I am quite happy with the idea that Krugman is crazy and, whilst an excellent and interesting economist, primarily now concerned with the answer and not the method. As further testified to by the comment I linked to.

Then again, one of the comments to the Krugman post you linked provides a fairly good rejoinder to your (and Krugman’s) suggestion that the Obamaniacs have lost their sanity:

Indeed, for only a crazy person could think the following strategy is good for the progressive movement (from Jonathan Chait):

Clintons path to the nomination, then, involves the following steps: kneecap an eloquent, inspiring, reform-minded young leader who happens to be the first serious African American presidential candidate (meanwhile cementing her own reputation for Nixonian ruthlessness) and then win a contested convention by persuading party elites to override the results at the polls. The plan may also involve trying to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations, after having explicitly agreed that the results would not count toward delegate totals. Oh, and her campaign has periodically hinted that some of Obamas elected delegates might break off and support her. I dont think shed be in a position to defeat Hitlers dog in November, let alone a popular war hero.

Posted by Kelly

One measure of how crazy people on at least one side of the Democratic nomination struggle have become: Ive gotten a number of complaints that the end of my last entirely non-political column, hope is not a plan, was a swipe at Obama.

Um, guys, its a phrase military types use; I started using it a lot when Iraq went pear-shaped. In fact, if you Google it, the first entry that comes up is a book about the Iraq war.

Im sorry to say that a large part of the progressive movement seems to have lost its sanity.

But all I really meant was that I don’t see Krugman’s opinion as authority for anything, because I know his opinion will serve his political ends. And I am not inclined to look at his reasoning on a topic, for the same reason (as well as his ridiculously rude attitude to people who disagree with him, see eg your last post about him!).

I knew I was stirring a bit when I included Megan, so I richly deserve looking stupid in return

the Snowy Mountain River Project, the Hoover Dam, the US highway system, the internet, cracking the DNA code, etc, etc.

But you see we look at projects like that and think the private sector couldn’t build such a thing. It’s probably true in terms of the Snowy, hoover Damn. It would have probably been done much differently and we coudn’t imagine what it would have been like. But consumer needs would still have been satisfied.

Take telstra … Telecom…. PMG . If the govenernment hadn’t entered that market the telco market here would have been unrecognoizable to what we have now. We couldn’t even imagine what it would have looked like. But i bet you this much, it would have been better.

“Have you seen the media and communication laws? Seriously go take a look. They are a dogs breakfast. More intervention will only create more trouble in the end. It would be best to buy back the wires from Telstra at an agreed price that doesnt cause value destruction to Telstra , then refloat it and get out of the way.”

My definition of intelligent and flexible governance includes appropriate and effective deregulation. Look at France, the place that invented dirigistism and yet they finally got their act together to deftly deregulate and unbundle their state telco’s internet provider services to point where ADSL is pretty much free (eg: a flat 15 euros or so a month) in their big cities.

“We cant be drought proofed, but we could allow private market pricing in the water market.”

Yes we can. The money and tech is there. All it takes is the political will to treat it like some Snowy Mountain River Project. It’s an absolute good. Worked for Dubai.

“”…presenting Sydney and Melbourne as prime global destinations for skilled migration, international education and regional HQs/R&D centres is gonna be harder and harder to sell as these cities infrastructure are allowed to crumble.”

“Whats beginning to crumble though?”"

Transport infrastructure for starters.

“”Thatd be the great breakthrough for the 21st century. A global energy web. Sounds pretty damn unlikely doesnt it?. Try explaining the internet to someone just one generation ago.”

“Could happen with big reflectors up in space, but I think thats probably 200 years away though as the cost is huge. Then theres the possibility of cold fusion etc. meantime”"

The operative word here is ‘web’. As in ‘grid’. It’s not about where the power comes from as about how you most efficiently distribute the surplus fed into the grid through co-generation and such like. Shame Enron was run by incompetent crooks because I think they were onto something with energy trading markets. Just need the tech to catch up with the money.

“Look, most of things youre asking for are going to be private sector initiatives, as the government wont have the capital to make it through.”

Whereas the private sector, forced and focused on short term profits, and often competing bitterly amongst itself, is not the right vehicle for some nation-building projects – like say the Snowy Mountain River Project, the Hoover Dam, the US highway system, the internet, cracking the DNA code, etc, etc.

