I caught Krugman

I just checked out his NYT blog and read this:

So here’s my question: did Reaganism bring a return to a sense of entrepreneurship? Not that I remember. I think Obama is confusing the 80s with the 90s, the Reagan expansion with the Clinton expansion.

The point is that the quintessential business figures of the 80s weren’t creative entrepreneurs. They were big-corporation executives (Lee Iacocca) and takeover artists (Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky). The gazillionaires who started in garages came later.

Actually the Mac was released in 1985 as I recall and Microsoft was v. busy up in Seattle. I visited family in Los Altos (now the southern part of Silicon Valley) in the early 80s and you could sense the energy - wish I'd made the decision to move there. I'd argue the guys in their garages were going in the 70s. By the Nineties it was the me-tooers and the expansion of the www.

The entrepreneurs and visionaries just didn't have all the press that they got later.

•  earleir or later

  The computer guys started in the 70s, and the internet people tended to start in the mid nineties.

  by Salo on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 07:30:41 AM PDT

  •  well they started in the 70's

    but indeed the Mac - the computer for the rest of us - was launched in 1984 (or there abouts) - with the infamous 1984 superbowl commercial that was aired as an add once and viewed often since then.

    by The Third Man on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 07:35:48 AM PDT

    •  btw I thought that Krugman

      column was amazingly disingenuous. Posted a comment to that effect, will probably show up sometime next week. Some system they've got.

      by The Third Man on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 07:37:15 AM PDT

      •  From what I have read he seems to be in Hillary's

        camp... I am not sure he is an equal opportunity critic in the primary campaign... This is a hit on Obama's comments and disingenuous to boot...

        by Davinci on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 07:44:13 AM PDT

        •  Misreading Krugman and objectivity ...

          I think he actually thinks Edwards is the best candidate.

          And being an objective critic does not mean that one has to balance out one's criticisms across the board. This is the myth of "balance" that the right wing has benefited from so much.

          by John Driscoll on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 08:12:01 AM PDT

      •  'Disingenuous'?

        Why not post your comment to that effect here, too?

        Try being a little more specific than saying it was disingenuous, which to me just seems like you don't like the conclusion that he reached.

        I actually thought it was spot on. The fact is that the Democrat elites, Clinton in particular, have consciously chosen not to change the discourse, what Krugman calls the "narrative," about the failure of Reaganomics. And it is the non-elite who pay the price for that cowardice.

        by John Driscoll on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 08:08:34 AM PDT

        •  hmmmm.

          Bill Certainly not sure about Hillary.  

          She's made some noises.

          However Obama is not about to go afetr them for NAFTA and Welfare reform because he agreed with Welfare reform and NAFTA

          by Salo on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 08:40:21 AM PDT

          •  Yes Bill and Hillary do differ on the economy

            Partly signs of the times but also partly her less-triangulating disposition.

            Point of this front-page interview in today's NY Times explaining the differences.

            by Fast Pete on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 11:08:29 AM PDT

    •  The extent to which

      Krugman is an ignorant blowhard is almost stunning at times.

      To confuse the dot com bubble with legitimate economic achievement is, well, comical.

      And to claim that Presidents are responsible for the state of the economy is, well, political hackery at its worst.

      by JR Hawks on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 07:40:28 AM PDT

      •  Comical ...

        is the way you have misread Krugman.

        There is a difference between the PC economy and the dot com bubble, although they are clearly related. I think Krugman was talking more about the emergence of the PC economy in the 1990s, not the dot com bubble.

        Krugman is actually debunking the claim by the right that Reagan was responsible for economic benefits that could not possibly be caused by his policies.

        by John Driscoll on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 08:16:43 AM PDT

        •  seems a bit literal

          of the diary author.  Teh Xerox team who developed the mouse did it in the seventies.

          If you were around in the 80s is was all Iacocca.

          by Salo on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 08:38:45 AM PDT

          •  Literal ...

            The point is that the quintessential business figures of the 80s weren’t creative entrepreneurs. They were big-corporation executives (Lee Iacocca) and takeover artists (Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky).

            Merriam-Webster's definition of quintessential: (3) the most typical example or representative.

            by John Driscoll on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 08:51:25 AM PDT

      •  Backing up MY argument ...

        From the Krugman blog post on NYT:

        The takeoff, both in productivity and in optimism, came only around 1995. I’m not giving Clinton credit for that takeoff; the truth is that we don’t know why it happened. But it definitely didn’t happen on Reagan’s watch.

        I understand why conservatives want to backdate the good things that happened in the 90s, and pretend they happened in the Reagan years. But why is Obama playing along?

        Emphasis mine.

        by John Driscoll on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 08:22:11 AM PDT

    •  That was 1970s Xerox's tech.

      I guess Jobs put the product togeteher for the consumer market though.  You are nit picking.

      by Salo on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 08:43:21 AM PDT

  •  You miss all the R & D money in the eighties...

