This is another "state of the Krugman" report. It seems that the Professor has spent his week reading much that reminds him of George Orwell (in a bad way). Comes Friday, and Orwell enters his column by implication (in a good way).
Orwellian — "an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past." Let's keep that in mind as we examine the following (and bonus points for finding the definition's key word).
The Professor begins:
When the financial crisis struck, many people — myself included — considered it a teachable moment. Above all, we expected the crisis to remind everyone why banks need to be effectively regulated.Krugman then tells the sorry tale of the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which was tasked to “examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States.” As reported in the Huffington Post (my emphasis throughout):
How naïve we were. We should have realized that the modern Republican Party is utterly dedicated to the Reaganite slogan that government is always the problem, never the solution. And, therefore, we should have realized that party loyalists, confronted with facts that don’t fit the slogan, would adjust the facts.
Which brings me to the case of the collapsing crisis commission.
The four Republicans appointed to the commission investigating the root causes of the financial crisis plan to bypass the bipartisan panel and release their own report Wednesday, according to people familiar with the commission's work.And:
The Republicans, led by the commission's vice chairman, former congressman and chair of the House Ways and Means Committee Bill Thomas, will likely focus their report on the explosive growth of subprime mortgages and the heavy role played by the federal government in pushing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase and insure them. They'll also likely focus on the Community Reinvestment Act, a 1977 law that encourages banks to lend to underserved communities, these people said.
During a private commission meeting last week, all four Republicans voted in favor of banning the phrases "Wall Street" and "shadow banking" and the words "interconnection" and "deregulation" from the panel's final report, according to a person familiar with the matter and confirmed by Brooksley E. Born, one of the six commissioners who voted against the proposal.Krugman details all this, and draws the obvious conclusion:
It’s hard to overstate how wrongheaded all of this is. [Excellent evidence supplied here.] But the G.O.P. commissioners are just doing their job, which is to sustain the conservative narrative. And a narrative that absolves the banks of any wrongdoing, that places all the blame on meddling politicians, is especially important now that Republicans are about to take over the House.He summarizes correctly:
Never mind relearning the case for bank regulation; what we learned, instead, is what happens when an ideology backed by vast wealth and immense power confronts inconvenient facts. And the answer is, the facts lose.A nicely written piece, prominently placed in the Times, and pertinent to this week's atrocity (well, one of them). I do recommend reading it, especially for the well-captured evidence (truncated above) that — No, Eric; Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, black-hearted as they are, were not responsible.
But I said this is about the state of the Krugman, and not the work itself. I call your attention to two words. In the definition of Orwellian above: control. And in the Professor's final paragraph: power. Orwell isn't about language, he's about how language services power.
In short, I believe Mr. Krugman is backing into something he's already known, and perhaps forgotten. This isn't an academic exercise America has embarked on; it's a struggle for control of the country. Krugman is almost just about very close to calling that out. If so, that would make two.
GP
