Paul Krugman speaks Monday night…
From the Boston Globe comes this interview with Paul Krugman on what he does in between writing and speaking. Just for fun.
From the bully pulpit of his New York Times column, Paul Krugman has been explaining why numbers matters since 1999. The unabashed liberal took the Bush administration to task, but he hasn’t exactly let the Obama administration off the hook, as his new book, “End This Depression Now” makes clear. The Nobel laureate is in town Monday night for a sold-out event sponsored by the Harvard Book Store
The event will be held at First Parish in Cambridge, MA Unitarian-Universalist church. I will be there…if I get the chance to say hello before the event, what do you recommend I ask or say?
Please ask Mr. Krugman to do a little Crystal Ball gazing for your readership. Many liberal economists imply that wages will reconverge or recouple with productivity growth in the same way they once were from the end of WWII to about 1975. I would like you to ask Mr. Krugman if he thinks productivity growth will start to recouple with wage growth or if productivity growth will continue to diverge from wage growth as has been the case since the mid seventies.
Krugman was on with Eliot Spitzer the other night. 1/2 hour interview. If I remember correctly, he was actually talking labor needing emphysis to counter the money class. It’s about time a name brand econ with a pulpit start talking labor.
I also would like to see Krugman pushed on the issue of strengthening labor. I might ask him about his ideas–if he has any–for new policies or laws that might signfiicantly enhance the political influence of labor in this country.
less politics when addressing issues…he had a devastating post on education last week, but inserted a dig at romney in every other sentence, & ruined it…
read this without the romney sentences: Wasting Our Minds, by Paul Krugman
Can he write an econ 101 primer appropriate for high school age students.
rjs,
First, thanks for the heads up on Krugman’s column. Otherwise, how does the column make sense without pointing out that Romney and Co. are out to destroy the middle class and reap yet more for themselves. That’s the entire point of Krugman’s column. Romney and his buddies have all the worst ideas and will make things far worse, not better. The two points should not be seperated.
The purpose of that column was twofold: to report and discuss what Romney said—which was really jaw-dropping and should have gotten media attention but got none except from Krugman—and, separately, to discuss the awful job market for recent college grads, and what to do about it. It clearly was relevant to the latter issue to point out that Romney’s prescription for the economy—slashing taxes on corporations and the rich, and drastically cutting government spending—would, as Krugman says, destroy jobs rather than create them.
I have nothing to recommend. But it strikes me that, the title of his Times Blog notwithstanding, Krugman really isn’t a liberal. He just looks like one because
1) he’s sane.
2) he honest,
3) he consistently points out the lunacy, lies and hypocrisy of those who insist on calling themselves “conservative.”
Read anything by Krugman from the 90’s. He was all about basic, by the books econ, including free trade. I think he was pretty apolitical in those days, and got politicized by the Bush admin. I followed rather a similar path, but it was the Clinton impeachment that made the sales fall from my eyes.
JzB
I have nothing to recommend. But it strikes me that, the title of his Times Blog notwithstanding, Krugman really isn’t a liberal. He just looks like one because
1) he’s sane.
2) he honest,
3) he consistently points out the lunacy, lies and hypocrisy of those who insist on calling themselves “conservative.”
Read anything by Krugman from the 90’s. He was all about basic, by the books econ, including free trade. I think he was pretty apolitical in those days, and got politicized by the Bush admin. I followed rather a similar path, but it was the Clinton impeachment that made the scales fall from my eyes.
JzB
And today right on que at the Yahoo Finacial page is the headline:
French & Greek Elections Rattle Global Markets, Threaten Austerity in Europe
It called the elections “troubling”.
Maybe you can ask him about this type of headline. Really, “austerity” is threatened so the markets are down? This must finally be the confidence fairy. Oh save us great Confidence Fairy of Austerity!
Can you ask him why in March of 2003 he wrote a NYT column saying he was “…terrified of what will happen to interest rates once financial markets wake up to the implications of skyrocketing budget deficits”, juxtaposed with his column last week that said, “Conservative goldbugs have been prediciting vast inflation and soaring interest rates for three years, and have been wrong every step of the way”?
‘Stengthenig labor.’
How does that work without driving more businesses overseas?
What legislation do you think Obama will stand up (considering his last three years performance) and put his political capital on to push through congress? What political leaders in the Dem. Congress caucuss are going to write the legislation and sponser it?
Given the Dems had two years of overwelming control of both houses of congress and the Presidency, we were in a big recession, and yet they didn’t pass anything then? What do you think they could pass now?
Lastly people at AB keep referring to the 1945-1975 as the ‘golden years’. Probably should be 1973. That was the time when most of the world lay in ruins from WW II and were rebuilding. Then we had the oil embargo and the rise of Japanese exports (quickly followed by Europe as they got on there feet. Now we add the billions of workers in China and India to the mix. And don’t forget the million of illegal immagrents in our own country that depress wages for the poor right here, right now.
So exactly how do you plan to get back to the ‘golden years’ when you can leave High School and join the UAW and make good money with little skills?
