Paul Krugman Has Emerged as Obama's Toughest Liberal Critic

President Barack Obama thinks he is right, but according to the Newsweek Cover story, the famous economist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman thinks Obama is wrong.
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In the April 6 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands March 30), "Obama is Wrong," Newsweek's Evan Thomas profiles Paul Krugman, who, as the debate over the rescue of the financial system unfolds, has emerged as Obama's toughest liberal critic. Plus: Michael Hirsh on how Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner appears to have settled into office; Dan Gross on financial linguistics; a profile of Peter Arnell; Newsweek's Business Roundtable; and the "diva-ization" of kids at a young age. (PRNewsFoto/Newsweek) NEW YORK, NY UNITED STATES 03/29/2009


29 Mar 2009 16:17 Africa/Lagos

NEWSWEEK Cover: Obama Is Wrong

Paul Krugman Has Emerged as Obama's Toughest Liberal Critic

What if Krugman's Criticism May be Right?

NEW YORK, March 29 /PRNewswire/ -- As the debate over the rescue of the financial system - which is crucial in stabilizing the economy and returning the country to prosperity - unfolds, Paul Krugman has emerged as President Barack Obama's toughest liberal critic, writes Newsweek Editor-at-Large Evan Thomas in his profile of Krugman in the current issue. Krugman, a columnist for The New York Times, a professor at Princeton and a Nobel Prize winner in economics, was a scourge of the Bush administration, but has been critical, if not hostile, to the Obama White House, skeptical of the bank bailout and pessimistic about the economy. As the debate continues, there are worries among the establishment that his "despair" over the administration's bailout plan might be right. "Krugman may be exaggerating the decay of the financial system or the devotion of Obama's team to preserving it. But what if he's right, or part right?," Thomas writes. "What if President Obama is squandering his only chance to step in and nationalize...the banks before they collapse altogether?," he writes in the April 6 Newsweek cover, "Obama Is Wrong" (on newsstands Monday, March 30).


(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090329/91457 )


There is little doubt that Krugman has become the voice of the loyal opposition, taking on the president from the left. In his twice-a-week column and his blog, Conscience of a Liberal, Krugman criticizes the Obamaites for trying to prop up a flawed financial system and he portrays Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and other top officials as tools of Wall Street. The day Geithner announced the details of the administration's bank-rescue plan, Krugman described his "despair" that Obama "has apparently settled on a financial plan that, in essence, assumes that banks are fundamentally sound and that bankers know what they're doing." The administration, naturally does not share Krugman's view, but the Obama White House is also careful not to provoke his wrath any more than necessary.


"Ideologically, Krugman is a European Social Democrat," Thomas writes. "In his published opinions, and perhaps his very being, Paul Krugman is anti- establishment." He hungers for what he calls "a new New Deal," and prides himself on his status as an outsider. Krugman generally applauds Obama's efforts to tax the rich in his budget and try for massive health-care reform. However, on the all-important questions of the financial system, he says he has not given up on the White House's seeing the merits of his argument - that the government must guarantee the liabilities of all the nation's banks and nationalize the big "zombie" banks - and do it fast. "The public wants to trust Obama," Krugman says. "This is still Bush's crisis. But if they wait, Obama will be blamed for a fair share of the problem." The question remains as to whether Krugman is right, which we won't know for a while to come.


(Read cover at www.Newsweek.com)


Cover: http://www.newsweek.com/id/191393


Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090329/91457
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Source: Newsweek

CONTACT: Katherine Barna, +1-212-445-4859, of Newsweek


Web site: http://www.newsweek.msnbc.com/


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Invest in America--Before it's Too Late

In the March 23 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, March 16): "I Want You to Start Spending!" Daniel Gross writes about how we, as consumers, need to start taking risks again in the economy and start spending to help the recovery. Plus: Mexican drug cartel violence spreads north of the U.S. border; investigating Americans' Swiss bank accounts; the decline of Iraq's Kurdistan; how to choose the right procedure for an ailing heart and Prince's big online bet. (PRNewsFoto/Newsweek) NEW YORK, NY UNITED STATES 03/15/2009

15 Mar 2009 16:56 Africa/Lagos


NEWSWEEK Cover: I Want You to Start Spending!

Invest in America--Before it's Too Late

We've All Lost The Taste For Risk; For Our Economy To Recover and Thrive, 'Hoarders must open our wallets and become consumers, and businesses must once again be willing to roll the dice,' writes Daniel Gross

'We've gone from age of entitlement to age of thrift,' says PIMCO CEO

NEW YORK, March 15 /PRNewswire/ -- With the economy in its 16th month of recession and the markets cut in half, it seems we've all lost the taste for risk, writes Newsweek Senior Editor Daniel Gross in the current issue. "In the grip of a bubble mentality, we -- as investors, consumers and businesses -- blithely assumed risk and convinced ourselves it was perfectly safe to do so," he writes. But now, "the zeitgeist has spun 180 degrees. Squeeze your nickels, slash debt, stop gambling," Gross writes in the March 23 Newsweek cover, "I Want You to Start Spending!" (on newsstands Monday, March 16). "For our $14 trillion economy to recover and thrive, hoarders must open their wallets and become consumers, and businesses must once again be willing to roll the dice."


