YO, PAULIE!

Wow, what a gig you got yourself. Dis is as good as that Tom Clancy Guy or james Patterson. Write a couple of best sellers or get a Nobel and pretty soon you can get people to write stuff for you and all you gotta do is put your name on it for it to sell. But I gotta tell ya Paulie, the difference wit you and dose utter two guys is dat dey put the utter guys name on the stuff so ifin it really stinks dey can say, "Well, you know how it is...I told ya I didn't do it." Take like da ting in da Times dis morning. Paulie, it's only got your name and whilst we knows you didn't write it 'cause you being a Noblist an all can't be dat stupid, you shouda put the guys name what wrote it so...what? You DID write it? Ah, Paulie, say it aint so.

If Paul Krugman had an ounce of street smarts that's what he would be hearing out where the real people live. While repeating the Big Lie that the stimulus package was too small but even at this level created jobs and stimulated the economy , he continues with the theory that it's really the banks that caused the entire thing and the lack of regulation during the Bush years.

It s becoming increasing apparent to anyone who isn't a Democratic Toad that there are multiple bad actors in this scenario but first and foremost was the Congress led by Barney and Chris. Fanny and Fred, constantly ignored by Krugman are key to an understanding of what went on. Remarkably, little interest has been paid to the fact that the worst offenders in the private financial community were not the banks, or more accurately, those institutions regulated by the Fed, but the other-regulated actors, the Bears, and the AIGs of this world.

Krugman compounds his mythical tale by leaping into the present claiming that the banks non-lending stance is complicating the problem for the poor Leader seemingly having no knowledge of the fact that before the crisis the banks, or at least the ones he so despises, were hardly the supplier of credit to the system. In 2007, the percentage of C & I loans (commercial and industrial) from commercial banks stood at 21%. Credit to American industry was not supplied by the banks but by a myriad of other sources all of which collapsed in the Crisis, but have now, to a goodly extent, returned.

To be sure, Mom & Pop businesses relied on banks for credit but not the Krugman-hated institutions. Guess what? They have withdrawn from local lending--especially real estate because

1. There clients are so uncertain of governmental policies going forward, few if any, are planning expansion, or to put it another was, there is little demand.
2. What policies have been discussed are contrary to economic growth
3. Why take a risk when monetary policy allows one to make a profit in the carry trade with little risk and NO USE OF CAPITAL (buy govvies and capital allocation is zero and The Leader and his deficits are creating A LOT of product to buy).

or so the bankers in my neck of the woods tell me. Krugman, like the mob surrounding The Leader are brilliant academic economists. Unfortunately, the real world is not something they understand or for that matter have any interest in understanding. If they did what they would hear is: "Yo Paulie! Get outta da way would ya! We done this before wit out you. We can do it again!"