Is Paul Krugman Jewish?

Yes, Paul Krugman, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics is a Jew.

He is the subject of an insightful March 1, 2010 New Yorker article, "The Deflationist - How Paul Krugman found politics" by Larissa MacFarquhar.

A Newsweek cover story about Krugman appeared in the April 6, 2009 issue titled, "Obama’s Nobel Headache" with the tag lines, "Paul Krugman has emerged as Obama's toughest liberal critic. He's deeply skeptical of the bank bailout and pessimistic about the economy. Why the establishment worries he may be right."

Times' Krugman: Healthcare reform double cross by Barack W. Bush or William Jefferson Obama?

Fox's Minnesota Beauty Queen, Gretchen Carlson, repeated three time during the two minutes that we had her on this morning that people were starting to call our president, "Barack W. Bush" because he is adopting some of the policy positions of his predecessor.

We don't get why these right-wingers are mocking Obama for being hypocritical when he is capitulating to the stances that they want.

In the Times, Paul Krugman brings up health care reform, another area in which Obama appears to be backing away from his strong promises. In this case, Krugman insinuates, the president appears to be aping the cowardice towards health care reform that was emblematic of former president Clinton.

Krugman doesn't -- but we do ask if we should start to call our leader, William Jefferson Obama.

Our Talmudic question. Why is it that you can pass credit card reform in one day but not so for health care reform? Is it that the overgrowth of the jungle of the latter is so much more complex, which it may be? Or is it rather that the politicians have no serious intention of passing such reform?

We need government to get involved. The current state of health care is a nightmare, getting worse each day.

Op-Ed Columnist - Blue Double Cross
By PAUL KRUGMAN

That didn’t take long. Less than two weeks have passed since much of the medical-industrial complex made a big show of working with President Obama on health care reform — and the double-crossing is already well under way. Indeed, it’s now clear that even as they met with the president, pretending to be cooperative, insurers were gearing up to play the same destructive role they did the last time health reform was on the agenda.

So here’s the question: Will Mr. Obama gloss over the reality of what’s happening, and try to preserve the appearance of cooperation? Or will he honor his own pledge, made back during the campaign, to go on the offensive against special interests if they stand in the way of reform? ...more...

Video: Geithner Denies Krugmans Criticisms

"Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner responds to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman's critique of President Obamas bank bailout with NBCs David Gregory on Meet the Press."

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Video: Hey Paul Krugman v. Tim Geithner in a Funny New Hit Song

Paul Krugman v. Tim Geithner in a new pop song.

A Talmudic Dispute Between two Rabbis of our Economy, Tim Geithner and Paul Krugman

The Talmudic blogger relishes a crisp, clear Talmudic debate between two leading authorities.

The ancient rabbis who disputed, for instance, the order of the rituals of the Sabbath meal, based their opinions on competing theories and expressed their preferences for practice in concrete prescriptions. Do things this way and not that way. Yet always, the rabbis engaged in clear disputes over processes with the same intention - to serve the best interests of the people of Israel.

So it would appear the rabbis of our nation's economic theory are engaged right now in an intense dispute over the order of the economy.

Rabbi Tim Geithner (no, he's not Jewish, see our post) representing a legitimate and learned stream of thinking, says do things according to the theory and prescriptions of a plan which he presented in its fine details here in a WSJ op-ed ("My Plan for Bad Bank Assets").

Rabbi Paul Krugman (yes he is Jewish, but that is beside the point here) representing an alternate sage and respected way of logic, says no, do not do things that way, because it is bad in theory and in action, a case he presented in its refutation here in a Times op-ed ("Financial Policy Despair").

Both masters, utterly critical and argumentative in their presentations, wish to serve the interests of the nation. Their wisdom deserves our study.

And ultimately, like the Talmud, our blog here just canonizes and analyzes them, but does not resolve the outcome of the disputes.

Paul Krugman: Bush Administration Must be Prosecuted for Crimes

We agree with Paul Krugman writing in today's Times. The Bush administration must be prosecuted for its crimes of the last eight years. Part of moving on involves a whole lot of cleaning up and locking up.

About Obama, Krugman concludes,

...next week he’s going to swear to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That’s not a conditional oath to be honored only when it’s convenient.

And to protect and defend the Constitution, a president must do more than obey the Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable. So Mr. Obama should reconsider his apparent decision to let the previous administration get away with crime. Consequences aside, that’s not a decision he has the right to make.

We add - Barack wants to create new jobs.

How about 10,000 new jobs for investigators into the abuses of the last eight Bush years? How about 10,000 new jobs just for investigators into the criminal fixing of gasoline prices by big oil?

NY Times: Yeshiva University - Good. Regent University - Bad

Op-Ed Columnist Krugman says about the religious right, "This conspiracy is no theory." He writes about what we all know. Bush frequently prefers a religious litmus test over a routine literacy test. The results are both corrupt and scary.

For God’s Sake

By PAUL KRUGMAN

In 1981, Gary North, a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement — the openly theocratic wing of the Christian right — suggested that the movement could achieve power by stealth. “Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure,” he wrote, “and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order.”

Today, Regent University, founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson to provide “Christian leadership to change the world,” boasts that it has 150 graduates working in the Bush administration.

Unfortunately for the image of the school, where Mr. Robertson is chancellor and president, the most famous of those graduates is Monica Goodling, a product of the university’s law school. She’s the former top aide to Alberto Gonzales who appears central to the scandal of the fired U.S. attorneys and has declared that she will take the Fifth rather than testify to Congress on the matter.

The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda — which is very different from simply being people of faith — is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It’s also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists.

But this conspiracy is no theory. The official platform of the Texas Republican Party pledges to “dispel the myth of the separation of church and state.” And the Texas Republicans now running the country are doing their best to fulfill that pledge.

...One measure of just how many Bushies were appointed to promote a religious agenda is how often a Christian right connection surfaces when we learn about a Bush administration scandal.

...And there’s another thing most reporting fails to convey: the sheer extremism of these people.

You see, Regent isn’t a religious university the way Loyola or Yeshiva are religious universities. It’s run by someone whose first reaction to 9/11 was to brand it God’s punishment for America’s sins.

Two days after the terrorist attacks, Mr. Robertson held a conversation with Jerry Falwell on Mr. Robertson’s TV show “The 700 Club.” Mr. Falwell laid blame for the attack at the feet of “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians,” not to mention the A.C.L.U. and People for the American Way. “Well, I totally concur,” said Mr. Robertson.

The Bush administration’s implosion clearly represents a setback for the Christian right’s strategy of infiltration. But it would be wildly premature to declare the danger over. This is a movement that has shown great resilience over the years. It will surely find new champions.

Next week Rudy Giuliani will be speaking at Regent’s Executive Leadership Series.