(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090315/NYSU004 )


In his essay, Gross explains how not spending anything now could mean bigger problems in the future. The rush to hoard cash and pinch pennies is understandable, given that some $13 trillion in net worth evaporated between mid-2007 and the end of 2008, Gross writes. "But while it makes complete microeconomic sense for families and individual businesses, the spending freeze and collective shunning of nonguaranteed investments is macroeconomically troubling. Especially if it persists once the credit crisis passes."


"The precautionary behavior of every entity in the global economy has gone up," Mohamed El-Arian, CEO of the giant bond-investment fund PIMCO, tells Newsweek. "We've gone from an age of entitlement to an age of thrift."


Gross writes that nobody is advocating a return to the debt-fueled days of "4,000-square-foot second homes, $1,000 handbags and $6 specialty coffees. But in our economy, in which 70 percent of activity is derived from consumers, we do need our neighbors to spend. Otherwise we fall into what economist John Maynard Keynes called the 'paradox of thrift.' If everyone saves during a slack period, economic activity will decrease, thus making everyone poorer. We also need to start investing again not necessarily in the stocks of Citigroup or in condos in Miami. But rather to build skills, to create skills, to create the new companies that are so vital to growth, and to fund the discovery and development of new technologies."


Economists warn that if we don't manage to jolt the economy back into life soon, we run the risk of repeating Japan's so-called "lost decade" of the 1990s, Gross writes. Would that be so bad? After all, while Japan endured a prolonged period of slow growth, nobody starved, there was no social unrest in the aging country, and its biggest companies continued to innovate. But America is different. Thanks to our continually rising population, we need significant growth just to maintain our standards of living -- and the health of our democracy. "When people experience progress in their material living standards and they have some degree of optimism that it will continue, they're inclined to support public policies that reflect tolerance, opening of opportunity and commitments to democracy," says Benjamin Friedman, a Harvard economist and author of "The Moral Consequences of Growth."


A second moral imperative demands that America get back on the growth track, Gross writes. "The U.S. remains the single largest source of demand. Until America emerges from its bunker, the global economy -- facing its first year of contraction since World War II -- is likely to remain moribund."


(Read cover at www.Newsweek.com)


http://www.newsweek.com/id/189232


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Source: Newsweek

CONTACT: Jan Angilella of Newsweek, +1-212-445-5638


Web Site: http://www.newsweek.com/

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Lying In The Name of God: When Ndi Okereke-Oyiuke Lied

Mrs. Ndi Okereke-Oyiuke

Lying In The Name of God: When Ndi Okereke-Oyiuke Lied

“We thank God that our market did not meltdown as much as many of the advanced stock markets. We thank God that the whirlwind did not blow too hard on our side at a time when several global giants closed shop.”
~ Mrs. Ndi Okereke-Oyiuke, Director-General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, (NSE) on Monday January 12, 2009.

How can Ndi Okereke-Oyiuke say the Nigerian Capital Market did not do badly in 2008, when the Nigerian capital market crashed woefully?

The erroneous and ambiguous rating of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), World Bank and Standard & Poor as the 11th out of the 106 exchanges in the world is not an endorsement of the Nigerian capital market and does not mean that the Director-General of the NSE did not lie.

According to the report of Mr. A.G. Olisaemeka, the meltdown of the Nigerian capital market led to the crash of the market capitalization from a record high of N13.5 trillion in early 2008 to less than N4.5 trillion in early 2009.

Both Mr. Chukwuma C. Soludo, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Mrs. Ndi Okereke-Oyiuke have erred and lied about the state of Nigerian banks and the Nigerian capital market, because their statements have been proved to be false by the facts of the prevailing realities of the Nigerian economy.

Corruption is the bane of Nigerian banks and the anathema of anyone who is a true patriotic citizen of Nigeria. It is within the ambit of the Governor of the apex bank and the DG of the NSE to direct the course of the Nigerian economy by being honest and transparent, but they have become either shareholders or apologists of the corrupt leaders and investors who are the cankerworms of corruption in Nigeria. Their erroneous analysis of the financial crisis is the wrong diagnosis of the Nigerian economy. Their comparative analysis of the global financial crisis is wrong.

