Paul Krugman on Paul Ryan:

[1StrongBlackMan]

"I respectfully disagree, he was never a 'man of substance', this is who he always was ... the illusion of being of substance."

Damnnnn ....

[Spazito]

1. Exactly!

I've listened to him and noticed he is adept only at using the right 'buzzwords' as opposed to actually speaking of substance. One glaring example was when he said something like 'I don't want to go all wonky on this' in answer to a finance question. He is NO wonk, imo, no 'wizard' of budgets, finance, etc. as the media and the repubs try to portray him. He is a complete phony, imo.

[Raster]

3. I agree. I work in the financial community....listening to Ryan is very much akin to...

...listening to someone good at acting like he knows what he's talking about. Ryan's good at sounding good. Other than that, nothing there.

[Spazito]

4. Yes, my background as well is in budgets and finance with a sprinkling of policy...

and that is very much my take as well. MSNBC, at one point, played a clip of Ryan speaking in the House and it was striking how superficial and lacking in a real understanding of budgets and finance,it was. What was not lacking was a crapload of buzzwords.

[Raster]

21. He's got the buzzwords down, no doubt about it. What he lacks is real substance.

He's a packaged product.

[Scuba]

2. Examine his spreadsheets closely,I'll bet the range for the Grand Total includes the Sub Total cells

[wakemewhenitsover]

5. lol!

[Scuba]

6. I've seen this mistake made by a supposed spreadsheet guru. Sounds just like Ryan.

[wakemewhenitsover]

25. Hey, good call.

I wouldn't doubt it for a moment. Ryan is clearly a poseur.

[Spazito]

7. LOL!

Yep, I suspect his formulas entered lack 'arithmetic'.

[Poiuyt]

9. Arithmetic!

[hay rick]

17. Examine his assumptions closely.

Or even just glance at them and I promise you'll get a belly laugh. From the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Path_to_Prosperity) on the original Path to Prosperity (the first Ryan Plan):

Projections & Assumptions

The Path has been criticized by some commentators and analysts for its allegedly unrealistic projections and assumptions about future levels of discretionary spending, tax revenue, health care costs, and unemployment. [40][41] The Path projects to achieve a spending level of 3.5% GDP for all federal government spending aside from health care and social security by 2050.[42] In 2011, this spending level was 12.5% GDP. [43] The Path also projects federal tax revenue to be 19% GDP, up from the 2011 level of 15.5% GDP. [44] This had been called unrealistic because the Path calls for $4.6 trillion in tax cuts with no offsetting tax increases, other than the closing of unspecified tax loopholes. [45] The Path assumes that unemployment will steadily drop to 2.8% by 2021. [46] This would be the lowest annualized unemployment rate since the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), began tracking unemployment in 1948.

Recap:
The portion of federal spending excluding Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare will plummet from the current 12.5% of GDP to 3.5% by 2050.

After tax cuts and the closing of unspecified loopholes, federal tax revenues will increase from the current 15.5% of GDP to 19%.

Unemployment will steadily drop to 2.8% by 2021.

That anybody would take this guy seriously is simply astonishing.

[Scuba]

19. Yes, but if you'll check Ryan's flowchart, you'll see Step 87.b.2: "Miracle Happens Here"

[hay rick]

22. Mixing religion and politics isn't enough for them.

Now we have faith-based accounting.

[1StrongBlackMan]

27. LOL n/t

[porphyrian]

8. . n/t

[ewagner]

10. I have dealt with politicians like this for years...

...they learn enough "buzz words" to sound like they know what they're talking about but if you press them on details they give some lame-assed excuse for not giving you and answer...usually something like: "...I don't want to bore you with details"..or the most condescending of all: "You wouldn't understand".

great example....one of my friends was running for State-wide office and said the most important thing we could do for the "health crisis" was "TORT REFORM"...he was having coffee with a bunch of us and trying to sound informed and knowledgeable...so I asked him...

"Can you give me an example of a tort?"....He immediately riffed on the infamous $2MM dollar settlement against McDonalds for spilled coffee...so I asked: "In that case what was the tort?"...he stammered and stuttered and said it was the $2MM. I gave him a very short definition of Tort Law....and he changed the subject immediately.

Most of these phonies are like this: They repeat what they've heard on the radio or Faux News and parrot it to sound "informed".

They are not

Good for Krugman!

[elleng]

13. TORT = WRONG, dummy!!!

originally from the Old French, meaning "wrong", from medieval Latin tortum, meaning "wrong", past participle!!!!

You hit me with your car= TORT.

You removed my leg instead of my arm= TORT.

[AlbertCat]

16. I thought it was a many layered cake!

Ohhhhh... "tort".... not "Torte reform"

[elleng]

18. Ah Oui, TORTE!!!

[1StrongBlackMan]

28. Your ...

continuing insults of me with your sophomoric rwing talking points without, first, having taken the time to gain the most basic understanding the issue = TORT.

[elleng]

29. Oui, c'est un tort aussi!!!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. Plain direct writing is very powerful. I like the way Krugman writes. nt

[iemitsu]

12. of course krugman is right.

ryan lies because he knows he is a charlatan. he has nurtured an image that is false so he needs to embellish his accomplishments to feel good about himself.
his lying may be pathological since he lies when there is nothing to gain by lying and when the lies can easily be discovered.
eventually people like this are the only ones who believe their own lies.
ryan's lying about athletic prowess suggests to me that he is struggling with impotency. i suppose if i hated women like he does it would affect my performance with them too.

[elleng]

14. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the information the public receives these days,

more than the liers believe the lies, and 'truthers' have to jump through many hoops to resolve the resulting problems.

A DUer posted a sad example yesterday: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021304664

[iemitsu]

23. yes, sadly, you are correct.

the republicans have studied psychology and know that the first thing one hears on a topic is likely to be the thing remembered, even if they later hear the information repudiated. that is why they always accuse democrats of doing whatever they are actually up to. then if and when a scandal erupts the dems will be remembered as the culprits.
they also understand the dynamics of the dunning/kruger effect, which demonstrates that the huge majority of people will not accept proof of some truth if it invalidates some previously held truth. in fact most will cling to the disproved truth much more stridently after being faced with the new reality.
elites, the ruling classes, republicans, democrats, the church, etc. merely need to implant their world view early in the lives of citizens and after that most citizens will support any dictates (which conform to the world view) from above.
this strategy is and has been very successful but those who are informed can't be fooled because the "lie" is not the first info. about the subject, or related subjects, heard by those whom are educated.
it is a terribly frustrating uphill battle to try and re-educate people once they have been misinformed or ill-informed, nearly impossible. that is why revolutionary movements struggle so much with those who persist in acting the old ways and end up hauling them off to camps.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

15. The media kept calling it "The Paul Ryan Budget" but everyone knows he didn't write it...

...it was handed to him by some Right Wing "think" tank like the Heritage Foundation.

He just put his name on it and everyone called him the author and called the plan, and him "brilliant".

[indepat]

20. Paul Ryan is surely a person of jerk-off substance

imo.

[Honeycombe8]

24. If it weren't for people like Krugman, some things would never get said on the nat'l level. nt

[harpslay]

26. Classic Krugman