    There was a large expansion along with a budget deficit and military build up... Still Reagan raised taxes after he cut them. People tend to forget that about him... Funny thing is that it is about his attitude from the bully pulpit.. The country was hurting and Reagan offered another vision. I would argue that it was a selling point but one that did pay dividends to the GOP... A sorta myth of the Messiah as the late Frank Herbert wrote about in the dune books.... Perception vs reality... Still the power to move an agenda is often done by creating a vision... This is what numbers guys like Krugman miss IMHO...

    by Davinci on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 07:41:27 AM PDT

    •  Teh Rand D for MAc

      was done by Xerox in the 70s and Jobs rengineered their mouse technology.

      Seems like a nit to pick really.

      MIcrochips are from the 70s for example.

      by Salo on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 08:41:45 AM PDT

•  Well strictly speaking

  computers started in the 40's, IBM rose in the 60's, garage computers got their start in the 70's when I was in college, the IBM PC was in the 1980's & the internet was up and running in the 1980's, but the internet bubble and explosion of PC's & the internet for everyone was in the 1990's.  So it was the 1990's when the economy was really technology driven.  

  Heck, compuserve, prodigy & AOL were all available in the 1980's.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/...

  by LIsoundview on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 07:36:42 AM PDT

  •  BBS systems

    Computer bulletin board systems - which did about everything we're doing here on Kos - were widely established by 1983. Within a few years they were networked - instances like FidoNet had hundreds of nodes across the country, which would phone each other overnight and synchronize their message boards. Most of this was based on machines from entrepreneurial startups of the early 80s - Osborne, Kaypro, and the like. Apple had been first, but was overpriced, so the hobbiest BBSs were run on Z80 boxes running CP/M or ZCPR (which was the Linux of its time). Then they transitioned to DOS.

    The Darpa net - which became the Internet - was over in the defense and academic realms. But the BBS networks were much closer to what the Web has become. They were based entirely on entrepreneurial hardware and software efforts. This did happen while Reagan was president; although I doubt Reagan had much to do with it.

    by wytcld on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 07:47:17 AM PDT

    •  Okay, yeah, all that's true.

      But LIsoundview is still right that none of this was anywhere near big enough to drive the economy in the 80s. Those of us who were there knew it was going to be big, but we didn't start to see macro effects until the 90s.

      Neither Reagan nor Clinton had a damn thing to do with it, of course. A president taking credit for a tech boom is like a resort owner taking credit for summer.

      by Canadian Reader on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 08:44:31 AM PDT

      •  Exactly right

        And I had a bird's eye view.  My husband worked for IBM from 1967 on, I joined the company in 1978.

        BTW, folks tend to forget that Prodigy was active in 1980's, too.  

        by LIsoundview on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 12:52:48 PM PDT

•  quality nitpicking

  but I'd say that he's right in that Jobs, Gates, et. al were not the "quintessential" businesspeople of the 80s.

  by neia on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 07:39:15 AM PDT

  •  If I remeber it was the start of the corperate

    build out.. Convenience stores and fast food franchises etc.. I do no that their was huge growth in the suburban landscape of business interests etc...

    by Davinci on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 07:47:39 AM PDT

  •  Depends on your geekiness

    For those of us in the technology biz,  Jobs et al were "quintessential business figures" in the 1980s,  but not so for non-geeks.

    I remember a speech by one of those "figures" (Jack Tramiel,  I think) to a bunch of eager young PC pioneers around 1982 or so.  Part of his message to the folks for whom PCs were the entire universe was some perspective on its real importance to the economy:  thanks to its dramatic rate of growth,  the PC industry,  which had just passed the pantyhose industry,  was poised to overtake the potato chip industry.

    The "entrepreneurship" in Silicon Valley's PC and microcomputer applications industries really started in the 1970s and peaked early in the 1990s.  What happened in the 1990s was that PCs became "big business" in the perception of non-geeks.

    So Krugman was right,  from the point of view of "mainstream" folks.

    by Ran Talbott on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 09:05:07 AM PDT

  •  The 80s were the "me first" era.

    Greed is good. Ruthlessness is heroic. Corporate raiders are heroes. Poverty? Your own damn fault.

    And Reagan was the genial, smiling spokesman for that message of upper middle class complacency.

    by Canadian Reader on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 09:14:38 AM PDT

•  the trajectory part that Obama was talking about.

  From Krugman:

  It’s not just a matter of what happens in the next election. Mr. Clinton won his elections, but — as Mr. Obama correctly pointed out — he didn’t change America’s trajectory the way Reagan did. Why?

  Well, I’d say that the great failure of the Clinton administration — more important even than its failure to achieve health care reform, though the two failures were closely related — was the fact that it didn’t change the narrative, a fact demonstrated by the way Republicans are still claiming to be the next Ronald Reagan.

  Obama's about Reagan:
  http://tpmelectioncentral.com/...

  by eyesonthestreet on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 08:11:30 AM PDT

•  had to get to work

  and missed this discussion.

  My point was that Krugman took some liberties in his description of the

  gazillionaires who started in garages came later

  They didn't come later, they came earlier and continued through the Eighties. I wasn't commenting on Obama's narrative etc....

  by zozie on Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 12:04:36 PM PDT