Let's Hear From Another Hard Money Advocate

Even as Paul Krugman questions the patriotism of Republicans who question the efficacy of the Fed's QEII, we hear other voices fretting about deficits, monetized debt, and hyper-inflation in the US:

[L]ast week I switched to a fixed-rate mortgage. It means higher monthly payments, but I'm terrified about what will happen to interest rates once financial markets wake up to the implications of skyrocketing budget deficits.

...How will the [fiscal] train wreck play itself out? ...[M]y prediction is that politicians will eventually be tempted to resolve the crisis the way irresponsible governments usually do: by printing money, both to pay current bills and to inflate away debt.

And as that temptation becomes obvious, interest rates will soar. It won't happen right away. With the economy stalling and the stock market plunging, short-term rates are probably headed down, not up, in the next few months, and mortgage rates may not have hit bottom yet. But unless we slide into Japanese-style deflation, there are much higher interest rates in our future.

So even with rates low and headed lower, we were being warned to expect hyper-inflation down the road, once markets woke up to a reality discernible only by a few.  Of course, that was Paul Krugman writing in 2003 during a weak recovery and just before the Iraq War; Patriot Paul was opposed to the Bush War and the Bush tax cuts, so he was also opposed to looming deficits and the monetization thereof regardless of current labor or credit market conditions.

Now we flash forward to 2010 and in KrugWorld the temptation of politicians to inflate our debt problems away has evaporated and anyone who opposes the monetization of government debt or worries about inflation that no one can yet see (unless they look at commodity prices) is a scoundrel.  Good to know.

HOW WEAK A RECOVERY?  Here is the NY Times describing the jobs report that came out a few days before Krugman's March 2003 column:

The nation suffered job losses in February that were the worst since the two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the government reported yesterday. Bad weather and war fears combined to prolong the economy's malaise, and the unemployment rate nudged up to 5.8 percent from 5.7 percent in January.

The numbers from the Labor Department showed the disappearance of 308,000 jobs from the nation's payrolls. The Bush administration called the figures disappointing but said they showed the need for quick action on the president's plan to cut taxes.

Apparently Krugman believed the report showed the need for government to focus on our structural deficit and avoid an expansion in the money supply that might debase the currency.

GDP had grown by a mere 0.1% in the quarter ending December 2002; for the quarter then underway, growth was eventualy reported at 1.6%.  What an odd (yet politically convenient!) time for Krugman to be preaching austerity.

Comments

[Clarice]

For those of you unable to avail yourselves of my sharpened pike concession in DC, you will be pleased to know we are opening two new branches:One at Princeton and another outside the new grey lady offices.

[Danube of Thought]

I'd love to know what rate he's been paying.

[Ignatz]

It's different this time.
It always is when you're always wrong.

[PD]

It's different this time.

Not really. Former Enron advisor is reliably wrong, every time.

[matt]

Does Krugman moonlight for Snyder's Pretzels?

[Danube of Thought]

Does anyone bring this stuff to his attention? Maguire?

[Boatbuilder]

Who the bloody hell is the genius "budget expert Stan Collender" who Krugman cites for "predicting it all" (?!) and warning Bernanke that the Republicans see economic disaster as the path to political glory? Apparently he is so brilliant that he predicted that if Bernanke tried to inflate his way out of the budget deficit the Republicans would complain. He was right!

[jimmyk]

It's simple. Republicans = evil, Democrats = good. Even if the policies are more or less identical. Actually the current policies are like those in 2003 but in spades (oops, am I allowed to say that?). In 2003 interest rates were being kept at the astonishingly low rate of 1 percent, and the deficit was a couple percent of GDP. Now rates are being kept below 0.25 percent and the deficit is, what, 8 percent of GDP. But a Democrat is President, and Krugmans erstwhile colleague gentle Ben is at the helm, so everything will be ok as long as the evil Republicans don't try to reign in the very policies that in more moderate form were sure to ignite hyperinflation. Or something.

[narciso]

Dennis the Peasant gives a thwack harder than the Singapore policeman, in the LUN, although
he gives Comandante Pablo, too much credit

[coummity]

soicial secirity you O you O ff apps

[Melinda Romanoff]

I'm not going to rewrite the book.

QE2 is designed to save the money center banks, not the economy. They are still fundamentally insolvent and will remain so until the securitized mortgage problem is resolved. And it can only be done so, politically.

Here's the short version on what I've been writing, by Andy Kessler in Friday's WSJ.

[Chubby]

"budget expert Stan Collender"

as in kitchen colander, letting money go down the drain like water?

[Kiara Hills]

Hard Money Lending is one of the best option in todays lending business.

[John]

ee, what's different? Oh, that's right, there is a "D"*** in the Whitehouse now, there was an "R" there before.

*** Well, nominally a "D", actually a hate-America Marxist.

[Neo]

So what other "Enron" does Krugman aid now ?

[moptop]

One of may favorite quotes from Kruggers is "although the need for stimulus was not as strong as it appeared at the time."

I mean, come on. Finish the sentence: "as it appeared to me, Paul Kruggers, at the time."

[moptop]

"Does anyone bring this stuff to his attention? Maguire?"

They tried, but Kruggers limited comments so severely that it was kind of hard for people to write anything beyond "Way to go Paul! You are a genius!" Or, "You're wrong!"

This has saved him from much embarrassment. Now if only he could impose those limits on the whole intertube thingy.

[winstongator]

Did any of you catch this part of his 2003 statement, "unless we slide into Japanese-style deflation"? Were we in danger of deflation in 2003? We are in danger of that today. The macroeconomic situation was different in 2003 than it is today.

What if I tell you I want to irradiate your chest, to which you panic. Then you get lung cancer, and say, wow, I need to irradiate my chest. As conditions change, prescriptive courses of action change.