Monday, August 08, 2011

S&P

I was thinking a lot this weekend about the Standard and Poor downgrade of America's economy.  These were the same people who continually rated American investment banks and derivative markets as AAA.  Right up until the financial meltdown.  Paul Krugman put all of this into focus and I urge you to read his New York Times Column today.

I think he is right in his assertion that this country is being controlled by extremists right now.  If the American public rewards the GOP in anyway at the polls next year then we are surely lost.  We will have lost our national rationality.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jim,

Following Paul Krugman is like following the rail runner over the fiscal cliff. I hope you don't think his answers to our nations fiscal problems are the right ones.

Abq Dude said...

While S&P's history is tainted with questionable ratings, maybe this is what Washington needs. A big finger pointed at them for getting us into this financial mess and doing nothing about it.

Jim Baca said...

I do think Krugman makes sense, at least more than the voodoo economics of the GOP.

Abq Dude said...

Krugman has more ideas and rational thinking than most economists, and he's willing to debate them with pretty good political insight. GOP'ers like convincing themselves into political frenzies and driving this country into the ground ljust for political gain.

Donald F. Schiff said...

Sure, anonymous. Let's completely ignore anybody with a Nobel Prize on his resume.

Just for giggles, why doesn't the Justice Dept. investigate S&P's role in creating the current depression? They gave AAA ratings to worthless mortgage-based securities, after all.

Anonymous said...

OK Donald. You can add Obama to that list.

Rodney said...

Leaving aside the fact the Paul Krugman is a Nobel Laureate for economics, you know, one of those "hard sciences", another fact about Krugman is that he has been THE MOST ACCURATE prognosticator on just about anything pundits care to predict.

CLINTON, N.Y. – Op-ed columnists and TV’s talking heads build followings by making bold, confident predictions about politics and the economy. But rarely are their predictions analyzed for accuracy.

Now, a class at Hamilton College led by public policy professor P. Gary Wyckoff has analyzed the predictions of 26 prognosticators between September 2007 and December 2008. Their findings? Anyone can make as accurate a prediction as most of them if just by flipping a coin.

….

The students found that only nine of the prognosticators they studied could predict more accurately than a coin flip. Two were significantly less accurate, and the remaining 14 were not statistically any better or worse than a coin flip.

The top prognosticators – led by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman – scored above five points and were labeled “Good,” while those scoring between zero and five were “Bad.” Anyone scoring less than zero (which was possible because prognosticators lost points for inaccurate predictions) were put into “The Ugly” category. Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas came up short and scored the lowest of the 26.

(One significant conclusion in teh study)

Perhaps most importantly, being a good prognosticator seems to be a product of choices, not birth. Anyone can be good; all they need to do is avoid law school and buy into liberalism as an overarching philosophy.

http://www.hamilton.edu/documents/An-Analysis-of-the-Accuracy-of-Forecasts-in-the-Political-Media.pdf