Paul Krugman for President 2020 .... are you up for it Paul? Our country needs you!
9
France! France, I tell you!!
2
Finally, someone writes back!
4
I never really thought Steve Rattner was a credible source for much of anything. This piece pretty much says that in so many words.
6
Today's centrist democrats are republicans
10
"a sure sign that you have no idea what you are talking about."
Isn't that exactly the problem? Not knowing what you are talking about, and not caring that you don't know, has become a badge of honor to those who despise the 'elites'.
8
The choice is clear; Republicans support killers and Democrats support life savers. Who would you want to make your life better?
2
Living in a red state, I'm shocked. Does this mean I don't need to bring my own TP if I ever visit France? Not that I would ever want to.
1
“There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”- MARK TWAIN, Following the Equator
6
When they say 'oh, you want to be like France?'.. I'm like.. um.. OK.
5
Only in America would social democracy be called 'progressivism'. Social democracy is a theory of social participation in power and decision making. Progressivism today is about redefining the self and its relationship to power. It's also about denigrating "Dead White European Men," so chew on that for a minute. Perhaps this confusion explains why Warren doesn't quite understand either concept.
"Europe" is really Western Europe. It doesn't have to be taught lessons on extremism and so-called white nationalism. It has lived in the shadow of the Kremlin. Its population density drives the policy that protects air and soil. It rebuilt its urban heritage after WWII, rather than simply forget about it. France still has the most literate population on Earth. For Europeans, Trump is the fool they put on a boat in the 1880s to improve their genetic stock. Most Europeans worry about the power of US processed food and idiot television. On the other hand, it was the French who invented 'reality tv', so nobody can truthfully clap himself on the back.
3
You forgot to say "(cue Shostakovitch's 5th symphony) The Soviet Union".
1
"But the one I keep seeing is that Warren would turn America into (cue scary music) Europe, maybe even (cue even scarier music) France."
Perhaps Krugman the Francophile can explain last year's Yellow Vest riots. Or maybe rioting and burning are markers (cue happy music) for satisfaction! Who knew?
(Oh, and please don't pass on the debunked excuse that Macron used, that the rioters were black-bloc agitators.)
2
Exceptionalism is America's disease. It makes you lazy, complacent, arrogant, ignorant and incurious. It prevents you from learning from others. It drags you down and keeps you behind. And the US in behind, in many things, more things every year. Even longevity and child mortality, or mass shootings with children involved. Those are actually getting worse in the US. If that does not scare you, nothing will.
Time to wake up.
4
Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot...
Today's "Centrist" "Progressives" resemble those "leaders".
Those who fail to learn from history are bound to repeat it.
1
In the fears about the costs of universal medicare etc, I hear the fear of "socialism", which still induces panic in too many Americans. I recall when Sweden was pointed out as an example of socialist hell, with crippling taxes, an over-zealous government, and a terrible suicide rate. This at a time when Sweden was exporting the Volvo and the Saab, life-expectancy exceeded that of the USA, Swedes enjoyed universal healthcare, long parental leaves, etc.
What has changed is that the USA has dropped well below the OECD/G7 average in all the social indicators that matter: neonatal mortality, alcoholism and drug addiction rates, suicides (which IIRC now exceed motor vehicle accidents as the major cause of premature death), social mobility, personal bankruptcies, and so on.
Not that Europe (or Canada for that matter) has solved all social and economic problems. That's impossible, since solved problems just make way for new ones. But Europe (and Canada) have better solutions. We may not be able to afford all the toys that Americans in the same income bracket can afford, but we sure have enough time and energy to enjoy them. And we aren't afraid of our neighbours and their guns.
7
The liberals are the ones who have moved far left and become socialists and communists.
Once again, Professor Krugman nails it. I'll add this: The series of Republican purges -- starting after civil rights, then with Gingrich, then the Tea Party, and now with Trump and the smarmy creeps in the Senate -- has shifted the political center of gravity so far to the right that center-left people are now the Radical Left Democrats, and center/center-right people (uh um, Biden and the Clintons) are now "liberal Democrats" (never mind that the word "liberal" is being abused and misused regularly even by good journalists). It's maddening. Political discussions are necessary for democracy, but totally impossible right now. So much intellectual dishonesty and un-seriousness out there.
9
I think measuring things by the left vs. right scale or the capitalism vs. socialism scale is not accurate for the current world but we are stuck with these old concepts because of our political divide. When you look at the world, not just Europe but the Americas and Asia/Pacific, nothing that the Democratic field is suggesting is particularly radical. What the Trumpsters and the GOP want is of course extreme and a return to a past that people who don't or can't read history think was good for them.
4
The Nordic and European models are built on their peculiar histories and work for them and are tweaked and evolved by them in a manner that suits them. Yes, we can study them and learn from them on this side of the pond, but the American model is built on our peculiar history and works for us.... Medicare for All may be a worthwhile goal, but it cannot be implemented in a few months or even a few years - the current system will have to evolve toward Medicare for All if that is deemed to be acceptable in some version and fashion. So long as we all understand that reality, we can go back to our robust and sometimes vitriolic debates about who is out of touch with what reality. IMHO
2
I agree with Professor Krugman that anyone who argues against single-payer healthcare on the grounds that it's European socialism is completely out of touch. That would be Donald Trump, and his arguments will appeal to those on the right. No doubt single-payer healthcare costs less and saves people more than our current system.
However, I don't think that Biden, Klobuchar, Buttigieg, or any of the other pragmatists are making that argument, so it's a straw man. They're arguing that overturning the complete health insurance system in four years is impractical, risky, and opposed by most of the electorate. Doing away with private insurance is unpopular in the Midwestern swing states, so Trump can use it as a cudgel.
What they're proposing is a public option--Medicare for anyone who wants it--as a way to transition to single payer. The public option is supported by over 60 percent of the electorate. If it's passed and Americans begin to shed their private insurance, the transition should be swift and easy.
No matter how ambitious our goals, we can't achieve anything unless we win elections. In 2018 Democrats made healthcare a successful issue because Republicans tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Trump is still trying). Abolishing private insurance might make healthcare an issue that Trump could successfully demagogue.
Democrats won the House in 2018 because they won swing districts. That's where congressional majorities are won or lost.
2
Mr. Krugman failed to mention the right wing of the Democratic Party. That includes Clinton, Biden, and to some degree Obama followers of the party. Pro-corporate power, pro-surveillance state, anti-whistleblower, and pro-war.
Maybe 'cause he's one of them?
2
There is a significant difference between the two progressive candidates, Sanders and Warren, which goes back to the 2016 election. The Sanders supporters who sat out the election or voted for Jill Stein, did not grasp the importance of uniting in the broadest possible coalition in order to defeat Trump. They did not grasp the consequences of a Trump victory which resulted in the appointment of extreme right wing judges up and down the courts, culminating in the Supreme Court seating of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh; the rollback of environmental and labor protections; and the trillions of dollars in debt due to tax cuts for the wealthy and an inflated military budget. This was not the progressivism that used to be, when previous generations united in broad coalitions to defeat fascism, to end the war in Vietnam and to bring us to the table to negotiate international treaties for the benefit of our entire planet.
6
@An informed reader -- "The Sanders supporters who sat out the election or voted for Jill Stein, did not grasp the importance of uniting in the broadest possible coalition in order to defeat Trump."
Hillary supporters did not grasp what she is. Defeating her was more important than defeating Trump.
3
I smiled when I saw your the phrase "Who's out of touch with reality again?" in your today's op-ed editorial. For the Following reasons I find your argument riddled with flaws that vitiate your article's argument. 1) While no one can be certain, of course, who will be the Democratic Party's Presidential Nominee, let alone, and more importantly, decisively defeat Trump, we do know that neither Sanders nor Warren have the nimbleness of mind, i.e. political acumen, to unify their party behind them, let alone forge a broad based coalition to defeat Trump. Both of them have dug themselves in a hole that they cannot get out of! How "out of touch with reality" can you be when Warren and Sanders emphatically underscore that they will entirely eliminate the hundreds of thousands of jobs created by private insurance? Clearly moral purity irrationally overrides political prudence in the stances of Warren and Sanders. 2) The concept, Centrist, which you use, is a label entirely devoid of substantive meaning. On some quarters of the left it refers to candidates other than Warren and Sanders. Clearly Roosevelt, Johnson, and Obama were not Progressives; rather, they were pragmatic politicians who secured incremental progressive policies by logrolling, which is anathema to ineffectual idealists of the left like Warren and Sanders. 3) Your column begs the fundamental question what is the current political reality? I don't have space, but I would argue that you are out of touch with reality!
2
@john-anthony - if the Warren and Sanders proposals will actually eliminate the hundreds of thousands of jobs created by private insurance, please sign me up to those proposals for nothing else but that! By itself that will flatten the cost curve and get some sanity back into the healthcare market
1
51 years ago I left America forever and moved to Europe. I have never regretted it. As you point out, all over Europe people enjoy universal socialized health care. But there are two other advantages that you overlook: the first is that no European country has a Second Amendment, the other is that Europe is not in a permanent state of war.
337
@Robert Dole I am very much an American. There’s a cultural openness that Europe still can’t match. But we really do make life harsh for no good reason.
231
@Paul Krugman I moved to europe 7 years ago and haven’t looked back. It’s not perfect here, but I would never move back for many reasons. No european political party is against universal healthcare,lack of guns in private hands, in Italy we still care about human beings,and more. On an individual bases Italians and Germans are very open to me, and there isn’t much difference between the right wing in europe and the US, only we are way less armed than in the US. Lastly, the immigration issue is totally different here than the US. If you have only visited here,even a smart guy like you, you have no idea of the real issues facing people here. Best regards, I always injoy your columns.
22
@Robert Dole France, for example, has an extremely long and active list of military interventions in Africa. Not as large as the USA, but of course their military is much smaller because they can shelter under the umbrella of US armed forces. Their interventions just don't get the coverage here, obviously, that the US interventions get. Other countries such as Germany of course have historical reasons for having a limited military footprint. German militarism has caused some problems in the past (going for understatement of the year).
17
Never mind France; how about the Scandinavian countries whose governments are based on the Nordic Model? They combine comprehensive socialist programs, heavily unionized labor, and robust free-market capitalism to achieve a way of life that consistently lands them at the top of the so-called happiness index in the annual World Happiness Report.
A society with a shared goal of mutual happiness -- what a concept.
Rather weirdly, happiness seems a misprized factor in American life, treated as an afterthought if thought of at all. "I don't have time to be happy. I'm busy trying to succeed." It's as if to be concerned with one's happiness were a sign of weakness. "Happiness? That's for suckers!"
Americans have been conned into believing in the fiction of the "self-made millionaire" (as if any wealthy person ever produced his wealth without the assistance of a multitude), a mythical creature held up as an ideal. Trump is the quintessential specimen of that brand of fool: compulsively accumulating excess possessions and equating that accumulation with success, the model of a well-lived life, his glaring unhappiness and manifestly wretched personality notwithstanding.
As long as Americans believe that the Trumps of this world are models to be envied and emulated and America's Darwinist capitalism is superior to other ways of life, the shameful inequities and rampant misery of our society will worsen. A diminished capacity for self-reflection thanks to social media won't help.
32
France comfortably Socialist? Talk about weird unawareness. During his pleasant vacations, has Mr. Krugman never heard of the Yellow Vests protests? . . . The French suffer from the same impoverishment of the working class, just as here; inflicted on them by Right and "Left" parties alike, same as here; and resulting in a surge in power for Fascist, racist forces, almost as bad as here. It is only because the French workers are class conscious and militant and informed with Socialist ideas--unlike the American workers--that the racist right has not taken power in France, unlike in our beleaguered America.
1
On technology there are some area in which Europe is significantly ahead of the US. Banking technology in particular comes to mind. A European will look at you blankly if you ask them to sign a receipt after paying for something with a card because chip and pin has been standard for decades there. It is also incredibly easy to send money to someone via inter-bank transfer, whereas the US still only just seems to be catching on to this concept.
31
What a nonsense take. But expected. Krugman has long been far left and as a result, has lost objectivity. Elizabeth Warren's policies are not aligned with Europe or France. Just as the Green New Deal is not aligned with Europe. And if you want to be European, move to Europe.
Progressives have swung their policy 'pendulum' too far. Beating Trump should have been a no brainer in 2016. Seems almost impossible for Dems to lose in 2020. But, here we are - facing a potential loss and 4 more years of Trump. NOT because voters like Trump (few do if you talk to them and listen), but because voters cannot stomach the far left. Tired of being called racist, angry to see anti-fa embraced as a legitimate group when they are nothing but cowardly terrorists, and just astounded at the progressive take on immigration - open borders.
2020 is the election for Dems to lose; almost seems impossible, but now likely.
3
@Ma You nail it.
You are right
If you post a reply to a person's comment, is the person automatically notified of your reply? (e.g. as done by YouTube via email). The thought of being chosen out of hundreds of comments for a reply from PK, and not being aware of it, is distressing.
P.S. And how do we know if it's a legitimate reply from Paul Krugman, or actually a reply from Holmes?
"Europe also suffers from persistent weakness in demand" ... wait! Cut to global heating and pollution! Now weaker demand is GOOD, right?
Any so called democrat who sits out 2020 election because the nominee is not sufficiently this or that is effectively a Trump supporter.
3
Per capita GDP includes the income of the top 0.1%, which in the US make way more than their counterparts in Europe, explaining at least partly the lower G.D.P. per capita in Europe compared to the US.
2
A column divorced from reality. As our economy grew $630 billion real for our 330 million people, the EU's economy grew $210 billion real for their 510 million people.
Our median household income is now over $63,000 while the EU's median is less than $38,000.
While Krugman throw bricks at Trump because our economy grows $400 billion real this year, the EU is shrinking.
Europe is the land of wheelchairs and canes and outdated medical technology. They have more than double our deaths from breast cancer and while our hip replacement surgeons have moved on to anterior hip replacements, 100% of England's hip replacements are posterior.
Half of Europe's population, our investment in health research is $51 billion as compared to Europe's $16 billion.
Who will save the world from Alzheimers and antibiotic resistant bacteria? Not Warren's health care system run by the Motor Vehicle Department.
1
@John Huppenthal
As the statistician with his head in the oven and his feet in the freezer said, "On average, I feel fine."
We have as shorter lifespan than Europeans, our birth mortality rate is higher, and dental care is a luxury item. How do you put a dollar amount on two additional years of life, fewer dead children and having teeth?
3
@T Herlinghetti
Oh, and medical debt remains the most common factor in personal bankruptcy. You think private health insurance companies have no bureaucratic sclerosis? My doctor has a person who sits there all day filling out the 14 different forms for 14 different insurance companies and god forbid if they get any of them wrong. There's a person like that in every doctors' office in the country. How is that not wasteful? Try calling Blue Cross/Blue Shield sometime to get them to approve something they said they would approve before you got it, but now they say they're not covering it.
3
"There was a time when arguments between centrists and progressives were framed as debates between realism and idealism."
In those days, I was more of a centrist. I saw it as a practical path to ideals, as opposed to dreamy ideals with no practical path to them.
I think the whole system has shifted rightward, Republicans, Democrats, realists, and idealists.
Now the realists are just making excuses for things as they are. That is what Republicans used to be.
Today it is only progressives who have someplace they want to go. Many of them have practical ways to get there. Warren has a plan for that. Sanders is actually pretty moderate. Everyone else is to the Republican of them.
I don't think I've changed. Politics changed.
Stout Republican realist Eisenhower built the interstate highway system in a massive infrastructure program, and a network of huge airports too. He also supported the Supreme Court in its drive for civil rights, to the point of calling out the National Guard in Arkansas to support integration of a high school.
Stout Republican Governor of Michigan George Romney, running for President denounced the Vietnam War as a lie, that they'd tried to "brainwash" Americans to believe. And he said so on national TV too, for the Evening News.
Those politics are gone. The world turned around me. I didn't change. They did.
There are a lot of people like me.
It is okay to get angry. It is the only realistic response to what has happened.
6
@Mark Thomason, I agree that the GOP has moved steadily to the right since Reagan, who would be a RINO today. I agree that Clinton tried to triangulate, and in that effort moved Democrats to the right. However, I think the policies of every major Democratic candidate for president are more progressive than those of any Democrat in previous years,
So the Democrats of today have shifted leftward, and that's a good thing. Universal healthcare, control of drug prices, gun safety and addressing the climate crisis, etc., are all popular issues.
I haven't heard anyone pointing to France as a worst case scenario, at least not recently. What I have heard and read and believe is that differences in life expectancy have multiple explanations and he oversimplifies them. Unfortunately, those that Krugman chooses are currently highly tinged with politics too. I don't know if he's considered diet. The American diet creates its own health issues. I don't know if he's considered life style, one example being the healthful effects of being able to take vacations but there are many more life style differences. Like diet, American life style has its own health issues. Not spoken by him or others is the need for healthy habits of various kinds, the need for everyone to practice personal preventive medicine. Having adequate insurance when sick is ideal but in no way assures that people take care of their bodies.
This was an excellent article by Dr. Krugman. Many non-progressives spread too much misinformation regarding Europe and the social safety net programs that many European nations provide for their people. These non-progressives resort to fear-mongering to get their failed message across.
Today, as a matter of fact, I heard a guest speaker at CNBC propagate more lies regarding Medicare-For-All. He claimed that with Medicare-For-All people will not have the choice of what doctors and hospitals they will be able to go to. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am on Medicare and I can go to any doctor and any hospital that accepts Medicare. The only ones who have to go to in-network doctors and hospitals are those people who choose Medicare Advantage plans. Too bad no one on CNBC had the courage to call out that guest-speaker for his lies.
It is about time this country joins those who look towards the future, by advocating Medicare-For-All.
2
@George M., we definitely need to move toward universal healthcare, either single-payer (my preference) or strict price controls and non-profit private insurance (Switzerland). The only question is how we get there--all at once, or with a public option transition phase.
1
A new angle in Krugman’s laborious effort to paint the US economy as being weak. Now we’re to believe that Europe’s economies are more dynamic, and that their modest imperfections are a result of inadequate government interference. Essentially he’s saying: Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin eyes?
1
Europe also doesn't have anything like the Republicans, whose sole goal is to destroy the middle class.
2
@Wayne
Europe doesn't have a middle class.
Our median household income is over $63,000 while theirs is less than $38,000.
We define poverty as less then $26,000 per year.
Our poor are Europe's middle class.
1
Dear John,
Our median household maybe under the US’s but we don’t have to pay much for our public health insurance, our public schools are free and our students are debts free too. You can really make a living with our median household here in France. Come and try you would be surprised.
As usual, Prof. Krugman presents an interesting and thoughtful analysis of some of the current ideas being floated by presidential contenders. I particularly agree with his contention that higher taxes do not stifle growth, and that idea is buttressed by comparing economic growth during Democratic and Republican administrations. The one idea I take issue with is Medicare-for-all as opposed to expanding and improving Obamacare (the ACA). I call it by its popular name- although it was intended to be an epithet by Republicans- because it has become a popular program, and Obamacare, rightly, credits the prime mover of the program, albeit with an assist from Nancy Pelosi. To be frank, Medicare-for-all scares people. The average citizen wants, and most of us have, healthcare coverage that pretty much meets their needs, and usually includes things like being able to choose their own doctors, hospitals, and treatment options. Moreover, the public/private hybrid that is the essence of Obamacare, makes it an American solution to healthcare. The perception of Medicare-for-all, by contrast, represents a threat to those options. Regardless of the truth or falsity of such a threat, it is the tactic that the GOP will use to frighten the public, and I fear it will prove to be effective.
Bringing new wine in old bottles is an old political saying, attributed, I think, to FDR and is cogent here. We can't afford to screw this election up. It's the most important election in my lifetime.
3
And so, EU labor relations are still under the authority of the European Courts.
British labor union contracts are no longer subject to the authority of EU courts.
Large companies are now in a position to repudiate British labor contracts, and, with the authority of EU courts, judge in favor of EU corporations and workers that allow labor arbitrage that favors workers from eastern European countries who will work for far less that British workers.
Thanks Jeremy.
"..., most Europeans actually have significant vacation time and hence work fewer hours per year. This sounds like a choice about work-life balance, not an economic problem."
This sounds like an economic problem.
1
I spend half of my year in the South of France and the other hand in New Orleans so I really do understand the difference between the two. France is safer. Healthcare is excellent in both places that it's cheaper in France. Gas is more expensive. Almost everything else is cheaper such as property taxes, home and car insurance, and medical insurance. Income taxes about the same. Capital gains tax is cheaper in France.
Both of my homes are pleasant. That's why I divide my time. To think that living in Europe is a horrible thing is only possible if you haven't lived in Europe.
Everyone in France including the most far-right people is to the left of almost everyone in the United.
5
Some good points, but a bit selective. Yes, a (slightly) higher share of the prime-aged population (25-54) is employed in France than in the US, but a much higher share of that French population would like to be employed but can't find work. The unemployment rate among prime-aged people in France is 7.8% vs. only 3.3% in the US. Put differently, a lot fewer prime-aged Americans are in the labor force (employed or seeking work) than in France, but maybe that's a choice -- not unlike what may be the choice that French people make to work fewer hours. Point is, focusing only on the slightly higher employment rate of people in France -- while ignoring their much higher unemployment rate -- seems incomplete if not misleading.
And that higher unemployment rate is part of the reason that France has a lower GDP per capita than the US. That gap (about 40% lower GDP/per cap in 2018 on OECD figures) is not only b/c the French worker toil fewer hours on average than Americans (though that's surely part of it). It is also b/c fewer French people who want to work are able to find jobs. And also a bit b/c the average productivity of Americans is slightly higher than French (GDP per hour worked about 5% higher in US).
In short, average living standards in the US are higher not solely b/c of perspiration. but also b/c of occupation (more people who want jobs can find them), and inspiration.
2
@Joshua Feinman
Average and "median" are two different things. Is the median standard of living higher in France?
Also the per capita GNP has some problems as a statistic. Government spending is included in GNP and we spend about $1 trillion on defense when you include everything like homeland security, state dept stuff, etc. But let's call it 700B$ for Pentagon. Most people would look around and wonder "where's mine?". If you take it out of GNP, where is the "average productivity" you say is higher in USA?
Trump's first Sec of State - the guy from Exxon - set out to cut Embassy/Consular staff abroad. Actually, that's one of the amenities that are most appreciated by Americans, especially those who have had the pleasure of dealing with the American Embassy abroad which is considered without equal. A little waste there is fine by me.
It's all true. I wish Krugman had also pointed out how many European countries have overtaken the US in terms of social mobility. That is the saddest fact of all.
6
For some strange reason, too many of our people seem to love spending inordinate amounts of money on defense, but when anybody asks about spending a little bit to have something worth defending, we hear the cry of "we can't afford it."
6
What a lot of pundits and political operatives aren't saying enough is that whoever is going to be the Democratic nominee is going to be called a "socialist" by Trump and other Republicans. If that's the case, then why not actually stand up for the social good of all Americans?
3
Medicare for all? What a disaster! Never mind the French and their 4 extra years. Cuba has a longer life expectancy than most of Red-State America (BBC). Not that I would like to live in Cuba but just to point out how dysfunctional our approach to medical care is.
1
Trump wasn't elected as a "centrist". Obama? He projected himself as more of a centrist, though the GOP & Trump think of him as a communist. The current "leftists" (Bernie/Warren) together out-poll Biden et al, so what does it all mean? The real winner in Democratic polls is "someone who can beat Trump". I suspect that person will win the nomination.
1
America is barely keeping the wheels on the car and barely functioning brakes, but progressive Democrats keep going on about buying a heated steering wheel.
1
@Francisco
Health care and education are luxury items?
2
The only difference between a "Centrist" and a "Progressive" is that a "Centrist" wants to do away with the laws written in the last 3 years by the "Freedom Caucus".... and a "Progressive" wants to do away with all the laws written in the last 45 years by the "Reagan Revolution".
Either way, no matter which of the two wins, it is a vast improvement of this Nation.
3
if Krugman is correct these centrists are indeed out of touch - most of Europe has universal health care at less cost, good pubic transport, child care, low cost access to universities, vacation time, walkable diverse neighborhoods with good public parks and thriving arts scenes, desirable central cities that protect their historic beautiful architecture... the US can well be envious though European quality of life has eroded somewhat from the massive immigration
"It’s true that European nations have lower G.D.P. per capita than we do, ..." for another reason. To see it, just start chopping out the income disparities and see what we get. In other words lets look at GDP per capita after we removed the wealthy from the data. America is worse even yet.
2
Nice digression on Europe. Why?
Less than three months after we married, my husband and I headed overseas for a 2 year jaunt that became 30 and continues still. The first stint was Argentina. We were appalled at spiraling interest rates, the bureaucracy to buy a car or even pay utility bills, and thought it quaint that pharmacies gave shots. We prided ourselves on the superiority of the US. But working and living in six nations later, with a spreadsheet of countries we’ve been to; what began as a joke, “The US is becoming a 3rd world country”, is now true. From the arcane policies of children accompanying parents to town beer or wine festivals, to circles of hell healthcare and a government so out of touch with reality; we see the US as the 21st century version of the decades old sobriquet, 3rd World. Democracy to oligarchy, infrastructure to paralyzation, EPA to ICE. We have run amok and our quality of life reflects that. We are anchored in time by the inability of the governing to govern in a world that has moved on, leaving us bickering over scraps. Our elected stage fake protests, are bribed by organizations selling death, our leaders cavort with like minded dictators and from our shrunken middle class to the the poor and vulnerable, nothing is getting better. I am diligently practicing my French.
8
A question to my favorite author: Where you pressured by the Board of the New York Times into no mentioning Senator Bernie Sanders name in your article?
1
Paul, how much do you earn between Princeton, books, lectures and this too long standing NYT gig ?
Well north of a $ million -- hmmm, just like my neighbor Elizabeth Warren.
You know her healthcare plan is built on the wet, plastic clay of "assumptions" and "projections" by the Urban Institute. Even they now admit their study findings are quite optimistic.
1
Someone has to say this; this is a devastating take down of a Steven Rattner (financial guy) column published in the Times a few days back; Rattner took a lot of cheap shots at Elizabeth Warren (and, btw, defended fracking - which, given climate change, is breathtaking from even a centrist). I thought it I ironic the Times published that piece the same day a Krugman piece appeared - it was as if the two wanted to talk to each other. Now, Krugman obliges.
1
Mr. Krugman, which of these were created in Europe?
Apple
Microsoft
Google
Netflix
Airbnb
Facebook
Twitter
Paypal
E-Bay
Yahoo
Gmail
AOL
Uber
Lyft
Hulu
Amazon
2
@Curious Gabe Which of these gives fair value for money?
5
@Curious Gabe Better questions: which of these companies actually pay taxes in Europe? Or if I can go out on a limb, in the US?
4
@Curious Gabe
Which pays "zero taxes"?
2
"Centrists" brought us bank deregulation (which gave us the Global Financial Crisis) and "engagement" with China (which gave us, well, China).
These people should not be listened to for economic/budgetary advice, ever!
What a surprise! Finally Paul Krugman has something positive to say about Europe.
Somebody, somewhere should point out that Merkel's CDU policies would be considered centrist Democratic in the US (or maybe even far-left after admitting 1 million refugees), and the ever-more popular Greens would be considered even further left (or -- oh my Dog -- socialist!).
The only equivalent to the US Republican party in Germany is the disgusting, violent, anti-immigrant AfD.
2
Biden when you talks about Republicans it is as if he fell into Wonderland. Republicans will not work with him any more than they did with Obama. As for Warren, she seems to want to be as divisive as Trump just from a different direction.
1
@Daniel A. Greenbaum, I suspect that Biden, as Obama's VP, is well aware that the GOP is intransigent. He's positioning himself as someone who can heal America's divisions, so he's talking to independents and suburban voters in swing districts.
When I read the word 'epiphany' without scrutiny I am reminded of the Left's use of such metaphysical abstractions,
'...we go 'high' you go 'low', subtext we go to Heaven while you go to Hell; as Christopher Hitchens said of Michelle;s University Thesis is was written in a language that was unknown. Nancy Pelosi's claim that the 'Wall' is immoral, is more of this hiding out in abstractions, morality does not inhere is us as does the sting in the bee. I could go on, but it would be pointless to do so for the US is embroiled in a not so tacit cultural which might flare into violent conflagrations unless views are tempered including those of the New York Times pundits.
PS Have you been to Paris recently or read 'The Death of Europe', and French unemployment hovers around 10% as it has historically done, harnessed as it is by Socialist Unions.
I'm sorry, but Krugman is attacking a straw man. If by "centrist," he means Democrats who are liberal but not "woke," I plead guilty. Neither I nor any other "moderate" Democrats I know or know of believes there is something wrong with European social safety nets or generally the state of European societies compared to ours. Krugman must be thinking of conservative Republicans who waste no opportunity to complain about Europe.
3
The critics of "Europe" may have no idea what they are talking about, but that doesn't stop them from spouting their deliberately false nonsense.
1
American CONS have perverted the discussion of how Europe's progressive approach to society is paying big dividends economically and socially, and, with their penchant for fantasy, substituted regressive lies that fail to show the true state of Europe's gains and America's losses.
2
What is a year of adult life expectancy worth to you? At age 20 American males are expected to live another 57 years, women another 62.
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
So for men four years is a 7% extension of adulthood, for women an extension of 6.5%.
Now, tell me again please what a bad idea European-style health plans are. It's your four years we are talking about, and your spouse's kids'.
2
Joe Biden is simply making sure that he doesn't set up a preconstructed wall between his admin. and the GOP in case he is elected.
"There was a time when arguments between centrists and progressives were framed as debates between realism and idealism."
You mean, back before you found religion, Paul? (https://www.salon.com/2016/02/19/paul_krugman_is_wrong_how_the_hillary_supporters_attacks_on_bernie_sanders_completely_miss_the_point/)
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you've come around to the idea that actual left-wing ideas are not beyond the pale, even if there are "reasonable criticisms you could offer." But it's curious how whichever group you disagree with (progressives in 2016, centrists now) becomes the ones who are out of touch.
Unfortunately, most Americans do not travel to Europe and still think America is the greatest. Mark Twain was correct when he wrote "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindeness and our people need it on these accounts Broad, wholesome, charitable views cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
4
@Darrel Lauren Well, he was right then, but not now.
You say: "By all means, let’s talk about whether “Medicare for all,” wealth taxes and other progressive proposals are actually good ideas."
No. Shut up about Medicare. Talk about reality. We are in a spiral to horror for our grandchildren, followed by extinction.
Due to climate change and loss of biodiversity that we have begun and are still driving, that nave momentum to continue until our civilization and species age gone.
Get out of the bubble that politicians and our "responsible" media, including the New York Times are in.
Outside that bubble is reality.
1
How is it a surprise that conservatives have no idea what they are talking about? When did they ever?
2
Once again Krugman presents a straw man Centrist (and yes, that includes the vapid Biden) and gleefully wacks away at him. Centrists who have issues with Medicare for All, for example, are not represented here. Dishonest.
1
the reason they live longer has nothing to do with health care. It has everything to do with not being a national of fat overeaters. All about obesity.
1
Further, let's not forget that Gore, Kerry, and Hillary, all centrists, WERE the DNC house candidates in '00, '04, and '16.
1
Hmmm....
The Dow is ~27,000 and Krugman uses this to remind us that European economies are superior to America's?
1
@Kai
The DJIA at 27k hasn't done much for my paycheck or even my meager $2,500 I have in index funds.
How about you?
How about 90% of America?
Paul; you are trying to reason with people who are willfully ignorant. They think that Elizabeth Warren is "radical" even though she is to the right of Angela Merkel. Forty percent of our electorate are white supremacists who will never vote for a Democrat. That is hard to overcome, but easy to understand. Our country was founded based on an ideology of white supremacy. The genocide committed against the original inhabitants is undeniable proof of that.
3
Agreed - but how do we spread the message???
"Stuck decades in the past" describes many of the conservatives I know from the previous generation. Many of them are still scarred from the stagflation era. I suppose many people form a fixed idea of economic reality sometime in their twenties and stick with it for the rest of their lives.
Dear Professor, yes, in terms of quality of life, America has become rougher and harsher than Europe, but I think you ignore a big reason why we have denied ourselves some of the social programs Europe has. For one, we have paid for their defense for the last 60 years. Even Macron is saying that Europe must spend more on defense, even though the US pays the largest portion of NATO's budget. Subtract US defense, war, homeland security, VA, and debt on it from our annual budget, and you have money for many other things, including universal health care in whatever form people want. For perspective, if we spent what Germany does on defense, our budget would be Reagan inflated it to in 1984: $300B (from $60B.) It's now closer to $1T for the above, yet not one "progressive" is against this spending! The other economic reality is that corporations now only pay 6% of the federal budget vs. 36% in the 50's, when our middle class surged. It's time for CEOs to realize not only have the gotten their cake in terms of huge pay, but also eaten it too in that their corporate and personal taxes are much, much, much lower, and they have walked away from defined pensions, and paying all of their workers health care. Jamie Dimon gets this, other CEOs should too. Like it or not, America's future is controlled by it's corporations. Perhaps everyone should have shares of the S and P 500 and vote for their CEOs?
