Alexander Cockburn seems to blast everyone in this weekend's posting on CounterPunch (though Cockburn calling Paul Krugman or anyone else stylistically "pompous" is ridiculous).
Worthy of mention is the fact that CounterPunch is among the very few journals that tells the ugly truth about the global financial meltdown, and Cockburn points out that Krugman is almost uniquely positioned in the corporate media to offer ongoing analyses.
...In his official obituary for the bank bail-out scheme, published in the Times on (last) Monday – the same day as the scheme’s official birth -- Krugman announced somberly that 'This is more than disappointing. In fact, it fills me with a sense of despair.'
Yes, this does sound a bit pompous, even though Krugman is a crisp columnist. As connoisseurs of the Financial Times’ Martin Wolf and other prominent economic Cassandras down the decades know well, there’s nothing like a widely-read economics column to induce a tone of self-importance in the author. 'I’m concerned about Europe,' Krugman began a column grandly a few weeks ago.
By this week’s end Krugman was conclusive in judgement. 'I don’t think this is just a financial panic; I believe that it represents the failure of a whole model of banking, of an overgrown financial sector that did more harm than good. I don’t think the Obama administration can bring securitization back to life, and I don’t believe it should try.'
Far more acrid have been CounterPunch’s A-team of economic commentators – starring former assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts, Michael Hudson, Pam Martens, Michael Whitney, Peter Morici and other contributors too numerous for individual mention.
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