a new understanding between America and Islam. It was designed both to assure Muslims, now thought to number 1.6 billion around the world, that America is not set on a crusade. Similarly it was intended to convey to any Americans (and others) who believe in the notion of a “clash of civilisations” that friendly ties between religions is eminently possible.

Similarly, American policy towards small and repressive regimes, ranging from Myanmar to Cuba, has shifted in mood, if not yet substance, by offering the prospect of engagement if governments demonstrate progress towards democracy…

Which to date has not only done absolutely nothing to help international cooperation, but has made our interests tougher to protect.  In nearly every UN Conference on whatever, for instance the G-20 dealing with the economic crisis, the US asks for a lot of cooperation and everyone goes their separate ways.

In some ways this is to be completely understood.  American solutions for economic issues will differ from that of Germany or the UK.  Even though the same basic problem afflicts most countries during the global recession,  their banking industries are setup with much different regulations, making the solutions for one country not necessarily compare to another country.  The separate policies might even be attempting the exact same “type” of solution, for instance increasing capital requirements, but under different systems any one specific solutions will affect different countries differently.

When it comes to reaching our hand out to those regimes, we see that North Korea, Russia, and Iran have been openly hostile to any US intents.  Iran’s deadline of October the 1st to fess up or face sanctions has come and gone, even while it was precipitated by Iran admitting to an additional enrichment facility.

And all this, including that all important warming of US-Russian relations, Russia has stated publicly the will continue to trade with Iran, meaning they will back them, if the UN, lead by the US impose stricter sanctions against Iran.

Now these situations are fluid to some extent, especially between cautious friends such as US-Russia and most of the controversial moves taken by Iran & North Korea would likely have happened to test any new US President’s resolve.

The issue is that by glossing over the realities we end up believing in myths.  Think about all that talk about “unilateral” action as if it’s a huge negative due to the controversy surrounding the last semi-unilateral decision to be made, without understanding that this is exactly as we should expect it.

No country should do something the US requests if they know in the end the analysis states otherwise.  On the international stage, Europeans, Cechs, Persians, Africians, indeed every person deserves the same representation we deserve – for their representatives to look out for their interests.

Now this can and does lead to all kinds of international policies from all different governments that appear wrong or unseemly when in truth it’s a playing field for which no one actor controls the rules which leads to countries making decisions that seem antithetical to their stated morals or goals.

It also allows one country to look at another as particularly egregious, regardless of their country’s current international policies.   It should be obvious that while beating up on your own politicians on domestic policy makes sense, doing so on the international stage is just beating yourself up.  Even if well-deserved, it’s easier to beat up on other country’s policies than it is to self reflect.

In some ways, national feeling probably affects this as well.  When most countries populations have enough information to dislike a number of other countries, going against that grain can be seen as being unpatriotic.  You certainly wouldn’t see a major political figure like Tony Blair coming to the US to air Britain’s dirty laundry or Putin to do the same in the US against Russia.

It also allows for journalists to paint country X with any brush they choose.  This helps some countries as the press will like some allies, but can obviously hurts or diminish countries for which popular sentiment doesn’t exist.

In the end, what it does is allow for a type of international superiority by enhancing nationalistic feelings.  When only reviewing other countries’ by hand picking policies, self-selecting cultural attributes, last recent controversy, crazy politicians, one can get the opinion of their general greatness over all those “other” people.

Lastly, and in my opinion, the most unfortunate consequence of this misinformation, is our inability to actually analyze international issues.  In between these simplistic news stories real trade-offs on the international stage are being made and constantly simplified.  From a high-level view the policy might appear to be utterly wrong, but in reality  might not be so.  It might simply be the least bad of all the bad options.  & it might really be the policy itself which is wrong.

For real analysis however, historical context, actions taken versus realistic options available, trends, and a number of other data points are required.  Without honest sourced information cost/benefit analysis simply isn’t possible.

First – a disclaimer – I have a feeling that some of you who might agree with me normally, might feel uncomfortable about this discussion.  However, if we truly want an open and honest debate, tough questions will need to be asked and answered.

According to a recent Harvard Medical School study via Rueters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year — one every 12 minutes — in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday.

“We’re losing more Americans every day because of inaction … than drunk driving and homicide combined,” Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said in an interview with Reuters.

To begin, we should take note of the wording itself as the 45K number is logically very tough to substantiate.  The report itself states these people died “in large part” due to lack of insurance, noting in the wording the difficulty of the definition.  Not only would you need to find people who might have lived with insurance, but I think you should also remove those people who could afford it but chose not to (usually younger professionals with a belief that they don’t need it).

Having said that, even if we assume the 45K number is accurate, it is true that it’s higher than both homicide and drunk driving rates combined at around about 30K deaths a year.

Using the 45K & the “ideal” $200 billion a year (CBO reports government health care spending with the new bill will be 1 trillion in new spending over the next ten years), we would be spending about 4.5 million for each life saved.  This assumes that the government projections are correct, which we know history shows us it’s likely to cost much, much more.  & it assumes that giving them insurance would truly save lives.