Advice and Consent. We get NOTHING without Senate approval and with Warren or Sanders, even with the remote possibility either could win, we absolutely don’t get the Senate. Warren and Sanders should stay in the Senate and draft healthcare and tax reform legislation that CAN get passed. A moderate candidate with even a semblance of a brain can get us the White House, the Senate and an even bigger House majority. That’s what we need to focus on while we try to bring this country and the world back to some degree of sanity and stability. The Republicans have shown us their heinous agenda and despicable idea of governance. Getting rid of the trump and his morally, ethically and intellectually bankrupt party should be the first and only priority in the 2020 election.
Once order is again established, we go after the much needed reforms for healthcare, taxation, gun control, climate change and laws that prevent such a travesty as the trump presidency from ever occurring again.
1
@Nancy, it's worth mentioning that both Warren and Sanders come from states with GOP governors who would replace them with Republican senators. Their election would make it more difficult for Democrats to retake the Senate, and with Mitch in charge, little progress would be made.
We could avoid this problem if both candidates would withdraw from their Senate races and devote their efforts to the presidency.
I am always astonished to see France mentioned as a miserable economic place to be. Why then, when I visit my home-land, do so many places in the States look so run-down when the "look" in France brings tourists to admire it? Upkeep doesn't happen in a vacuum, it gets paid for.
7
The GDP per capita in the US is $62.6K versus France's $42.9K. So if we adopt their system we would get a 31.5% reduction in living standard.
2
@Blair A Miller
Per capita GDP does not equal mean standard of living. Why don't you just use those numbers directly? I think we all know why.... And income measurements are also poor for this comparison because you need to subtract from our numbers everything that their government freely provides their citizens, including things that aren't even possible to get here from the private sector, like public transportation.
4
@carl bumba Government spending is included in GDP so whether the government pays for it or the consumer, it is included.
1
@Blair A Miller
France's GDP is figured using $30/month internet whereas ours is something like $90 (comparably). It's the same internet quality but you would have us believe it is 1/3rd as good, based on your standard of "per capita GNP".
Which information system should produce more per capita, the lower priced or the higher priced? Free market economics will say the lower priced would. Yet you say that the higher priced one does by virtue of having a higher price tag.
Youth unemployment is stubbornly high in Europe. They do a great job of giving older workers a secure and pleasant life, but the structures they rely on to make this happen have a consequence. If kids can't get jobs, get places of their own, start families, bad things ensue.
And by all means, while we're looking at Europe, let's see if any of the few remaining wealth taxes in effect there look anything close to what Warren and Sanders are promoting here. They aren't.
We can learn a lot from Europe. But if we are being honest, some of the lessons are cautionary. And some show us the ways and means to get to real national healthcare are probably pretty different than are being proposed here.
2
Before holding up Europe's (and particularly France's) "Universal health care and policies that mitigate extreme inequality," I'd recommend reading Edouard Louis' "Who killed my father" as an extended essay on the violence perpetuated by the French state on those who have the least and most need state support.
Ah ! For sure, Edouard Louis wouldn’t have written this book living in the US.
Try to think what would have happen to Louis father in the Usa ?
Do you guess ?
Moderates are afraid. And they're coping by looking for a Daddy to save them from Trump and a morally bankrupt GOP. But that's not enough.
America is supposed to be exceptional. The king of innovation and the "can do" spirit. But when it comes to universal healthcare and K-university public education, despite having the model of EVERY OTHER LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY, which have both, we're as pessimistic, negative, and helpless as a banana republic.
You would think the alarming fact that 20% of our nation's children live in poverty would have been THE catalyst for us to join the rest of the democratic world order. But it hasn't because we keep thinking along conservative propaganda about how it would just be another massive boondoggle.
The bottom line is that if every one of our western European allies has been able to implement healthcare and education systems that their citizens would never in a million years trade with ours, that we, with our mythical exceptionalism and innovativeness, that we should be able to do AT LEAST AS WELL.
Thinking otherwise is, well, bizarre.
3
There once was a time in America when the centrist positioning seemed reasonable. Over the past 40 years quality of life conditions in America have devolved to such an extent centrist offers too little too late. The traditional Republican Party, the GOP of conservative probity has become overrun by right wing fanatics, the Democratic Party of the FDR/New Deal legacy has transitioned into the Party of the liberal professional and business elite. Europeans can no longer look to America as the avatar of progress and rightly so. America is in crisis. Radical change is demanded to bring this country operationally back to the values it once championed. We can't depend on a political centrist to save the day. A middle of the fence position that falls over to the side that pushes the hardest. Not when both available sides have detoured so far from their tradition and failed in their service of working for the greatest good for the greatest number.
3
@Rose
Excellent!
Would I love to get rid of private insurance companies and have Medicare for all? I would.
Would I love to see a living wage law forcing employers to fairly pay their employees? I would.
Would I love to see a much more progressive tax system that would make the rich pay their fair share? I would.
Would I love to get rid of loose gun laws and have strong gun control regulations? I would.
Would I love to see less military spending and more investment in our infrastructure and our schools? I would.
Would I love to see the government recognize that climate change is the greatest threat to our way of life and enact strong and decisive regulations to control global warming? I would.
Would I love to see a reversal of Citizens United and public financing of our elections? I would.
I am a progressive through and through. But I am also a realist. It took forty years of bad policies by both Republican and Democratic administrations to get us to our sad state of affairs. No one can undo all this damage all at once. There are too many entrenched interests in the status quo, and no none can fight all of them at once.
Give me a candidate that can BEGIN to reverse the trend by offering some immediate realistic improvements on healthcare, on taxes, on climate change, and on guns. And one that can stand up to Trump’s bullying and beat him. With all due respect to all of them, I don’t see one in the present field of Democratic candidates. I would welcome Bloomberg in the race.
1
It seems that everyone accepted that Medicare for all is desirable to have. Then, the whole discussion should be how we can get there. If centrists say, we cannot afford it, does it mean we should let those without health insurance die. We can and must afford it. A number of sources listed for raising money, I like to add one more. Put surtax on heating and cooling beyond certain consumption. This way, only people that have big houses, aka, rich pay the surtax. It is also environmental friendly.
1
I vigorously oppose Trump and Trumpism. I thought Reagan’s militarism and antigovernment rhetoric were dangerous. I never thought tax cuts would pay for themselves, or that rampant deregulation would help anyone but the those already well off and at everyone else’s expense. I’m sick of the structural barriers to true democracy like gerrymandering, voter suppression, dark money campaign spending, and the outsized power of small rural states.
I do consider myself a practical moderate tired of losing national elections with candidates who can’t prevail in the Electoral College. In the last 50 years we’ve only had Carter, Clinton, and Obama. That’s it. And I’m a realist who also believes that without control of Congress, nothing much of any idealistic agenda will get done.
At a minimum we have to win the presidency. A Republican administration even with divided government can still do a lot of damage in foreign policy, all while stuffing the federal courts with ideologues. Unified control of government by Democrats would be way better, but governance has to be effective and remain broadly popular.
Another key goal in 2020 has to be winning the maximum number of states to limit Republican gerrymandering of House districts. Favorable redistricting will give Democrats an advantage for the next 10 years.
Bottom line, I’m for presidential candidates who can win the EC, and for state and local candidates who can win sufficient swing districts to gives Dems overall control.
2
"These days, however, it often seems as if the centrists, not the progressives, are out of touch with reality. Indeed, sometimes it feels as if centrists are Rip Van Winkles who spent the last 20 years in a cave and missed everything that has happened to America and the world since the 1990s."
This is a perfect description of Joe Biden.
3
There is a reason Europeans are gravitating back to populism (or worse) and it isn't because their economies are doing so well...
Negative interest rates don't exactly get explained away by more vacation days. Any temporary benefits derived from negative rates will ultimately be offset by the unsustainability therefrom.
Europe also still suffers from draconian labor laws and rampant over-regulation.
I'm sorry but I just don't agree with the premise of the article. The US is far from perfect but is also far more dynamic.
1
Oh God, I'd vote twice, maybe three times for any candidate who would pledge to mover American toward the French reality.
Wouldn't it be nice if mass transit actually worked, was on time, convenient and reasonably priced? Jus this last month, I took BART (The California Bay area rapid transit system ) to and from the San Francisco Airport for a trip to France. When I got to France I took the Paris RER equivalent into Paris. Basrt is the product of a 4th world country compared to the French RER. While in Paris I used the METRO subway system which again makes American local subways look like they are in the stone age. I also took the French Trains several hundred miles out of Paris and back. I had a choice of a train every hour instead of the once a day Amtrak. The ride was smooth, on time, inexpensive and very comfortable.
I won't even start of the French medical system, employment benefits and the like.
Simple put, I'm ashamed that the US, the wealthiest country in the world, takes such poor care of its citizens and environment.
Thank you so much Republicans for making us a second world country. I know that if you win the upcoming election you will continue down the path to third world status.
8
I think the so-called conflict between centrists and progressives has a lot less to do with substance than with election strategy. Most centrists would like to see universal healthcare and other European lifestyle benefits but feel that significant sectors of the electorate, ones crucial to defeating Trump, may be scared away by them. For example, a liberal friend of mine in Florida likes her private healthcare and is afraid it might be taken away. My brother-in-law in Georgia, a good ole boy conservative said he would never vote for Warren but might vote for Biden. While it may be good to think big, progressives must know that no part of their agenda will be realized if we don't win the Senate, Even then it is doubtful that even a fraction of it will come to pass in the near future. It's important then that we don't put the cart before the horse. First defeat Trump. Then we can talk about all these other issues.
2
Paul Krugman, right on. You identify a dozen specific issues that prove your point. You are one of the best explainers of all. Unfortunately all political issues are now framed as our team vs your team, rather than this idea/policy vs another. So this “fear of the other” is the go-to approach.
Thus Biden is dead wrong. Trump is a huge problem, but he is just example Republican. And they will root for their own team right through the final period. I wish they were a party of ideas. I used to be registered Republican.
My California born and raised stepson met his Italian wife while working in Rome. They married in 2012. They spent time in Brussels, then in the SF Bay Area. She jumped through the ridiculous hoops to get a green card. By the time she received it, she'd discovered there was no way she could find a professional job remotely equivalent to the one waiting for her back in Rome, that my stepson's teaching would not provide them a living wage, and that access to healthcare would always be an issue. They now make their home in Rome, where their utilities cost half what we pay, access to healthcare is not an issue, the food is fabulous, and people are kind to their elders. The irony is that I'm a third generation Italian American. My grandparents came here for a better life, and found it. My stepson had to go back to the old country for his better life.
7
Mr. Krugman once again hits it on the head. I liked his use of the term "Rip Van Winkles". There is much to like about Joe Biden. But, his proposals are essentially come from the same era as Bill Clinton, and lack the passion of Obama.
I love Bernie's and Warren's proposals (90%) but they are unworkable and achievable. And, for that and other reasons, neither of them is electable.
Part of the unworkable and achievable factor is the balance of power in Congress. There are not enough votes in Congress to get any of this done. FDR had significant majorities in both Houses, and it still took serious effort to get his proposals passed.
Secondly, it was not until after the War that the effects of the New Deal (with the growing strength of Unions and the GI Bill) were fully known.
The proposals and policies that would set us on the right track are not achievable without a strong and effective President. (a Lyndon Johnson type). None of the candidates possess the gravitas to get it done, and the mood swings of the electorate make it unlikely any program would survive 8, let alone 30 years. (e.g., the ACA)
"...adults in their prime working years are actually more likely to be employed in Europe,..."
And probably more likely to be making a living wage. And even relatively low wage workers are more likely to have any gaps covered by government social welfare programs making medical care, education, and transportation more affordable.
3
I’ve emigrated from Europe to US in the 80s. Flying into US used to feel like flying into the future. Cars, phones, yellow pages, not having to carry an id, you could feel the freedom all around, wanted ads for jobs you could live on.
This year, when I flew back to the Bay Area after a two week vacation in Spain, I felt like I was flying into the past. Clogged highways, the sharp contrast between have and have nots, everything is expensive.
This is all fixable, mostly self inflicted wounds around health care, housing, transportation, and education. I hope that in the next 20 years, we will correct our course. I can’t imagine how backward it’ll feel if we do not.
And I feel like warren is the turnaround ticket.
8
"France bashing!" I'm glad that Krugman has reminded us of that favorite trope of the Republicans, both out of sheer ignorance and sometimes more knowing disingenuousness. France is a great country, and Europe is a great continent. I would go so far as to say as great as the United States, a tough pill to swallow for those who cling to "American exceptionalism." Before Trump, back in the days of Bush/Cheney and the silly references to "old" vs. "new" Europe, there was a lot of blatant France bashing going on. I remember that my dream, alas never realized, was that John Kerry would win the 2004 presidential election and deliver a good two minutes of his inaugural address in French!
2
Citizens of this country are more liberal than they have ever been. The MSM gives so much attention to the ugly, reactionary minority because it's so profitably shocking, and they have a personal interest in what's good for corporations, not average citizens. We have to realize that our side isn't getting the proper attention because we threaten the corporate status quo, and too much attention might force them to change the way they do business, from mostly dishonest. to mostly honest. I don't expect them to be less than human, with obvious human foibles... Hang in there, folks. There really are more of us than there are of "them." Sooner or later, there will be a realization that it's just as profitable to do things the honest, constructive way, than the "other," corporate way. Let's be who we keep saying we are. At the moment, we are a pariah country, and we deserve that reputation. We did it to ourselves by taking the easy way. Nothing worth having is easy to get, or keep.
3
I also don't understand why we in theUS can not have good dental care. So important to overall health. I am a senior citizen. Having a tooth pulled cost me $400 and having a crown $1500. This is outrages when I see how my sister and brothers get dental insurance even when retired.
Our insurance companies are just greedy, as are our pharmaceutical companies. Americans have been brainwashed with this idea less government is good for all. That is just a bunch of ?
4
Since January I have had a failed implant, root canal, periodontal work and an unexpected extraction. I am vigilant with home care but dental insurance only provides robust coverage for routine care. It’s almost as if your teeth are not part of your body and don’t deserve the same type of coverage
This week, a second brother has died. He was 58. Unlike me, he just wasn't the type to go to college and scudded along the bottom of the job market falling into every pot hole, including not having healthcare when it was needed let alone preventative care, a smoking habit from his first jobs in fast food and wanting to fit in, and later drugs to bear the mental pain and misery of low wage jobs. Forget access to mental health resources.
For the life of me I don't understand why democrats don't drag independents and other fence sitters off that fence by showing they are paying entirely on their own for their so called "good" private insurance in lost wages. Even trump voters can understand this if they were given half a chance.
If anything, I'm a little scared of trump supporters and fox news voters when they find out just how badly they've been had. That said, they do need to be shown with a path to a better life. My brother worked hard all his life. He deserved better. So much better.
I beg of all democratic voters, enough with the jitters and fingernail chewing that lets you cower behind weak kneed decisions. Be an example and vote confidently for the candidate who is in YOUR best interest, not who you think will beat trump. Doing so is best how to kill off trump and those like him decisively.
6
I agree- To listen to Biden talk about 'my Republican friends' make me sick- yes I realize this is Senate talk, but nonetheless I believe he means it, and that is why I fear him becoming president. The Republicans have shown themselves to be sinister, lying, hypocritical and treasonous. They DO NOT play by the established rules unless it suits them. There is nothing to do but vote them out one by one if not faster.
8
Thank you, Dr Krugman, for continuing to swim against the media tide that our only real choice is Trump or some kind of cautious middle-of-the-roadism.
7
Ignorance is in vogue, mainly by a prejudiced audience that have been hearing for a generation that "all European is bad" -with the exception of cheese, and champagne, of course- by the propagandists of the Chicago School boys, the avid students of Milton Freedman. So it is not a surprise that Elizabeth Warren is one of the numerous victims of this propaganda.
Keynesianism, in spite of being born in England, is something foreign to the rest of Europe, and the English are not precisely popular among the French or the Germans.: That also becomes a prejudice to good economic politics.
"Close minds galore."
The thing is, Paul the day of mediocrity which is the true name for moderation which to begin with is an effect of fear, is over. Mediocrity or moderation was never a part off the forces of Greed which is why the .01 have .75 or so of the good stuff.
The forces of Equality and justice for all must dump the mediocrity bit. It is time Paul to go All In. Courage, Paul it is the Future
3
How it is that European countries like France and Netherlands, that have statistically better outcomes in almost every meaningful social measure, are so quickly maligned by Americans, who as you point out have no idea what they’re talking about, is just a shame. It’s all wrapped in the faux patriotism of “American exceptionalism”. The cost of being a Free country! Liberty! Those words are meaningless in modern times and apply better to Western Europe than to the US.
5
I couldn’t agree more with you Mr. Krugman. America is going
backwards. We are effectively stuck in another era. Au secours!
I am not opptimistic.
4
If "trying to shoot [progressive ideas] down by going on about how terrible things are in France..." is their best shot, it'll be a landslide next year.
Centrist? Radical? Progressive? Leftish? What passes in America as the Left is hardly. On the realpolitik spectrum, the Left in the US is right dab in the center. Warren and Sanders are flaming Centrists. Biden is Liberal, which is a Centrist who stood still while the world shifted.
None of them call for seizing the means of production or sending billionaires to harvest corn in Iowa. They don't think property is theft. American workers categorically reject being The Working Class. Say proletariat and most will think it's the horse that won the Triple Crown. Unions are hardly thriving.
"Medicare for All" is code for "it's really broken and let's fix it until we replace it." Wealth taxes aren't wealth taxes, they're fair taxes and reflect how much the rich have reaped from America and how much less everyone else has. Social justice was the soul of Christianity before its corruption by capitalism.
We hope with every election that as a people we're wise enough to move forward with America's promise of equality and justice. But this election is different. We need to stop a free-fall to a tyranny that dooms our democracy and damns the future.
Let's keep our eyes on the prize. Or by being shortsighted we risk being blinded.
10
Centrists haven’t a clue about aggregate demand and aggregate supply and why their zeal to push only aggregate supply is doomed.
THERE ARE MANY CHALLENGES IN EUROPE, Not the least of which has to do with an influx of refugees. Where will the political center of gravity be in 10, 20 or 30 years? The fact is that the birth rates in the EU are extremely low, so the ethnic groups already there are tending to decrease in size. While immigrants who practice Islam, tend to come from places that have the highest birth rates in the world. Higher birth rates produce more future voters. So the question becomes, how will the EU confront the globalization of its residents? The major challenge globally will be the lack of sufficient drinking water, since humans can survive only a week without water. The struggles that will emerge over access to drinking water will be, literally, a fight to the death. All other problems will pale in the face of insufficient drinking water. So I propose a toast to the health of the human species! Let's get to work on how to provide more drinking water worldwide. All the other problems will be dwarfed by the upcoming water wars.
"Given the G.O.P.’s scorched-earth politics during the Obama years..." is exactly why we should not let Medicare for all dominate our agenda. If Warren's plan were perfect, it would still be sabotaged by the Right.
Republicans have even more tools of destruction now, because they have witnessed how far Trump has been able to extend his base's welcoming to accept outrageous lies.
And that’s the problem isn’t it? Far, far too many voters have no conception of what exactly is going on outside their bubble and care little to find out. Yet, they’re all entitled to vote for mad people. God bless democracy!
1
Somehow Trump has shamefully scapegoated Western Europe, on defense, trade, the wide European social safety net, retirement, the pro climate agenda, and his nationalist supporters, falsely again, do not admit European or progressive successes.
Why does it have to be either/or? Biden and Warren could stop working against each other and instead consider building a ticket that most certainly would defeat Trump. If the Dems are too polarized to unite then they’ll get the POTUS they deserve.
The country has been sliding further toward a full-on plutocracy for the better part of 40 years. Working people that make this country function are getting squeezed, labor is a dirty word, college tuition takes half of one's adult lifetime to pay back, Social Security is going to be a relic of history... And what's the solution in the last news cycle? How about Mike Bloomberg? A white, male, worker-hating billionaire autocrat to face off against another white, male worker-hating billionaire autocrat. The solution to neoliberalism must be even more neoliberalism.
The fear of Europization is funny considering that Trump and the Republicans are trying really, really hard to turn the U.S. into Russia where a handful of people have all the money and power and everyone else (with the exception of the smallest middle class possible) lives from paycheck to paycheck.
3
I still haven't forgiven Biden for what he did to Anita Hill. I'll vote for him only if he's the nominee.
But what's especially sad right now is the feeling among the wealthy, entitled class that only these white men with their billions, can "save" America. We don't need Tom Steyer to save us and we don't need Michael Bloomberg. I'm really tired of the "Father Knows Best," especially if he's rich, attitude that's already cost Americans so much.
3
How to explain to the "Centrists" that the GOP is firmly in the grip of the extreme right wing plutocratic agenda? There are no "centrist" Republican legislators, the organization is controlled and compromised in favor of the "Donor Class";
Dear Delusional Centrist: The Republican Donor Class is ONLY interested in people who can buy a whole table at those $25,000 a plate fundraisers. Unless you are in that class, you are merely a sheep to be shorn by their model of vampire capitalism. See Rule #1; There are no "Centrist" Republican legislators.
3
All that is nice professor. But unlike people in Europe, voters here don’t want health care, don’t want good public education for their kids, they don’t want a clean environment, clean drinking water for all. They just want to wallow in the fifties when everybody’s place in society was clear. So they will vote for every charlatan selling them that snake oil.
2
If you have actually visited France, you would see that there is a lot we can learn from the French.
(Most critics have never left their hometowns.)
2
I look at Europe as the adult and America as the teen aged kid. In America you work like two people your whole life then you get old and sick and they take it all back.In Europe they stop and smell the roses not chasing the american dream of two car garages and to much junk in them to park the car.
2
In your last paragraph you say, "sure sign that you have no idea what you’re talking about", that phrase may demonstrate your hope that everyday people will try to understand your point in this opinion piece. Seems doubtful, when it is more popular to make dramatic claims like 'single payer healthcare that will cost middle class citizens nothing.' That is not possible but politicians pandering claims of something or everything for nothing persist. Seems to me the real problem we face right now is trying to get more people to try to know what you are talking about.
I know Joe Biden, but after reading his epiphany comment, I wonder if he has ever watched Fox News. Trump did not create Fox, rather, Fox News created the Trump base, and thus the Trump campaign and takeover of the GOP.
2
Problem is you get a centrist president who advocates mild changes that get compromised by the hard core far right and you end up with bad right wing ideas like Romney Care.
*ahem*
"But... Hillary's emails!..."
Republicans are poised to use whatever distractions, distortions, half-truths, lies and gaslights to hold onto power just a couple of years longer. Hopefully, we won't give them too much more time in power to prove their theory that government doesn't work.
Funny how government seems to work better when we have other people in charge who are trying to improve outcomes for the country as a whole, and who do their best to manage non-partisan career officials.
Oh, but wait, I forgot... "Her emails!"
2
"Indeed, sometimes it feels as if centrists are Rip Van Winkles who spent the last 20 years in a cave & missed everything that has happened to America & the world since the 1990s."
Indeed, that's why I left the USA in 2001. It was clear that Clinton's acquiescence to the Gingrich agenda (ending "welfare as we know it", 1994 Crime Bill), his acquiescence to the Wall Streeters (repeal of Glass-Steagall) was the end of my grandfather's FDR/LBJ new deal democrat party. Then SCOTUS gives the 2000 election to GW Bush. The crash of 2008 (we have not yet recovered and are again under threat by "Too Big to Fail"). Then Citizen's United. Lastly, the presidency of Individual #1, supported by Moscow Mitch and his brethren in the Senate.
I look back at these last 20 years & thank my lucky stars that I emigrated to a country where I haven't worried about how I pay for my health care, I've been able to save for retirement, I don't have the daily stress of a megalomaniac, narcissistic, misogynist, fascist liar as the executive of my country.
I fully expect to cast my vote in the Democrats Abroad primary for the most promising progressive candidate. As a group, we voted for Senator Sanders in 2016; most likely as he was fighting for the democratic socialist principles that we as expats have in the EU...& would like to see our compatriots have in the USA.
Trump is the end of the Republican party. Choosing a centrist Democrat as POTUS candidate will be the end of the Democratic Party.
2
France? Many of our citizens don't even live as well as the poorest Poles, Czechs, or Croatians.
It's true we take VERY good care of our top 20% or so. But you can drive all day around Zagreb or Gdansk and you won't find any trace of the kind of squalid slum so common in our cities.
3
Another test of American well-being and compared to Europe:
Put your Google Live View on any spot of the US. And then drop down into most any area of Europe.
And ask yourself if you would rather spend time in a 4,000 car parking lot on a highway with strip malls and big-box stores. Perhaps you like gutted out, empty cities or sprawling nothingness with garage door houses and 8-lane wide streets. Atlanta, Houston, Detroit, Akron....they're waiting for you.
Or set down in Europe and walk in a historic, aesthetically beautifully, community oriented city or village or country town where you can bike, walk, or get on a train to somewhere else and experience the same thing.
5
Paul seems to think the making of “socialist” into a pejorative is simply an anachronism and the term would be rehabilitated with an update on Europe.
That ignores the role of propaganda that dominates discussion of “socialism” and spreads falsehoods about it. Somehow the prevalence of advertising has inured us to its debilitating effects to the point that we cannot recognize its efficacy.
Propaganda led to the Brexit fervor in the U.K. It led to the Holocaust in WW II. It led to Trump in 2016. It has brainwashed almost half the voters in the USA.
But nobody points to it as an illness that must be cured. Let Fox continue, let Facebook spread falsehoods, let robot accounts run rampant in Twitter, let GOP Senators spout complete fabrications.
That contagion will blind us all eventually. If we look at Scandinavia we will have become unable to see it, nevermind think about it.
1
Another complete straw man and misleading argument by Mr. Krugman. I can hardly think of any centrist parading scare theories about Europe. Such theories come from the right wingers instead. Only the far lefties could read this column and not roll their eyes.
Recent surveys show that American Millenials & younger voters are more in favor of Socialist policies & a Socialist-Democratic form of government. Unlike other generations of voters who were so worried that Socialism was going to take away their “freedom”, these younger voters are alert to the reality that Capitalism has in fact already stolen their pension, wiped out their 401K, took their savings, sent their job overseas, robbed them of their right to health care, dismantled their education system and put them in debt leaving only bitterness, hate, racism, xenophobia & opioids & guns to kill themselves with.
2
I think most European hyphenated Americans are not sentimental for whatever made their families leave Europe and don't want to return to it so in that sense they could be called Europhobic.
Nothing like a little travel with an open mind for widening one's horizons. Also maybe a little less use of national mantras like ...'the American dream' ... the power of myth to resist even gunfire in the streets, is amazing ... Every country has its drawbacks, 'else what's a Heaven for?' as Robert Browning would say. But in every country there must be folk who find fulfillment too? so ...
All I know for sure is, if you're having a problem with bladder, you don't want to see the American doctor or the Canadian doctor. You want to see a urologist who is - Eur-o-pean.
So glad you're siding with Progressives. Still haven't heard you apologize for all the pro-Hillary, anti-Bernie columns last time around.
Repeat after me: Sanders was right.
1
Congratulations, NYT, on another story that refuses to acknowledge Bernie Sanders. Bernie is the architect of progressive thought in America over these last 40 years, and the person best equipt to implement progressive policy. But just like in 2016 you refuse to give him print space, ignoring his ability to energize major constituencies, especially the younger generation. You seem to have chosen Warren as your candidate to promote. She's not bad, but neither was Hillary. Here we go again.
1
Trump gets reelected, I go to Europe.
2
When ignorance esp willful ignorance is the default, outdated out of touch arguments creep to default mode
I see investment in education in America on the horizon
With it a move to more rational discourse
Paul Krugman's link to an English language Deutsche Welle "article" unfortunately only takes the reader to a short slide show captioned by a capable but general DW writer. You'll find plenty of images of the "black zero," but not much background. This recent Financial Times story has more substance: https://www.ft.com/content/d89d9404-c586-11e9-a8e9-296ca66511c9 Two quick observations re. personal debt in Germany, which also colors the national debate: Most Germans don't own homes because they can't afford them, in the traditional sense of the word "afford." Lending rules are strict, with few if any options available to so-called sub-prime borrowers. Second, credit card interest rates are anathema there, so most people rarely carry a balance, in line with what is considered pragmatism with respect to living within one's means. More to follow after Paul Krugman's next column referencing the "austere Germans."
In re: Your parting notion. No, they do know what they are talking about on a very simple level. France is "them", and "them" is bad.
Never has a tight wad created a job. that is the facts of the matter.
The EU and the US think it does.
So what would you rather do, spend money wisely or not spend at all which s what both have done for over 40 years.
it is Venezuela, not France, that we rightfully believe Warren will help us become.
Boy the echo chamber here is overwhelming, not to mention nauseating. Tell me folks do honestly believe the people in Flyover country or the Rust belt, or the people who have had their jobs shipped to the 3rd world to benefit the professional class who don't even live in the same reality we do. Will ever see France or Europe much live there?
You people basically have nothing in common or even any common ground whatsoever with the people you need to vote for you. And boy this column & the commentary on it prove to me beyond any reasonable doubt.
Most of the people will never see a foreign country unless they go there on Uncle Sam's behalf with a rifle in their hands. They will never get visit France much less live their horizons & realities mean that their only experience with foreigners involves people trying to kill them not whether they should visit France or live in Belgium. The commentators here, almost all upper class professionals have done well out of Globalization, seem to think their reality is everyone's reality! I got news it isn't. So STOP expecting everyone to accept your views & your reality. Because it isn't OURS and NEVER WILL BE. If the Dems really want to win the election? I would suggest instead of going on about how Europe is paradise on Earth. Which merely annoys people who will NEVER see it. That perhaps they would do better to concentrate on policies that are real concrete and might get through congress instead of going on about the European paradise!
1
Biden is too much like Obama, a centrist at heart, with a strange urge to make nice with evil Republicans who sought to dismantle the Obama Administration at every turn. How strange is that?
Americans, like the good Dr. Krugman, like to believe that America can be saved from the mindless masses. The EU is the last bastion of Democracy...I'd rather retire there than 'Florida, USA'.
Seriously, Americans go to chain stores coast to coast and act like that is perfectly fine and they love it. Shopping malls and gas stations coast to coast..all owned by Mega Corp. Inc that only cares about lobbying your congressmen to cut their taxes - they don't expect to pay for your healthcare while they suck dry every resource in America...including Americans.
The people of the US love being serfs. They know that they do not deserve to be treated better. They will fight for their right to be exploited. They feel that loyalty to the wealthy overlords is far more important than there own lives.
Having spoken with the people of the US numerous time over my lifetime has brought me to these conclusions.
1
Why is it that Democrats are always required to show how they will pay for the programs and ideas they propose, but Republicans NEVER have to do so?
4
I think that professionals, like economists, need to stick to their area of professional expertise like economics.
But it seems today everyone wants to be a political pundit as they tried to be in 2016.
Just think - If everyone kept to their own proficiency, we might be suffering under a Hillary Clinton presidency today.
I lived in France - great food and 48 weeks of paid vacation? What's not to like?
I'm appalled at the quality of the debate in the US. "Socialized" "single payer" medicine is not a monolith, a fact which no candidate seems to comprehend. No country can afford Cadillac Care so they all ration. 100%. The different healthcare models are simply different methods of rationing. In the US we ration by cost. The data exists, we know what works, seems like it should be a simple exercise to design an effective healthcare system but alas......sigh.
2
excellent. thank you.
2
Most Americans are at best 15 years behind in their grasp of economic and political history. Many are more like 70 years - 80 years behind.. That is why you hear such nonsense as "this whole Russia thing is just red-baiting". That one from folks calling themselves "left." That's because most Americans get their history from the movies or television.
1
Getting rid of Trump and gaining control of both Houses of Congress should be the Democrats number one priority. If we cannot do that, then any hope of even getting back to where we were when President Obama left office will be lost. We are barely hanging onto a woman's right to choose right now, environmental regulations have been trashed, and the right to same sex marriage is being challenged - the list goes on.
I have fought for progressive ideals for more years than I can count. I worked in President Obama's campaign in 2008 and I marched in Washington in the late 1980's to support a woman's right to choose, and I escort at a local clinic which provides pregnancy terminations when I can (at 74 it has become more physically challenging). However, at this dangerous point of time in our country we have to regain power before we can even begin to think of moving ahead to Medicare for All and other progressive ideals.
I love Elizabeth Warren, and I think she could beat President Trump if she would be honest about what it will take besides money to obtain universal healthcare, and that is power. Being President will not be enough. Democrats will have to control both houses of Congress, and have all Democrats on the same sheet of music. Have a vision for where we want to go, but be realistic in what it will take to realize that vision. You have to win the war, not just the battle.
And no Mr. Biden, the Trump zombie Republicans will not have an epiphany once he leaves office.
2
I read this piece just after "I was the fastest girl in America", telling about how Nike and her trainer broke her. It made me think that while the GDR (German Democratic Republic for those who weren't born at the time), the USSR and Russia in these days ran for nationalism, the US now runs for - well not for liberty, not equality, not for fraternity....of course, that's a French thing! Sad, but for money.
