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You can get the Krugman's take on why Perry's record in Texasis an illusion here.
His first two points are: They drill a lot for oil and "Texas was spared the worst of the housing crisis, partly because it turns out to have surprisingly strict regulation of mortgage lending."
The "drill baby drill" folks will love the first one.
I find the second one delightful. Texas didn't follow the Frank-Dodd national insanity of turning Fannie and Freddie into a national backstop which promoted the making of mortgages to people who were very likely to not pay them back. Texas maintained strict regulations on mortgage lending.
From Krugman's point of view it wasn't a policy decision that Texas made contrary the conventional liberal wisdom. (Did Krugman ever oppose that national policy?) It is just an odd coincidence. Texas didn't make good policy they just got lucky - "it turns out" - "surprisingly."
The left may be short on gold, but they have plenty of brass.
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Monday, August 15, 2011
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Yeah, that mortgage thing was most assuredly a case of a blind hog rooting up an acorn. But Paul has divined even more happenstances that Texas has been the serendipitous beneficiary of.
ReplyDeleteFor example rapid population growth which, according to Paul, is due to:
1. A high birth rate – Texans probably have not worked out the connection between sex and pregnancy or perhaps we are just having more sex – now that would be a draw.
2. Immigration due to warm weather - woo hoooo more global warming for everyone please.
3. Immigration due to low cost of living - like all right to work states we screw our workers by offering low wages to keep down those nasty high prices.
Still, as Paul points out, all things Texas are not rosy in the insurance department. He states that 1 in 4 in Texas does not have health insurance while in Massachusetts there is almost universal coverage. Compared to Massachusetts! Evidently, in Paul’s mind, a state bordered by New York, Connecticut, and New Hampshire should have the same profile as one bordered by a foreign country.
Oh, and he also mentions that middle class Mexicans are moving to Texas for a safer life. I don’t really have any comment on that statement except that it is one I have not heard before. Interesting.
A couple of years ago, someone wrote a song about Paul Krugman that was all over the internet. The song was a liberal complaint about why Timothy Geithner was Treasury Secretary and not Paul Krugman. (I don't dislike Geithner, but the song did make a funny-true point that Krugman was winning a Nobel Prize while Geithner was using TurboTax.)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I suppose this article could be read as Krugman angling for another liberal musical tribute and/or demonstrating why he's not Treasury Secretary material.
Rob - I am pretty sure it is the latter.
ReplyDelete