Oh, look, it’s Paul Krugman claiming that the major funder of all the Republican deficit hype is none other than Blackstone co-founder Pete Peterson:

Given these realities, the deficit-scold movement has lost some of its clout. That movement, by the way, is a hydra-headed beast, comprising many organizations that turn out, on inspection, to be financed and run by more or less the same people; dig down into many of these groups’ back stories and you will, in particular, find Peter Peterson, the private-equity billionaire, playing a key role.

But the deficit scolds aren’t giving up. Now yet another organization, Fix the Debt, is campaigning for cuts to Social Security and Medicare, even while making lower tax rates a “core principle.” That last part makes no sense in terms of the group’s ostensible mission, but makes perfect sense if you look at the array of big corporations, from Goldman Sachs to the UnitedHealth Group, that are involved in the effort and would benefit from tax cuts. Hey, sacrifice is for the little people.

So should we take this latest push seriously? No — and not just because these people, aside from exhibiting a lot of hypocrisy, have been wrong about everything so far. The truth is that at a fundamental level the crisis story they’re trying to sell doesn’t make sense.

Sure, the story is from November. But it’s pretty relevant today.

You’re familiar with Blackstone/SAC Capitol because of things like this:

Federal investigators have been circling SAC Capital and its founder, Greenwich billionaire Steve Cohen, for years, over suspicions that Cohen’s hedge fund has been a nest of illegal insider trading. Their investigative tactics have been aggressive — wire-tapping Cohen at his home, busting one of his lieutenants and prodding him to flip on the boss — but have not thus far produced enough evidence to charge Cohen with anything.

And because we write about it all the time:

• KRS Placement Agent Living The High Life [August 31, 2010]
• KRS Placement Agent Audit Could Be Messy [September 3, 2010]
• Fancy KRS-Affiliated Group In Another Big Scandal [May 27, 2011]
• KRS Hires Blackstone – Again – After All That Mess [September 6, 2011]
• KRS-Beloved Blackstone Rears Its Ugly Head Again [January 19, 2012]
• A Couple Big Kentucky Retirement Systems Things [August 2, 2012]
• You’ll Never Guess What The KRS Is Involved In [December 20, 2012]
• KRS Fun: SEC Investigating Blackstone Hedge Fund [January 2, 2013]
• Another Day, Another Piece For The KRS Puzzle [January 4, 2013]
• SAC Capital Scandal Getting Even Deeper [January 9, 2013]
• Another Fun Mess For The KRS And Jack Conway [January 11, 2013]
• The Latest On The SAC Capital Investigation [January 31, 2013]

Meanwhile, these corrupt folks at Kentucky Retirement Systems continue to go after our advertisers for daring raise questions about how tax dollars are being spent.

So we’ll continue harping on everything we can.