At the time, the US won the "war" against the Eastern block. It was a war on power and influence driven by ideology. This outcome was made possible because somehow the blend of values - money and what it can do, openness and freedom- was somewhat right.
In god we trust is all that is left. Religion and brokering -and, how could I forget - the law of the gun. A serious revamping in values (ooof, another term linked to money) is needed. Kachikan as the Japanese would say.
Take it from a seventeen year American expat, France is not as nearly socialistic as I thought it was.
On the contrary, I believe France should be both more capitalistic and competitive as well as more social democratic.
Carte Vitale, the national health plan, is only partly social democratic. Private insurance is often required to round out health coverage.
All French workers pay a social tax in every pay check to cover all benefits including retirement. There is no free health care.
There is no free anything in France.
Vive la France!
3
People stuck in decades past are stuck there because they are the only decades that work for them. They want them back, so they act as if they are still there. They don't want to hear about change. They don't want to HAVE any change. They want to hide in their own little room with their own little bank account and just not cope with a world that is dynamic and always has been.
4
The Democratic "centrists" are precisely the people who allowed the Republican Party to succeed in its aggressive policies since Reagan's time. Rather than pushing back and standing for something distinctive, too often they've promoted a sort of awkward compromise between poorly-regulated/unregulated capitalism and sorta kinda progressive policies that has fallen between its two stools, not really satisfying anyone, except for some career politicians who believe that their reelection depends on not taking any risks. And this "don't take any risks!!!" message is just what the so-called centrists are promoting now. It's all too likely to result in yet another Republican presidential win, an especially terrible one, if the Democratic nominee is of this type.
4
Almost thirty tree years ago as political refuges we left our east European communistic country and had stayed in West Germany waiting for the US political asylum.After being born and living in the economically destroyed country the West Germany seemed like a paradise to us.We felt so safe, happy and free seeing the American soldiers on the streets, on the busses,etc.In Germany we often had nightmares that we are back in our country without our passports.Later on we learned that they were typical nightmares of the prisoners who managed to get out.When we finnaly arrived in Boston we though it looked much poorer than Germany but we felt that people welcomed us.Staying in Germany made us realized that the Germans in spite of being restored by the Marshall Plan and being shielded by Americans forces from the communistic Russia did not feel grateful.Actually the German intellectuals told us they felt they were under US occupation.It made my husband who was a Solidarity activist got very angry and right away expressed his feelings.We had good professions and we had an opportunity to stay in Germany but we chose not to.In recent years when we retired and started touring Europe we realized that most of the European nations did not appreciate the American presence in their countries after WWII.We discerned it might be the reason why they do not want to spend the two percent to their GDP of for the NATO.Recently we have started questioning the purpose of American presence in Europe.
As I sit here at my desk, at a contract job (that I wish was permanent) in a large financial firm, there is a TV right behind me tuned (as it always is) to CNBC.
The headline above the crawl reads:
THE WAR ON WEALTH
It reminds me of another illogical slogan from 15 years ago..
It may be that the USA will be required to suffer the birth pangs of social democracy as practiced & amended by Western European nations since homegrown progressive reform from the 19th century onward has largely been abandoned by an acquisitive culture that is never satisfied, with plutocrats of conspicuous consumption & unlimited political power viewed as the lodestar.
It will take a new generation fed up with being vassals of a system designed to reward the greedy at the expense of the many. It will take a latter day Salmon P. Chase to correct an economic & cultural system that has succeeded in re-instituting a form of national slavery.
The U.S. spends as much money on defense roughly as the sum of the seven largest spenders combined and 277% as much as China. We short shrift other spending like infrastructure and social welfare. Its no wonder life expectancy in the U.S. is short and social malaise is high. Its a consequence of the endless, largely needless wars like Vietanm and Iraq that the U.S. loves to fight and the excessive use of force we love as a country to use.
6
It seems to me that Democratic Progressives are the ones out of touch with reality. They have become the Tea Party equivalents among Democrats. The US is a center right country. Sanders and Warren have done a terrible job selling Medicare for all to the American public. Revolutions don't work in the US, what we did in the 1960's was not as much a revolution as taking of power by the baby boomers, a numbers game. We were lucky enough to have LBJ in office able to strong-arm Voting Rights, Human Rights, Medicare etc. through the Congress. You must sell the American public on Medicare for all, unless that happens, and Sanders or Warren is our nominee, Trump will be re-elected.
1
@Michael Rahimi
They just love Biden and his son! And Buttigieg, and his lifestyle is what every evangelical supports? Democrats had better get on the issues, beginning with the unsustainable current healthcare system and hammer it home or they will elect Trump.
Thanks Krugman. Maybe it’s my age but as a millennial I never understand the “socialist European” argument. It seems like more of a vestige of the Cold War. From my experience Europe seems like a nice place on par with the US.
5
Once we fell for 'productivity' as a measurement of success we gave up all our down time that we used to use enjoying the simple things of life. Beepers, shoe box size cell phones, the internet, emails, texting put us on call 24-7. And we praised all this because it made us more productive. We are a strange lot.
2
No one I know in Wisconsin is talking about French employment rates or German banking policy. The complaints I hear about plans like Ms. Warren's are in the vein of... I paid my college loans off by working, why should we forgive others who borrowed more than they should have? My health care is ok, I might change but show me my costs won't go up because I'll be paying for elective plastic surgery, diabetes treatments for obese people, and chemo for chainsmokers lung cancer. Free college? For everyone who graduates high school? For how many years? Can cousin Tommy take 9 years to get his degree in gender studies? Why can't we go back to selling ag products to China and getting caught up on road construction? It would be nice to drive 10 miles without seeing an orange barrel. And so on. For real voters, Mr. Krugman is creating strawmen arguments. We aren't worried about France.
2
@Matthew Actually, almost 35 million Americans smoke cigarettes, and 14 million of them live with some tobacco-related illness. Do you propose defunding medical intervention and health-insurance for every illness caused by an uninformed lifestyle choice? That will mean about 200 million Americans are on their own until they pre-pay about $200,000 in medical care.
1
@Tara I propose people realizing there is going to be some pushback against paying for others lifestyle choices. And I'm pretty sure most people are informed that smoking and obesity are bad for their health.
Comparing and contrasting us to Europe is all grand, but what most need is every thought and article to be toward increasing wages to liveable standards and securing healthcare for all. In order to do this, you will need to secure childcare for all, too. And if you want a highly educated society, you will somehow need to bring education into an accessible realm. There currently isn’t a seventeen year-old without a trust able to afford it.
3
Biden was a Senator in the 70s and 80s when there actually was bi-partisanship and the GOP hadn't yet descended into it's current brain-eating zombie incarnation.
This quaint, but now non-existent picture of the GOP is forever cemented in his mind. The Republican party will only be beaten back by bare-knuckle grass roots electoral politics on every level and every front in every state. The past special elections, the midterms and the recent local contests have shown clearly that this strategy works, and works well.
Trying to use argument, logic, and persuasion to win over enough GOP lawmakers to enact the changes that vast majorities of Americans want to see simply doesn't work anymore. Democrats need to make it patently clear to Republicans that if they refuse to cooperate in any way, shape or form, then they will be repeatedly attacked electorally in their home states.
Biden doesn't recognize that this is the only way things are going to change. In fact he would probably view what I just described above as 'impolite' or even 'ungentlemanly', despite the fact that this is exactly how the GOP, with the help of its billionaire benefactors, has been operating since the days of Newt Gingrich.
4
Amen
1
One can see that most differences between the left and center left in the Democratic Party is mostly the difference between goals and the mechanics for achieving them.
Universal health care requires one of three approaches: single payer, compulsory insurance or a national health service. Think Canada, Germany or Great Britain. The hodgepodge of programs in the United States still leaves millions without adequate health care and millions living on the edge of bankruptcy should they acquire a serious illness or major injury that their insurance will not cover sufficiently.
The Democrats who are center left, Biden, Klobuchar, Buttigeig and others would build on the Affordable Care Act and adopt a public insurance option to move gradually to universal coverage. Those on the left, Sanders, Warren and others would take the leap to single payer.
Both would have to go through Congress including a Senate in which they would need a filibuster proof majority. (Chances of the Democrats ending up with 61 Senators in 2020 is zero.)
So preach the goal and accept gradualism, at least until the Right is reduced to political insignificance.
7
Is it phobia or a recognition that the American experience differs strongly from Europe? Europe is a loosely-bound collection of coherent nation-states, while the US is a complex continental state that has, for better or worse, shouldered the responsibility for security for numerous places, including Europe, that could really be doing more, but use the "security subsidy" to pay for social programs. By the way, with Brexit in the west and authoritarians in the east, Europe is already in crisis.
3
One of the problems with Europe (like the US) is probably that it is too banking/finance-centric. Its response to the 2008 crisis was fiscal austerity, which was enforced by the ECB. German and other banks demanded that Greece and the other lagging countries repay their debts in full. The ECB, like the Fed, did respond in the standard monetary-policy way, cutting interest rates, but there is no evidence that this has done much good. Rates in Europe are now much lower than in the US, even negative in many countries to 10-year maturity, and overall performance is worse than that of the US - in which the recovery has been historically sluggish.
If people actually learned from experience, the rational response would be to restrain the banking and finance industries and rely less on the Maestros of central banks. Warren for one does propose things that would move in this direction, but instead of rational discussion the debate is a phony one about socialization.
3
I am a fan of Medicare for All. The Medicare tax (as does the SS tax) applies only to wages and salary. The SS FICA tax is capped at about 148K. That could be changed to capture more revenue. If that is not done, then a surcharge on the wealthy is in order. The very wealthy make far more in capital gains than in salary.
Meanwhile we on Medicare pay a deductible and premiums, the latter based on income. Why would this not work in Medicare for All?
5
@Mary Lund 2019 FICA cap is $132,900.
I worked in high schools. I was in a big city system that was under-financed, poorly run with crumbling facilities and generally low reputation. But there were very bright students. They largely came from minority families, and were not well off financially or else they would have been in private schools. Given a strong preparation in high school those bright young people could be major contributors to our country.
The nation suffers when schools for those promising young people do not turn them into productive directions.
But schools seldom jump to the top of a politician's list. Cutting taxes wins you the next election. Raising taxes in order to raise vital funding for schools at all levels pays off ten or fifteen years from now, long after the normal time of a politician.
Kids only go through those formative high school years once in their lives. If the opportunity is lost, it is lost forever for them.
And as surely as I spent 38 years watching them, I know it is a loss for the country.
9
When I lived in Belgium, the doctors and government agencies read the name, address etc. digitally from my government ID card.
Prescriptions were sent digitally to my pharmacy, idem insurance. It’s all quick and seamless.
When I enter a doctor’s practice here, the first thing handed to me is a wooden slate with 5 or more forms each of them requiring my name and address. It’s maddening.
We need to start investing in public infrastructure.
12
Thank you Paul. I would add that Bernie Sanders is not a radical. He's simply promoting the values and programs that would complete the promise of the New Deal and practically address our most urgent problem -- climate change and environmental deterioration. Practical solutions may seem radical when the problems they solve are radical, and who can seriously claim that our problems are not radical.
4
I like Joe but am fickle. If Bloomberg joins the fray my vote will go to him. There isn't anyone in the field that can match his resume. This country is defined by it's commercialization and industrialization and he has a handle on it all. And he is passionate enough and humanitarian enough to have a pulse on those of a lesser level that make the above function. The working class encompassing blue collar and et al. His resume is unmatched. You could combine the totality of the present candidates and they would be hard pressed to combine their knowledge and surpass Bloomberg. And he's been a gentleman when it comes to defining the real Donald Trump who he knows from his days as mayor of the big Apple. Although he may have exposed Triple D as a bad one in the bushel.
@Vincent Electing another rich, white old male is too soft of a rebuke to Trump.
Bloomberg would make things more efficient within the status quo, but we need to move the country left after decades of moving right.
5
Paul,
I don't see the problem so much as an us vs. them worldview, as an us BEING the world worldview. You see it in the discussion of universal health care. In the right wing media especially, the "how are you going to pay for it" question comes up as if there has never been faced by another nation. Based on a total unknown, it's thus very easy for them to run the numbers that shows we'll have "costs as great as our entire GDP". Nevermind that other countries have done it and, although it's been costly to be sure, it has not been nearly as expensive as the Right claims.
3
@Thucydides It helps that other nations eschew our mana for massive and inflatedly-priced military/weaponry expenditures and that citizens in many other countries have not yet been turned into people who think that the "good life" is all and only about the ability to spend our individual and collective wealth on consuming every widget and commodity that the corporate marketers dangled before our eyes via Tv, the Internet, etc. Just possibly such runaway consumerism and spending could be better spent on universal health care, quality public education, affordable housing, etc. etc.
1
I'm not sure what to think. I am for everything Warren and Sanders propose, but I know it frightens a lot of Americans who still want to believe that we are perpetually ahead of the curve compared to the rest of the world. Anyone who travels and knows people from Europe, Japan, Australia, etc. knows this viewpoint is hopelessly dated.
I am also terrified that the 1% will tank the economy out of spite, if either Warren or Sanders make it to the White House. We all saw how untouched, emboldened, and enriched they came out after 2008. They have such ridiculous reserves, they could start a sell-off panic and then head off to Majorca on their Yachts without a backward glance. When you have Bill Gates chaffing at the bit it is cause for worry—not because he is right, but because his caprice can have epic consequences.
We have allowed the rich to live so far above us and control so much of the world that they might as well be Gods. Toppling them will have consequences.
3
One of the biggest contrasts between Europe and the US is the tendency of organized labor to play a critical role in the social contract in the former, while the notion of a modern social contract, beyond the obligatory provision of some basic public services (usually sub-par in comparison with other wealthy societies) in return for one's taxes and the endless availability of guns, no longer exists in the latter. Unions provide an unusually effective form of voice going beyond the formal process of voting in elections in most European countries. Omission of this important dimension of democratic participation in Europe is surprising in light of the negative fallout that the marginalization of organized labor (especially in the private sector, where tolerance of market abuses on the part of employers is baked in to the post-Reaganomics American model of capitalism) has had on the quality of democracy and, more generally, life for the middle class in America.
Recognition that labor and capital legitimate each other's demands when they negotiate work contracts in good faith on a level playing field is considered heresy in most the US, especially in so-call right-to-work states (as Volkswagen found out in Tennessee). In Germany, by contrast, it underpins and stabilizes democratic capitalism. One result is better socioeconomic equality. Another is a proportionately wealthier, better educated and healthier middle class. Ask yourself where you would rather live and raise children.
10
@JT Your sentence "where tolerance of market abuses on the part of employers is baked to the post-Reaganomics American model of capitalism" in parentheses is the best. Unions decline in membership and power thus de-stabilizes democratic capitalism. All these excellent points never make it the likes of the current administration or any GOP contenders. Perhaps Romney would understand as the son of a former automaker of Nash.
1
@Katalina
Has long as your job can be shipped to the 3rd world for 10% or less of what a US worker makes? Unions are about has relevant has a Rowboat in the Sahara desert. Welcome to the wonderful age of Globalization a race to see who can work for the least/ Courtesy of BOTH PARTIES!!!! Globalization killed Unions DEAD and nothing will resurrect the corpses!
I'm still wondering how fifty million American households have Alexa. I have no need for one, but obviously I am way behind a whole lot of people.
I've quit arguing with a lot of people over medical issues (I'm a retired neurologist), because I realized one day I was so out of date that my statements just might be wrong. Not infrequently, I go home and google the issue and see what I've missed.
Maybe by being quiet, I am growing wiser.
4
The people who demonize progressives by calling them socialists are ignoring the reality that most of the proposals being offered by Elizabeth Warren and other progressives are aimed at restoring the economic and regulatory balance that existed up until the early 1980s. I graduated from a public university in 1972. The full-time tuition in my final quarter was $61, and I estimate that my entire four years of college cost less than $2,000, tuition and books combined. When I graduated, my first full-time job paid $90 per week, and my take home pay was $72.44. My modest but well-maintained apartment in the Los Angeles area was $90 per month, so I was able to live on my own and still save $100 per month. Obviously, that type of balance no longer exists because of predatory practices that have been allowed to go unchecked since the Reagan era.
11
One of the main reasons Europeans enjoy benefits and job security better than we have is that they still have strong trade unions while ours are vanishing.
8
E pluribus unum makes no room for plutocrats. It demands equality, fraternity and liberty, which the French derived from our new nation as their national slogan. Our founders set conditions in our Constitution that ended inherited wealth and privilege. They guaranteed “equal justice before the law” but failed to provide equal representation before the law. The Party of the Rich has striven to smash the New Deal.
3
In order for the United States to become France, for example, the US would have to spend far less on the public safety net and infrastructure. Yes, that's right far less. France spends less than 50% per person on healthcare than the US, France spends 40% less per student on education and their students score higher than the US, and France spends 33% less for the exact same infrastructure projects than the US. Finally, France spends a mere fraction on their military, but still one of the best equipped and prepared militaries in the World.
In order for the US to become Europe, the US would have to become massively more efficient in public expenditures than the US is today. Unless the the US changes the way we do many things like healthcare, education, infrastructure, defense, etc., to bring their underlying costs down while improving quality, a Euro style standard of living is just not attainable even if we throw trillions at it.
4
Another well-written piece. I have read many articles recently describing the 'idealism' that is Warren's Wealth Taxes, and I'm curious on what your thoughts are on them? It seems to me that they fall into exactly that category - idealism - and are very unlikely to come to fruition like many of her other proposals, namely M4A. Where is the ground for a candidate to be progressive enough while still being planted in reality? I think the answer to this question might be the key to winning the 2020 nomination.
1
Reconciling the debate in the national conversation could be done by featuring examples of well known companies with shared ownership among average Americans - without the need for incentives that create oligarchy. A few of my favorite examples: Vanguard Mutual Funds, the Green Bay Packers, the Land O' Lakes farm collective, Mutual Insurance Companies, etc., etc., etc.
2
What a brilliant, precise, concise summary of our situation. Thank you. At this point, if I were a younger man and if they would have me I'd move to Europe in a heartbeat. And if Trump prevails in a year I'll probably consider moving to the North Pole.
4
I'm tired of hearing threats that a vote for a progressive is what elected Trump in 2016 and will reelect him in 2020. You're wrong!!
Because of moderates the country has moved farther and farther to the right, given more power to right-wing extremists, given the wealthy donors more influence on our government, and increased the gap between rich and poor, the haves and havenots.
Moderation gave us Obamacare which was a half-baked attempt to force insurance companies to insure everyone on the cheap. The result was less than effective and it gave the right-wing ample opportunities to poke holes in it and ultimately render it useless.
Moderates negotiate by starting in the middle and ending up moving farther right. That is not compromise - that is appeasement! Democrats never have clearly defined and immutable beliefs. Rejecting Medicare for All or Single Payer is an example of starting in the middle. What is the compromise for you moderates? Obamacare with tweeks?
Compromising my long-held democratic socialist beliefs to get a moderate/corporate centrist elected has never served my best interests nor most of the middle class and all the most disadvantaged!
Not once since Reagan have the Democrats stemmed the rise of income and wealth inequality which is the root cause of all the problems in America. Ninety percent of our politicians represent the richest 10% of people in America. That's not a representative democracy. We live in a plutocracy!
9
I do like Krugman
But he often misunderstands medicine
Why do the French live longer than Americans
They exercise, walking or biking places instead of driving
They eat a better diet
They have more vacation time, and less stress.
I am surprised the difference is only 4 years.
Universal health care does help, but it is important to note that most French take advantage of secondary private insurance. There is a huge difference between monolithic single-provider healthcare and a system in which competitive choices exist.
3
The US Institute of Medicine has an extraordinary report on mortality rates. White guys in the US under 55 have the highest mortality rate among the OECD countries. White American women have the second worst mortality rate in the OECD. God help you if u are a minority group in the US. Health is not measured by how much medical care costs. It’s how long u live in wellbeing.
People, in general, don't care for careful explanations of casualties, externalities (positive nor negative), taxation, welfare,etc. People really care about talking points. There is a need to find someone to blame, but oneself, for all the problems we have.
Corporations pay no taxes because corporations CEOs are evil and want to maximize share holder returns, but no one talks about your elected representative who took campaign money from these same corporations' lobbyists and accepted their tax proposal without reading it forcing you and me to pay more taxes. Nor people complaint about laws forcing CEOs to maximize shareholder returns.
We are concerned about the Stock market, even when when it represents less than 20% of the real economy, because the future performance of billionaires (less than 1% of the population) are more import than 80 million people either uninsured or under insured. Or veteran homelessness, drug addiction, hunger, because it was their choice to join the military,aged 18, get brainwashed into killing people overseas to protect corporate interest, and getting discharged without any psychological support. Nobody cares about corporations welfare, and all those billions of dollars flowing to corporate America on form of parents, research investment, bailouts. After all we are all billionaires with cash flow issues.
Yeah, emulating Europe is the real problem.
2
While one can fault Joe Biden's optimism regarding the future of the GOP, only a journalist who is a member of Gen Z and has never studied history (let alone the history of the past 20 years) should be struggling to define what a centrist is in the current climate.
Go back and take a look at what the average Democrat in office supported 10 years ago, 20 years, or even over the past 100 years. Indeed, take a look at what the socialist candidate for president Norman Thomas supported in the 1920s!
What you will find if you put the effort in is that Democrats (and Socialists) of prior eras favored strict immigration enforcement on the grounds that lack of restrictions pushed down the wages of the lowest paid workers, which often included recent legal immigrants. Youtube is filled with clips of Texas congresswoman Barbara Jordan discussing this at length.
You will also find that Democrats of past eras never would have considered questioning the wisdom or sanctity of the first amendment, nor on average would they have called anyone who favored restrictions on third trimester abortion misogynists or worse.
I remember Khrushchev being amazed at American supermarkets. I felt the same way when I went to Europe a couple of times in the last 5 years. No throngs of homeless, beautiful/harmonious architecture, well maintained infrastructure, eco conscious population, safe food, etc...Yes, I would relocate if I could.
7
Democratic centrists and progressives constantly face the same criticism for programs they propose...principally " we can't afford it " . The criticism is largely based on economics that in america is viewed more and more as a mathematical science. that somehow operates independently of social needs, geography, history, sociology and psychology.
The costs of proposed programs such as "health care for all" are looked at in dollar amounts but not in terms of the positive changes that better health access leads to for families that are underinsured or non-insured. It does not take into account the positive value of being able to obtain medications at reasonable costs or how poverty makes health care inaccessible when people must chose between eating and seeing a doctor.
Europe has chosen not to exclude their history, and the needs of people and chosen not to regard health care as just another market. The have chosen to highlight the humanist aspect of the role of government in matters of health and do not run around in circles worried about how they will pay for their programs. The result of the european approach is that they get better health care for a lower cost than compared to the american system. Europeans believe that health care is not a privilege but an obligation of government. We would have had "health care for all" long ago, if elections were not about cost fears but rather the health obligations of government to its people.
4
Prof Krugman I totally disagree with your evaluation on Joe Biden. He does not 100% believe that Republicans, after trump. coming back down to earth. I see his message as being directed to suburban Republican families who prefer socially Liberal policies. Todays Times has a battleground state poll that confirms that. If Democrats nominate Warren, who is already branded as Socialist, even the lowest human in politics, trump, will be reelected.
Paul, your points all seem valid and worth making but your fellow Times columnist Timothy Egan has a counterpoint. Your argument is aimed at wealthier centrists who are uncomfortable with Warren's economics. Mr. Egan's is not about the policy but about the affect and the attitude and any question that that matters has been laid to rest by Trump, who is really just a bundle of attitudes. Your centrists need to take your points but the Democratic Party and the candidates need to listen to Timothy Egan as well.
I travel to Europe for business. I tell anyone willing to listen to me that much would change in the United States for the better if only more of us would travel to Europe. Our economics, politics, and belief systems ensure that a majority never do so – this maintains the status quo.
8
The GOP and Fox "News" use the cultural issues to distract the voters. Sander's proposal to allow aliens here for five years to stay is a good example. The GOP and Trump would use this to gain votes from middle America. Rather than advocating Medicare for all, the Democrats should campaign that everyone should have health care either through their employer or through a public system. The Democrats should focus on economic issues that appeal to blue collars and gun control. The main goal of the 2020 election is to defeat Donald Trump.
1
One of the reasons European citizens live longer is regulations that ensure that food and water (and wine) are unadulterated and good quality. For example a cow is tracked over its life from birth to death, so people know what they're eating.
2
I have friends, a married couple who happen to be gay, one is born in in US and the other France. The American was born with a common heart defect that he knew would require surgery. When needed, he tried out both health care systems as they live in both countries and have health insurance in both and choose to go with France and not because it was way cheaper, it was the care and efficiency of single payer system. In the US he made an appointment with his primary care who referred him to a cardiologist who he saw, was given an appointment at a lab for an EKG, then had to make another appointment with the cardiologist to have the tests read always paying copays. In France he went to a cardiologist who did the EGK and read them right there. His experience at the hospital in France was excellent with great follow up care, not what you get here, which is full of insurance bureaucracy and the need for this business model to ensure profits for stockholders and executives.
6
Went to Italy last year. Although I was only there for 2 weeks, I was amazed at the lack of proles dressed in grey jump suits forming columns of scowling faces being led into factories or forced labor camps while watching 24/7 video of Big Brother. Instead, I rode on fast trains that were fast, comfortable and inexpensive that took me wherever I wanted to go whenever I wanted to go. While in country, I found the average Giusseppe both friendly, happy, employed, and astounded at our “dictator” president.
My impression was, as fearful as we might be of becoming like Europe, the Italians, at least, are even more fearful of becoming like us.
3
Today, FDR's New Deal would be considered way too left. As a matter of comparison, GDP growth under FDR from about 1933 to 1941 was about 8% per year. Pretty unbelievable, but look it up.
Huge government spending on infrastructure has the possibility of really boosting our economy. There is reams of evidence to back that up. But Americans just do not want it. Too afraid.
6
One of the critical advantages that isn't mentioned in the article is that the European approach to health care is universal and the costs to their economies is therefore lower (i.e. more efficient health care provision across the board) and as such the impact of health care costs on lower income segments is lessened. This cost is an obvious drag on the US economy that is not caught in most economic indicators (lost productivity for one).
6
“...most Europeans actually have significant vacation time and hence work fewer hours per year. This sounds like a choice about work-life balance, not an economic problem.”
On this side of the Atlantic, our politicians, and the oligarchs who pretty much own them, have chosen to skew our work-life balance heavily to the work side.
11
@Ed Watters
To quantify, most countries have 4 week paid vacation by law. A kid working at McD's gets 4 weeks paid vacay.
No American will vote for this. Too Socialist.
Paul misses the point. It’s my whether med-4-all is a good proposal ( I happen to be persuaded that, as per warren/Bernie plans as they stand now, which do not allow for fair dr reimbursement, hospitals would close etc) it’s whether the proposals are winners. 1) they wd never pass even a Democratic Senate 2) they would weaken & alienate unions 3) they wd alienate millions of other voters for both good (considered, i.e. “I like my health insurance “) reason & bad (fear-induced i.e. “socialism!socialism!”) reasons. First do no harm. Let’s beat trump.
1
Though I agree with the columnist, when we think of electoral politics, we must account for factors of culture that make some of our poorest, lowest taxed states, places like West Virginia and Alabama, ardently anti regulation.
There are threads within these places that are like an angry old man coming out of his shack with a shot gun, ready to shoot because you stepped onto his land.
We cannot change the culture unless we can reach people and with subdivided media, we can’t even reach them.
1
Professor, the same old thing just written about in a slightly different way.
The gulf between the Children of the Enlightenment who focus on data, logic, and reason and the Children of the New Dark Age who focus on myth and story telling.
Nothing is going to change until these two camps can come to an agreement some way or the other. I suspect it is going to take a great cataclysmic shock of some kind.
What that cataclysmic shock will be who knows. It may be something like a pandemic that kills 80% of the planet. It could be massive crop failures leading to mass starvation and WWIII over food. It could also be armed conflict in the United States, a second Civil War, that settles it.
At the end of the day unless 80% of the Children of the Enlightenment and the Children of the New Dark Age come to the realization that we have to come to a compromise, the Nations Grandchildren will inherit a failing America.
20 years ago skiing in Zermatt I was surprised to get a call on my cell while sitting in the gondola at more than 1000mtrs.
Today, in 2019, I have to forget cellular communications in most of New England (I drive through 4 or 5 times a year) and when there is a network signal, it's unreliable.
2
@Georges
A few years ago, while climbing at 3000 meters in the Alps, I received a cell phone call...asking me if I was satisfied with the phone service. I laughed so hard I could not answer.
Perhaps lower per capita GDP in Europe can be partly the result of the significant growth of the financial services sector in the US, which now accounts for 20% of GDP, compared to 10% of GDP in 1947.
And I propose that the most significant tax policy change that progressives and centrists and most Americans would embrace is eliminating the distinction between "earned" and "unearned" income in the tax code. That, to me, is more effective in many ways that some kind of wealth tax in both funding government services and reducing wealth inequality.
And put me in the public option camp as a bridge to Medicare for All in 10 years or so.
7
Where are Europe and the US the same - the belief system at the core of their far right movements is white supremacy. Trump is the Translator for what the Republican party has stood for internally all these past 60 years. And what progressives and centrists fail to understand is that white supremacy isn't just about racism. it is about the control of institutions by the conservative elites.
Warren and Sanders represent institutional progress which scares all the conservative institutionalists both Democrat and Republican.
9
These candidates are proposing many more policies than just healthcare. It would be nice if the press would evenly provide coverage for ALL the issues instead of playing to the right with "gotchya" questions about healthcare. Provide information on the costs of NOT dealing with climate change,provide the information on the destructive foreign policies . Although "money" is important, too often than not, the press plays into the right-wing's hands when all they cover is whether Warren,Sanders,etal will raise taxes.
8
I like the overall thrust of this article, but I'm struggling to understand why Krugman says "adults in their prime working years are actually more likely to be employed in Europe, France included, than they are in America.". He hyperlinks on "more likely" to OECD data showing a 30% employment rate among French 15-24 year olds vs. a 51% rate among the US population of the same age. Data appears to show the exact opposite of what Krugman is saying.
1
I did not even need to look at the numbers to know that statement could not possibly be true. The current unemployment rate makes it obvious.
I hardly think that 15-24 is prime adult working age in any modern country. Change the view to the next cohort, 24-54, and France outpaces the US slightly.
6
The political spectrum is relative, entirely a function of historical context.
Since Reagan, the center has moved significantly right, and today's progressives are yesterday's old-fashioned liberals.
Progressivism exerts its influence mostly in the realm of cultural values and attitudes rather than economic policy.
When progressives strive to shape socioeconomic policy, they are accused of being socialists by conservatives and centrists.
3
I could imagine a play like "Waiting for Godot" with a Salesman and a Farmer, say in 1950. A "Music Man" but written by the farmer not the salesman. The farmer would be frugal and not waste much while the salesman would try to get some of that wealth into his product, say musical instruments. In a perfect world, the Salesman would sell innovations that help the farmer and his family and the Farmer would continue to not be wasteful and continue to be careful. In our system, the salesmen are winning. The cost/benefit of a month off work vs overtime to buy 4 smart phones for your family could be discussed. Happiness and what you purchase in that pursuit would be an interesting discussion.
Perhaps if we lowered our contributions to nato to 2% from it;s current 4% we might be able to offer moderate improvements to our safety net while putting more pressure on our allies to live up to their fiduciary responsabilities for defense
2
I do not think evidence shows the Europeans live longer because of Universal Health Care. Our statistics are skewed downward because of our much higher rates of murder, opiate overdoses, and obesity. When you look at health outcomes of specific diseases, such as most cancers, the US fares very well; albeit it at a much higher price. Give me the Swedish population and the US healthcare system and you will have remarkable health outcomes.
3
@Barrel Rider
Many Western European countries have private health insurance companies that are highly regulated. Their profit margins are thin. To maximize their profits, they policies include maximizing the health of their subscribers. That means the HC insurance companies take positive action, like encouraging people to regularly see their doctors, taking their medicines and pursuing a healthy life style. The emphasis is on prevention, not treating illnesses.
European HC companies are not like US companies.
How do you explain our infant mortality rate, which is the worst among rich countries?
1
Paul Krugman is too polite. The centerist making references to France was Steven Rattner, former Treasury Secretary to Obama. Spoiler alert: Obama is a centerist with uncomfortably close ties to Wall Street. Not exactly the same crowd pushing Warren's vision for the United States of Eurmerica. Neoliberalism strikes again. Turns out you can be filthy rich AND liberal. They still don't want pay more in taxes though. This is what you might term the "Bloomberg liberal."
Anyway, I'd happily take a hit to GDP per capita in exchange for the social services France enjoys. As I mentioned to Rattner, the difference is only about $20,000 a year whereas the average American spends $11,000 a year on health care alone. The math isn't hard to figure out. France is by far the better deal.
More to the point though, GDP per capita isn't a particularly useful measurement of economic well-being in an economy with staggering wealth inequality. It doesn't matter if GDP grows when the " per capita" isn't sharing in the proceeds. The two measurements are disconnected.