Weve got crap broadband with higher prices and less competition than most other OECD countries,

Yes true. But the government basically fucked up the original telstra privatisation by not breaking up the wires and to create different entities. Have you seen the media and communication laws? Seriously go take a look. They are a dogs breakfast. More intervention will only create more trouble in the end. It would be best to buy back the wires from Telstra at an agreed price that doesnt cause value destruction to Telstra , then refloat it and get out of the way.

we should have been drought-proofed by now

We cant be drought proofed, but we could allow private market pricing in the water market. There have been some studies to suggest that water is too cheap by a factor of 10 in some places. How do we actually know what the price of water should be when we have very little in the way of price signals to tell us.

the hoo-ha over dredging the Port of Melbourne is symptomatic of the fact theres been no long term nationally coordinated planning for our nationwide TDL network,

Dunno much about that.

all our internationally exposed lower-skilled jobs (especially in manufacturing and ICT back office) are going to China and India,

But thats okay, as that sort of thing has been happening for ages. You know it used to be Japan in the 60s etc. Our jobs base wont shrink.

biosecurity for our food industry (once one of our main competitive edges internationally in this sector) is turning into a joke

Dunno much about that.

and presenting Sydney and Melbourne as prime global destinations for skilled migration, international education and regional HQs/R&D centres is gonna be harder and harder to sell as these cities infrastructure are allowed to crumble.

Whats beginning to crumble though? The water situation? Privatise and let the market determine the price. Governments are loath to raise prices because of what it will do to them electorally so its best to sell them and gift the shares to all the people in the states.

Also regardless of whether you believe in AGW or not, it makes a fuckpot of sense to lessen our dependence on dirty and readily geopolitically hacked carbon-based energy.

Theres little choice as nuke is off the table and the other stuff like solar and wind can never achieve what we get out of coal for baseload.(other than nuke)

Here I think the key is ivnting and delivering an open source energy grid that accepts any and all energy generation options from nuclear to bio-hacked moths beaming kinectic wing flutter power.

Ok fine. No problem with that and hope it happens.

Thatd be the great breakthrough for the 21st century. A global energy web. Sounds pretty damn unlikely doesnt it?. Try explaining the internet to someone just one generation ago.

Could happen with big reflectors up in space, but I think thats probably 200 years away though as the cost is huge. Then theres the possibility of cold fusion etc. meantime

I do hope the Rudd Government is up to it. Not holding my breath though. The Howard Government squandered that.

Look, most of things youre asking for are going to be private sector initiatives, as the government wont have the capital to make it through.

Faster Internet could have been with us a lot sooner if Telstra wasnt forced to deal with people that wanted to control its pricing to other providores. Looks like Telstra will end up doing the deal anyway. I can promise you though that it wont be cheap simply because that industry sector will never be allowed to be unregulated and Telsra was broken up very badly.

We’ve got crap broadband with higher prices and less competition than most other OECD countries, we should have been drought-proofed by now, the hoo-ha over dredging the Port of Melbourne is symptomatic of the fact there’s been no long term nationally coordinated planning for our nationwide TDL network, all our internationally exposed lower-skilled jobs (especially in manufacturing and ICT back office) are going to China and India, biosecurity for our food industry (once one of our main competitive edges internationally in this sector) is turning into a joke and presenting Sydney and Melbourne as prime global destinations for skilled migration, international education and regional HQs/R&D centres is gonna be harder and harder to sell as these cities’ infrastructure are allowed to crumble.

Also regardless of whether you believe in AGW or not, it makes a fuckpot of sense to lessen our dependence on dirty and readily geopolitically hacked carbon-based energy. Here I think the key is ivnting and delivering an open source energy grid that accepts any and all energy generation options from nuclear to bio-hacked moths beaming kinectic wing flutter power.

That’d be the great breakthrough for the 21st century. A global energy web. Sounds pretty damn unlikely doesn’t it?. Try explaining the internet to someone just one generation ago.

While the private sector could handle some of this, it will still take, in a vast country with only 20 million people mainly distributed around the fringes, some serious public sector funding and intelligent and flexible governance as well.

I do hope the Rudd Government is up to it. Not holding my breath though. The Howard Government squandered that.

Would you mind explaining

With that kinda money properly spent, we could have completely renovated the whole house, put in both a rumpus room (broadband) and a pool (drought-proofed the place) and still have enough left over for a plasma TV and sending the kids through uni. But no, all they left us was the TV.

I presume you’re referring to infrastructure.

What’s so bad and what need to improve?

What I look for now in a Government is basically managerial competence coupled with some ability to intelligently invest in the future. And the wit, nous, empathy and backbone to not overreact or underreact to black swans. Which is not easy, yes. But our Governments better start get prepped for such things ‘cos there’s gonna be more and more of them.

And yes, the Howard Government will be treated a lot less kindly by history than the Hawke one. Not for ideological reasons but because the first mob dealt with their big challenges very pragmatically while the second lot basically alternately coasted and panicked.