The difference in the analogy therefore is that no one in congress is currently setting up a bill where will spend an additional 4.5 million dollars per homicide & drunk driving deaths in order to save those lives.

I recognize for some, cost/benefit analysis is by definition wrong since human life is sacred, but we have to recognize that spending 4.5 million on say cancer or heart disease research is likely to save many, many more lives than spending it on the current health care plan.

Globally, spending this much money on portable water, malaria drugs, childhood vaccinations, and other fairly cheap solutions would save literally tens of millions of people each year.

I know – cold-blooded, heartless, etc – but given my current income level, I wouldn’t even force my own family to come up with 4.5 million to save me, much less think it’s my neighbor’s responsibility to pony up part of the cash through the force of law to do so.

I heard about a recent sobriety checkpoint in my area and what seemed to me a ridiculous use of resources compared to the payoff.  This being quite some time ago, I almost lost the story, but thanks to Google Cache… here it is:

St. Charles police Detective Derek Piasecki reported this morning that a DWI checkpoint this past weekend resulted in 29 arrests. The checkpoint stopped a total of 1,797 drivers at Highway 94 and Portwest Drive. Of those, 920 were westbound, and 877 were eastbound.

Here’s a breakdown of the arrests:

* 25 for driving while intoxicated

* 3 for driving with a revoked license

* 1 for failure to comply

A total of 23 officers from the St. Charles and St. Peters police departments and the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department worked overtime between 10  p.m. and 3 a.m.

Maybe it’s just me, as from the websites I’ve viewed people seem to be not only ok with this, but actually wanting more of it.

Looking from just the numbers however, you have 23 officers working 5 hours @ at least time 1/2.  This equates (23*5) to 110 man hours or (23*7.5)  or 172.5 hours of paid time to arrest 29 people while stopping 1768 other people.

This equates to (110/29) approximately 3.8 man hours per offense, with only 25 actually being arrested for the offense the checkpoint was supposed to stop.

Not only is this an incredibly inefficient use of resources, but to me, seems to be overkill.  98% of the people that were stopped had no other offense than driving in the area the police officers were targeting.

Additionally, this particular stop was announced before hand, making the actual offenders not only stupid for drinking and driving, but also clueless and uninformed.

Of course some can argue that it is worth it to help push down the scourge that is drinking and driving.   Statistics are hard to come by because the only ones compiling them are groups with interests of conflict, but taking their numbers – which includes any fatal accident where alcohol was involved (even if the drunk was passed out on the shoulder of the road and was run over) – about 45 people die daily from drunk drivers.

Maybe for some this makes up for the stunning inefficiencies, for me, I’m not so sure and therein lies the question:

If you have to stop 1787 people to find the 25 you are looking for – is that considered a success?

Well, we’ve moved from Cash for Clunkers onto Cash for Appliances and politicians everywhere have patted themselves on the back for what a fine job the original program did.

According to most news reports, sales were up a tremendous amount due to this program.  ABC News reports Auto Sales Up in August Thanks to Cash for Clunkers, Bloomberg reports U.S. Consumer Spending Climbs on ‘Cash for Clunkers, and CNN reports 4th UPDATE: Auto Industry Posts Best US Sales Of Year.

If one just reads the headlines and do the normal drive-bys on the news, this is yet another government program which is a rousing success.

This assumes of course you only look on the surface.  Looking further, there were many consequences of this program that probably wasn’t helpful.  Listing the potential and real negatives is a worthwhile endeavor if we truly wish to analyze the situation.  Since I can’t sum up the problems with this program any better than Cato has, Chris Edwards posted on their blog:

* A few billion dollars worth of wealth was destroyed. About 750,000 cars, many of which could have provided consumer value for many years, were thrown in the trash. Suppose each clunker was worth $3,000 at a guess, that would mean that the government destroyed $2.25 billion of value.

* Low-income families, who tend to buy used cars, were harmed because the clunkers program will push up used car prices.

* Taxpayers were ripped off $3 billion. The government took my money to give to people who will buy new cars that are much nicer than mine!

* The federal bureaucracy has added 1,100 people to handle all the clunker administration. Again, taxpayers are the losers….

* The auto industry received a short-term “sugar high” at the expense of lower future sales when the program is over. The program apparently boosted sales by about 750,000 cars this year, but that probably means that sales over the next few years will be about 750,000 lower. The program probably further damaged the longer-term prospects of auto dealers and automakers by diverting their attention from market fundamentals in the scramble for federal cash.

This isn’t to say they’re weren’t positives.  This only mean that using a vision which includes more than the past couple of months to analyze the situation will objectively result in either seeing this as a smaller success than currently marketed, or more likely, seeing this as an actual failure.

This is a continuous issue with basic human thinking.  All humans due to brain wiring and evolution have certain built in biases that cause us to make ineffective decisions.  By better understanding those biases, we can seek to minimize them.  Without minimization though, this thinking results in quick based resolutions that are overreaching and often end with a result much different from intended.

A few easy recent examples come to mind.  Sarbanes-Oxely, the Patriot Act, and McCain-Feingold.