A more useful comparison is median household income as a percentage of GDP per capita. How much is household income growing relative to GDP and population growth? The answer is not much. There's a pretty substantial gap between the two curves. In other words, most Americans wouldn't notice the difference if GDP per capita dropped by $20,000 because household income remains flat regardless. It's not your wallet we're talking about.
7
@Andy
That's absurd.
"We the people" gave Obama a pretty centrist-to-far-right Congress, and Obama is a democrat before being a Democrat. So he strongly believes in getting things done the way a democracy gets things done: compromise after compromise, election after election.
Look at how people in Europe obtain so much from their governments: through actively engaging, voting, and protesting.
In the US, a whopping 50% of those eligible to vote, prefer to stay home instead, whereas Fox News spews fake news 24/7, firing up 40% of the country to vote for the most corrupt and anti-Main Street party the US has ever known, today's GOP.
And Fox News is only so successful because many self-declared progressives in this country actually despise the democratic process, and call any Democratic politician "centrist" (or even worse names) as soon as he or she fully respects it.
And with friends like that ...
If my husband weren't nailed to America I'd go live in Europe any day. I was just in Paris recently. A beautiful, human-scaled city in vast contrast to the choking spread of LA and San Francisco and the suffocation and noise of Gotham. Europeans know how to live, in contrast to Americans who only know how to work themselves to death.
4
People living in Paris may (and do) have a dramatically different perception of the world than your romanticized view.
1
Centrists are the reason we are in this predicament, going back to the Roosevelt administration.
@John
FDR's New Deal is pretty Radical Socialist by today's standards.
I think the real problem is that, since Reagan administration, Americans have a new 'Religion': 'Supply-Side Economics'.
It is an article of faith for both Republicans and 'moderate/centrist' Democrats that the wealthy and corporate must be 'unfettered' and they will create a 'paradise' for All.
Regardless all evidence of it's total failure to deliver promised economic 'benifits', we're all supposed to pay obeisance to the wisdom of 'The Market', or else...
...what? The wealthy will run over our babies with their carriage? Their going to do that, anyway.
4
"Will the Democratic presidential nomination go to a centrist or a progressive? Which choice would give the party the best chance in next year’s election? Honestly, I have no idea."
Prof Krugman, are you being intellectually honest? You are an economist. Look at the data.
We know you can construct some argument about energizing the base and all that, but how about looking at the straightforward polling in battleground states conducted by NYT.
The debates about policy among Democrats are important, but frankly, saving our republic is more important. And even among the the policy issues, climate change is by far the most important. Any of the Democratic candidates will reverse the catastrophic course we are on.
This is too important for "I honestly have no idea" or sophistry.
2
Excellent article! And very helpful at this crucial moment.
5
Actually, the European country that recovered the fastest from the 2008 global economic crisis, has been Belgium, and economists have argued that that was precisely because of its more solid social safety net and lower inequality.
And of course, that makes sense: if you loose your job because of an economic crisis, and then receive unemployment benefits that allow you to keep your house and healthcare and keep you kids in college, you never reach the level of despair that comes with losing all those things, you never lose your self-esteem, and in order to be able to keep these things in the long run, you just work hard to get a similar job back.
If the government/society refuses to step in, however, you'r going to lose so many crucial things that either you get a depression and give up looking for work at all, or you still try to fight back, but without a home or without a solid health, which inevitably reduces your "value" on the jobs market, and forces you to need many more years to recover from the crisis - and THAT is what happened after 2008 in the US, as the GOP blocked one after the other Obama measure that would have had a quick and serious positive effect on Main Street.
And of course, they did so because they wanted people to hate Obama, which would then, they hoped, make his reelection more difficult, and when mainstream Americans become less fired up to vote, then Fox News watchers get a chance to win the elections ...
11
@Ana Luisa Yes, you nailed it all! Excellent!
@Ana Luisa
Very astute!
Warren and Bernie at some point need to work out how they turn out enough new voters in the swing states to replace those voters who shrink back from M4A.
If they can do it it would turn this country around in a revolutionary way.
But if at some point they realize that approach won't work the most progressive thing they could do is take the center lane on health care, explain why, and have everyone in the party behind them.
They don't need to retreat on any other front.
But Democrats' reform on healthcare has twice been followed by Republican midterm victory. With no big economic turn down and maximum polarization, especially in the purple states Trump could eke out a win on this issue. Caution is warranted
1
During my career, I’ve done business in 25 countries and visited another 15+. I’m currently an American expat living in the Middle East and have dual citizenship in a European country.
I can tell you with certainty that Europe has a higher quality of life than does the US. However, the one thing that I would note is that the US has a more dynamic job market than Europe.
In my opinion, we could have the best worlds – a dynamic job market combined with a much more robust social environment. This is not an ‘either or’ decision. What lacks is leadership and vision.
6
In the toughest of times, like the Great Depression and World War II, Americans have proven that we can do about anything if we live by the creed "we are all in this together", rather than "you are on your own." That is the single biggest difference we enjoyed for the 20th century. Elitism is what has eaten us up and become as dangerous as the right wing reactionaries on both sides of the pond.
1
I doubt Republicans will have any kind of epiphany once Trump is gone, but Centrists’ belief that somehow we have to work together despite differences is, to me, preferable to a blindness that assumes that once in power can just force (now-Republican resisters) to fall in line. We no longer have a democracy of any kind if successive administrations rule by Executive Order or specious National Emergencies, undoing what the previous “wrong” party did via the same methods. Who can bring the vast majority of people whose party identification is tempered by their actual contact with their co-workers, neighbors & family members? Who can persuade us that working together can benefit us all? Although I’m very sympathetic to Progressive goals, their contempt for those who do not share their goals does not seem a promising beginning for a new administration. Their lack of a plan to persuade doubters (except a fervent belief that the ‘good’ of M4A will be so self-evident that it will convince everyone) and their insistence that so many of their fellow citizens suffer from some form of false consciousness & therefore vote against their own self interest is infuriating (& literally sophomoric). I wish I had the answer. I don’t, but I’m hoping that I can vote for someone who has some better idea about it than I’m hearing now — from anyone.
1
Most of progressives contempt for today’s GOP is that Republicans are bigoted and ignorant.
We love parts of Europe and have been spending more time there the past few years. That being said, to walk around the "downtown" districts of Paris and London, these days, is to encounter numerous and seemingly continuous protest rallies against an assortment of things. And that's not because the people there are enjoying their lives to the maximum.
1
@brooklyn
Nobody's claiming that Europe has solved ALL problems.
Contrary to the US, there do is a willingness to do so though, which is precisely why people protest when their wages are becoming too low compared with rising rents and cost of living.
It's BECAUSE citizens in Europe tend to expect more from their politicians than just some hate and "anti-government" rhetoric, that those governments achieve much more for Main Street than they do in the US.
6
@Ana Luisa Of course, it's not a binary situation. The demonstrations are a good sign, I wish we had that focus here in the US - the Extinction Rebellion demonstrations in London are inspiring. On the other hand, Brexit won, the Yellow Vests, student demonstrations in Paris, etc. Macron isn't so unpopular because wages have been rising and the far right has been trying to take advantage all over Europe.
@brooklyn
Yes. We do not have such protests, perhaps because Americans are too busy working themselves to death.
I have no problem with the expanded benefits proposed by someone like Warren. I do question not asking, at least in part, for all Americans to pay for those benefits. If we're going to have universal health care, pre-K, free college tuition, and student debt forgiveness, shouldn't it be OK for everyone to pay a little more in federal taxes?
5
If anyone but Biden is the Dem candidate, Trump will win. I live in Europe and can see that indeed life on average is better here, but the central theme must be defeating Trump and the GOP on Nov 3, 2020. It is true that the GOPers are in love with cutting their own taxes, getting the government out of health care and cultivating religious sects. However, Biden is correct that the GOPers may find their way back into the mainstream if the voters tell them that the present path leads to the destruction of the GOP.
A view from Texas:
Texans are speaking up about the seriousness of global warming and the need for a better medical care system. They voted for parks and public education in the recent election.
Yet, too may are convinced that taxes are a burden and not a duty. Some (too many) are stuck in a non-reflective selfishness, racism, false sense of individualism, and the belief in the trickle-down explanation of economic sense. The hollowness growing in their souls is revealed more and more by their continued acceptance of whatever Trump does.
Beto showed that the political balance is moving away from the zombie Republicans towards the born-again Democrats. Democrats are born-again into a world of rational thought, understanding the need to work together, often through government, to bring about policies that enable us to confront and deal with our common problems. Many are fed up with rising deductibles, increasing premiums and increasing share of premiums paid for by employees, out-of-network fraud tactics, while our elders are learning how good Medicare is. They see their politicians' greed and lies for what they are.
The only time Europe comes up is when the word "socialism" appears. And then their ignorance of history and confusion of theoretical ideas with their distortions is demonstrated by their professed reflective disgust.
The forces are moving in the right direction.
Caution in explaining things to a confused population must be taken. But there is hope.
7
All this is as maybe. No mention of the 3 or 4 or 5 battleground states that are the only thing that matters in this election. Are those few influenceable moderates thinking about Europe? No, they are listening to the focus-grouped, AI-backed fear mongering the RNC has been been digging into for 4 years. In the same time has the DNC been studying how to swing this very small group? How to connect with them? Or arguing among themselves about progressive vs. moderate....and serially taking down whoever polls the best against Trump?
Good that Krugman has deduced that French people live longer because of govt healthcare and “policies that mitigate inequality” aka higher taxes. As opposed to, say, not being fat, not doing drugs, and not having more guns than people. These public health declarations from a man who - hard to believe - was once noted for empirical research.
5
As long as we're looking at how to learn from Europe, how about also consider their superior infrastructure? The continent is linked by high-speed rail. Roads, bridges and tunnels are generally in far better condition and major cities have clean and modern subways or tram systems. And the integration of technology in daily life feels much more complete (i.e. pay your bill at a restaurant and the card reader is brought to your table).
I realize it would be politically toxic for Democrats to make such comparisons but you really feel like the U.S. is doomed to second-world status while Europe moves ahead (and gets a lot more vacation time, no less).
7
There's a bit of sophistry here. The EU unemployment rate is 6.3 percent, versus 3.7 percent in the US. The European rate looks better than it is because of Germany, which has an unemployment rate lower than our own. France has over 8 percent unemployment, Italy 10 percent, Spain 14 percent. and it's now more than ten years since the crash of '08. There is clearly systemic unemployment in many EU countries.
4
Having moved to Europe 20 years ago, but visiting my son in the US, I am shocked at how far behind technology is in the country which is supposed to be the world leader. Using a credit card in the US is at least twenty years behind Europe. Sign your name? Heavens. I haven't seen that in two decades. Wake up!
5
@dwolfenm there are many stores I use my credit card where I don't sign my name. Depends on the amount charged.
There are regulations here on the use of the credit card that you may not have in London.
I seldom agree with Paul anymore. He lives in a Pollyanna world. Today we are having an all out cultural war between the conservatives and the progressives. Trump is a general in this war for the conservatives. An effective general who has read the situation well. Who is our general? Schumer? Pelosi? Really? Trump is a super hero out of the Marvel Comics mold. Our generals are out of the Luny Tunes mold. Who do you think will win?
No. We're against her because she won't win.
Elections are won in swing states, swing districts and with swing voters -- ask 2018.
It's always been the case. I know there are some who argue that Trump won differently -- if so, explain the people who voted for Obama and then Trump.
Explain the people who vote for Rs for Congress in 2016 and Ds in 2018. It wasn't because they were waiting for the Great Left Hope.
They are swing voters and they will decide this election.
The Warren/Sanders positions are easily caricatured and pummeled. It doesn't matter whether I agree with their goals. What matters is that people who decide the election will not, at least they won't when the Rs finish pummeling them with ads for months.
4
In most of the countries in Europe, two key areas of welfare, education and healthcare, are much better and much more affordable than USA.
7
Paul, you can split stats all you want but unemployment as a group in Spain is over 13%, in Italy it is 9.9%, France is at 8.5%, Sweden is 7.1%. The countries most associated with having progressive governments have major employment issues. Meanwhile you have the U.K. at 3.9%, Germany at 3.1% despite the issues in the eastern part of the country, and the other Scandinavian countries at 3.7%.
1
Your numbers are meaningless if you don't take into consideration minimum wage, benefits and contract duration. Working conditions in the US and Germany simply can't be related to those in France, which makes your direct comparison of unemployment numbers pointless.
7
Right. Thanks, Obama.
The Political success of European Social Programs are they are Universal. Every citizen or legal resident has access to every nation social Program. The most successful American programs are Social Security and Medicare. These American programs are universal for every American over the age of 65. No means testing, no Bureaucrat deciding who is eleigible for the service.
Programs such as Medicaid are devisive some people are eligible others are not. That selection results in resentment in those who do not make the cut. Republicans often float political ballons about means testing for current medicare and social security. Medicare for all once enacted would be difficult to dismantle. For those who want Private Healthcare they can pay for it with after tax dollars.
4
@Martin - Medicare is not “universal” for anyone 65 and over. My partner freelanced all of his adult life and never paid into Medicare. Now he has no health insurance unless he can pay the high monthly cost of Medicare.
1
@Martin Neither Social Security nor Medicare is universal. You have to pay into it for years before you can extract benefits.
Centrism today is essentially conservatism—wanting to preserve the status quo (at least the pre-Trump status quo) and resist any change that is in the least bit transformative of our way of life. It is a deadly ideology because our current environmental, economic, social, and political problems are massive and all stem from the pre-Trump status quo.
The alternatives to centrism are two. The dominant one, all around the world, is the right-wing radicalism of people like Trump. It reacts to a failing socioeconomic order by imagining a past golden age and finding people to blame and attack for its loss. It pushes us to xenophobia, violence, and authoritarianism. And it is immensely popular—in part because it offers simplistic and easy salvation. It is a false messiah, but a seductive one for many.
The other alternative is radical progressivism that wants to dramatically transform our lifestyles and economic norms to save the environment and provide economic security to the masses, including to groups long marginalized—the very same groups the right now demonizes as the enemy. This is difficult, maybe impossible, but our only hope to avert disaster.
Centrism appeals mostly to older, better-off whites who have done reasonably well under the status quo and have little ability to see it from others' perspectives. They are prospering or at least getting by in relative comfort under the current system. They see no reason to change. They stifle progress and thereby enable Trump.
7
As H.L. Mencken said, For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, direct and wrong - and single payer health insurance is exactly that. Yes, we need universal coverage and we desperately need to reduce costs, but single payer is not the only way nor is it the best way to achieve that. After all, the majority of European countries achieve universal coverage without a single payer system, and their costs are significantly lower than ours.
4
How can we expect Americans to understand the rest of the world when only 42% have passports? Most will never leave the US, let alone their state. Without exposure, the rest of the world is an abstract idea except as seen on TV.
Unfortunately, the majority of the news stories about the rest of the world are filtered through a lens of violent conflict and human tragedy. I'm mindful of this because I'm currently in Rwanda. Very few Americans can find this country on a map and the only thing they might know about it was the 1990s genocide. Many would be surprised that you can get high-speed 4G wireless service, that the roads in central Kigali are better than American cities, and that it's a beautiful and lush country with great people. To Americans, it is forever frozen in the 1990s.
My wife and I were in Cape Town and she had a growth on her eye. I took her to the private emergency room (a privilege). She panicked because she didn't know what to expect. But we were in and out in under 90 minutes; she saw a doctor within 5 minutes; she received high-quality, attentive care that exceeds American ERs; and we left with the medicine she needed. Without insurance, the total cost was less than $100 (which they apologized for). This same hospital identified a chronic issue that my doctors back home have missed for years.
Once you experience how "different" can be better, fear of change goes away. Most won't experience it so they cling to what they know instead of taking the risk.
14
The model for the politics in this case, isn’t pro- or con-Europe. It’s the progress of an ingested pig through a python. Politicians don’t seem to change much once they are elected they just age out of the system. That’s why wave elections are so significant. It’s why the blue wave has been apparent in the elections of 2018 and just recently. The betting is that the wave hasn’t crashed yet and that’s reason for Tea Party and Evangelical politicians to be concerned. They and their ides have reached their sell-by dates.
2
Since moving to Europe I have learned that there is more to life quality than pro capita income and unemployment rates.
I always wonder about the people who claim that their healthcare/health insurance in the US is better than Europe-- they must not be from the middle class or lower. My health insurance here would be the same even if I had less income or became unemployed, but I can say without exception that it is far more comprehensive than any insurance or care I had in the US and is much better than anything my relatives and friends have back home.
Compared to people I know in the US, my quality of life is higher. I have more time for hobbies, travel, and family, while also having enough income that I'm not living from paycheck to paycheck and have an amount put away for a rainy day that my family couldn't even imagine. Perhaps I would have more take-home pay if I still lived in the US, but I feel less need to accumulate "stuff" here, and in the US I would have less time to enjoy life outside of work and more worries about health insurance, retirement, and my child's education.
I often have the feeling that my family and friends back home are barely holding on to their middle class status, and their children may have it worse than they do...whereas our child will not only have no trouble keeping up, but will probably do better.
20
@rb Yes, so true. Here it is working 3 jobs and that gets you nothing, maybe other areas it is not as bad as here in a red state. I do believe we will win, the last few days show a real loss for the repubs, they're crumbling.
2
Among other things for which history will harshly judge Trump and the Republicans: The notion that the country should enter a time machine and move backward, to some early mythical earlier time when things were “great.”
This philosophy has stifled our growth in almost every way—culturally, ethically, intellectually, medically, educationally, scientifically and, yes, even economically. Republicans love to point to GDP growth (currently running at a “meh” 1.9% or so), but the Fed’s numbers also show that despite Trump’s huge tax giveaway to the rich to achieve this lackluster growth, capital investment by business is way down from last year (more than 10%), and that 2018 investment had been even less than the year before that. I would argue that GDP is at 1.9% in spite of Trump’s mismanagement of the economy, not because of it. Nobody invests in chaos, trade wars and uncertainty.
Of course investment is largely an economic decision, but it is also a reflection of personal optimism about growth and the future. The Republicans have been pitching us to invest in a 1955 mutual fund. That fund has been closed to new investors for 65 years. Time to invest for tomorrow.
10
Paul,
I normally agree with your opinions, but at present I strongly oppose LIZ warren and sanders Medicare for all solution to our healthcare woes. The fundamental problems with American healthcare are cost and outcomes for the cost. Americans who think of European healthcare delivery should be reminded that despite European integration, each member state operates its own healthcare delivery system. Except for the NHS in the UK, many are a conglomeration of public-private coverage and the populace of member states are but a fraction of the US population.
Of course universal access to healthcare is a human right, but nobody is turned away from an ER in the US. Americans and our government need to make choices to meet the challenge of a single payor system for 325 million people; and I dare say that if Medicare’s financial history is any indication of reducing cost and improving health outcomes, the progressive philosophy could be financial and political suicide for other progressive priorities such as income inequality, gun violence, climate change, dignity of work issues, addiction, and a host of others.
The stakeholders in US healthcare, including Care providers, medical schools, employers, big pharma, healthcare conglomerates, and others must learn to live with reduced earnings. Americans as patients also must learn to be active participants in their healthcare. I favor a public option now. We have a long way to go and competing needs to do otherwise.
2
I don't know about France; this is what we pay and get in Belgium: a good salary is quickly taxed at the highest bracket (combined with social security) up to +55%. Of course when you earn a good salary, you can find tax reductions. Our son is now at university and the entry fee each year is some 800 Euro; from kindergarden onwards, the cost is negligeable. When I visit a GP or dentist for a minor treatment I pay about 25 Euro, of which some is reimbursed by the social security (the doctor gets a cut as well)l. A visit to a university specialist is equally affordable. Since I am retired and don't contribute to the social welfare system anymore, I pay each month 25 Euro. I get a state pension (which is based on salary) of 1.450 Euro per month. Unemployed people get unemployment benefits. Etc. 60 % taxes is a lot but I reckon we get a pretty good deal.
14
Please everyone look up the GDP of each Euro Country and look up the Unemployment rate. Also, please determine which Euro country has done innovation in high technology and medicine. Case Close.
@markw. Please read the comments from people actually living in Europe as well as the article. Nobody said Europe was perfect, but there is far more to consider than GDP and unemployment rates, and there are lessons to be learned.
2
It's time to engage the world, not withdraw from it. I'd feel a lot more comfortable about any Democratic candidate if I thought that getting on a plane and traveling through Europe was one of their priorities - not just to see the politicians and business leaders - but to see the scientists, the artists, the people, the architecutre, the culture. I wonder how many voters could even name a city in England other than London or a city in France other than Paris. The best way to sell the European model is to walk through Europe not just write it about it from afar.
4
Thank you, Paul Krugman, for your critique of American attitudes towards social policy in Europe, specifically in France. I am an American who has moved to France, in large measure for reasons that you articulate: quality of life; significantly less income inequality (great wealth is not oppressively self-promoting as it is everywhere in New York); and an extraordinary national health care system. Health care - for all legal residents - begins BEFORE birth, with mandated pre-natal check-ups. Quality of care here is comparable to the U.S. And yes, one does have a choice of doctors. How often in the States, acquaintances would tell me about the horrors of "socialist medicine" in France. Invariably, these people had never even been to Europe, let alone benefited from a system which enables people here to live both longer and healthier lives than in the U.S.
12
European governments and society overwhelmingly care about their people, ours acts like they do. Americans are concerned about not harming the stock market growth or jobs or progress; interest in promoting family life is way in the back of bus. In Europe, August is vacation month, parents walk their kids to school and pick them up, families are often seen together, and daycare, healthcare and social services are a right. One question Americans are increasingly asking is what has all of our innovation and technological advances brought us that matters? My wife read yesterday on Facebook that Celine Dion died in plane crash; isn’t cutting-edge technology great!
7
I live in France and don't think I'll ever go back to the US. That said, even though I agree with everything Professor Krugman has said here, a problem in France is that it is moving rightward. Note the gillets jaunes complaint - higher taxes on gasoline to fill gaps created by tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. And stresses are beginning to appear in the health care system. Austerity for the poor and tax cuts for the rich are not solving any problems.
8
In Paris one can choose among three cable/internet/phone services and pay 1/3 the monthly price we pay in the U S. In France the government takes 8% of your paycheck but then you get free medical care and drugs. But anyone from anywhere without insurance can go into any pharmacy and get a prescription filled, or go to a dentist and get a tooth filled, and still pay less than the 'deductable' an American with insurance pays at home. In France you don't have to pay thousands in bribes and then pay thousands more in fees each semester to get your child into a good university, but you they do have to pass an examination instead. And since Trump's tax cut, we Californians aren't paying any less in tax than a Frenchman making a comparable income-- but we do receive far less benefits. Our only consolation is that while the French and their European neighbors are left sulking about their lower wages on the beaches of the Mediterranean for four weeks each summer, we Americans can keep working and take pride in the much greater number of aircraft careers that can be seen flying our flag everywhere on the world's seas. It's a good thing for our politicians that France is so far away and so difficult for the casual tourist to understand, because any American lucky enough to figure out how this country works will only scoff when hearing how the U S is 'the greatest country in the world'.
11
One quibble with your column, Dr. Krugman:
The "Republicans" scorched-earth politics did not begin in the Obama years. They actually began in 1994 midway through President Bill Clinton's first term. It began the then-Republicans' brutal lurch to the right, and ended up with the party devoured by fascists after Senator John McCain lost to then-Senator Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential election.
6
- and perhaps the only way to get ''the homeland'' to change to Europes -
''half-price health care''
''secure jobs which pay living wages''
''long vacations''
''affordable housing''
and ''free education'' -
is to make every American sooo envious - that every American finally understands it's the only ''civilised'' thing to do.
2
Europe, as we know it today, was forged by the horrors of WW2 and the despair that followed. To imagine that the social policies there can be transferred to the American situation is fantasy. The Europeans have monies available for social policies because they do not engage in absurd, unnecessary foreign wars, like the Americans. They don't fund an over sized, bloated military. The Americans have made their bed and now they must sleep in it. Rarely is the social cost of our bellicose actions around the world ever related to the lack of social spending here. Both parties seem to be okay with this reality.
5
- and if Prof. Krugman would have written this article seven years ago - and NOT kind of the opposite - that might have helped?
2
Well, I’m afraid you are about to reach a tipping point, if you don’t do some progressive things, you’re not going to survive.
3
The author mentions that Europeans have more vacation time. That's because companies are required by law to give 5 weeks/yr vacation time for employees. I find this ridiculous. Why should the government tell me what to do with my business not to mentions the terrible productivity caused. Why should gov't be the solution to society if itself is a reflection of the society.
And about healthcare in France, I spent 7 hours at a nearby hospital where I live just to get a chest X-ray and an ECG. I spent less that an hour in getting the actual treatment, and I waited it out the rest. Private hospitals aren't there only to make the owners rich and we all know that.
2
That’s been the problem recently, and it’s probably why Warren has been rising in the polls. It’s great to be moderate, but it’s still possible to be moderate and delusional. “Turn on the record player,” “Republicans will respond to reason” (like they did with Obama...).
These might be gaffes, but they’re not hard for a sane person (or Trump) to pick on. When SNL’s Warren says Biden’s plan, “Remember Obama” doesn’t need a price tag, she’s not literally correct but she’s on to something.
What the moderate, “public option” folks aren’t saying, is an attractive public option, like an expanded Medicare, would cost money. Would the GOP agree to pay for it? They can’t even tolerate the ACA that lacked one.
That’s not the same as saying that all Republicans are extreme. McConnell’s obstruction was strategic and officials’ opposition is calculated to protect from primary challengers with donor support.
Dems need a message that can carry away moderates, moderate Republicans, and inspire the base. Whether that’s a public option or M4A depends on which persuades more voters.
The moderates say “reform the ACA,” and “we’ll reach across the aisle.” It’s not racist dog-whistling, but, if they are not delusional, these must be like Trumpian code words for “pick me, I’m not threatening.”
If polls are right, the delusion and signaling sells better in swing states. Maybe they want a non-Trump President but want to keep their GOP Reps and Senators. That would kill health reform.
3
Mathematics are not opinions. Hypothesis are.
More jobs, higher wages, $10 trillion in wealth added to savings. The numbers are staggering. Then along comes a bunch of candidates that want to take that all away. They have a spending problem, so do the Republicans, but at least they are against fantasy island spending.
And they must be nuts on a Government takeover of all healthcare and not because of the cost. Once the government takes over, the politicians own the outcomes. Every bad medical outcome is now on them, and there will never be enough money.
More and more with no end in sight. All you have to do is look at the VA.
.48 cents of every Federal dollar goes to medical care right now. More math. Six federal programs led by Medicare and Medicaid
If anyone thinks healthcare is too expensive now, just wait until it’s free.
2
The strongest arguments against the Warren/Sanders healthcare plan are it will never pass the Senate and it gives Republicans a lot or ammunition for the elections.
If they would propose a healthcare plan like any of the the European countries with a realistic phase-in period, it might have a chance. The W/S plan goes far beyond what European countries (or any other country in the world) have. It pays for everything from dollar one. Other countries with universal care pay about 80% of all healthcare costs publicly, with the remainder paid by the patient and/or a supplemental insurance policy. Some commenters will write that that isn't true, but one has to only use the google machine to see that it is. Canada's public system pays more like 70% or all healthcare costs, for instance. The Canadian public system pay for all dental care, vision care, limb prostheses, wheelchairs, prescription medication, podiatry and chiropractics and ambulances. Canada’s provincial and federal health insurance covers standard ward accommodation (four beds to a room) through Canada’s Medicare program. A private room or semi-private room will cost you or your insurer $200 to $300 a day. All personal and nursing care provided by long-term care homes in Ontario for instance are funded by the government. You must pay for accommodation charges such as room and board. Accommodation charges vary from $1,900 for basic, to $2,700 for private rooms. The W/S plan covers all of everything above.
2
@jas2200: That should read "The Canadian public system Doesn't pay for all dental care.....etc."
1
Speak louder, brother Krugman! We need common sense talk to help us appreciate how our current system looks after oligarchs first. We need to look at our neighbors and see that universal healthcare and better access to education are achievable if we choose such aims instead. I am convinced that the economy will do fine under Warren and we will begin to feel more united when we are taking better care of ourselves.
5
A question for Krugman! Here in France, half the tax revenue comes from a VAT (value added tax, essentially a sales tax), and income tax is lower than the federal and state rates in the US. However, dems in the US always criticize a VAT for being regressive, whereas it seems to me the issue is what the funds go for. Why do American progressives obsess about the sources of revenue and not accept that a flat tax spent progressively is progressive?
1
To use a lottery quote: "You have to be in it to win it." Medicare-for-all will keep the Democrats out of the White House, resulting in even more erosion of decent healthcare by Trump and Republicans.
1
American apologists have been predicting the fall of the European social systems since the end of WWII. They have been wrong for a long time now. Certainly, Europe has problems, but, as a dual citizen of Italy and the U.S. I can tell you from personal experience that we Europeans enjoy social and cultural benefits that far exceed those of the average American. Perhaps the trucks and houses (and bills) aren't as big, but we enjoy longer, healthier lives.
Oh, and before you all claim that we have these benefits because we don't have huge militaries, think again. European nations have prioritized spending and so have their citizens. I pay for my medical coverage. I pay into my pension here. Europe has "enough" military for now. Life is about choices after all.
6
I like that the progressive wing of the party has been vocal about how to fix America’s health care mess. As I see it how we get from where we are to where we need to be is the really difficult part of the process and will be the real sticking point.
Telling a massive number of Americans who receive their health care via their employer and are happy with it, you are going to take it away is lunacy. The transition is the tricky part and I would love to see that discussed by the democrats running for president.
Handing Trump and Republicans easy talking points that are so simple they will fit on a baseball cap is in and of itself disqualifying to me.
1
It will be harder to convince progressives to vote for the neo-libs than it will be to convince "centrists" for progressive policies.
The progressive policies today are simply efforts to re-balance the extreme swings towards inequality and corporate abuse of consumers (monopolies, insurance scams, predatory lending practices, medical bankruptcies). Asking progressives to vote for such extremes because they are centrist doesn't make much sense. If virtually all developed countries have universal health care, why is it "centrist" to be the only country that doesn't?
I can't believe I'm voting for Professor Betsy (nee Pochahontas) Warren. Far out. I wonder why Republicans are so obsessed with giving her so many names. Recently I heard a pundit say he didn't think Warren could win because Pochahontas.
3
"Democratic" centrists are Rockefeller Republicans in drag. (Some actually anointed by David Rockefeller.) They sold out to Wall Street in the mid-1970s. They abandoned the working classes and rural communities in favor of technocrats and urban professionals - they went bourgeoisie. Why? Just like their formerly extant moderately conservative Republican counterparts (whom they replaced in the spectrum after the GOP went full Mammon and wacko right, in the worldwide slide rightward the last fifty years), by going down that path they can straddle the fence - they salve their social consciences with a modicum of good works while raking in end-stage capitalistic goodies, including fatcat campaign contributions. Limousine neoliberals. Davos Democrats.
Who are these people? They are Carters and Clintons and Obamas and Bidens. They do very well by passably and noisily "doing good" while not disturbing the dominant paradigm of vulture capitalism and the Reagan Restoration. It's not for nothing that Carter and Clinton deregulated and Obama quashed financial enforcement - giving speeches to banksters at $250-400k a pop is a good afterlife, deferred compensation. (With an authentic conscience after a so-so presidency, at least Carter had the common decency and self-respect not to indulge in that.)
But so far democratic-wing progressives have not played smart. Sanders and Warren? Way out over their skis for electability. And there are NO substantial 'tweeners who can get elected. Why?
3
For decades Europe has saved a fortune by sponging and mooching and leeching off the US for everything from one-sided trade deals to defense. No wonder they had the money to feed their citizens' greed for ever more social handouts, longer vacations and shorter work weeks. Yet, despite the over the top grifting, Europe today is confronting insurmountable economic challenges. Sales are down radically for its luxury goods, welfare costs are out of control, the continent is being inundated with problematic newcomers, and the member states of the EU are finally being forced to pony up a greater share of defense costs. The future looks grim. Anyone who suggests we look to Europe for inspiration is seriously delusional.
2
@JJ Gross writes:
''No wonder they had the money to feed their citizens' greed for ever more social handouts, longer vacations and shorter work weeks''.
''They'' had - and have the money because for decades America has been ''sponging and mooching and leeching off Europe for everything what (wealthy) Americans want - from Luxury Cars and efficient machinery to some relaxation in Paris First Class Hotels.
As Europe has found out it didn't charge America enough - for all this ''stuff'' America wants - the future looks grim. Anyone who suggests to look NOT to Europe for inspiration is seriously delusional.
The vast number of Americans who voted for Trump won't read this piece and anyway would dismiss it out of hand. As someone who lives in UK and France and have lived and worked off and on in the US since the 1970s I can say that Europe is far more comfortable in every aspect, healthcare, income, culture, sociability, and lifestyle. Even in more US leaning UK people 26 days holiday leave!
I love the US but in any comparison, no contest. The US needs a real progressive to improve life - even for the desperate, sadly wayward, Trumpers.
17
@G Rayns Perhaps you can explain why those in the UK still buy private insurance so they have some hope of seeing a doctor. Why do they wait 18 weeks to see a specialist ? Perhaps you should read the latest articles on the abysmal state of UK health care. And by the way, UK and French economies aren’t doing so well.
