Posted 3:49 PM by Robert

Latest From The Reduced Krugman Company

Hoystory has the goods. Lots of good things on the wobbling credibility of the Krugmanian Junta from Luskin, here and also here - with terrific links.

Here's the entire substance of today's column by Herr Doltorprofessor Krugman:

The Iraq war is too expensive, everybody hates us because of it and .. O, yes, ... Bush lied.

I'll put that on the intellectual shelf along with the latest word on "abs" workouts from Men's Health. It's not that the cost of the Iraq occupation or the proper abdominal exercises are without significance, it's just that in terms of usefulness, significance, complexity and subtlety of the insight the two articles contain, the Men's Health effort is slightly more imposing.

Herr Doktorprofessor has also been active on his personal website, where yesterday's posting notes:

Nationally, state and local taxes are highly regressive, and have become considerably more regressive over time. California's system is regressive, too, but not as much so as the national average.

Among the more "regressive" state and local taxes is the real property tax. So one of the reasons California's tax system is not as regressive as it might be is that Proposition 13 seriously limits the ability of California governments to tax real property. Of course, Herr Doktorprofessor does not like Proposition 13 one bit, as he has told us elsewhere: What is true is that California's taxes are highly inequitable: thanks to Proposition 13, some people pay ridiculously low property taxes.

So there you have it: What was just a few days ago highly inequitable is now not as regressive as the national average.

It's all in Schrodinger's Raccoon's day's work foraging through economic detritus for whatever can be pulled out to service the partisan needs of the moment!