I know, I know, I've been one of his biggest supporters,  But Josh and Arianna and Sirota and Krugman have finally convinced me that Barack's got to go.

It's just taking too long.  Taking too long to fix the economy (which he could easily do today just by firing Tim Geithner).  Taking too long to get out of Iraq.  Taking too long to have health care reform.  Too long for energy reform. Too long for environmental reform.  Too long for EFCA.  Too long for tax reform.  And on top of all that, it almost April and he hasn't balanced the budget.  Sheesh!!

This is just inexcusable.  My patience is at an end.  I gave him as much time as I could.  I am sure he's decent person deep down, but we just don't have any more time to waste.  I wonder if we called John McCain and asked him "pretty please", do you think he would still want the job? 

"The buck stops with Obama. He makes the decisions. In a way, I think I've got as much input as anyone can reasonably hope to have," Krugman said. "I'm rooting for him. I hope I'm wrong in being pessimistic about this plan."

I think this is actually good news for Labor and the US in the long run.  With the incessant criticism of the Obama Administration (primarily from the left), it will take an all out effort in the 2010 elections to try and win a few more seats in the Senate, including Specter's, and get major energy legislation and a carbon tax passed in 2011 (apparently the Dems have given up on it this year, which means goodbye next year as well). 

Last week Labor said they'd back Specter if he voted for EFCA.  He stiffed them instead.  America does not need 6 more years of Specter.When Franken finally gets seated, we'll have 59 seats in the caucus of which only 51-52 are reliable.  We'll need 3-4 more to convince the Evan Bayhs and Ben Fosters of this world that "Republican lite" is not the Democratic Party.

Idle Goldman Questions

If Goldman can so easily pay back the $10 billion in TARP money, does that mean they didn't need the $13 billion we gave them in AIG bailout money all that badly?

Josh, there were many banks that did not want to participate in TARP but were "coerced" to do so by Paulson.  The reason was to not single out the banks who really needed it to survive and prevent additional short runs on their stock.

I know that the progressive blogosphere refuses to see the forest from the trees because we are all in "hate Wall Street mode" and "everything anyone has done to prevent the apocalypse is crooked and designed to rip off the taxpayers" but people paying back their loans should be applauded.

Stiglitz not liking the Geithner plan, either:

"Quite frankly, this amounts to robbery of the American people. I don't think it's going to work because I think there'll be a lot of anger about putting the losses so much on the shoulder of the American taxpayer."

--David Kurtz

So the real answer is to "nationalize" the banks and rob the American people of another $4 trillion dollars, immediately? Yeah, that's logical!

I think I'd rather be on the hook for $150 billion already appropriated in the last Congress, than $4 trillion not yet (and never to be) appropriated.

Stiglitz and Krugman belong on the Economic Wall of Shame with Milton Friedman.  God Save Us from Nobel Laureates.

I guess it just goes with the territory.  I had thought that only right wing idiots could line up behind a talking head and give him complete obeisance.

But it apparently also happens to the nicest people. 

People: Paul Krugman is a columnist for the New York Times.  He sells a column.  He is a newspaper talking head now moved to TV.  Why?  Because he says controversial stuff and sounds like a Cassandra.  He did this during the campaign when he shilled for Hillary.  He hates Barack Obama as much as Rush Limbaugh.  He gets up every single day thinking of ways to bash Obama, and way too much of the progressive blogosphere is falling for it.  He did not run for office.  He did not convince one voter to vote for him.

He is one economist among many thousands, very few of which agree with his prescriptions.

He is a faux populist. Don't drink the Krugman Kool Aid.

"This is more than disappointing. In fact, it fills me with a sense of despair."

Every time I see Krugman quoted I get a sense of despair.  The sense that a self absorbed and foolish columnist is given so much weight by the progressive blogosphere as if his proclamations are sacrosanct. When things are tough it is easy to be Cassandra.  He's milking it for all its worth.

Give us all a friggin' break, Paul,  for at least a year and then we'll see who was right.  For the next 12 months anything coming from the New York Times should be looked at as a contrary indicator.   

Dear Mr. President:  As the entire blogosphere, left and right, together with the Mainstream Media fulminate, bloviate, hyperventilate, and all around lose their minds, here's to hoping you can keep in mind those classic words from Mr. Kipling, which have never made more sense to me than they do right now:

"IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!"