1
I don’t know either whether a centrist or a progressive would match up better against Trump, but I’m pretty it’s a progressive who’ll be put to the test, most likely Warren and if not her, then Bernie. Centrism could use a better avatar than Joe Biden, because Biden is a hot mess. If I thought he had any chance to win the primary, I’d be worried, because despite what the head-to-head polls show right now, I have no faith that Joe will be able to hold it together down the stretch. Thankfully, I’m pretty sure he’ll fade quickly after losing Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada all in a row.
2
Thanks for the thumbs-up, Dr. Krugman: We now live in southern France, by choice.
All of the things you mention are true: Health care costs less than half what Americans pay with longer life expectancy, there’s a decent social safety net, and most services are quite a bit less expensive.
You mentioned telecom. How many people out there consider a cell phone a “luxury” item? Answer: zero. Cell phone service that costs us $60/mo in the US costs us $12/month in France. The main difference is that France (along with all European countries) is more consumer-oriented and has successfully avoided the US model of megacarriers with armies of lobbyists and a stranglehold on Congress to maintain their monopolies. News flash: These European companies are still in business and still making money regardless. Shows you what’s possible with just a little bit of consumer-oriented regulation.
And I’ve read the high-browed journal articles about this phenomenon (my professional training is telecomm engineering) and the only technical reason of any merit for higher prices in the US is that the population density is lower. That might account for about a 50% increase for infrastructure costs like more cell phone towers in less-densely-populated regions. So, to compare apples-to-apples, US mobile service *should* cost about $18/month. Everything beyond that is pure profit. American exceptionalism!
20
I have lived in Europe (England, France, Germany), U.S. and Canada. From my personal experience higher life expectancy in Europe is linked to lifestyle and a health care system that covers everyone - in an equally lower quality compared to a good healthcare coverage in the U.S. The problem is to have access to better lifestyle and good health care in the U.S. you absolutely need a stable, good paying job; that's what's lacking. To get these jobs you need better education, infrastructure and healthcare. I think the past 40 years has shown that this vicious cycle can only be broken if education, infrastructure and healthcare comes first, which is by the way not a European solution (except for a mediocre healthcare system Europe is not doing this today either). I think the U.S. is uniquely positioned to break this cycle. The real question is: will the current political system and polarizing news empires allow it to happen?
3
Nprthern Europe is pretty much at full employment and doesn’t suffer from a persistent weakness of demand.
As to Southern Europe, the problem is rather persistent weakness of supply as a result of labor market rigidities and a host of structural weaknesses.
4
"By all means, let’s talk about whether 'Medicare for all', wealth taxes and other progressive proposals are actually good ideas."
They definitely are. But we should NOT talk about them, now. That could be lethal in that Donald Trump may get reelected. The perception about Medicare for All & wealth tax is such that they are far too radical ideas, though wealth tax is much less so.
If the Democratic nominee doggedly & uncompromisingly pursues Medicare for All, that candidate will have quite a hard time winning, despite that Trump is so bad. Why scare the voters.
I would (again) say support Pete Buttigieg. He's progressive enough, level headed and mature. He's fearless and dedicated. He's the opposite of Trump. The country & the world, since U.S. is so important in the world, will be in safe hands if Mayor Pete is at the helm.
2
There is a lot of fear about what the European represent culturally. This is what lurks beneath the nationalist populist movement around the world. The comfort with emotions, relaxation and learning are the hallmarks of the best of European culture.
It's pretty clear you're backing Warren, but why keep bashing Biden for appealing to moderate voters with his comments on a positive political future? And it voters, not DC politicians, he's speaking to with his comments. Biden knows better than most how partisan DC has become, but he also knows voters are sick of that and want normalcy again. Running on division and how awful Republicans are—and mocking their beliefs, as Warren has done—may be a great message for the faithful Left, but it doesn't build the bridges necessary to win this election. Or, for that matter, to govern if you do win.
2
Krugman implies Biden centrists are criticizing Warren for wanting US to be like France. None said that, they all say US care is worse than European.
Maybe Republicans would call her a francophile (if they knew the word). Krugman's comment is misleading and irrelevant (i.e.. that criticism is only from Republicans who would never vote for a dem)
1
The US, in some ways, is barely out of slavery.
No federal minimum wage. Ridiculously low vacation rights.
I could go on...
It is no mistake on the behalf of the American right that labor standards are so pitifully low.
But look at those GDP numbers....wow.
7
Where exactly are the centrist Democrats who keep invoking France as a bogeyman the way Krugman says they do? Is the entire premise of this article imaginary? Has he quoted even one such Democrat?
Republicans use France as a dystopian example, certainly. Are centrist Democrats to blame for everything Republicans say?
2
As a very much older observer of politics than Krugman I who remembers the Red scare of the 50s, the Civil Rights pioneers and anti Vietnam demonstrators being called Communists. Which in fact meant being against the established order of racism and lies at the highest levels of government.
Now we have come to supposedly fear being labeled Socialists. This started in the Koch brothers sponsorship of the Tea Party bunch who were ironically profiting from the most socialistic programs in the US Medicare an Social Security. But hated the ACA because a Black President sponsored it.
Now in an era of the greatest income inequality since the Gilded Age those who would push back are being called Socialists.
I say accept the name and wear it as a badge of honor. The centrists like Biden are not quite as old as I but are far more fearful of change than I.
They are the past the so called socialists are the future.
6
Re : "Which choice would give the party the best chance in next year’s election? Honestly, I have no idea."
But Paul Krugman had a very clear idea, what was good for the Democratic Party in 2016, and it was NOT the European model
He repeatedly attacked the candidate running on the European model, culminating in
Sanders over the Edge
"On many major issues — including the signature issues of his campaign, especially financial reform — he seemed to go for easy slogans over hard thinking."
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/08/opinion/sanders-over-the-edge.html
Whereas declaring
Trump is Right on Economics
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/07/opinion/paul-krugman-trump-is-right-on-economics.html
And more recently, on attacking the woman economic advisor of Mr. Sanders
"The problem is that I don’t understand her arguments at all. If she’s saying what I think she’s saying, it seems just obviously indefensible. "
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/opinion/running-on-mmt-wonkish.html
Mr. Krugman's history is one of attacking progressive, European style politics
And siding, whenever the chips were down with the elites
1
Stop belittling people who have reservations about European style political systems. Euro social states having mostly benefited white non-immigrants. This is borne out by decades of data. And then there are restrictions on paths to full citizenship whereby children of immigrants born in most of these countries are not automatically citizens.
Now European countries are seeing low wage, blue collar white people fall off the back of the wagon. If you weren't paying attention, there's the matter voting patterns, mass protests, and a little something called Brexit that confirm all this.
In a nutshell, Europe is bonkers and working backwards. Increasingly comprising societies that work for the white and well off. I suppose that's your model utopia if you're white and well off, too, and your vision of liberalism frighteningly resembles someplace like Seattle.
4
if Americans stopped stealing from about every other nation in the world, then they would start to understand what is real economy.
Americans steal from Europe with all their major corporations fiscally registered there, they steal from the Middle East for oil, they steal from China as manufacturers of all their products ( cheap and sophisticated ), they steal from South America for vegetal resources and work their services in the US, they steal from Africa for rare metals, and on, and on.
What do you provide to the world exactly ?
An army of 750 Billion dollars ? That is not much .
That is peanuts.
Americans think that because they have a big army everybody owes them everything.
4
Try proposing a European level VAT to pay for European style benefits and watch support for the progressive agenda go to zero.
2
I feel, as a retired English teacher, that the terms “centrist” and “progressive” are misapplied. The things Warren wants are what most Americans want.
3
@Ralph
Roughly 50% of Americans have health insurance subsidized by their employer and most want to keep it. If Warren is nominated and maintains her, shut up I know what's best for you, attitude we'll have 4 more years of the worst president this country has ever seen.
1
California is run by neo liberal centrists. Look how it is doing. Economy growing, lots of rich people, really expensive housing, long commutes to the big job centers and many, many homeless. Wildfires roaring every fall, PG&E backed by the neo liberals despite capturing the regulators and burning people to death. It is the Gilded Age here in the Golden State. Run by Democrats. Progressives rarely are able to enact policy of their design. We still have Prop 13 unmodified after 41 years!
1
Don't forget that Europeans are healthier because they protect their food supply from GMO, pesticides, hormones, and antibiotic contamination.
9
I was about to comment the same point. I moved from NYC to Paris for an indefinite stay a year and a half ago and one of my biggest surprises living here has been the significantly higher quality of food. I’m not talking about cuisine, NYC has amazing cuisine. But as I tell my New York friends, the cheapest grocery stores in Paris carry Whole Foods quality at Key Foods prices.
5
@New Yorker In Paris
I agree and you should stay right there. We in Holland have Key Foods quality at Whole foods prices.
1
Amy Klobuchar and the public option seems about right.
The knowledge of Europe's history spans many centuries of modern man's enlightened existence, our nation, a couple. Who do you think should be learning from whom?
2
Leave it to us Dems to fight one another and pick everything apart until there is nothing left. As it is said, the Dems eat their own. Everybody has to be the brightest bulb in the room; so they insist that their ideas are the best. The Republicans are cohesive and the Dems are not. We have Dems who will sit at home or vote for a Jill Stein out of their so-called conscience. Well guess what the Repubs will take their cohesiveness and continue to appoint judges and pass executive actions and monopolize the media while the Dems sit in their big mud puddle and throw pebbles at one another.
The only idea that matters is beating Donald Trump and winning the Senate in 2020. Let's grow up and be in this together.
1
If we stopped talking about labels, maybe we would base our votes on issues.
The debate about Warren's Medicare for all is revealing. Even the NYT has presented Warren's plan as new spending, when only a fraction of her plan is indeed new spending. The large majority of her plan is money which is already being spent with employers, individual, state and local governments paying the premiums. Warren would simply be changing the way some of these costs get paid.
Pundits have also tried to scare the electorate by brandishing Warren's Medicare for all cost of 20 trillion dollars over 10 YEARS!!! They forget to explain that Americans spent 3.8 trillion dollars for health care in 2018 alone. If you extrapolate that over the same ten year period, then keeping things as they are, Americans will spend well over 40 trillion dollars on health care over that 10 year period.
In fact if Americans had European style ''Socialist'' health care, they would spend about 25 trillion dollars over ten years for the same quality of care, but manage to cover everyone. They might even live longer as they would no longer fear the risk of bankruptcy due to illness, or the risk of losing health care in case of job loss if they have certain pr-existing conditions. Cherry on the cake, they would spend far less time filling in insurance forms... .
I can all-ready hear the comments about long waiting times for care. I have never seen any of these pundits back-up such claims with any evidence or data. If you have a serious ailment, you get the treatment you need, period.
3
You're awfully concerned with placating progressives who are to the left of you, aren't you? I get the feeling that you know you've angered them in the past, and you want back in their good graces. ... If this is the best case you can make for "Europe," riddled with errors as it is, we really should be hesitant.
Take France. "French residents can expect, on average, to live more than four years longer than Americans. Why? Universal health care and policies that mitigate extreme inequality are the most likely explanations." This is not true. It's multifactorial, but look at French demographics. They're very different. If you make our demographics look like theirs and then compare, we'd come out at least as good and probably better.
As for social justice, you totally ignored the banlieues. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-other-france Residents thereof would like a word with you. And, you know, if we take social justice to mean the equalization of opportunity and the eradication of inherited privileges across socio-economic-ethnic divides, the only thing that would ensure it would be the communization of childrearing, which would be a teensy bit unpopular with actual Americans.
You bounced the word "adoption" around but ignored the fact -- and the reason you ignored it is because it IS a fact -- that the U.S. innovates miles -- no, we're in Europe -- KILOMETERS more. Our problems wouldn't be best solved via extensive importation of the European social model.
1
And yet European countries manage to have universal healthcare . Go figure.
3
Is Elizabeth Warren a true progressive in the mold of Lenin, where an entire orthodox society had to be destroyed and a new a totally new form of government established, a dictatorship of the lower classes. A dictatorship of a one party system which would never willingly give up their newfound political power. Only in this type of system Warrens plans can be actualized. Is Dr. Krugman supporting this type of progressive politics?
1
Paul Krugman "keeps seeing" criticisms that Elizabeth Warren's economic proposals "would turn America into Europe." When I googled that, I found citations to only two people -- Paul Krugman and Steve Rattner, Krugman's fellow columnist at the Times. (OK, I stopped reading past the first page).
But the irony is that, in at least one important respect, Warren's proposals are NOT European at all. Of the 14 wealthy OECD countries with a wealth tax in 1996, 10 have since scrapped it.
Europe has learned the lesson that wealth taxes don't work, but Warren apparently didn't get the memo.
According to Politifact, "The general reason European countries dropped their wealth taxes was they were more trouble than they were worth.... A review of the wealth tax option by the European Commission said that in the past, determining the value of assets was challenging and cheating was easier."
So that Medicare for all proposal you've been hearing about? It will be built on sand.
And yet European countries have universal health care. Go figure.
1
@Steven Sullivan
You are drowning in a semantic quagmire. In the US we have universal health care in the sense that anyone who is too poor to pay for treatment is covered by Medicaid.
Meanwhile other countries achieve universal health care in different ways. In Switzerland, people are legally required to buy private insurance or else pay a fine. The Swiss pay the entirety of their plan costs, and children require the purchase of separate plans. The Swiss pay premiums of $385 per month.
In comparison, average employee premiums in the U.S. in 2017 were $118 for single-person plans and $435 for family plans.
The Swiss face co-payments for all services up to a deductible of their choosing, between $248 and $2,065. After this, 10 percent to 20 percent coinsurance applies on all services, capped at $579 per year for adults.
1
"Europe has political fragmentation and ideological rigidity."?
But that's the USA---political polarization, an ideologicaly rigid GOP a Senate that blocks laws for the public interest. And an ideological Supreme Court.
Any country that blocks affordable HC for all, after most nations got it long ago, and that blocks gun safety laws even after repeated mass slaughter of school children, is obviously 'ideologically rigid'--- to use a nice term.
See NYT video/article- “How Europeans See America”.
Quote:
“We asked young, ordinary Europeans to look at U.S. policies on everything from food to guns. As they discover facts, they’re not impressed.
Europeans are shocked to learn that the U.S. government does not guarantee social protections that citizens in other advanced economies take for granted.
Their reactions reflect how European governments prioritize citizen welfare, with national assurances for universal health care and affordable education.
Americans have grown accustomed to the exorbitant costs of basic human services, the absence of parental leave protection and unregulated presence of chemicals in food — things that would “cause riots” in Europe.”
1450 NYT readers commented on this, many by people who have lived abroad.
The irony is that Europe has less class stratification and more upward mobilty than the US today. They had explicit classes and aristocracies calling the shots not that long ago, while America was the land of opportunity.
2
Centrism ,economically, is Republican lite. It is the compromise with the devil. A Centrist is a limousine liberal, one who took the easiersofter way to re-election. Biden's delusion of the old collegial Senate,horsetrading with the Republicans , is more myth than reality. If LBJ believed in the "Biden philosophy", the civil rights and voting rights acts would never have gotten passed and Medicare wouldn't exist. And yes,LBJ was a career "politician". It is surprising Biden is so naive. Warren,Buttigieg,Sanders,Harrus,or Booker and Bennett. The times call for an LBJ.
1
I would not go with "progressives and centrists". I would go with leftsts and liberals and they can each call themselves progressives. The leftists have a slogan problem. "Medicare for all" is a bad slogan. Those greedy seniors presently on Medicare can view it as a threat to their benefits. And Medicare is not that good without the supplements anyway whicb are provided by those horrible insurance companies. "Abolish ICE" can be readily construed as no immigration enforcement. How someone thinks they can win on those 2 slogans is the one not in touch with reality.
1
Like it or not, those who support so called progressive policies are nowhere near a majority of voters. They complain about the electoral college and Republicans ruling with 45 percent support. Yet they think they will somehow foist their own 25 percent supported policies on the rest of us, and presume we are too ignorant to know what's good for us. Make your choice, a centrist Democrat or Trump. There's a reason Warren polls the worst against Trump.
1
Paul really wants EW to win, even though he knows Medicare for will not sell in the swing States. Yet still he is trying to sell us. Democrats will not win with EW. BTW that shot against Biden was not very convincing and was not well made either.
France is in need of big change and is an example of hating on the rich.
The supposed grown-ups like Klobuchar, Biden and Mayor Pete glory in telling us what we cannot aspire to, why we have to kowtow to the Billionaire class and corporate interests, and why we must accept the national security state. I reject that and the thinking and tendencies behind it. They are not the kind of thinking or values that advanced our nation under the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society.
We need to think big, aspire to our values and stand by our convictions. Progress always comes from the political left - from ending child labor to environmental protections to consumer protection to Social Security to the GI Bill. Progressives put people first and respect the value and dignity of every person. We do not worship the golden calf of unrestricted capitalism.
To quote FDR:
"We now know that government by organized money is just as dangerous a government by an organized mob."
https://youtu.be/2LzXRPqQm8U
Read it in the Times Machine:
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1936/11/01/85432149.pdf
3
I have lived in Europe for over 20% of my life. Were it not for family, I would still be there. Every nation has its problems, but only the United States is proud of the problems. Progressives want to get those fat, greedy thumbs off of the scales of fairness, and I applaud them. We already pay too much for lousy health care, so some radical change is needed--I will only listen to those who have radical changes that can save money. Fortunately, there are some, and I'm all in with them. Similarly for climate change.
I have no confidence whatsoever for anybody who believes in the inherent goodness of the Republicans. If the definition of insanity is believing that if you keep doing the same thing, changes for the better will happen, then Joe Biden is insane, as are all of the other center-right to middle-right DINO candidates.
4
I have spent time this year in the Scandinavian countries and France. My view is that if they are socialist bring it on!
7
Will the nomination go to a candidate who takes bribes from corporations and oligarchs or will it go to a candidate who will not be bought by either of the above should be the real question. Silly me thinks that we should have a president who is not beholden to corporations or rich people. That way he or she can level the playing field, undo the 40 years of stagnant wages and all the things the wealthy did to cheat the American people so they could get wealthier. That way we can have Medicare for all and The new Green Deal and bring back free public colleges and stop starting wars with only oil rich countries to get their oil and invest in infrastructure and our schools and get the wages up and have racial and income and gender equality and so on. You know like humane policies Now if you are frothing at the mouth at my outrageous statements, think about why that is. Are you really wanting to promote a corrupt candidate who will never work or fight for you? Really? Why does Paul Krugman even write these opinion columns and never factor in what the candidate can really offer if he or she takes huge donations from fossil fuel and big pharma and insurance companies and the NRA to name a few.
3
And what is a "Centrist" after all? Is there a centrist position on kids locked up in cages? Concentration camps are a dreadful crime disguised as the economic fable that refugees are coming to take jobs away from Americans.
Patriotism may be the last refuge of a scoundrel, but scapegoating seems to be the first stop for Economic Myth making.
1
The concerns you raise about European realities vis a vis Americans are quite important. They are leading us to a mild turning point which would normally be a pretty big story.
But the story is swamped by the surge of what calls itself the left, progressives, or resistance toward the authoritarian right. A life-long left socialist, I am astounded to realize that the eventual fight may well be between the constitution and the wreckers of the constitution, and amazingly, with the left on the right and vice-versa.
The former left has been converted to the European version of free speech, ie the European model of unfree speech.
Europe passes off its restrictions on rights as rising out of its changed values from experiencing the Holocaust, and of course Europeans tell us that their world lived through that time and that we're a bit naïve about the lethality of speech.
Well, this is pretty sensitive, but we don't need consciousness raising to know whence the European choice of security over freedom. The truth is that northwest Europe is an internally repressive society. The cops are on the inside (trust me: I'm a tad north-European).
That has nothing to do with learning from the Holocaust to restrain our urges. It does have something to do with acquiescing in the rise of a police state.
Americans are the juvenile delinquents of the western world. Our bad attitude gets us the occasional JD-in-Chief.
But, we're a hard sell for authoritarians.
My whole life I've read that Europe was a moribund economy on the brink of collapse. Then I actually visit Europe and find happy, secure people living well, surrounded by infrastructure that makes me want to weep at the comparison to backward America. With 5 weeks annual vacation and no medical bills.
Americans are so brainwashed.
6
Unbridled unregulated capitalism equals anarchy. it's responsible for our persistent income inequality in the United States. It is unquestionably unsustainable, but Trump and his Koch bros puppets will wage a furious unrelenting war before we vanquish them. Get ready because it's already begun. All hands on deck!
1
What Europe are we talking about? Poland where socialism is a dirty word? Ukraine where the Communist Party is outlawed? Italy with a right-wing populist government? Hungary where a demagogue leader came to power because of the fear of immigration? The UK struggling in the throes of Brexit? Americans have a very blinkered view of Europe, and I am sorry to see Prof. Krugman repeating ignorant cliches of the “woke” Twitterati who think that the entire continent consists of Germany and France, with a sliver of Scandinavia. Surely he knows that youth unemployment in France is 20 percent. I was in Paris a year ago and had long conversations with angry and frustrated young people who were trying - and failing - to imagine a life on the dole. Try to sell “democratic socialism” in Norway and you’ll get 6 percent of the vote. Try to sell it in Poland and you’ll likely get a slap in the face. Not to mention the economic slowdown in Germany and anti-immigrant sentiments in Sweden. None of this means that universal healthcare is a bad idea (though the Warren-Sanders version of it is very bad). But it does mean that pretending that Europe is a utopia that the US needs to emulate is intellectually dishonest and politically perilous.
3
Good one, Mr. K.: “Indeed, sometimes it feels as if centrists are Rip Van Winkles who spent the last 20 years in a cave and missed everything that has happened to America and the world since the 1990s.”
I respectfully disagree. Some centrists may indeed be back-woods swamp dwellers clutching their guns in one hand and a bottle of ever-clear in the other but I would argue the “center” is becoming something completely different:
We’re Cherry-Pickers!
Normally that would be considered a bad thing, but in politics that’s exactly what you want, someone willing to discard rubbish proposals no matter how many facebook friends it costs them, example:
President Trump has done an excellent short term job on China politics. His actions have been painful but necessary. We’ll take that! Senator Sanders really went to bat for over-worked and underpaid workers, putting pressure on big corporations to take more responsibility. That’s a keeper! President Trump says the IPCC “Climate Change” initiative is a hoax and Representative “AOC” says we need a “Green New Deal”; the solution to a Cherry-Picker is somewhere in the middle, because it is indeed NOT black and white as the left and right portray it! We certainly don’t need a well-meaning Swedish lady to come and tell us we’re deserving of a “how dare they!” statement — She needs to read more work from a famous SWEDISH climate researcher, Dr. Fred Goldberg, who is unfortunately no longer with us.
That’s what Political Cherry-Pickers do!
The Euro is doomed, claimed Krugman for years and years. An expert, yeah.
3
Way to go, Dr. Krugman! At long last, a NYT columnist asking the right questions and not dissing "democratic socialist" policies out of hand. Am a really seeing at least tacit support for the Progressive platform, and Bernie's in particular, and an admonition to the establishment?
Welcome Dr. Krugman!!! We could use your continued help!
1
100% correct.
Enough already with the centrist bashing. Biden's problems is not that he's a centrist. Obama was a centrist compared to Warren and Sanders. He wasn't perfect, he made mistakes, but he got stuff done when possible. And..... he got elected, Twice!
Warren is progressive, and if you think she'd have much chance getting her agenda passed (M4A, free college, etc...) then you are no more in touch with reality than Dear Old Uncle Joe. It really isn't any more complicated than that.
Even a big blue wave won't guarantee that agenda.
Despite what Warren says, this election IS about defeating Trump. Nothing else matters....
Stop the centrist bashing, Stop the Warren bashing.
1
Notes for all those nattering on about how wonderful France is:
It isn't such a nice deal for the massively unemployed in the Banlieue's who are mostly ethnic mostly unemployed. Not to mention it's youth unemployment rate of 20%. And even the employed under 30 have little hope of finding a job beyond the temporary contract level. Not to mention I'm sure all those folks in coloured vests are protesting because France is the paradise your boasting about. Or perhaps it's because they have summarily abandoned and left behind by their own Government? I wonder?
And on the amusing side of the news:
Democrat Sanders vows to halt immigration raids, deportations if elected president
Are progressives still claim the DEMS aren't open borders?
2
Gosh, PK -- such cute sarcasm!
“Warren would turn America into (cue scary music) Europe, maybe even (cue even scarier music) France.”
Maybe our media finds this scary. Many voters don’t.
Let’s have real comparisons of other capitalist nations, with real people in various walks of life---how they pay for/use HC, low tuition, family benefits, etc.
Remember when in a debate Sanders actually cited Denmark as a positive role model in some way? But Hillary Clinton emphatically answered --- “America is not Denmark!” End of discussion. She closed it down efficiently.
Seems US media keeps this mostly closed down---it's scared of looking too left wing-- as defined by GOP/FOX & cautious Dems. They’re setting the terms of discussion.
Our political culture has been dragged sharply to the right for years. Thus centrist policies in many nations, are painted left wing here. This disposes of them.
On cspan today, Tom Perez, Dem Natl Cmte Chair was asked if he’s worried the Dems will nominate someone ‘too left wing’…
He said…. The GOP is so off the rails to the far right, that they can call Dem solutions left wing. But polling shows on the issues most voters want progressive reforms.
Despite GOP & state media/ FOX News' daily lies, most voters are realizing what they must demand as their right.
A main blockage to what most voters want is big money politics, and the Court’s Citizens United decision. When will Paul Krugman ever write a column on this crucial factor?
Of course the best thing about Europe is that it has a foreign country providing all its defense needs.
That's what America should shoot for.
1
Bernie Sanders supporters and Trump supporters have so much in common it's ridiculous. Both have taken leave of their senses. Both have kicked reason and logic to the curb. Sanders and Trump are Jesus figures who can do no wrong. Negative comments about either are met with deep denial. Negative stories about either are dismissed as fake news. You can't reason with a Sanders or a Trump supporter.
A Democratic progressive nominee cannot win. Sanders or Warren will be annihilated. They're too extreme for America. We're not Europe. We're exceptional because we vote against our own self-interests. We're a racist and sexist country, and pie-in-the sky progress platforms simply won't cut it. If Democrats want to win they need to nominate someone like Joe Biden or any other grounded centrist. Otherwise we'll have four more years of Trump.
2
Krugman, I’m liking you more lately.
Perhaps Warren would turn America into Canada! Now there's a thought!
And most Republican voters have no idea what they are talking about. We know that Republican voters are likely to be less educated, white, male and rural. That is one of the most ignorant demographics in the US and they are proud of their ignorance.
1
I've lived in the US and now live in France. I've had cancer in both countries and France was so much better. In the US, my great health insurance dropped me after they paid for my treatment, so what would have happened next? No insurance, dropped insurance and pre-existing disease. I'd be dead by now. In France, the sicker you are, the more they cover free. Everyone pays a percentage of earnings into the system making it fair for everyone. There's also a VAT tax of about 20% on just about everything which is included in the price you see so if you can afford that article, included is the VAT tax which I also think is fair. Americans complain about taxes but they don't get as much for their low taxes. They don't have universal heathcare or good roads and rural areas don't have high speed internet, etc. You get what you pay for. Here we also get time to enjoy life with our families. Would Americans give up their Social Security? I don't think so but I bet if that was suggested today, Americans wouldn't support it.
It's even better:
Living in Europe means not only payable and Universal Health Care - it also means ''Secure Jobs which pay living wages'' -
''Free education'' - and still compared to my homeland the US -Affordable Housing -
(and the long payed vacations - of up to seven weeks were mentioned)- and there will no permanent return to the US before the homeland offers the same.
Talking to many French people, the sense I get is that the problem with France is not a weak economy leading to unemployment, but a mismatch in skills. While there are of course many unemployed people, many companies also have trouble hiring. This has nothing to do with the strict employment laws or workers rights, but because of the education system. They are relatively weak in STEM subjects, and many students opt to study liberal arts subjects. One could argue that French students have less incentive to choose a subject that gives them more employment opportunities because they do not have to worry about student debt as much as American students do. Most universities are free, and even the Grandes Ecoles such as Science Po cost less than 2000 Euros a year. They also don't have to worry about health insurance etc. The other side of the argument is, of course, people who do what they love instead of choosing a career based on remuneration are usually more successful at the end.
I have lived in the USA for 20 years (5 states) and 15 years in Germany. I run my own business. When you total the many taxes paid in the USA (local, school and etc.) the comparative taxes in both countries are fairly close with the exception of sales tax. The difference in Germany is that while not perfect, citizens nevertheless see and experience "their taxes at work". A baseline health system, significantly better infrastructure, low cost tertiary education and less urban blight. The quality of life index on virtually every level is higher in Germany and France than in the USA, sorry to report.
6
@Realworld Germany relies on the US for nuclear defense against Russia and everyone else with nukes. It has a paltry defense budget. Volkswagen polluted the US at will. With all Germany's wealth, it couldn't spare a dime for Greece. And Germany's got millions and millions of second class citizens otherwise known as Turks. Sorry to report.
That the U.S. is stuck in the past in their appreciation of the State of Europe is not a shock. Europe is reported about as well as Tokyo or Bankok, that is to say the information conveyed about foreign events is close to nil in the U.S. The death of the leader of Isis and mass protests in Lebanon have gotten merely a murmur in the press for example. If the public has no more information about Europe than, the Umbrella's of Cherbourg, or An American in Paris the commentary about public impressions of the European State is not surprising.
17 members of the EU are running either a budget surplus or a balanced budget, this figure looks like it will grow each year. The USA is running a 1 TRILLION usd deficit, nearly 5% of gdp. Balance the budget and the us goes into recession. The next economic crisis will not come from Europe, it will come from the USA and as its constantly living beyond its means.
2
I m generally critical of Krugman. In this one he is right. Or...partially right. In order to have a welfare system European countries spending in defense are low. Furthermore for a developed welfare Europe, maybe there is a need for a productivist less welfare America. In other words there is a need of complementary interests between Europe and the US.
I m convinced that American own poor people will enjoy of an European welfare style. My question is whether even an European welfare system would exist without an American productivist non welfare system.
1
Krugman is absolutely correct IMO. Progressive policy initiatives among democratic candidates for the most part are a matter of degree, really nothing more. In matters of addressing healthcare, taxation, wage disparities, infrastructure, global warming, etc, I fully expect the party’s platform to be robust - and also attacked as radical and socialistic. The 2020 election is huge and it’s time to jettison any conventional notions of “moderation” or “incrementalism” and go all in for a sea change in the fundamental nature of what we expect from our governance.. Time to take a stand.
2
Today's Centrists make Richard Nixon look decidedly liberal. As far as I'm concerned, they are as much part of the problem as the
Republicans. Enough is enough, it's time to storm the Bastille!
Do what Hilary Clinton already did years ago. She held a number of meetings with hospital administrators, doctors, nurses, patients, and the pharmaceutical industry. Many health organizations and HMO's were invited to participate. What should reimbursement look like? What benefits will be achieved by regular check-ups, both health-wise and cost-wise? Could some people tolerate a clinic-style setting for an appropriate group of services, while retaining your "personal physician" for the most part? Finally, Medicare by itself is limited and the fees for extending your "contract" are quite substantial. Hospitals are becoming "corporatized". Let me illustrate: The last time I visited an ER, I was seen, evaluated, treated, and discharged by a physician's assistant and a nurse. I never saw an M.D. Also, the P.A. wrote my discharge and gave the nurse the paperwork. I told the nurse that I had a question for her, but she never returned to speak to me. I was told that "It's all in your discharge notes". I had to take an ambulance home because I couldn't walk (for which I paid 75% of the bill). I might have a few things to say about getting what you need when you need it, and every patient's case is unique in some way. Medical care is an art form- listening, asking good questions, taking the time. Otherwise too many people are going to end up either with "nothing" or a poorly designed "something". And given the option, you'll sometimes wonder why you went to the trouble.
1
GOP is the party of cronyism, bailouts for the rich and then Milton Friedman for the rest. It’s utterly fake. Trump fits right in as its leader.
In the election Republicans will tell the same story about how too much tax and regulations stifle economy and the need for free markets,more privatisation to make competition strong and so drive down prices.
Whatever they say, they are really ,in general, working for their constituents which are not the voters, but big donating companies. Companies work to satisfy stockholders and they have a drive towards monopoly and higher prices, and for that they need to control politics and law.
2
Krugman's argument about GDP is wrong on its face. It's an elementary error for a Nobel prize winner. He tells us per capita GDP is higher in the US. But he says that that is because Europeans work fewer hours and have longer vacations. But, as he also states, more Europeans are in the work force. In fact, it's a lot more. So in Europe there are many more people working somewhat fewer hours and they still fall shy on GDP. It is beyond debate -- Europeans are considerably less productive than Americans. It's as if Krugman forgot to carry the one.
1
And yet it is not about the actual GDP, but the distribution of its effects that make societies either more or less livable. The GDP as a measure of 'success' is a poor choice. Best example is American infrastructure. That really is mostly stuck in its glory times somewhere in the 1980s.