Using SOX, lots of new regulations were added to company finance reports due to Enron, MCI, and other companies.  However the regulations can’t possibly prevent what took place nor can they do any better than what happened.  In Enron’s case, corrupt management ruined a business and they went to jail.  SOX will not prevent another Enron and I think the incentives against doing it again already exist when CEOs, CFOs, and others lose their business and their freedoms.

The true result of SOX?  A new industry of people and millions and millions spent by companies to ensure compliance, which is passed on to consumers that will not prevent future fraud (Bernie Madoff?).

Another example – even small decisions made too fast can turn out to be completely wrong.  Here in St. Louis, MO, they renamed a part of I70 after Mark McGwire due to his home run record.  It was a travesty to begin with as the road used to be named after Mark Twain, but after the steroid scandal included Mr. McGwire the idiocy and quickness of the decision was easy to see.

Additionally, the economy; lots of us still wish for the 90s when jobs were extremely plentiful, pay was high, and the economy was moving forward with lots of momentum.  Long term view?  It turned out to be a ponzi scheme that was mostly paper profits which resulted in a bubble that, as with all bubbles, burst.   Indeed, there was no new business cycle or new business rules that changed the economy in such a way as to guarantee no more downturns.  Several very large companies declared bankruptcy, CEOs went to jail, and millions of individuals lost a lot of their retirement money as their 401Ks nosedived.

In some ways though, making quick decisions makes complete sense.  In our very quick world, we are forced to make decisions quickly and lots of times, make those decisions based upon partial information.  In business, product innovation, management decisions, battlefield tactics, and in many other places this is necessary and having the skill to do this well is a requirement in most aspects of today’s professional life.

However, even though quick decisions on partial information are required in today’s world, we must still be cognizant of potential long term ramifications if we truly intend to leave a world for our children and grandchildren that is better than we found it.

Otherwise, we can continue to only contemplate things in small slices of time and we will certainly continue down the road of bad decisions.

Of course that’s just my two synapses rubbing together… I could be wrong.

This past Friday, the 25th of June, Democrats, with 8 Republicans in the House have passed sweeping environmental regulation known as Cap and Trade.

Democrats narrowly passed historic climate and energy legislation Friday evening that would transform the country’s economy and industrial landscape.

But the all-hands-on-deck effort to protect politically vulnerable Democrats by corralling the minimum number of votes to pass the bill, 219-212, proves that there are limits to President Barack Obama’s ability to use his popularity to push through his legislative agenda. Forty-four Democrats voted against the bill, while just eight Republicans crossed the aisle to back it…

Despite the numerous problems with the bill and still open questions remaining as to what the full financial impact will be on average consumers, Nobel prize winning economist, Paul Krugman is full of praise (here):

So the House passed the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill. In political terms, it was a remarkable achievement.

Which is perfectly fine.  I honestly tend to expect more out of an economist, like asking questions about cost versus benefits and the like, but I’ve gotten use to Mr. Krugman using his very large bully pulpit for his politics, and not economic principles.

As is his trademark for completely disregarding anything that fails to comport with his world view, he moved from praise directly into false logic:

But 212 representatives voted no. A handful of these no votes came from representatives who considered the bill too weak, but most rejected the bill because they rejected the whole notion that we have to do something about greenhouse gases.

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.

So from the very beginning, he places everyone into two basic camps – those who voted for the legislation and those who are anti-science, treasonous bastards, how don’t understand the fundamental science behind climate change.

Instead of acknowledging the well known fact that many opponents of this legislation are not global warming deniers, he presents a false dichotomy in which there are only two sides – his side and those that don’t believe in global warming.

From this basic setup, his article flows smoothly as he defends the science behind global warming all the while pretending the strawman he is busy burning exists in real life.

As usual, outside of his partisan world, the issue is not nearly as cut and dry.  Many of the best argued positions come from people opposed to this bill have absolutely nothing to do with the science of global warming at all.  The generally tread a few main points:

1. What are the true costs of the bill to individual consumers? This question is almost impossible to ask as 300 additional pages were added to the 1000 page bill just a couple of hours before a forced vote.  None of Congress had time to read the additions prior to voting.
2. If we can detail a good cost estimate, do we fully know what benefits to expect in order to balance costs with benefits?
3. & lastly, the politics of the bill are being setup for corruption.  Instead of opening an exchange where the initial carbon offsets can be purchased through a free market system, the government will be handing out those directly to business.  They will get these carbon credits free of charge and be able to resell them on the market once that happens.  Allowing congress the ability to decide who gets free money is a system setup for corruption.

Critiques :Reason, Cato.org, and just a lot of additional BS on politics of the entire thing

Of course Mr. Krugman should know and likely does know exactly what he’s doing.  He frames the debate as a false dichotomy, only allowing two choices, then pretends to make one choice look completely stupid by comparison through the ceremonial burning of the strawman he invented.

Not terribly surprising from a columnist who was arguing in 2004 that the economy needed a housing bubble to get us moving forward again, only to completely reverse course and pretend he never did any such thing after the collapse of that market (here).

Is it really any wonder why the self proclaimed 4th branch of the government is trusted less and less everyday?