The meltdown of the Nigerian capital market is as bad as the ones Mrs. Okereke-Onyiuke called “global giants”, because the meltdown caused the massive withdrawal of foreign investors from the Nigerian capital market. But while the governments of the so called “global giants” have already implemented practical bailout plans, the Nigerian government is lagging behind in the implementation of an effective economic stimulus plan. In fact, presently, the Nigerian government is confused.

I have already passed a Vote of No Confidence on the corruption-ridden banks in Nigeria, except for the bank I can vouch for, Guaranty Trust bank (GTB). I do not need any pink account where the colour is tainted with the bad blood of blood money from illegal oil bunkering, misappropriation of public funds meant for Nigerian General Hospitals, Teaching Hospitals and Health Centres, and the embezzlement of the public funds meant for the construction of safe roads and regular power supply. The same criminals and enemies of the state who embezzled these public funds are the major shareholders and investors in Nigerian banks and other listed companies. These same criminals love using the name of God at their Annual General Meetings (AGMs) while smiling and still lying through their teeth in their annual reports.

There is time for everything, and the clock is ticking for D-Day, when we shall know for whom the bell tolls, for their judgment shall be according to their violation of the commandment: "You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name”. Except they are fools. But as fools lie, so fools die.
Finis.

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Vanguard Online Edition - Saturday, 14 March 2009

© Vanguard Online Edition

NEWSWEEK Cover: I Got It Bad

In the February 2 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands January 26), "I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)," Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria writes about the challenges President Obama will face in order to fix the economy and restore America's credibility. Plus: Daniel Gross on our "Yes, We Can" president in a "No, We Can't" economy; Somali-Americans recruited for jihad; what makes some people survive; what Obama's presidency means for racial equality; and Newsweek's Oscar Roundtable with six Hollywood stars.(PRNewsFoto/NEWSWEEK) NEW YORK, NY UNITED STATES 01/25/2009

25 Jan 2009 17:04 Africa/Lagos

NEWSWEEK Cover: I Got It Bad

President Obama Needs To Act Quickly and on a Massive Scale To Fix the Economy

"We Have Not Turned the Corner. In Fact, We Can't Even See the Corner Right Now."

NEW YORK, Jan. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- In an essay opening the February 2 Newsweek cover package, "I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)" (on newsstands Monday, January 26), Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria writes that President Barack Obama will have to quickly start planning for a set of more extraordinary measures to pull the United States out of its current, unsustainable economic condition. "The American financial system is effectively broken. Major banks are moving toward insolvency, and credit activity remains extremely weak. As long as the financial sector remains moribund, American consumers and companies -- who collectively make up 80 percent of GDP -- will not have access to credit, and economic activity cannot really resume on any significant scale. We have not turned the corner. In fact, we can't even see the corner right now," he writes.


(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090125/NYSU001 )


"President Obama faces a terrible dilemma. He needs to act quickly and on a massive scale," Zakaria writes. Without large scale action, the financial system will keep bleeding, but the American public believes that we have already spent far too much on bailing out the banks. Zakaria argues that the economic fact is that we have not spent enough. Even worse, "this current crisis has resulted in a deep erosion of American power that we have not fully understood. Even in the depths of the Iraq War, when much of the globe was enraged by George W. Bush's unilateralism, people everywhere believed that the United States had the world's most advanced economy and that its capital markets in particular were the most sophisticated and developed." That system is now seen across the world as a sham, and the attitudes of officials and businessmen range from shock to rage at what they see in the United States.


"When he began his run for the White House, Barack Obama thought he could restore American power and leadership by righting our foreign policy, winding down the Iraq War, closing Guantanamo, ending torture. These are all important policies, and I am glad that he is pursuing them. But right now, the most important way for him to restore America's credibility and influence in the world is to rescue the American model," Zakaria writes.


Also in the cover package, Senior Editor Daniel Gross writes how more and more companies and firms are deciding to forgo the work of restructuring their finances, and instead selling off their inventory and closing. "Rather than soldier on, many operators have opted to simply fold, returning money to investors. Companies, homeowners and money managers willing to quit rather than fight is both a symptom of the nation's deep economic woes and emblematic of the challenge the Obama administration faces," Gross writes. "Our 'Yes, We Can' president is going to have to fix a 'No, We Can't' economy."


(Read cover package at www.Newsweek.com)

Cover: http://www.newsweek.com/id/181407

The Quitter Economy: http://www.newsweek.com/id/181264


Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090125/NYSU001
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/
AP PhotoExpress Network: PRN1
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: Newsweek

CONTACT: Katherine Barna, +1-212-445-4859, of Newsweek


Web site: http://www.newsweek.msnbc.com/

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Obama to meet congress leaders on economic plan

Obama to meet congress leaders on economic plan

January 05, 2009




Barack Obama is heading to Capitol Hill to push for quick action on a broad economic stimulus package congressional leaders are saying won't be ready until mid-February at the earliest. That's almost a month later than the president-elect wanted. (Jan. 5)