I just spent time renting in Chicago, in the Loop, outstanding location, small apartment and BIG price tag. That landlord's contribution to the GDP was certainly great. The place?? Not so much. One-pane windows, heat goes straight out, the loop trains making so much noise that it just blows your mind (try standing next to a modern street car train in Germany or France and let's discuss that again....), and the condition of the streets in and around downlown is beyond help.
I would take the terrible French/European low GDP anytime. They seem to be able to actually make things WORK with less cash.
6
After years as water bearer for centrists, Krugman has taken a small step toward redemption. When he and Bob Herbert were duking it out over their presidential preferences (Herbert advocating for Obama), I considered their arguments as worthy as debating how many angels can fit on the sharp end of a pin. Both candidates were centrists, although Obama's platform was slightly to the left of Clinton's, he turned rightward once in office. Krugman continued his support of Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign while forcefully attacking the policy proposals of Bernie Sanders.
Any attempt to implement universal healthcare under President and Mrs. Clinton's reign was doomed when they got behind closed doors with representatives of the medical industrial complex, and created "managed care" which only made a bad situation worse. When Mrs. Clinton ran for president, a very optimistic and naïve supporter asked her during one of her "listening tours" how soon she would implement single-payer healthcare. Her response: "next question". The Obama administration like Bill Clinton's, tinkered with the present system without fixing it.
Krugman makes sure to point out that systems in European nations aren't perfect, as if anyone suggests otherwise, but democracies with mixed economies worldwide have far superior standards of living compared to the U.S. At least Krugman has acknowledged a political and economic reality that is rarely found in the NYT.
2
Prof. Krugman is ignoring the prevalence of temporary work contracts in Europe. Part of the protests in France and support for far right candidates is driven by the lack of opportunity, especially for the young. As to health care, most countries allow for a roll for private insurance companies. That said, we would benefit from analysing the various labor and health care policies in Europe. We are not European. But we do face the challenge of retaining our entrpeneurial business culture while ensuring a much more equitable distribution of the benefits.
2
Same goes to the problem that Americans talk about dealing with China, where their ideas of China came mostly from travel books and sightseeing. They have no clues about Chinese history, culture and way of life. Their taste of Chinese food comes from the Chinese restaurants in America where most the chefs are not even trained chefs.
Europe has much to teach Americans how to live.
2
Greetings from Bavaria. We usually have 30 work holidays plus 13 public holidays. We earn 20-30% less, but have free schools, (almost) free universities, public transport in our cities and mandatory public health & retirement insurance. Our Gini index is at 31.7, and most people work around 40 hours a week.
Oh, and we have a 6 times lower homicide rate. No active shooter drills.
And no voting machines.
So if this doesn't turn out too well in 2020....
11
As someone with family in Europe and who spends a decent amount of time there, I've often wondered why we choose to ignore the benefits so many European countries provide their citizens. We certainly have the resources to do so despite our country's gargantuan size.
But to the other point of Krugman's column: Though I'm not convinced a centrist could win in 2020, it's certainly a possibility, but then what? Go back to the status quo that gave us Trump? Trump is a symptom of a deeper affliction ailing America; sweeping it under the rug by simply returning to the status quo will, I suspect, result in another despotic right-wing demagogue down the line, perhaps this time a competent one.
The progressive candidates are actually proposing solutions that, whatever you may think of them, are aimed at tackling the deep structural imbalances in American society. Health care, education, inequality, the fact that we are increasingly ruled by plutocrats. What are centrists offering beside not-Trump? Their mantra seems to have become "no we can't." How is that going to inspire people to the polls? How is that going to inspire the Democratic base? How is that going to inspire the proverbial Obama-Trump voter disillusioned by Trump's empty promises to vote blue again? By promising him the same old stuff that caused him to pull the lever for Trump in the first place? Maybe the centrists would be better served moving to the left for a change, rather than expect progressives to move right.
8
We "of an older age" know well the nightmares that arose in the older European cultures from newsreels, movies, history books, school, and Television. But did we learn? No. Americans elected Trump and his opportunistic operators. So, it seems there is no history learned to avoid the pitfalls, but that the public is either not focused enough, or can't compute the fact that history repeats itself because people repeat their knowledge of history. I write that the European model is a much more mature learned result of those nightmares, so it is we that should emulate European social economic models rather than subscribe to the backwards centrist and conservative comforts with the way it always was, which was a nightmare.
Think of Progressives, centrist, and conservatives as a car. The kids want to race down the road to the future, the centrists are in the back seat passively enjoying the ride, and the conservatives are the parents telling the kids not to go fast and be home by eleven. All things in moderation they say.
The Democratic party succumbed to the oldest strategy of divide and conquer. We are victimized by an opportunistic Republican party that seeks to rob the future as we make it better. Shouldn't the party factions huddle and devise a unified strategy to defeat the locusts that are the Republicans?
1
Thank you for this international perspective. What I hope Democratic "centrists" take away is that developed economies expand and contract regardless of how many benefits their citizens enjoy and, although you didn't mention it, I assume how much in taxes, within limits, they pay for those benefits. The American economy did not collapse when Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the minimum wage and unemployment insurance were enacted to put a floor under capitalism. They did not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. To the contrary, a case could be made those safety net programs added some eggs to the basket. Certainly, the GI Bill was instrumental in growing our middle class The centrists stoke voter fear of "structural change" because they are themselves afraid. Fear never got us to a better place.
3
Excellent analysis - unfortunately many and perhaps the majority of voters don't have a clue what you're talking about. The dilemma is desperately trying to replace Trump without losing sleep the day after the election. That means no Sanders or Warren. Biden is questionable.
2
I will not vote for any candidate who will not support Medicare for All. Why can’t Americans have what citizens of every other first world nation have had for decades? Why shouldn’t we invest our tax dollars in our health care and our children’s education—instead of more trillions thrown at our bloated military industrial complex?
497
Almost no country has something equivalent to Medicare for All. What high functioning countries have is health is health insurance for all.
Why is this one solution the only one you will support?
40
@Zejee We can't have those things because they are politically unfeasible. Saying you plan to do something you know you can't is a way to win the nomination and lose the general election. Candidates should be saying, "I will try to get Medicare for all because that's who I am. I probably won't be able to pull it off and I'm telling you that up front because that's also who I am." There should be an array of fall back plans.
51
@Zejee Instead of being so fixated on Medicare for all, how about health insurance for all using Medicare as another option to private coverage.
Then the market will show which is best.
53
Recent studies have shown just how abysmally ignorant most Americans are of the wealth disparity here. Completely clueless, their minds are still stuck in the 1950's, and when asked to depict what they feel is a reasonable wealth divide, they invariably describe what prevails in Scandinavia. It's ironic that the people who are most disparaging of the European system are people who haven't been there, but are just reciting Fox talking points. Of those that definitely have been there, the plutocrats see the writing on the wall and will join forces with Trump's backwoodsmen, while the remainder will go with Warren or Sanders. I only hope that those two can make their case to all Americans and not just their supporters, something which our Twitterized, corporate debate format does not allow.
252
@stan continople The main harm of wealth disparity is that it seems so unfair. But if nobody knows about it the main harm doesn't exist. And you're just reciting a talking point like those you attack. This raises the proverbial question of whether, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
1
@michjas
So, if a group of people were starving, yet one of them was holding out and hoarding food, as long as no one knew, that would be fine? It's only the knowledge of it that makes it objectionable? Not exactly my definition of civilization, but I'm sure the current resident of the White House would agree with you 100%.
26
@stan continople
Most Americans are also abysmally ignorant about European health care systems because our mainstream media is either also ignorant or too lazy to give them the facts. One of those facts is that not all of the most advanced countries have single payer, Medicare for All systems. Several use the German “Bismarck” private health insurance model. That model has been working well for Germany since the late 1800s and has been successfully adopted but the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan and Belgium. We should have been discussing the pros and cons of the different approaches to universal health care, not being misled into thinking there is only one viable option. Whatever system we eventually chooses government oversight will be key to making sure providers don’t cheat.
18
I want to discuss your second question: "Which choice would give the party the best chance in next year’s election?" because I believe the nation and our global interests will be better served if the message "builders" focus their intellectual energy on electing a Democratic majority in the Congress.
When I think about the Constitution and its design for representative government (republic, states vs federal responsibilities, separation of powers, and the specific responsibilities of the Executive, the Senate, the House, and the Courts, and how our laws are made, I have concluded that we must give more more attention to fielding and supporting highly qualified candidates for the Congress.
One third of the Senate, 33 seats and 435 House seats are in the contest in 2020, and it is absolutely imperative for the people of this country to realize that we must encourage Democrats with qualities that all admire to run for the Senate and the House. Candidates who know their districts and their states and have the capability to make the most persuasive case for how they can address the needs of their districts and States.
If all the people with respected reputations show up at the candidate's state and district rally's, town halls, etc. and contribute to creating a "good government" message to address the needs of their States and districts, I can promise you that "We the People" will put this country on the correct course.
So I hope the Times will give more ink to the Congress.
@james jordan
President Trump seems to have a strong base and one indisputable component of that base is the G.O.P. members of the Congress who supported: (1) the Jobs and Tax Cut Act that worsened income inequality in the country and also slowed the economy, (2) the repeal of major trade treaties and unilateral imposition of tariffs, that destabilized the economy, (3) dropping our nuclear control agreement with Iran, (4) rolling back the environmental controls that were enacted to improve the condition of our air, water, and soil, (5) denying global warming and delaying the implementation of mitigation strategies, and (6) messaging support of cultural and ethnic positions that intensified the divisions in our society.
It would seem that the interests of this Nation would be better served if the the G.O.P members of the U.S. Senate were held accountable and turned out of office. This is the most urgent goal of the 2020 elections. Can you imagine what would have happened if the House had not gained a majority in 2018?
This column, and the ensuing discussion among readers, reminds me of medieval theologians arguing about how many angels will fit on the head of a pin. We have only one existential goal, one categorical imperative—that is to beat Trump. Every other issue, including healthcare, can wait to be resolved after the election.
To beat Trump, the Democrats must win 270 votes in the Electoral College. That outcome will be decided in three to six battleground states—so-called because their voters are evenly split in party loyalty—and where the result will turn on a relatively small group of moderate voters, so-called swing voters. Some such are Obama-Trump voters; others may be suburban Republicans.
The Democrats won over these moderate voters in 2018 by focusing on kitchen table issues, so-called because they are the issues that the voters, themselves, would raise in a discussion around their kitchen tables. Prominent among these were jobs, income gap, Social Security and healthcare.
The Democrats flipped 40 Republican districts to gain control of the House in 2018. They did so by focusing on these pocketbook issues, and avoiding 1) divisive cultural issues, 2) attacks on Trump and 3) grandiose, expensive-sounding policy proposals.
Isn’t it time, Prof. Krugman, that you began to discuss the lessons of 2018, and how to apply them in 2020? Unless we win, all our discussions of healthcare and other social policies will be seen as having been the idle chatter of a privileged elite.
412
@Ron Cohen Alternate theory -- outcome in those states will depend on the enthusiasm of the dems who do the ground work -- the young and the committed. If they don't believe the candidate will deliver meaningful change, then there won't be a big turnout and low turnout guarantees a trump victory.
68
@Ron Cohen
Winning will be pyrrhic at best unless the country of Rip Van Winkle wakes up to the fact that the world is much better than it ever was. Trump is not the problem he is but a symptom of what the GOP has wrought since the passage of the Civil Rights act in 1964.
Even overpopulation has been remedied and we are at maximum population and the world's population is set to start decreasing. We believe too many things that just ain't so. We have the technological that will cure us of our dependency on fossil fuels but the oiligarchs and plutocrats and oil sheikhs control the rudder.
22
@Montreal Moe
"Even overpopulation has been remedied and we are at maximum population and the world's population is set to start decreasing. "
Hmmm....Last I heard/read, the human population will reach 9 or perhaps 10 billion before it starts decreasing. Would be happy to read your source/s.
26
America is headed for a severe crisis. Too many people are living too close to their financial edge. Nothing in our culture encourages saving to deal with job loss, medical needs, or even retirement. Banks advertise how to use our money for pleasure and are tripping over themselves to give us loans. Having health insurance is not the same as being covered when it comes to how it works nowadays. We can't even save for retirement because we have college loans to pay off, rent to pay, food to buy, utility bills and credit card bills. Our salaries have not kept pace with the actual cost of living. That tax overhaul the GOP passed in 2017 did exactly nothing for 99% of us.
We refuse to spend money where it's needed but go out of our way to penalize those caught in the problems our stinginess has created. Arrest homeless people for loitering. Wreck their encampments. But don't change zoning laws or build decent affordable housing. Call people stupid for going to payday lenders but don't change why they go. Say that Americans are lazy or want to be unemployed but don't look at why they can't find jobs. Accuse them of being lousy patients while ignoring the rhino in the room: it's become too hard to figure out what's covered and what's not. Watch as the GOP defends its own inhumane actions and weep.
We vote for these policies because of who we put into office. If we don't like them we have to vote better.
11/7/2019 7:32pm first submit
392
@hen3ry If you run for a political role, I’d vote for that platform!
3
@hen3ry I wish I could recommend your comment more than once.
3
@hen3ry Great post! As an aside, those 'nattering nabobs of negativity' saying Amerikans lack choice have it wrong; we still have many choices...
- Casket or urn
- Paper or plastic
- Rent or mortgage
- Taxes or prison
- Submit to authority or die
... and so on...
1
"Europeans actually have significant vacation time and hence work fewer hours per year. This sounds like a choice about work-life balance, not an economic problem."
Absolutely correct. My present employer provided me with 9 weeks vacation as soon as I started. In Holland we have legal protections against vindictive or capricious employers. Here, employees are not afraid of their employers.
3
One of Warren's potential talking points, and one she should emphasize more, is her role in the creation of the consumer protection agency and its effectiveness in its operation under Obama. I'm not sure Europe has anything like that, but this agency is American made and designed to protect working people. And it is suffering under the Trump administration. The rhetoric may sound socialist, but the reality is home grown American.
658
To answer your question, yes this exists in Europe as well. Some counties even take it way beyond the American model.
27
@Eero The CFPB was not really that successful under Warren. If you measure success in terms of word count in new rules and regulations, then yes. But the actual impact of was minimal and in many cases counterproductive. If she runs on that record, she will be easily torn to shreds.
3
@Eero
There's nothing "socialist" about making sure people don't get cheated.
61
None of this should come as any surprise when politicians and the media are still throwing around Red-Scare terminology and tactics that Joe McCarthy was using in the 1950s.
It's been over 60 years since McCarthy pulled his garbage on the American public but we still trot out his scandalous methodology to try and ruin the likes of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren or the Representatives known as The Squad.
Most embarrassing of all is the lack of understanding by the American electorate. With little desire to do even a small amount of research into the plans or policies of the candidates we are destined to continue along a path with little to no real change.
3
Mr. Krugman cites France but Italy and Greece are in Europe too. Also I am a medical doctor, won no Nobel prizes, but I do know that the explanation given by Mr. Krugman would win him no Nobel prize in Medicine; namely that differences in life expectancy ( which has, incidentally, has risen enormously in USA in last two decades) between nations does not have an easy explanation. There are many factors to consider: population groups, severity of opioid use, diet, exercise. He offers no science to back his claim. Ovarian cancer survival is much higher in U.S. than England and I have seen many Europeans at Memorial-Sloan Kettering and my English friends tell me of long waits for procedures. These facts also prove nothing. Mr. Krugman should stick to economics and politics. He may not have any idea about whether Warren would do better than Biden. Maybe he should also look at polls this week in battleground states where Biden wins and Warren loses. Maybe then he'd have an idea.
4
Question, Mr. Krugman: Out of dozens of capitalist democracies, under varied systems, which ones have HC plans similar to Warrens and to Sanders?
Compare/contrast the financing and protections, here and abroad. This is the informative coverage we lack, that an economist could give to US voters.
Abroad, they're not all single payer. If insurance mandates, they have crucial regulations by elected govts, to keep premiums affordable for the majority. Our elected govts do not give this to Americans.
Is that too left wing to even discuss here?
Do EU conservative parties oppose this, and run on a GOP style high profit HC system?
What are insurance company profits like in other democracies with HC for all, vs in US? If Krugman can't write about that, who can?
Analyze the terms " pragmatic and workable" in our politics. Are insurance profits pragmatic, but Health Care for All is not? Who decides?
Voters need concrete, simple comparisons, from the candidates and the media:
What average Americans are forced to spend--net-- on HC without Warren’s plan VS with it.
Give examples of real people at many income levels.
Compare to same people in other capitalist democracies.
Compare each US candidate's proposals by this yardstick.
We need reality, not Reality TV media.
3
I am from Spain living in the USA for almost 60 years. I have come to the conclusion that the laws and the social welfare system in Europe can naot be established in the USA beacuse they ar different entities. The US is a Federal System while the EU is similar to a Confederation. Universal and Public heallth care was established in each EU country from more than 60 year, and is part of their culture, history and tradition. paradoxically in Spain was established during the right wing dictatorship of Franco. The centrists and right wing in Europe support it! In the USA its not possible on the Federal level and should be adopted by each state.
2
So you like being progressive or what I would call; caring and generous, you know, Like Jesus Christ who fed the hungry and healed the afflicted. Well, I do too.
Take your examples for instance of the high price of Broadband and fossil fuels. Republicans have traditionally served the interests of profits over people. The F.C.C. Chairman who oversees broadband is a former Verizon attorney. Do you think that having so many corporate servants accustomed to the pressures of profits are going to serve the interests of the customers? Or how about Trump's first Secretary of State was former Exxon chief Rex Tillerson whose was responsible for international commerce. Oil is big. The Republicans repealed the long standing ban on exporting American crude oil to make a fast buck while leaving no national strategic resources for their own children. Another case in point is Trump the trasher who will pollute the air and water his own kids have to have.
But your argument is the conflict between centrists and progressives in the Democratic party. So what's wrong with that? That means as the Republicans believe in their strategy of It takes a pillage, we are infighting, just what they wanted.
Begin with the premise that Democrats are good caring people who focus on the needs of all Americans whereas the Republicans only seek to enrich their own at the expense of all others.
We have to look past common party rivalries and save the nation from Conservatism.
Krugman is right but the issue he is arguing is beside the point. Getting rid of Trump is the only urgent priority, and running on policies that jeopardize a Democratic victory is the biggest example of being out of touch. Krugman is out of touch.
4
Selecting a candidate by determining what policies will lead to a victory over Trump is a fully subjective endeavor and an impossible one to accomplish. What’s worse is that it is also the strategy Trump wants his opponent to project: fear. As in: “I’m afraid if we don’t run a candidate with these views, then we will lose.” Let’s let the primary voters decide what policies are best, then help get out the vote. We can count on Trump being vitriolic to whomever gets the nomination. That’s a given.
3
One of Krugman's best columns in a long time.
Hard to go wrong with assuming that American political pundits evoking another part of the world (among numerous other instances!), " have no idea" what they're "talking about."
But the column does not assume that. It shows it quite convincingly.
5
From the start, I had a problem with Warren’s Mandatory Medicare For All and I have bigger problem with it now after I’ve been diagnosed with DCIS non invasive breast cancer . My course of treatment will be a mastectomy and reconstruction. Hopefully , if they don’t find any cancer after examining all the breast tissue remover after surgery , I’ll be spared chemotherapy or radiation .
After my diagnosis I then spent the next week doing research online reading dr reviews to find a breast surgeon with skill and a heart . After the first one ( that my medical group assigned to me who was horrible ) , and another one who was totally aggressive and mean , I found the most wonderful kind and knowledge surgeon for my care . It has made all the difference in the world in putting me at ease and giving me the confidence I need to move forward . And I preferred a woman .
What if all we had was a government plan ? Would I still be able to shop around for the surgeon I wanted , not one that was “ assigned “ to me ? Would I be able to pick my own plastic surgeon for the reconstruction? Or have to take what they give me .
I know I pay a lot for my health ins but I want to get the dr I want , not the next government dr in line . Maybe I would be able to pick my dr , I don’t know because Warren hasn’t said anything about that . My view is let’s put it into use as an “option” . Then people can see how it works and buy into it if they choose .
2
So wrong on many levels. Why is the doctor you want the most expensive one? I noticed that in certain circles, automatically believing if a doctor is not expensive he cannot be good, a direct result of our medical system.
3
@Sue My husband and I have had standard Medicare for eight years through several heart episodes, skin cancer/cosmetic surgery and garden variety ailments. We have always picked our own doctors and hospitals. We have never encountered a physician of any kind who would not accept Medicare. I have heard Sanders say explicitly that physician choice is assured.
5
Um, since when have we been able to pick the doctor we want with private insurance? We have to pick whomever takes our insurance. If your insurance changes, you have to find a new doctor.
If we had single payer, every doctor would take it and we really could see whomever we wanted to.
4
I really appreciate Paul's perspectives but on this column I take issue. We need to keep our eyes on the primary goal of this election: defeating Trump. Look at the broad view: all the Democratic candidates are strong on healthcare, environment, equality and justice; they differ on how to best achieve these positive policy goals. I consider myself a Centrist, and contra to some of the comments, I have never voted Republican and despise their political philosophy nor do have "Europhobia." Can we please avoid the stereotyping? The reality many progressives fail to accept is that this country as a whole is not nearly as liberal as they seem to think. If elected, which is unlikely, Warren or Sanders would need a Democratic majority in both Senate and House, which at this point seems iffy, to get her "plans" implemented.
The reality is to win we need a more balanced approach that will appeal to moderates/centrists and independents. We need to win the presidency; keep the House; and take the Senate. That's a big order. We need a candidate with broad appeal, not a "revolution."
4
There are basically 3 major systematic problems that the US must face to avoid failing as a nation in the not too distant future:
1) Gross income inequality
2) Climate change
3) An out of control health care system.
Centrists acknowledge the problems but ignore the urgency. In the last 40 years little has been done to ensure that those problems will not get worse. Progressive may be too ambitious, face enormous political hurdles but understand the urgency. One question centrists should answer: how long will it take with their go slow approach to actually make a dent in the above problems?
In particular how will we get to zero greenhouse emissions by 2050, how will they make sure the cost of medical care will not increase faster than inflation, and how do they see reducing income inequality in the lifetime of those forming families today?
11
@Serban Excellent, concise assessment. Those are the three issues Democrats should hammer home and leave the other items in the progressive agenda, as important as some are, for another day. No more Hillary "shopping lists"! When people vote, they need only two or three good reasons to vote for a candidate.
2
@Serban. I would add a fourth one: the cost of higher education. Student loans are shackling our youth right from the start.
We have had enough of the disastrous Neo-Con policies of the Democratic Leadership Council under Clinton which led to growing inequality and wars of aggression abroad. These establishment Democrats like Biden and Clinton serve as enablers for Wall Street, the military industrial complex, and led us to the disastrous Trump regime.
3
Hear, hear! Thank you Paul.
Just a couple of quibbles though.
Firstly I don't think it's right to point out "that European nations have lower G.D.P. per capita than we do" without mentioning that median incomes and wealth are generally higher in European countries than in the US (or in other words that income and wealth inequality is lower). I know I don't have to tell you that medians rather than means (or averages) give a more accurate picture of the reality for most people of a community; and that relative differences in status are imbued with greater significance in the reasoning of most human persons than absolute differences.
Secondly I think it's fair for all to give France a bit of a whack. Considering its high tax take and social spending as a percentage of GDP, it should be doing much better according to some important political, social and economic indicators than it is. It might be doing better according to most of them than the US, but it is doing worse according to some of them than other countries with similar levels of taxation and social spending such as Denmark and Sweden (e.g. social progress, opportunity, happiness). Could it be because it's actually rated as a worse democracy than the US? (#29 compared to #25 for US - and #5 for Denmark and #3 for Sweden). Seriously, what gives France?
I love Sanders and Warren, but they would do better to argue for a public option rather than MFA.
The Euro is a disaster. Europe is trying to be both one country and many. You can't have it both ways. You're either one or the other.
And stop calling it "stimulus". What countries need to do is eliminate the "fiscal drag" of not printing enough money to account for the trade deficit and private sector savings desires.
Trade deficits are good things. They mean you are getting more real goods and services than you are giving out. All other countries are getting is your currency, and you can control what they are allowed to buy from your country in the future.
3
The unemployment rate in Spain, Italy, Greece is unacceptable to any American.
Europe doesn’t outlaw private insurance completely
Europe has a lot of soft protections of their auto and agriculture industries.
Europe doesn’t pay full price for pharmaceuticals or defense.
A lot of younger people in EU are on contract and not full time employees of the companies they work for.
1
There are a lot of gig workers here, too. And we don’t have near the social safety net to help those workers when they need it.
8
Why single out Spain, Italy, Greece? And American industries also receive protections. And have you heard of 'gig culture'? That's what work is for lots of young Americans. Your concerns are overblown.
Centrist have been pretty uninspiring. Biden in particular. If the message is that the Obama years were great, you should realize many people voted for Trump because it did not feel like that to them.
We need bold reforms and new blood. Incrementalism should not the goal, it can be tactic for some things but without a bold long view, incrementalism leads to dead ends.
De-carbonizing the economy within 30 years is a bold goal we can get close to meeting if we have the courage of taking the first steps.
Stopping tax dollar support for Oil and Gas production and re-investing those dollars into infrastructure to improve our energy efficiency and carbon foot print. Oil and Gas wants to still be in the game, have them sequester their CO2 emission and support base electric load where there is no hydro power to use as a production buffer. Get them to invest in sea base green electricity productions …. Lets send some strong market signals that the future is coming and it will not be written by the ones with their head in the sand.
4
Macro economic metrics are important, and Paul Krugman is certainly ideally positioned to judge on the overall health of economic and governance systems, but I am glad he is also considering the quality of life of individuals as a critical element, which is often ignored in the US where politicians tend to emphasize material wealth and spending power over other considerations.
In fairness, the two elements cannot be dissociated. A minimum of material wealth is necessary to have a good life, but good health and pleasant and safe living conditions are also absolutely essential for each and every human being.
8
@Fly on the wall
"the quality of life"
I sometimes wonder if Americans understand this concept. More vacation time... longer life expectancy... no worries about losing everything because of illness. That's worth a lot!
But don't imagine that Europeans don't have money. The median French family has a higher after-redistribution revenue than the median American family.
"Average" is pointless with billionaires in the mix. Before-redistribution bears little ressemblance to the real world.
5
The only problem with Dr. Krugman's analysis is that whether Democrats agree on Medicare for All or other progressive programs, there are still Republicans running the Senate and it is not even conceivable that any of these worthy programs can get 60 votes in the Senate, even if the Democrats keep the house and make some gains in the Senate. Why should the Democrats push programs they can't conceivably pass when those very programs are the ones that give the GOP their "socialist" talking points and the ones that may drive away voters who are on the fence?
4
@Mark: We don't need 60 votes in the Senate for everything. A simple majority can pass a budget reconciliation measure that addresses major issues, as long as the measure clearly affects the budget and stays within established limits of budget impact. That's how the R's passed the absurd tax cut bill.
3
Democrats only need to win 4 seats to flip the Senate. Dream bigger and vote! Maybe even put some money into the race and help make a difference.
Our problems are so huge that we need bold new strategies to fix them. I'm talking about the impending catastrophe that is climate change, our aging population that will need more and more long term care, the income and wealth gap that if allowed to continue could destroy capitalism and our lack of policies that will address the shortage of workers for both skilled and unskilled jobs. The shortage of workers in many communities and in many job areas is huge and growing. Shortages such as doctors in rural areas, skilled workers in the building industries and the lack of qualified teachers in many small towns. A smart immigration policy could solve some of these shortages but the prejudice and fear on the part of members of one party in this country keeps us from being able to move forward on this issue. If these impending problems are not addressed Americans will have no one to blame but themselves for not paying attention and getting involved. Most adult citizens care so little that they can't even be bothered to vote at a time when citizens of many other countries are dying for that same right. Shame on us.
5
The United States of America, the land of Perception Management run by corporate America, and its wealthiest elites, specifically for corporate America and its wealthiest elites, engaged in a 24/7/365 several decades-long campaign of disenfranchisement of the poor and the middle-class, using every imaginable tactic, especially perception management, via the mainstream media, to keep the masses in a constant state of fear, so they can be manipulated into voting against their own best interests.
This is why today our nation is so badly divided, with a level of inequality the likes of which we have never seen, with rural America poverty stricken and unlikely to recover, tens of millions of Americans no longer looking for work, and tens of millions more barely existing on subsistence type wages, unaffordable and no healthcare, crumbling infrastructure, and no real hope for any sustainable change.
And now Bloomberg, another sometimes Republican, sometimes Democrat, depending on how effective the perception management programs have worked, may step into the game, obviously courted by the Republican-Lite Pelosi Schumer democrats, shaken badly by the reaction to Joe Biden, in an all or nothing effort to keep Warren or Bernie Sanders from restoring a true representative democracy here in our dying Republic.
Yes indeed, the American dream, become the American nightmare.
10
We hear constant negative talk about European citizens paying high taxes. But let's define---what is a 'TAX'?
The big fees we Americans must pay to high profit insurance, pharma and hospitals function as a TAX. We must pay, or we don't get the crucial services we need for our life and health.
This is levied by corporations, not the govt we elect to represent our interests.
The corporations that levy health care taxes for their profits, and other expenses on us all, also make our elected officials dependent on their $$ donations to conduct campaigns. Then our own highest court legalizes this money as 'free speech--- while it drowns out the voice of average citizens.
Our biggest campaign expense is said to be the high cost political advertising on media, needing big donors to fund.
Many countries ban the paid political ads on their media that swamp our voters. They don't want their political discourse to be directed by high-profit, special interests. See Wikipedia. Many ripple effects.
When will economist Krugman and other NYT columnists include these huge factors in their columns, as they lament our politics?
14
Another problem in Europe: Population decline. This, i In addition, to deficit-phobia, is causing economic problems for Europe. In fact, Germany has the oldest average population in the world.
2
How is this a problem when there are plenty of immigrants
Seems to me there’s an easy fix to that, more immigration.
I kinda think the idea of this article is outdated. I talk politics every day with everyday people and I haven’t heard anything about the US becoming too European in years. The last time I heard my contemporaries talk about France was having to do with freedom fries.
2
@Allen J
Not hearing about the dangers of European Socialism?
You don't live in a Red state; This is one of the more popular memes among the "educated" (Edamacated?) voters around here. We can't be like Denmark (Never mind Arkansas has a population SMALLER than any of the Scandinavian countries); We don't want none of that commie socialism. (Honest); Well, you get the picture.
So they elect clueless ideologues like Tom Cotton, who seems NOT to have been broadened in any useful way by his government funded foreign travel.
1
From my experience, it appears most of the people afraid of free college and widening the safety net (if they aren’t rich) don’t own passports.
8
When you see billionaires crying at the thought Elizabeth Warren might make them pay more in taxes, you know you are dealing with people who have a skewed view of the world. (And why does Michael Bloomberg think only another billionaire can defeat Trump?)
All those people who want to go back to the good old days when America was the unquestioned leader of the free world and the unchallenged economic giant have forgotten A) the rest of the world was still recovering from World War II, and B) the tax rates Eisenhower had to work with. These days Eisenhower would be seen as a communist.
20
That was absolutely disgusting to watch a billionaire cry because he might have to pay a few more percentage points in taxes. There’s plenty of people in this country who have something real to cry about. The homeless, people who can’t afford the medicine to keep them alive, families bring bankrupted because Grandma needs dementia care & they can’t afford it. Those are people who have something to cry about. No billionaire is going to have to change their lifestyle because of these taxes. They will still be fabulously wealthy.
1
I consider myself progressive liberal of the center, but I do not classify as such any of the Democratic pretenders to the throne, and of course none of their Republican equivalents. The current crop of Democratic candidates is an assemblage of radically open socialists or crypto-socialists, with a strong following of militant vegans and promoters of recreational use of cannabis.
God save the USA from them and their ilk.
8
What do you have against Medicare for all and free college education? Why can’t Americans have what citizens of every other first world nation have had for decades?
10
@Tuvw Xyz
It's a binary choice. Four more years of Trump and the Gang of Kleptocrats, or one of the Democrats.
My preference is for Elizabeth Warren. Let's get back to where we thought we were economically in 1980, with some social improvements. Like Medicare for all.
2
@Zejee, just to be clear, what's been proposed about higher education costs is zero tuition at public universities and colleges, not "free college education."
3
Centrists are what rich Democrats call candidates that won't make them decide between voting for their money or voting for their country.
55
Another problem with today's centrists is that they lean toward the right. Hence, their paranoia about social justice, income re-distribution, "socialist" health care and policies that have given European countries a better quality of life. Today's centrists lack what they were best known for in the past - objectivity, balanced approaches and critical thinking.
The greatest economic debacle of the past two decades has been the worsening income disparity. Whatever faults maybe ascribed to progressives, centrists are unwilling to respond to this emergency.
366
@Nav Pradeepan "The greatest economic debacle of the past two decades has been the worsening income disparity." Is that so? And why has that been the greatest economic debacle? Progressives just assume this to be true. But it isn't. Income inequality is not as big a deal as progressives imagine it to be. But let's just suppose that it is. The reasons progressives give about its cause and their proposals for its cure are often wrong. Even if the causal mechanisms are targeted, the "cures" would often be worse than the disease they're attempting to remedy.