For example, over $100 billion in unanticipated resource boom revenue alone pissed up against the wall in middle class welfare vote buying.

With that kinda money properly spent, we could have completely renovated the whole house, put in both a rumpus room (broadband) and a pool (drought-proofed the place) and still have enough left over for a plasma TV and sending the kids through uni. But no, all they left us was the TV.

We all own shares in the national house now. Let’s make sure we get a decent, reasonably efficient and responsive Body Corporate provider that doesn’t overpromise or underdeliver. And who has some competent tradesmen on their books.

Also Patrick – Megan MaCardle!!!??!!. To quote that great Chicago School economist John MacEnroe “You cannot be serious!!”. She was basically hired by The Atlantic as a controversy magnet. And like Ann Coulter, I think she knows it. Either that or you have to entertain the notion she’s actually serious about her lego (“just click these shiny square bits together right and it’ll all work better”)libertarian economic musings.

As an aside, I am afraid that Henry made a common mistake in referring to me as an economist. I am but a lowly MBA, and have never claimed otherwise, but for some reason a lot of my readers are confused.

That’d be you, Patrick, “confused”.

Andrew Leigh, Brad DeLong, Megan McCardle and Tyler Cowen are my favourite web economists. I know that left-wing orthodoxy has it that Megan in particular is stupid, but bear with me. With all of the above, I read them with the feeling that they are asking a question and applying an economists techniques to the question. I get the feeling that they manage to surprise themselves with the results sometimes.

Megan is different from the others in your list, in that she’s not an economist. I rarely read what she writes, except where it’s criticized by actual economists. That’s probably where this “left-wing orthodoxy” comes from, and if she applies “an economist’s techniques” and comes up with surprising answers, well, that’s not really all that surprising.

Sorry to disappoint you Patrick.

I’m disappointed in Krugman in this instance. And yes, his partisanship sometimes blinds him to what I think of as a better view. Hardly surprising. We each make our bed and then lie in it. But I salute Krugman’s partisanship. After all it isn’t like he was brought up left wing or anything. I like people who come to their own conclusions.

There he was, generally keeping himself nice and reasonably balanced, and he gradually realised he was dealing with a bunch of revolutionaries – people with no respect whatever for evolved centrist norms. I think that’s a pretty good call in the US.

For myself, let me tell you something. I gradually convinced myself that I was a centrist. That’s basically my philosophical position – if you like equally irritated by the excesses of the inane latte left and the hard hearted right. But I had to acknowledge something towards the end of the Howard Government. They were bloody useless. Here they were inadvertently come upon tens of billions of dollars each year more than they expected. And what did they do with it? Nothing! Nothing whatever!

I can imagine people reading my latest AFR piece thinking that it’s typical ‘Howard Hating’ or whatever. But I can honestly say that as I gradually became so disappointed, I was kind of taken aback. I had to admit to myself, that if this is centrism, I’m outta here. Because while I am ideologically centrist, the fact is that the comparison between the Hawke and the Howard Govt, is embarrassing to the latter.

But everyone’s so reflexively preoccupied with positioning issues – are you left or right? – that what really matters, the quality of what a government does (including the way it acts) is crowded out of the picture. It’s a damn pity.

To elaborate, Andrew Leigh, Brad DeLong, Megan McCardle and Tyler Cowen are my favourite web economists. I know that left-wing orthodoxy has it that Megan in particular is stupid, but bear with me. With all of the above, I read them with the feeling that they are asking a question and applying an economist’s techniques to the question. I get the feeling that they manage to surprise themselves with the results sometimes.

With Krugman, and to a lesser extent with the local until recently even more hirsute version, I get the impression that they are asking themselves a question, answering it, and applying an economist techniques to the answer. Maybe it is only subconsciously and there is no conscious bad faith, but when was the last time either of them suprised themselves with the results of a question?

Quiggin to a lesser extent because I think the above only holds on ‘big’ questions – I do recall reading him profess to ‘be surprised’ by the results of some research. But on ‘big’ questions you know his answer in advance, same as with Krugman. Significantly more so, it appears to me, than with the first-mentioned group.

Maybe I’m just wrong. I expect you will tell my that I am! James Farrell will probably do the same.

NB: I haven’t included you, although I am obviously a bit of a fan. That is because I value your political writing, including the political element to your economics writing, than your economics. It is more what you actually do, as well. I hope that isn’t taken the wrong way. I haven’t included James Farrell either although I do like some of what he has written because I don’t really have a feel for which group to include him with. I suspect he would rather be included with Krugman and Quiggin, if not for the reasons I have given. There are lots of other Australian economists I like too but I read them quite a bit less reqularly.