And why are we putting scare quotes around "socialist"? That's exactly what it is. Does Bernie Sanders use scare quotes? Progressives should try it without them from now on; at least then they'd be more honest. Do progressives imagine that none of the rest of us care about the world? Disagreeing with progressive policies somehow turns one into an avaricious and malicious demon. Progressives can label their policies however they wish, socialist, capitalist, Rastafarian. I have my own way of labeling them. It's very simple. Here goes: bad.
4
@Nav Pradeepan
Here in Quebec we can look across the border to see how ill prepared America is to serve its people. The cost of good schools, good healthcare and a society that provides for everyone is high but the cost of poor healthcare, poor education and ever increasing alienation is catastrophic.
If you told me Canadians would have a higher standard of living than American in 1980 I would have asked for some of whatever you were smoking.
31
Maybe it’s not such a big deal to you because you aren’t one of those trying to live on an inadequate income.
14
Ok, talking about whether the most progressive ideas are actually good ideas is fine (I happen to think they are), but can we also talk about what is actually doable in our culture with our situation and our government?
I would call myself a practical liberal rather than a centrist. My concern is that Sanders, Warren et al are preaching a place the country won't go. Too often attempts to have it all end up in having nothing (or having Trump until 2024 which is far worse than having nothing).
358
@Anne-Marie Hislop
On the point!
14
@Anne-Marie Hislop
Exactly! Progressives seem to think that the unique awfulness of Trump and his unpopularity means they can finally have every policy idea on their fantasy wish list. The sky's limit! They can't, and it's not.
31
@Anne-Marie Hislop If the country won't go there, then they won't win the primary. Much as I love Sanders' platform (IMO he doesn't go far enough but no one would) and while there may have been some fingers on the scales in 2016, he did lose the primary. The D voters chose the centrist (or the pragmatic liberal) and the rest of the country/electoral college gave us Trump.
This could happen again no matter what. We should all vote whoever we feel comfortable with. Nothing else to do - this discussion on the Internet is always fun but it doesn't move the needle especially writing from places like Chicago or NYC.
What I think is more important is that we should agree to support the D nominee no matter what. If we did, then it won't be an issue. Already I hear so many people saying "If it's Warren, then I'll stay home or vote for Trump." Then go for it is what I'd say - you deserve Trump if that's your attitude. It means the country hasn't suffered enough yet and hasn't hit rock bottom.
Likewise with the Warren/Sanders voters who may stay home if Biden wins. In 2016, a fraction (let's say 10% - I think this is close to right) of Sanders voters stayed home. In 2008, a similar (slightly larger) fraction of Clinton voters stayed home instead of voting for Obama. Obama overcame this due to the minority support but could Biden?
Both sets of voters are an issue. If Warren wins the primary fair and square, and then if the country still chooses someone else, it's their problem.
47
Western Europeans are better off than Americans, unless the latter happen to "weigh" $3 million for a couple and $5 million for a small family. Then, they may actually look French and perhaps even speak it.
4
@Marco Avellaneda
Got me here. Oui, Oui.
Grew up in France, worked in the US for 20 years saved money bought a few houses and moved to Canada. Cause even with millions, I am not looking forward to grow old in the US.
The unemployment rate in France is 8.4% versus 3.6% in the US. Growth is so pitiful in Europe that the 10 year bond has a negative interest rate. At least Macron is trying to reverse the socialist policies. Let's trade Warren for him.
5
@Blair A Miller: A better measure than unemployment rate, which does not count folks who are not seeking employment, is labor participation rate. By that measure, assuming Prof. K is correct, Europe and France are doing better than the U.S.
Also, France has a lower population growth rate than the U.S. I wonder how the GDP growth, per capita, compare between the USA and France.
9
@Blair A Miller , while our unemployment rate may be lower, we also suffer from a glut of low paying service jobs, jobs that in many cases are simply not providing a living wage. Even the much bandied $15.00 an hour minimum wage wouldn't get an individual enough to buy or rent a closet in most of the major metropolitan regions of the two coasts of the United States, or even the metropolitan centers of much of the interior of the country. And even if you could afford to rent an apartment on such a salary for, say, $1,000 a month, you ain't going to have much left over for food and clothing...and God forbid, a car payment. And you sure aren't going to be able to put yourself or your kids through college. Oh, I know, I know, there are always the noteworthy and heart-warming exceptions. , the modern day hard-working Joads who can live on water-soaked bread and save for a rainy day. But let's get something straight: that 3.6% unemployment rate papers over a lot of misery out there.
11
The unemployed in France don’t have to worry about affording health care or paying off high interest student loans. The employed in the USA still may not be able to afford health care or college even when working 2 or 3 low wage jobs which are the majority of all jobs in the USA
9
I believe part of the problem is a failure to communicate. A failure to effectively communicate progressive values and policy. Instead, others, whether Republicans or Centrists, have communicated what a progressive is and the dangers they pose. Progressives have lost control of their own narrative and what they strand for.
A good example is immigration. The current progressive narrative on immigration is that progressives want open borders. Even I sometimes wonder if certain progressives do want open borders? Or do progressives want a responsible immigration system where immigrants are treated fairly and compassionately, but still have to meet certain requirements,
The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 was a bipartisan immigration reform bill that would have provided legal status and a path to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants, while increasing border security. It passed the Senate, but failed in the House of Representatives.
Progressive candidates would go a long way towards countering the scare tactics of Trump if they would state they do not in any way propose open borders, but would support something like the BSEOIMA of 2013.
5
Our country has moved so far to the right over the last 40 years that I see centrists as people who think things are mostly fine right now and only incremental changes need to be made. Today's centrists are sit pretty far to the right. I see progressives as people who think we need to erase the last 40 years of economic policy fairly quickly.
I think the progressives need to spell out how medical costs, student loans, taxes, corporate wealth, and wages have hurt everybody but the upper classes these last 40 years. I don't know if people in the red states would listen, but the progressives ought to try to get this message through. They need to change the conversation in this country.
757
@David Biesecker I agree. I agree with Liz; we need significant change. The ideas that she and Benie are touting are seen as center-left in Europe.
98
@David Biesecker Agree - to add to that, I would suggest that 'incrementalism' is what defeated Clinton: people know that if you're in negotiation over bread, and you ask for half a loaf, you'll get in this climate 1/6 of a loaf. You might as well ask for a full loaf. Anything else is a shivering cowardice on policy that marked the horrid 90's in Democratic think-tank-thinking.
74
@networthy On social issues, the country has slowly moved slowly forward, though woman's issues have been going backwards lately. The same can be said of LGBT issues. I was talking about economic issues.
31
According to The Economist, unemployment in the U.S. is 3.5%. In Germany it’s 3.1%. France is running at 8.5%.
4
Numbers don’t tell the whole picture. Most of those jobs created in the US are low wage.
2
Not only are today's centrists stuck in the '90s, they're also too ready to accept far right talking points on the economy. They won't stop asking how we can afford Medicare for all but almost never ask how we can afford tax cuts for corporations and the super-wealthy. These centrists may as well be Reagan-era Republicans.
1022
@Eric Caine
They’re not? Who keeps having fundraisers with roomfulls of wealthy corporate donors? Who keeps promising to take us back to 2016 while telling the wealthy not to worry, that nothing much will change? Who voted with Republicans on every rollback and gimme?
119
@Eric Caine
That old “ who will pay for it” refrain is tedious if not specious. Every other country pays less for better outcomes than we do. It’s a money saver, but you’d never know it if your following the debate in most media.
176
@Rima Regas Answer: $tatu$ Quo Joe Biden.
33
The US fiscal fraud in Europe amounts to 20 % of the EU budget ,equivalent to the EU deficit annually.
Why is it never in the US press ?
Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Starbucks, Netflix, and others , are not US fiscally registered firms. They are European. They are all in Ireland and Luxemburg because there they can cheat and use tricks to pay no taxes while using the infrastructures, stealing jobs, all advertising business, all competitive markets and invading all the fields of business all over Europe. They pay zero taxes. Just Google repatriated 20 billion dollars in 2018 without paying 1 $ of tax in Europe. Then they use du ious fiduciary transactions through London to get the cash back to the US via the semi illegal off shore banks of the Caribbean. See the Panama papers film...
Without the dishonesty of Americans , European workers would be much better and they have to pay for the 20 % stolen by American corporations in an economy based on participation ,for free health care, free education, culture public investment.
All things that are unknown to Americans.
but when you come play in our game why do you cheat and not respect the rules.
They also steal European private data, not respecting the European laws of copyrights, etc...
26
I think I understand in the article what are Progressives and what is Europhobia, however I do no get who are the centrists except as some who reject anything which sounds progressive as well as Europe. If my interpretation is correct, I still need to know if the centrists of the article belong to the democratic party and what percentage they represent. It seems to me that too many "centrists" are getting nervous about a Democratic candidate that can be labeled "progressive" or for that case a socialist. Why is then the Democratic Party allowing Bernie Sanders to run in its primaries. I hope it is not the Democraicc Party the one who is out of touch with reality.
3
@berale8
The centrists are the democratic establishment of conservative people like Biden. They are centrists because the center has moved to the right. The progressives are the common-sense centrists now.
8
@ARL I am confused. The center has to be in the middle of something. If it has moved to the right it is not the center of the same thing it was before. Please tell to which center yo refer in each case.
So good to read Paul Krugman the realist. Most of the reporters and their readers have never heard of true progressivism, because they were never exposed to it in the last 40 or 50 years. Ronald Reagan is what they learn, not Franklin Roosevelt or even Eisenhower, for heaven's sake!
It's going to take a lot of educating the angry and disinterested.
51
@laurenlee3
I wouldn't even call FDR a true progressive, much less Ike. FDR was pushed by true progressives and a fear of revolution into some excellent policies that still benefit us today, and he has never been forgiven by the majority of the billionaire class who have been running things in this country -- running them down -- ever since Reagan.
25
@Thomas Zaslavsky FDR deserves much more credit than that. I’ve heard the revisionist history that FDR was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the New Deal. That’s simply false. Roosevelt’s post war vision, embodied by his Second Bill of Rights, adopted by him when he was under no economic or political pressure, is a true representation of where his head was at. FDR is THE American progressive.
12
@Todd
We really agree. I would never say "kicking and screaming"; that is some nutty revisionist history. I said he was pressured by circumstances and progressives. FDR was very adaptable and preferred to go towards progression instead of repression. He was a great president, great enough to "welcome" the hatred of the billionaire class (in today's money). Who is that now? Bernie, maybe Warren. I would call FDR "progressive" but not "a progressive", because my definition of the latter is quite strict.
2
If we as a people and by that I mean all of us at all economic levels agree that our ship of state is on the wrong course we can turn her about and sail into a future over which we at least have a fair and progressive nation.
The future of our nation and if we are wise, our continent, will be determined by the unity of trust that must develop if we are to survive.
If those who have become wealthy beyond dreams were to be reimbursed for their time effort and knowledge proportionately, the "trickle down" effect would not only eliminate poverty it would bring prosperity to all of us.
It is correctly pointed out that Europe is facing a crisis of "political fragmentation and ideological rigidity" and the same thing is happening here.
We can stop this.
We can open our eyes to the coming winds of change or we can, as we have so often, place our trust in the fictions so freely preached by those who are entirely too willing to accept any reality beyond the only one any of us know.
4
Europeans believe that none of their fellow citizens should do without a decent social safety net. Americans believe that their fellow citizens who want any kind of a safety net are no-good freeloaders who refuse to work. This is why we'll never be Europe, because we just don't have the genrosity of spirit towards our fellow citizens that those who live in European nations have towards theirs.
166
@Mark Lebow
Agreed, but that didn't used to be the case. (See: Roosevelt, Franklin, et al). In my lifetime, it was Ronald Reagan who continually told us taxes were bad, government is bad, only privatizing everything is wonderful. Now we're stuck with 40 years of people being born and growing up with that misinformation.
76
@Mark Lebow Totally agree. I was so shocked (and I'm not trying to be sanctimonious or morally superior here) when I first heard the "I've got mine, why should I care about anyone else?" from an American. It just boggles the mind - you live in a SOCIETY, of course you should be concerned about what your fellow citizens have or don't have. Otherwise how does your society function?
6
@laurenlee3 That was why Reagan was so awful. A generation of brain washed boomers.
1
If Krugman and the media would inform Americans about French and European protections for citizens---like how they've financed HC for all for generations---it would give our politics a shot of reality---in instead of more Reality TV political talk.
We don’t see French or other citizens doing street protests, in colored vests, against their taxes for their health care, pushing to change to our US high profit model---that leaves out millions and overcharges millions more.
Our media must ask our politicians, why not?
Let's throw at our politicians these contrasting examples of what’s been working for generations in other capitalist democracies--- with centrist, accepted govt regulation for the public interest.
They like profit too, but their political center doesn't make profits the highest priority over citizens lives, health, and financial security.
Their courts don't equate big money in politics with 'free speech'.
Could Krugman comment on the following?
A few dates when countries started HC for All….from True Cost Blog's longer list.
Is it too ‘left wing’ to discuss this? How do they do it, PK?
If you as a liberal Nobel economist, interested in inequality, can’t tell us, who can?
Norway 1912 Single Payer
New Zealand 1938 Two Tier
UK 1948 Single Payer
Canada 1966 Single Payer
Netherlands 1966 Two-Tier
Finland 1972 Single Payer
France 1974 Two-Tier
Australia 1975 Two Tier
Switzerland 1994 Insurance Mandate
11
Switzerland has insurance, but they’re required to be not for profit.
3
@Vasari Winterburg
Seems many countries, if not single payer, use insurance mandates as the US does. But unlike the US, their govts regulate the cost of insurance premiums so their citizens can afford them. This is centrist policy, not left wing. Less insurance profits.
What's been centrist here is for our govt to protect excessive insurance and pharma profits, thus leaving millions of citizens unprotected by the officials they elect.
Medicare can't even negotiate drug costs with pharma. We need our columnists to make it plain how much we differ from other countries.
5
@Meredith
Germany goes back to Bismarck, the 19th century, and has not-for-profit insurance.
5
If Biden wins and McConnell is re-elected, the first thing that he will say on Inauguration Day is that he wants Biden to be a one term president.
McConnell has said that before about the opposition party when we were in the midst of an economic collapse with two wars. They would rather see turmoil than unity.
40
@Mark Smith
Probably true. But after those 4 years of a Biden presidency, many of the Boomers whose political leanings are all over the place will have acquiesced to the younger generations wish to just plain disappear, and they will have been replaced by current 13-16 year olds whose leanings are undoubtedly leftward. I am not a Biden fan (and I see Sanders, but not Warren, as a possible winner this time around) but I can see the value of holding the Republicans at bay for 4 years until the overall voting population is more amenable to Big Change. And I do regard a Charge of the Light Brigade and consequent 4 more years of Trump as possibly the last time I will see (presumably) free and fair elections in this country.
1
@Mark Smith He will not this time. Last time he did the President was black.
1
"By all means, let’s talk about whether “Medicare for all,” wealth taxes and other progressive proposals are actually good ideas."
Progressive media have been trashing Biden for his centrism. Warren is sinking her ship with constant talk about taking away private health insurance. There are no other viable Democratic presidential candidates for the general election. In fact, these two are not really viable.
Meanwhile, the stock market is heading for another record high while unemployment numbers remain at record lows. Trump has successfully cowed the Fed. He could very well "solve" the China trade war next year to send the economy completely through the roof.
The only real chance for near-term change in America rests with the impeachment inquiry. Nancy Pelosi and the House should keep it going through the election as a constant barrage of negative publicity against Trump. They should not turn it over to the Republican Senate, which will not convict Trump and that will gaslight the voting public into believing that nothing happened that was wrong, except partisan Democrats fomenting divisiveness and subsequently whining that they did not get their way.
Honestly, the impeachment inquiry is all that's left to talk about, if we actually think we have any hope of ousting Trump and his GOP enablers next year.
10
Gosh, I hope your sense of optimism isn't contagious.
The only people that love their private health insurance are the ones who haven’t tried to use it for anything big yet.
America and Europe were not so far apart politically until the Reagan Revolution and the rise of the modern Republican Party beginning in the 1980s. Even then, the degree to which Red America was leaving the civilized world behind -- and veering off into redneck populism -- was not immediately apparent to the rest of the world in the '80s and '90s because Presidents Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton were smooth operators, and much of the damage Republicans were doing was directed within the United States (rather than at the rest of the world).
But that changed with the new millennium and the Bush II and Trump Presidencies. I have personally observed the resulting sea change in attitudes about America across the pond, including in my supposedly pro-American native Poland.
The good news is that America seems to be at a major turning point, with every year bringing us increasing numbers of Millennial and Generation Z voters replacing Boomers and those older; more and more racial diversity in the electorate; and more and more secular voters.
Once this new Democratic majority really takes power, America and Europe will again speak the same language.
23
Yeah, we’ve been hearing this for a while. It’s taking its sweet time.
There is no difference between progressives and centrists. A centrist just looks for progress in the third decimal place.
10
These are all solid points, but one other exceptional characteristic of the United States bears mentioning: the imperviousness of its politics to facts. These facts are all very persuasive to those who still care about facts, but even among Democrats, that's a small minority.
9
The question BEGGING to be answered here is why does Paul Krugman undermine Bernie Sanders at EVERY opportunity? He and his paper are ALL IN for Elizabeth Warren... especially after she intimated that she would play ball with the democratic party establishment:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-democrats.html
Dr. Krugman's assessment of Europe is flawed, imo. He lumps together the broadly distributed prosperity and social advances of post-war Europe with the social and economic troubles of the EU-period that he wishes to hide, it seems. He still refuses to recognize the unwanted consequences of the economic globalization he has pushed so hard for.
Furthermore, he still sees all societies just in terms of economic theory, leading him to one-size-fits-all prescriptions - usually of high doses of Keynes. He never seems to consider the possibility that maybe the US would profit greatly from more Keynesian approaches, whereas Europe might now suffer from it.
5
Kinda dressed up some things you wanted to discuss as if they were what people were worrying about when viewing the Democrats try to get a nominee.
I'm a left-of-center centrist and my fear, specific to exactly one Presidential Election next year, is that the Dems won't thread the needle and present a candidate who will win enough votes in every state to replace the incumbent.
Spare us from candidates who invigorate the base more than they thoughtfully present plans that will attract enough of the majority of voters today - the 40% or so who don't belong to either party.
9
centrists=both-siderism=wrong and uninformed
11
@Kristen
leftists=100% purist=lose elections and proud of it
Well it's too bad the voters that need to read this piece won't. Most don't want to be encumbered with facts and data. I am 65 years old and don't want to vote for a centrist unless they are the Democratic nominee. Then I i will hold my nose and vote for them.
132
Facts and data means one must use the gray matter between one’s ears. That’s hard. Most people would rather watch some stupid TV show than actually think.
3
@bluegirlredstate ….yes imagine having to stand in long, long lines to vote for someone you don't like, just to prevent a criminal authoritarian from winning.
5
@bluegirlredstate I'm 77 and will be doing the same.
1
I think Biden is simply saying that about Republicans having an epiphany after Trump just to make Republican voters comfortable about voting for him. I don't think he is that naive.
4
As always, Krugman again "hits it over the fence". His commentary is unerringly accurate and most importantly - informed.
I've traveled widely in Europe. I have European friends. I envy the role that their governments play in their countries.
Capitalism needs regulation. Europe has it, the United States not so much. Regardless of the whining rich Republicans.
108
I respect much of what Dr Krugman says, and agree about 80% of the time, but 2016 was a true teaching moment of what he's espousing now: "One thing I can say, however, is that neither centrism nor progressivism is what it used to be." He wasn't of that opinion then.
Even as recently as 2016, it was evident that a bolder choice of policies, and a more strident advocacy of what people actually feel should be the right choice of policy for the nation. It's managed to pan itself out through the advocacy of Warren and Sanders, but Obama was an example of the charisma of character which could sell such changes to the public. Now, it's becoming evident that these are just smart economic policies, and not much more radical than what existed before Reagan. Or even 30 years before that. I think that once we get rid of the fear of having a weak candidate as a celebrity salesperson, and concentrate unflinchingly on policy, then the Democratic Party might be able to take its correct place in electoral victories which have the advocacy of the people behind them. There's nothing weaker - as learned in the 2016 election - than a celebrity candidate espousing weak policy. The American people aren't that dumb.
6
Do you live in the same America I do? This is the same country where people were eating laundry pods.
Thank you for the defense of Keynesian economics. Without it the us would be in the dumpster. We just don’t acknowledge keynes, but that is what we are doing.
6
Trump is the #1 threat to America. He has guaranteed votes in 2020, as does whoever is the democratic nominee. The key is to appeal to a small sliver of people who could vote either way or who can be coaxed out of their non-voting stupor to the polls to vote for a democrat. Medicare for All, which has become the defining policy of Elizabeth Warren, does not help.
So, forget about Europe.
4
There is a solution that can neutralize the Electoral College before it is retired, letting Democrats just focus on the best candidate.
Trump is much harder for the Russians to elect in 2020 than 2016, but doable even with a larger popular vote deficit given the Electoral College.
Trump will likely face a far larger popular vote deficit in 2020. Twitter bots can't vote.
The only way he can win is by Russian statecraft analyzing the internal Republican polling data for the Electoral College, and with updated stolen psychographic profiles from social media and machine learning/neural network techniques, they can target the requisite voters in purple states to win with a certain level of statistical confidence.
The difference in 2020 is that Democrats know this and can do the exact same thing, but far more easily than can Trump - and without the Russians.
The Democratic candidate will likely win the popular vote.
What Democrats, private universities and companies must do is use Democratic private polling data, and psychographic profiles from unstructured social media data derived from artificial intelligence techniques, to target the requisite voters in blue, red and purple states to ensure the Electoral College vote is won with a high level of confidence - along with the popular vote.
Statistical techniques for evaluating voting irregularities, and paper ballots where they exist, will serve as voter confirmation.
We can protect American Democracy now.
10
It is the lack of adequate education in America that has brought us here and given how shamelessly the GOP is taking advantage of its uneducated base while bastardizing the electoral process, I am not very hopeful.
37
@Rohan so true if we would take the steps needed to really support education our nation and the world would benefit in so many ways
So centrist Democratic presidential candidates are warning that Warren would turn the U.S. intro France? Examples, please.
2
@G16
All the candidates who claim her health care plan is socialism and it can't be done. They advocate the status quo of Obama care and don't dare mention the real elephant in the room the unregulated for-profit health care market.
Elizabeth's plan would consume how much of the nation's GDP compared to the 18% of GDP we already spend? How much of GDP do we pay for the defense budget?
2
The median household income & median per capita incomes are almost the same, US vs France.....except you're living in Paris rather than Minneapolis. (Sorry, I spent 100 years in Minnesota one decade.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Gross_median_household_income_by_country
Warren is correct: "....if anyone wants to defend...high profits for insurance companies,...for drug companies,...not making the top 1% pay a fair share in taxes,...then I think they're running in the wrong presidential primary." NOTE: Joe Biden's name appears NOWHERE in that quote. Unlike Biden attacking Warren by name, Warren has NOT attacked the other candidates by name, other than to rebut their accusations.
If we don't elect Warren President of the US, we're out of our minds. Even Paul Krugman needs to answer the question, "If universal health care would bankrupt the US, how do other nations afford it?" Warren should CERTAINLY be allowed to at least use the Republican Mantra: Like tax cuts, universal health care will pay for itself.
36
@Johann Smythe
Universal health care is not necessarily the same thing as single payer. Universal care can be achieved by single or multiple payers.
1
@Johann Smythe
Sherrod Brown for VP with Bernie or Elizabeth.
@dlb .....I understand. Sorry, I was using the phrase Universal Health Care as a generic catch all.
We need radical change in this country on a large number of issues and we need it really really fast.
12
This has been going on for a long time, unfortunately. "It ain't right; it ain't American; it's French!"-- Mark Twain. I suspect he may have been joking.
4
A few hundred families have managed to accumulate untold riches on the backs of the citizens of this nation by slowly, but surely, undoing everything FDR got for us. How did we get to the political necrophilia I wrote about in February 2016? How did we get to triangulation? What, exactly is Triangulation? It’s using your tools to fix the other side’s car.
Here we are, post Great Recession and into the pre-Trump depression.
We need a complete do-over - not splitting the middle, again. That’s how we got here
17
@Rima Regas let's not forget how our previous history has contributed to this. We are not as tolerant or accepting of others as we say we are. Charity is something that is extended to our own but not to the poor person across town who doesn't look like us. Even FDR was careful who he set up Social Security for.
We were very lucky after WWII until about the mid 1970s. Then our country's rich decided that they didn't want to pay as much in taxes and they went to work. Reagan and voodoo economics have led us here. The GOP's welcome of the Southern Dixiecrats helped us to get Trump as president. The GOP encourages the ugliest isms people in America have. Trump is their mouthpiece. He's saying all the ugly things that they won't.
Is this destructive? You bet it is. This is how civil wars start. This is how hatred stays alive. This next election is about survival of our country's spirit, our rights, and our ideals.
5
It’s still all part of the residue of seventy years of anti-Communist propaganda in the US.
We have been so thoroughly indoctrinated into fantasies of “free enterprise” that only represent freedom for the one percent and an expensive and low chance lottery ticket for the rest of us, that all thought of the social good has been wiped out of our collective psyches.
So, we’re trained into thinking Big Government Bad, Regulation Bad, Taxes Bad, so no-one will be allowed to think even briefly anywhere past that.
What a great form of mental slavery we’re captured by! We’re only allowed to support the freedom and socialist policies — financial support and subsidization (bailouts), government regulations destroying anything that looks like it’s in the public interest, and so on — present for the rich. The rest of us get by on bread and circuses, with a regular daily clown show called, “politics,” to keep us distracted from our unfree inability to have enough time or energy in the day for anything remotely looking like enterprise.
Physical chains and walls and a complete, neo-Fascist Police State, backed by the most up to date surveillance techniques, couldn’t work a fraction as well as the propaganda we’ve been forced to swallow this past half century, and more.
Meanwhile, any chance of thinking outside this box is being rapidly eliminated. We can no longer conceive of an “outside” to our broken state.
Nothing but endless misery lies ahead while we’re stuck in this ignorance.
22
Well, the activist/progressive base styles the modern American Democrat as essentially on par with Corbyn’s U.K. Labor Party, and casting their moderate DNC contenders as posh, Tory types. US Republicans don’t even register on this fanciful scale that the luvvies have dreamt up on Twitter.
Progressivism these days means a complete reordering of our economic system. They are the liberal radicals commensurate with GOP conservatism. We should get off the shoulders and into the middle of the road to work on income inequality; job losses to globalism; and raising income levels. Bring the tax structure back in line favoring the middle class and lower income groups. These are the goals of the Moderates. We do not need a complete restructuring. We need to change the tilt of the economy so as to not favor the wealthy and corporations.
1
@DENOTE REDMOND said:
"We need to change the tilt of the economy so as to not favor the wealthy and corporations."
That, my friend, is a complete restructuring. Nothing more; nothing less.l
5
@DENOTE REDMOND
the nation needs to be reeducated, the Ayn Rand bible needs to be thrown out and burned.
2
Wrong use of the word “commensurate.”
Please see Kuhn, Feyerabend, Popper and even the wonderful filmmaker/philosopher Errol Morris (was Kuhn’s student briefly....until the Ashtray hit him :-))
I have only practical examples to give you Professor. Being a theoretician myself with a doctorate from the older school that had still Ivy on the bricks on the other end of Mass Av, it is not that natural for me either.
I lived in Scandinavia, in Paris, in Milan and Geneva. There is NO comparison for the 99 percentile of the population. European standards of living are hugely better. Infrastructure, food, wine, healthcare, education from K to Grad School (again I am taking about 99 percent not 1 percent so that excludes the schools we both went to and taught in), architecture, arts and culture, the way both men and women look and dress are significantly better there than here. I lived most of my life in NYC’s upper east side in a five town house I own. My daughters went to Harvard and Yale. We are highly educated and are culture mavens. My wife is a choreographer, one of my daughters is a violinist in a major string quartet and the other one an architect. I am a mathematician turned high-level quant in the firm that produces Treasury secretaries en masse. Now I am retired and consult the people who manage more money that you can imagine.
All this to say, you have no clue what you are talking about on the European standards of living vis a vis ours. I can tell from the way you dress :-)
22
Minor correction five story town house not five town houses :-)
1
@Blunt Well, thanks for sharing your experience abroad. But the Dr. K article I read didn't compare quality of life in Europe to what's available here. I'm not disagreeing with your comparison, BTW. And I think that's an important comparison to make. Given your professional background, it would be more interesting to read your thoughts about how to adjust data about family/household income here and in France for the very different social services (including education) in the two countries.
2
Hint :
Changing coordinate systems solves many problems that would be otherwise hard to tackle.
:-)
1
The problem is not us becoming Europe and being sad about it, though that is possible (VW scandal and premature nuclear power shutdowns are cautionary tales), it is that we cannot adopt European-esque social policies without introducing other massive problems because we are not just a big European country.
We need and historically accept lots of immigrants, we have a global military that Europe depend on and we have vast areas of sparse but not zero population that cannot have a federal office of everything in each tiny business district. People in such areas need, among other things, robust cars with lots of range and quick refueling.
For a recent example, California cannot pull off high speed rail even with lots of federal help. In fact, many of our giant projects - nuclear plants, nuclear aircraft carriers, passenger rail systems - have giant cost and time overruns so we avoid them as much as possible but recognize they cannot all be avoided. I do not know if Europe has fewer problems with such projects, but what does it really matter for us if they do or do not?
We are not only optimizing a different incumbent system with different constraints, we have different goals than European states do. A good sports team coach chooses strategies to fit his players' talents, they do not blindly mimic the opposing team that half of the players are jealous of.
2
@Alan Glibly put ... but the core question remains untouched: do those in the lower tiers have food, health, education and leisure time, or not?
2
"Will the Democratic presidential nomination go to a centrist or a progressive? Which choice would give the party the best chance in next year’s election? Honestly, I have no idea."...You really need to leave New York more often. It isn't even close. In fly over country there are gobs of Republican voters just begging for a choice they could vote for. And nominating a centrist will hardly make any difference anyway, because the far left wing ideas will never get through the Senate. If they really care about getting any of their agenda inacted they had better tack too the center. I sure wish progressives knew how to count.
My fellow progressives keep pointing to those "happiest of places" like Denmark, The Netherlands and the rest of Scandinavia, as the success stories of democratic socialism.
And while, after my 75 laps around the sun, I have been a believer in universal/single-payer health insurance for America, I also know this is not going to be a slam-dunk concept even if/when a Democrat displaces Trump in 2020.
From Medicare for All, to a Great Green Deal, these are idea that will take a few decades to convince Americans to give up the insurance they have liked. And as a talk show pundit noted recently, you can't win an election promising to "take stuff away" from the American People.
If I ran the zoo, I would advise Liz Warren and Bernie Sanders to modify their respective positions on Medicare for All, by supporting the expansion of the ACA, while allowing Americans to keep the insurance they like.
The biggest problem I see in promoting Medicare for All is, we are anything but a homogeneous society. Scandinavians and most Europeans make up much smaller countries were consensus is easier among like-minded citizens in more homogeneous societies. Free college? No problem. Free healthcare? Again, no problem.
But America is not only like herding cats, with great cultural and economic diversity, it is not deeply, and emotionally, divided politically. And the Republican Party, and not Trump, with its white nationalism on parade, must shoulder the blame for the latter.
3
@David Ohman
Two things:
Netherlands isn't Scandinavia and it has a system of private health insurance with a "public options" [National Ziekenfonds, if memory serves].
I'm curious what ethnic homogeneity has to do with Medicare for all. Canada has it and isn't homogeneous. If I'm not mistaken, Denmark is 15% foreign born and the Netherlands close to 20%, not counting folks of Indonesian origin.
21
@batavicus
The Netherlands has actually had an overhaul of their system in 2006 and 'ziekenfondsen' no longer exist.
Much of what you said still stands, though. Health insurance is government mandated, meaning that every Dutch citizen has to purchase a basic health insurance policy. These basic health insurance policies are offered by private companies, but are heavily regulated. The government decides what should be covered and what the minimum and maximum deductible (currently €385-885
1
These people that think their employer provided insurance is so great, do they not understand how easily they could lose it? All it would take is a job loss. And that can happen no matter how hard you work. All it takes is one large contract lost, one jerk to embezzle millions from your company, or even an object falling out of the sky and hitting your place of employment ( that one actually happened to me) and you find yourself out of a job and insurance.
1
Paul Krugman: "it often seems as if the centrists, not the progressives, are out of touch with reality. Indeed, sometimes it feels as if centrists are Rip Van Winkles who spent the last 20 years in a cave and missed everything that has happened to America and the world since the 1990s.
I'm one of those centrists, and I think I do know what will pass muster with American voters, at least in those "battleground" states which will determine the outcome of the 2020 election. I think it has been clearly established that the majority of American voters don't like drastic change. Medicare for All which eliminates private health plans comes to mind. If Democrats run on this health plan, free college tuition, reparations and an immigration plan that does not promote secure borders, we are going to again lose states like Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania--and the electoral college.
11
@RF What strikes me as being so ignorant s that Medicare participants all carry and pay for one or two private insurance policies, so the very idea that private insurance will be gone is absurdly ridiculous. I contend that Congress people, who have gold-plated paid for insurance benefits, do not what in the heck they are talking about. Period
1
@RF
Even if one stays with an employer, plans change almost every year, in my experience. Sometimes just the plans; often the carriers, as the benefits group renegotiates. I get that it is people's perceptions that matter, reality be damned. But this sudden Love of insurance companies is ... odd, given the realities of how the market gets dysfunctional because of them.
18
@Sara C I don't think very many people "love" insurance companies. The point is that many (most) people who have private insurance plans don't want to be faced with the uncertainty of having to lose their insurance and change to a new
system. I'm retired and have been on medicare (actually a medicare advantage plan) for years. I'm very happy with it. The Medicare for All proposed by Warren and Sanders won't be acceptable by many people. Strengthening Obamacare and adding a public option will be much more acceptable.
3
All of these labels: far right, centrists, the left, progressives, liberals, conservatives, moderates, etc. How about humanists? That's where I stand.
1
Meaningless word in 2019. Define it for me please (in today’s lexicon).
3
The unemployment rates cited in this week's issue of a fairly reliable source (The Economist) read as follows:
United States 3.5
France 8.5
Given that information, I would like clarification from the author about the precisely meaning of his assertion that the French are more likely to be employed during their working years than are Americans. And the unemployment rates for some other EU nations are:
Austria 4.5
Belgium 5.5
Germany 3.1
Greece 16.9
Italy 9.5
Netherlands 4.4
Spain 13.8
Czech Rep. 2.1
Denmark 3.8
Norway 3.7
Sweden 7.1
Switzerland 2.3
The first
2
@Quiet Waiting
Check the link in the article. The data is on employment rates, not unemployment. The ER used is a more direct number -- employed in the age group/number in the age group. That is, without all the massaging of unemployment rates.
13
@Quiet Waiting There are a lot of minimum wage jobs that have no benefits in those numbers for the good old USA. Now, I have to get to McDonalds for my shift after driving Uber all day.
14
@Quiet Waiting Look at the labor force participation rates.
11
On the merits, there's no doubt that Elizabeth Warren's health care proposal is worthy of consideration and debate. From an electoral perspective, it might spell disaster in the general election. Its strongest appeal is to millennials and other progressives, who reside predominantly in states that are securely blue. The "socialism" bogeyman, however, holds terror for many of the crucial voters in battleground states; they're liable to link the word not with the Scandinavian nations (routinely at or near the top in metrics of health care, longevity, and happiness) but with Russia or, even worse, Venezuela -- and you know that Trump would hammer Warren unceasingly with that message, spurious as it is.
Many labor union members are also highly pleased with the health care concessions they've fought for and won, which operate via private-sector health insurance companies. It would risk losing the support of some fraction of them to advocate a plan that would abolish what they've won and replace it with a system untested in this country.
Even Dr. Krugman acknowledged, in his last op-ed, that Warren's plan is unlikely to become legislation, even if the Democrats win control of both houses of Congress. That being the case, the Democratic nominee, whether Warren or someone else, would be best served by advocating a Medicare-for-those-who-want-it plan along the lines of Buttigieg, Klobuchar or Biden.
7
My analysis, of course, rests on the reality of the Electoral College. If the presidency were determined by popular vote, the calculus might well suggest that maximizing the voter turnout amongst progressives -- millennials foremost among them, since their turnout is typically lower than that of other agre groups -- would be the winning strategy. But the Electoral College exists, and wishing it were not so is of no help.
5
Are we willing to live with less, give up “the dream,’ settle for leasing, not owning because ownership has become such a drag. Is the knitting together of America dependent upon the relinquishment of personal aims. That’s kind of how I envision parts of Europe. In France my less fortunate countrypersons are French, even if statistical analysis might yield a less consoling answer. In America, one strives for the sake of striving.
2
@Jeffrey Cosloy -- you should go to France and several other European countries (several times, not once or twice) and I think you will find that these people are quite content with the amount of vacation they are allotted as well as their home ownership, marvelous infrasture, beautiful cities that are well-maintained and clean. These are not less fortunate as you say.
16
No one in France depletes their savings, goes bankrupt , or starts a GoFundMe snd begs for money to pay for medical bills. No graduate of the Sorbonne is burdened with high interest student debt that will take decades to discharge. And the food is better. So is public transit. And the French live longer.
9
A holdup man points a gun at Jack Benny and says: "You're money or your life." After a long pause the gunman says: "Well, what's it gonna be, fella?" Benny replies: "I'm thinking."
A good punchline is always unexpected. Of course almost everyone would pay up rather than die. And that's the economic problem with healthcare, except that medical professionals don't need a gun.
I'm old enough to remember back in the 1950's when our family doctor made house calls. Healing was a calling. Now it's just another way to make REALLY good money. We need a heart to heart national discussion on what it means to be a medical professional. Why do people want to become physicians? What do they imagine their contributions to society to be? I suspect that health care has not been attracting the optimal personality traits.
8
@WDG
Let's not confuse the inhabitants of hospitals with the denizens of wall street.
2
That might have something to do with the fact that it costs the GDP of a small nation to attend medical school.
@WDG
There are plenty of people who become medical professionals to answer a moral, humanistic calling. Then they are forced, whether they are an employee or a private practitioner, to work as a drone in a giant parasitic hive called the health-insurance industry.
1
However, Europeans still pay much higher taxes than we do in the US. This is acceptable to them, but not to us.
Why is that? Up until recently, European countries were ethnically homogenous and well-educated, so everyone trusted each other. Here in the US, however, we have a wide variety of competing groups who are avowedly out to gain advantage over others. Nobody wants to give the government too much control, for fear their opponents will capture the levers of power and manipulate the system to their own benefit.
This doesn't even count the 20% of the population who are crooks ready to steal anything that isn't nailed down. They look at a new government benefits program as a golden opportunity to invent a new scam and make off with millions before anyone catches on.
3
@Jonathan Right! Like , I have a good idea. Let's have heart surgery. That sounds like fun!
3
@Jonathan 20%? That sounds really high. Where do you get that statistic?
4
Yeah! Let’s pretend we have cancer and get free chemotherapy!
My European relatives pay the same tax rate I pay. They don’t complain because they get something for their taxes: free health care ( my cousin with diabetes pays 55 cents for insulin), free university education (another cousin went through medical school without running up high interest debt) , modern public transit (you don’t need a car in most European cities).
What do we get? A bloated military industrial complex and endless wars for oil
8
I attended the World Fantasy Convention last weekend at the Marriott Hotel at LAX, a pretty classy venue. After dinner, I reached for my debit card to pay the bill and asked the waiter to "bring the machine" (i.e., a hand-held wifi terminal), which is what you do in any small-town Canadian restaurant. The guy had never heard of such a thing. I had to get up and follow him to the register where he actually swiped my chip-equipped debit card and then had me sign the paper slip.
I've used my debit card in Canada and half a dozen European countries. I would say America must be ten years behind the developed world in wifi, but since most Americans don't leave the country, they think they're cutting edge.
477
@Matthew Hughes Actually, Matt it's more than ten years. The first time I saw such a machine was in France in 1993, I believe. They also had pay at the pump long before it came to North America. I missed the WFC. Good?
26
@Sean
In my case, I know I saw the credit card stand-alone terminal in France more or less at the same time you did. In the mid-90s I started being able to travel within Norway using absolutely no cash, as even cab
drivers would take credit cards... etc.
30
@Matthew. The chip we now have in our credit and debit cards and helps them be more secure were already in use in the Netherlands since the early 1990’s. Transferring money from your bank account to someone else’s at a totally different bank was easy as pie in the early 1980’s. The American banking system is hopelessly antiquated.
62
They're about to close the lid on me, but all my long life I've wondered why economists cannot agree on:
~ where we are;
~ where we should go;
~ how to get there;
~ what works;
~ and what doesn't.
To this layman, the realization of economically sound nations seems very achievable, but apparently not. I guess economists, like medical doctors, just practice economics; they're just making educated guesses.
And one more thing before the lights go out: Why would anyone need billions or hundreds of millions of dollars when there is so much poverty all around? I really just can't grok it. Do you eat six meals daily or use two or three bathrooms at once?
Maybe they'll explain it all to me in the afterlife.
95
@Jim Muncy
The megaphone comes with conditions: amplifying the voices of those who bestow the hallowed space we read in.
2
@Jim Muncy -- my best wishes for you in this life and the hereafter. I, too, have a list of questions for the Almighty when my time here is over! Blessings to you.
9
@Jim Muncy
"Nowhere was this intolerance greater than in macroeconomics, where the prevailing models ruled out the possibility of a crisis like the one we experienced in 2008. When the impossible happened, it was treated as if it were a 500-year flood – a freak occurrence that no model could have predicted. Even today, advocates of these theories refuse to accept that their belief in self-regulating markets and their dismissal of externalities as either nonexistent or unimportant led to the deregulation that was pivotal in fueling the crisis. The theory continues to survive, with Ptolemaic attempts to make it fit the facts, which attests to the reality that bad ideas, once established, often have a slow death."
Joseph Stigliz
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/end-of-neoliberalism-unfettered-markets-fail-by-joseph-e-stiglitz-2019-11
10
I'd love to hear Biden's idea of a Republican epiphany in Trump's absence. The epiphany McConnell had about denying Obama's last nominee to the Supreme Court a hearing came about independently of Trump. So did their epiphany on slowing down confirmation of Obama's judicial nominees. The point is that the GOP, as it is now and has been for the past 20 years, will not arrive at any epiphanies on how to treat people decently or work and play well with others. They don't care and it shows.
11/7/2019 7:37pm first submit
222
@Rima Regas The GOP has hated the New Deal since it began. But it's important to notice that none of them turn down the benefits it's given them. They just try to steal it from others.
81
@hen3ry
Class intersects race then gender, but class always Trumps all. Once one sees that, it becomes clear that the messenger isn’t who matters. What Trump has undone, is undoing, is exactly what the establishment has wanted ever since the New Deal.
That is why Biden told his wealthy donors not to worry, that not much will change. This promise was made in the full knowledge of the destruction of our most basic protections, put in place over decades.
The center is the old right. Triangulation means giving the other side what it wants in exchange for personal glory.
152
@Rima Regas
That´s why Mr. Biden isn´t really a "centrist" but a "more-of-the-samer" as he is already decyphered by many who remember the 2016 campaign.
3
The real question is wether a country can at the same time be: A) a heaven for its ultra rich that barely pay taxes in relation to the money that they make or have, B) a militaristic empire that expends 60 cents every dollar that it collects in taxes and has 750 military bases in 150 different countries, and C) one that provides education, healthcare and other human needs to its citizens.
An impossible proposition. It is evident that something has to give, and is not going to be those with power. So it has to be education and health.
7
I sometimes wonder how much of the difference between the economies of the US and Europe are attributable to the greater dynamism of the American economy. As a younger nation with lower taxes and a greater emphasis on entrepreneurship and innovation we are certainly more dynamic. But there is a price to pay for our dynamism. Lower taxes and greater entrepreneurship also mean that our jobs are less secure and our safety net is weaker.
We are also less stable. The financial crisis a decade ago originated in the US and then spread to Europe through the greater global connectivity that exists today. And the increased connectivity also means that innovations that originate here quickly spread to Europe. So, on balance, we are still paying a price for our weaker safety net, while the advantage we used to have due to our dynamism and innovation is perhaps eroding.
4
Most European countries have a higher rate of entrepreneurship than the US because of the social safety net. It is a myth that the US currently is the most entrepreneurial nation.
119
@Martin We actually have fewer entrepreneurs than most of Europe. And yes, that’s because of weak safety net, especially health insurance. And we aren’t really more dynamic: growth has been similar once you adjust for population growth.
120
@Paul Krugman I agree with your entrepreneur comment. I am an entrepreneur who has worked hard with my spouse to grow my small business over the past 3 years to something that can 1) support my family, 2) continue to grow. I never would have been able, at least in my own mind, take this risk without the ACA to provide health care to my kids. It was subsidized the first 2 years but it won't be in the future because our earnings have grown. It gave me the freedom to leave a lucrative R&D job and a terrible work environment to start out on my own. :-)
3
I love how progressives sneer at Joe Biden’s hope for a Republican epiphany. It is unlikely, yes. But it’s no more unrealistic than Bernie’s plan to rally a million marchers in Kentucky to scare McConnell into supporting M4A, or Warren’s hope to abolish the filibuster (non-starter) and then convince anywhere close to fifty Democratic senators to vote for it.
If you want a realistic picture, tell voters that Democrats will be lucky to retake the Senate at all. At best, we may get some legislation on drug prices. But realism doesn’t win elections.
5
Again Krugman substantiates what I've been saying for decades, this country can and should provide access to higher education, access to healthcare. Would it require, taxes sure, but if properly packaged it can be done. I've had republicans claim that all you have to do is look to Medicare or Medicaid to see tax dollars being wasted.
But they simply don't know what they are talking about, Medicare, and Medicaid are in fact the best run insurance programs in the country. Is there fraud, sure. But that's more about that Doctors character or lack of one, than a poorly run bloated bureaucratic system ripe for the picking. it's worth noting that when Doctors have committed fraud, they've been caught because of the checks built into the system.
It's not like this country doesn't have the money, currently tax payers spend about 60 billion on welfare payments, food stamps, etc. Yet we corporations 100 billion in subsidies alone, that's above and beyond the negative tax rates corporations like Amazon gets, currently Amazon enjoys a -12% tax rate. Which means, a trillion dollar company headed by the richest man on the planet, pay's nothing in taxes. Amazon received hundreds of millions in tax refund.
If Europe can do it, so can we.The answer, is to close loopholes, stop the subsidies, collect tax revenue from the rich and corporations. Stop holding the working poor, and struggling middle class to foot a majority of the tax burden in this country, and receive nothing in return.
82
Is it just me or do "isms" obfuscate?
Centrism and Progressivism?
Is that the same as conservatism and liberalism?
So the opinion is about how Democratic conservatives are reluctant to make changes, improvements?
And the conservatives are not well informed about Europe?
Should this come as a surprise?
America has a huge educational challenge.
Will we ever accept our responsibility to educate our populace?
Or is that also opposed by conservatives?
2
@PayingAttention
The Left/Right, Conservative/Progressive scale has been shifted waaaaaaay to the Right. (Reagan,et. Al.) Ike was a conservative Republican who built a transcontinental highway. There is no Left anymore. Only modest attempts at Public Health care that get mislabeled as Socialist.
9
Sorry, can't agree. And not only because I grew up in Europe.
The European system has one major systematic flaw: It selects for politicians who can talk well, but are not necessarily qualified.
Demagogues.
Typically those people who end up in Parliament there are those who have failed in free enterprise or are teachers or other kinds of government employees who have a cushy job to fall back to when they are no longer elected.
Almost without exception, German members or the Bundestag lack meaningful qualifications. Just look at Angela Merkel, a failed scientist. Even in Germany now people are beginning to realize that she has never really done anything constructive. She was exceptionally skilled at building a facade, but not as a true leader.
I am very worried that Sanders or Biden would squander the rest of the American capital that made us the leaders of the free world - in the past, at least.
I am not thrilled by Bloomberg, for various reasons, but he and Buttigieg would be the best team I could hope for to get us back on a rational track.
2
@Captain Nemo
Sorry, make that Warren, not Biden!
1
@Captain Nemo
On what basis do you reach your conclusion that...
1. European politicians are Demagogues.
2. “Almost without exception, German members of the Bundestag lack meaningful qualification who....”
I would be interested to hear what meaningful qualifications a member of Parlament should have.
Furthermore, I doubt that our members in congress are in any way better than the members of the German Bundestag as our representative and senators also usually have a nice cushion when they exit.
There are for sure Demagogue politician in Europe. Just look to the UK, Poland, Hungary. Italy just became more rationale.
In short, the politicians in the center of Europe are much more rationale than our President and his party.
You must be living in a parallel universe!
1
@Captain Nemo
Here we have the worst of both worlds: politicians (particularly of a certain stripe) who can't talk well and are completely unqualified.
1
Paul, if Paul Ryan had proposed a funding plan as fundamentally dishonest as Warren you would tear it down.
I am a moderate only because I live in political reality and know two things:
1. The general election electorate will not vote for massive programs, debt, and tax increases, even if in the end it may be good policy.
2. Nothing Warren and Sanders have proposed is European. European nations have mixed private and public insurance with many hard and difficult choices around taxes, what is and is not covered, and much more to control costs and maintain their health programs and safety net. Neither Warren nor Sanders have done this.
I would add, that Europe would never vote for our system, but when reforms on the scale of Sanders and Warren have been proposed, they are soundly defeated because of expense and scope. What Warren and Sanders proposed is massive compared to what Europeans have.
If you want a system that resembles Europe's, look at Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar.
And you know all of this. Why act as if you don't?
20
@OrchardWriting Where do you get your info? Many European countries fund universal healthcare through through national health insurance programs (not private) funded through taxation a la Medicare. To name a few: Denmark, Czech Republic, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Portugal, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, France, etc.
27
@Hikerwriter I'll bet OrchardWriting got it here: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2017/may/international-profiles-health-care-systems
The EU employment rate is indeed higher but 30.8 percent of all women worked part time and eighth percent. So a lot of the employment is part time or contract work with little benefits. Unemployment rate in Europe is still higher than in the US. Though it has gone down to 6.3 but in France Dr. Krugman's favorite country it is at 8.5 percent also youth unemployment is at 14.0 in Europe. And work force participation rate is lower than in the US. Also twenty percent of all jobs are part time .
https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/full-time-employment
3
@prpgk1
But is part-time work bad, if that is what you want? It seems that the relationship between the jobs people get and the kind they want should be discussed.
I hate to break the news to you, but a lot of employment here is part time with no benefits too.
3
@Smilodon7 Currently in the US it's at seventeen percent . And it has been going peaking at 20 during the great recession. Part Time work increased dramatically during the recession and has the economy has improved part time employment has declined.
2
Even more to the point, the centrists do not seem have real plans for addressing climate change. Just rejoining the Paris accord is not enough — we need a massive effort over the next 10 years. Warren is the only candidate whom I trust to get it done.
13
@E
If I may interject, E, you are presuming a new centrist POTUS would not have a team at EPA and Interior to assist in such visionary endeavors. As long as the new president is aware of the extent of the climate crisis, and hires the climate scientists to lead us, and the world, in the right direction, then I will gladly vote for the moderate Democrat taking the WH with an open mind, all the while also mulitasking on the tasks of cleaning up after Trump.
2
Biden is absolutely right: when he calls up Mitch McConnell to cut Social Security and Medicare, he'll get all the cooperation he could wish, thus dooming the Democratic party for a few more election cycles.
Say, until Florida is under water and Biden, having done maximum damage through out his long career -- Clarence Thomas, financial and telecom deregulation, inescapable consumer debt, mass incarceration, NAFTA, Iraq, Libya -- is long gone but whose one term is unfortunately not forgotten.
20
Myopia never was a very good strategy for policy-making. The MAGA-crowd is myopia-magnified. Kind of like looking through the front end of the binoculars.
The sad thing is that points have to be made that facts matter, that data should drive decisions, and that minds have to be open to science and new information -- all the things missing in the current Repubican mind-set.
I wish I had confidence that these people can look through the right end of the binoculars, open their minds, and apply objective facts to problem-solving. My fear is that myopia, often based on racism, will prevail.
4
Paul,
I deeply respect your work and your analysis.
I simply don’t believe that Senator Warren can create a path to electoral victory.
She’d be a great secretary of Labor, though, if we can afford to have a republican governor of Massachusetts replace her with a republican senator, tipping the balance further away from substantive action on any meaningful issue.
The arc moves slowly in the right direction.
10
Unfortunately, ignorance rarely keeps people from expressing their opinions. Usually this is a fear-driven behavior: those terrified of deficits, government intrusion, and Euro-style "socialism" are loud in their criticisms because they're afraid of what these things would do their lives. Ironically, these things would greatly improve their lives, while sticking with the "trickle down" economy we've had for decades will only make their lives worse.
But while ignorance doesn't seem to stop the mouth from working (or keyboards), it does a great job in shutting down the eyes and ears. And this is why trying to convince these fearful people of the benefits of Sanders and Warren's plans is almost pointless - their fear won't allow them to consider such things. This is also why these folk are clinging to Biden, regardless of his flaws: he's "safe". Biden won't do anything to upset the Status Quo, and that's just fine with these people. But their ignorance prevents them from seeing the connection between their tenuous circumstances - most living paycheck to paycheck, and at risk to go bankrupt due to medical costs - and how the Status Quo keeps them there.
If we are to escape from the "trickle down" economy, it will be because enough people have the courage to embrace the changes required. The polls seem to indicate that support is out there. If so, the fearful ones will have to be dragged into the future.
44
@Kingfish52 Fear has absolutely nothing to do with it. I would love a European style safety net, but what Warren and Sanders propose ignores all the tough choices the Europeans have made and will cause them to lose disastrously for Democrats and this country.
This isn't fear. It's fact. So, yes, bring on the European style safety net, but Warren and Sanders aren't it.
5
@OrchardWriting ,
Fear caused by facts is, nonetheless, fear.
The first step away from fear is having the courage to look for and at facts that might dispel fear.
FDR: We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
4
@Kingfish52
It is also very difficult to be told from birth that you are Exceptional and subsequently come to grips with the fact that, quite simply, you are not.
1
Centrist Joe Biden just can’t see around the corner. Progressives have an idea what might be there; they’re willing to be bold. Conservatives don’t even want to look or think. Their worldview is firmly rooted in the past; their currency is fear of change.
I don’t think the Democratic candidate next year can be a centrist; an incrementalist, if you will. Take, for example, Dr. Krugman’s reference to broadband and monopoly with the resultant philosophical animus by the Right to work for the benefit of the vast majority of American citizens. Lower prices are not what Republicans want; at the first whisper of egalitarianism or redistribution, we hear agonized cries of Socialism!” It’s a major reason the president and his administration won’t go anywhere near the needed infrastructure makeover. It would mean jobs and investment by the millions. Republicans need a healthy climate of poverty so they can point to those drags on America as examples of what happens to a nation that takes care of its own. Hardly the Republican way.
Which brings me to Elizabeth Warren. Her plans to nail the oligarchs for the bill for her M4A are anathema to not only the Boardwalk-Park Place swells, but also to the folks just getting by on Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues. Instead of making America great for the first time by leavening their hostility to altruism with just enough of a dash of practical realism, Republicans retreat to a place they know well: the hill they can only imagine is a mountain.
8
This column forgot to leave out the efforts of the EU regulatory agencies to curb the excess intrusion into privacy and surveillance by Google, Facebook and others with massive fines. The EU, despite its falws with the Euro, looks out for its citizens. Meanwhile, here across the pond, the message is very clear - we are on our own.
276
@PN ....."...forgot to leave out the efforts of the EU..." ???? Don't you mean, "forgot to include"??
6
We are, indeed, all on our own. I find it very frightening.
11
@PN ….we are on our own in many ways. Our govt protects corporate power and profits, in return for mega donor money to run for office. We the People are left unprotected and subject to exploitation in various ways.
NYT op ed: “The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. Why Not Our Data?"
"Today, the European Union has an even more comprehensive law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Each member state has a national agency to enforce it. Those agencies in Belgium, France, Germany and other European countries have recently acted to curb data exploitation at Facebook, Google and other tech giants.”
Important to be discussed here. Krugman doesn't think it's that important?
6
Would Republicans be willing to reach across the aisle? If and only if they feel enough pressure from voters to do so. That would mean, first, a Democratic tidal wave next year, turning both the White House and the Senate blue. There’s power in numbers.
And it would also mean a concerted effort from constituents to keep the pressure on elected officials for issues like preserving guaranteed comprehensive health care.
In the end, the GOP will be only as obstinately myopic as they are allowed to be.
60
@NM - Not sure 'a tidal wave' would do it.
It's sad to see Biden act as if Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, Louie Gohmert, and Matt Gaetz - not to mention Moscow Mitchski - will have an epiphany moment.
Biden has apparently fallen prey to the idea that radicals don't come attired in coat and tie, forgetting the anarchic 2016 GOP'er pretense that the Executive Branch had no SCOTUS appointment powers past the 37th month of a 48 month term if the POTUS were a Democrat, and the Senate majority belonged to GOP'ers.
And just to drive home how radical the GOP'ers are, they made sure it was known in Nov. 2016 that if Hillary Clinton were sworn in, the GOP'ers in the Senate would still hold open Scalia's seat.
Today's GOP looks upon any elected government which they do not control as illicit by definition - all anyone has to do for confirmation is look at the D.C. government shutdown in 2018 on the heels of the midterms which handed Dems the House, or at the way various GOP'er legislatures in Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, et al have tried to strip powers from incoming Dem governors.
The White House's refusal to acknowledge House oversight of the Executive Branch is part of this same picture.
Just because this crowd cavorts under the banner of a kidnapped party doesn't mean they are GOP'ers; they just needed a brand and didn't want to bother with starting their own party.
Biden shouldn't be bamboozled.
495
Past events would suggest the answer to this is no.
2
Very true. The GOP under Scott Walker hollowed out the once proudly progressive State of Wisconsin long before Trump even considered running for POTUS
7
As I see it, the centrists have a go slow philosophy. They are not against radical economic changes as they are concerned about quick revisions to economic activities. Some things have to be tested like dipping your finger in the water to test it. None of these candidates are talking about a Socialist Collectivist kind of economic systems, just correcting the unbalances of the current system.
Sen. Warren's so called plan to eliminate private medical insurance is radical. Europe has mixed systems, it is doubtful most Americans will give up their right to buy into a private insurance system if they can afford it. Taxing the household wealth is a double tax, as most of that wealth is in the form of equities and dividends which they already pay on.
The real inequity is the inheritance tax which perpetuates very wealthy families who have more political power than out elected officials. Sharing the wealth generates anger, despite any possible benefits, if any.
We saw the progressives in the 1960s, they wanted immediate action like they do today, but found they had to wait, get elected, get their ideas accepted, and not all of them have been as of these days. But they found out the best way was to get elected to office and work from there. Society resists radical changes.
20
Nothing can be further than the truth. The structural changes to American society in the first 100 days of the New Deal helped to reshape the nation toward the egalitarian state we enjoyed before the Reagan counter revolution. The Great Society legislation LBJ worked through the congress likewise was very swift. The only problem with that was the progress was bogged down by the costs of the Vietnam war and the racist “war on drugs” purges that Nixon initiated. Likewise the Reagan dismantling of the unions through currency manipulation and the flood of imports quickly addicted the nation to discounts while the tax cuts enabled the corporate elite to enrich themselves at public expense. The post 9-11 measures were also sudden and extreme. We need public participation and steady preparation, but change does happen quickly when the circumstances present themselves.
21
@David Underwood
Umm, no, the democrats controlled the house from 1955, through 1997 and they controlled the Senate from 1955, through 1981, 40 years, and 26 years respectively. Which is why, the democrats were able to fund Apollo program (best money ever spent), and fund education, create Head Start, and more. When Lyndon Johnson came to power, after Kennedy was assassinated, many parts of the district in Texas he represented, still had no power, or running water, imagine in 1963, still having no power, running water.
Black people couldn't even vote, and it was illegal in this country for whites and black people to get married, black people were routinely discriminated against, yet they had all the rights whites did, granted to then by the 14th amendment. It was the democrats that changed all that, when Johnson made his now famous America's Broken Promise speech, when he told republicans in a joint session, that he never thought he'd be able to have the power to fulfill that promise, and as he said, when he was teacher in 1929 he never thought that he would be in position to help the sons and daughters of of those students (he was referring to when he was teacher, and he taught poor Mexican kids to speak English) and people like them. "But now I do have that chance--and I'll let you in on a little secret---I intend to use it".
He declared that " poverty, ignorance, bigotry, and disease are the enemy, not our fellow man, not our neighbor. That's what leadership is.
10
You know what also generates anger? Masses of people who work their keisters off for poverty wages. Continue with this long enough, and you will get radical change, of the violent, angry pitchfork carrying variety.
3
Mr. Draghi did what Mr. Bernanke did. Heroic perhaps, but not a distinction between monetary systems.
And it wasn't a crisis of the euro. It was a debt crisis. Anyone can have a debt crisis, but when the debtor is a sovereign with its own mini-currency, exchange-rate instability makes it worse.
1
Breaking news: Michael Bloomberg is going to enter the presidential race and seek the Democratic nomination. If he wins the nomination, he has a great chance of beating Trump. Will the Sandernistas vote for one of the richest tycoons in America? I don’t think Democrats are smart enough to nominate Mr. Bloomberg.
14
What could go wrong in having Billionaire Mike running for prez as a Dem? There’d be lots of Dem voters sitting on the sidelines or voting fur a 3rd party candidate and then, Trump wins four more years. Bloomberg had a chance to run in 2016. Same with Biden. They didn’t have the spine to run.
10
@Bascom Hill Unfortunately it's looking more and more likely that lots of Dem voters will be sitting on the sidelines no matter who becomes the Dem nominee.
BTW, Biden had good reason for not running in 2016. Give the guy a break.
1
I won’t vote for Bloomberg.
6
Suddenly Paul Krugman, who had nothing but bad things to say about Bernie Sanders and his progressive backers in 2016, labeling them as "intolerant" and a "mob", and the "same as Trump's followers", is supposedly suddenly a champion of that same left since his candidate, Elizabeth Warren, has now positioned herself as the true champion of that left in 2020.
In case you question Krugman’s sincerity, he makes sure to drive his point home by burying Joe Biden and painting Biden as the centrist myopic villain here. All the Krugman deliberately refuses to acknowledge that Biden is decidedly to the left of Hillary Clinton, who Krugman treated as nothing less than perfect and infallible in 2016.
Sorry, Paul, we're not buying it. You're calibrating your positions based up the calibrated positions of Elizabeth Warren, just as you calibrated your positions based on the calibrated positions of Hillary Clinton.
27
@Robert B - you'll notice that as frontrunners, they're not attacking each other, even when they're goaded to in debates. That tells me that the policy is more important to them than the personal outcome. If either get in, great, because they have basic integrity. But Sanders, like in 2016, is treated as unelectable by most media pundits and media outlets, which is, as in 2016, a mistake. Walk through Burlington some time: people still make money. The guy's not a Marxist, or even radical. It's kind of boring, actually, how well it's run. After this Trump stuff, I can deal with boring much better than making "policy" with the GOP in mind.
10
@Robert B
PK shared Bernie's goals, but pointed out examples that showed Bernie didn't know what he was talking about. PK has strongly & often argued that shadow banking - barely regulated & w/out anything resembling deposit insurance - was what very nearly brought down the financial system. Bernie never mentioned shadow banking. His solution was to break up the biggest banks. Hillary started talking about unregulated shadow banking from the beginning.
Everyone left of center shares pretty much the same goals. The difference is how candidates want to fix problems & what those problems are. PK thinks both EW & HRC know what they're up to.
He *is* skeptical about EW's M4A, but respects her plan. He doesn't think people w/ insur. that works for them (i.e. employer pays most of the cost, low deductibles, etc) will chose an unproven system over one they're reasonably ok with.
Again, difference not in goal but in implementation.
Bernie & crew demanded everyone fall in line behind them - with us or against us - you were "neo-liberal" etc.
(I once was on board, but when Bernie & Co started using GOP lies, & insinuations from their 20 years of sliming the Clintons, I was out of there. What most disappointed me wasn't that Trump "won" but that Bernie - & to a lesser extent, Jill Stein - were hugely instrumental in getting us to where we are today. If Bernie's the nominee I'll vote for him. But I'll never forgive him, & certainly won't give him any more money).
9
@Joel I can't say that you were paying attention much to the 2016 election, then. Democrats fielded a weak-on-policy candidate, who had no numbers much above Trump at the time. Sanders had clear numbers in mano-v-mano electoral vote-off. It was actually Clinton that was the risk at the time. And it failed.
8
Krugman thinks Europe may be the epicenter of the next global economic crisis, but I fear that the crisis will come about because (again!) all kinds of financial products will be based on quicksand. And I fear this because I read that under Trump all kinds of regulations implemented by Obama to prevent this from happening again have been abolished. Am I wrong?
154
@Elisabeth Only a few regulations have been abolished, but enforcement has gotten very lax. But Europe is still very vulnerable in ways we aren’t, because countries and their banks can have cash crises and can’t just print money in an emergency. Also the Germans really believe in austerity, where our conservatives were just faking it to hurt Obama.
141
@Elisabeth I think you are correct. There were politicians trying to undo consumsr economic protections before Trump.
19
@Paul Krugman We disagree on Germany. I lived in Munich for five years in the late 1990s, and what Germans live by is not austerity, but efficiency. The Germans expect from their government great services provided efficiently and cost effectively. If Germans pursued austerity they would not have the quality of life they enjoy as they wouldn't have world class physical and social infrastructure. We could learn a lot from the Germans, if we only wanted to.
26