Islam will change
Race relations were not vety good in the golden period versus today. Life was bleaker then. Lack of cheap energy is driving is what’s holding us back now. Moreover, you can’t fix this by seizing the bank account of the wealthy, which i think is the left’s plan to balance the budget and pay off the national debt.
Race relations were not vety good in the golden period versus today. Life was bleaker then. Lack of cheap energy is driving is what’s holding us back now. Moreover, you can’t fix this by seizing the bank account of the wealthy, which i think is the left’s plan to balance the budget and pay off the national debt.
“Probably should be 1973. That was the time when most of the world lay in ruins from WW II and were rebuilding. Then we had the oil embargo and the rise of Japanese exports (quickly followed by Europe as they got on there feet.”
This could use some editing. Because no one mildly cognizant of post WW-II history would suggest that most of the world “lay in ruins from WW II” as late as 1973 or immediately pivoted to oil embargos. Or that Japanese exports rose before European ones did. By 1973 most luxury markets were dominated by European imports (Mercedes and BMW, Bang & Olafson, French wines, Italian shoes) at times when the Japanese were derided for making ‘rice burners’ and cheap stereos. At best the Toyota Corolla was making its first strides as an inexpensive family sedan as against the Volkswagon. Now if by ‘1973’ you really meant ‘1953’ or at a pinch ‘1958’ this wouldn’t be so much of a muddle but as it is you don’t need to be a historian as much as knowing how to Google ‘Marshall Plan’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan
“By 1952 as the funding ended, the economy of every participant state had surpassed pre-war levels; for all Marshall Plan recipients, output in 1951 was at least 35% higher than in 1938. Over the next two decades, Western Europe enjoyed unprecedented growth and prosperity, but economists are not sure what proportion was due directly to the ERP, what proportion indirectly, and how much would have happened without it. The Marshall Plan was one of the first elements of European integration, as it erased trade barriers and set up institutions to coordinate the economy on a continental level—that is, it stimulated the total political reconstruction of western Europe”
Buff you seem to have fallen into a Faux-News style trap of seeing Europe as some war-torn Socialist hellhole, probably still exchanging wheelbarrows of cash for bread as in Weimar or sex for nylons as in certain overheated WWII narratives. Something that probably would have come as a surprise to a couple of generations of US tourists, college students, or even European stationed soldiers, sailors and dare I say it airmen during the 50s through the 70s and indeed beyond. Or were you self-confined to Ramstad Air Base? Shaking in deadly fear lest you be exposed to the Horrors of Oktoberfest in Bavaria? Or being run down by those Volvo ox carts on the Autobahn?
(Though I have it on good authority that those perverse Frenchmen put ‘C’ on their hot water faucets, just LOOKIN’ to scald innocent servicemen in fleatraps like the Ritz.)
But Claude and ‘chaud’ aside this is somewhere between special pleading and selective vision bordering on blindness.
Bruce I was stationed in Europe in the 90s and no lived on base (it was NATO base). We visited some friends from our little down I lived in last year.
The bottom line is that it took a long time for Europe to fully get back on her feet. Same with Japan. These were the ‘Golden Years’ which seems to have ended around 1973 when we lost in Vietnam and got kicked in the head with the oil embargo.
The main point is what do you plan to do to actually return to these golden years and do you really think Obama is going to do anything for labor? He’s had 3 years.
So what do you think we need to do, that’s actually doable, to get us back?
Islam will change
The bottom line is that it didn’t take until 1973. Making your subsequent “analysis” worthless. You claimed that any attempts by liberals to appeal to some Golden Age (though unstated clearly referring to the European Social Welfare State) in the 50s through 70s was obviated by a Europe prostrate after the war and not even caught up to Japan.
Which is pure ahistorical crap.
Which was my “main point”.
As to “what to do”. Well dispensing with the fractured fairy tale that was and is Reagan-Thatcherism and returning to 70s era financial and social structures (as opposed to Randite fantasies) might be a good start.
Reagan is a zero, FDR is a hero. If you use data points not skewed to the 1%. The Right and the Center-Right (DLC Dems and Blairite New Labour/Third Way) had their way with us. And all we got was butt-hurt.
Empiricism is a bitch. And the history of the last 30+ years show it is Keynes and Krugmans bitch. The Rising Tide didn’t Raise All Boats. And actually swamped some that were floating comparatively well in the 50s and 60s and most of the 70s. Unless you cling to some fantasy that had Urrp still digging it self out of rubble 30 years after V-E Day.
Hear, hear!
You’re taking these quotes wildly out of context. Low inflation and low interest rates are direct predictions of what happens if lots of cash is injected into the system in a depressed economy. The exact opposite of what was predicted by conservatives/goldbugs/centrists and exactly what he predicted at the begining of this.
As for the first quote, he admited he was wrong about how long it takes for countries with their own currency to lose market confidence. This change of heart was based purely on the evidence as far as I’m concerned. Also part of the column mentions Japan (which you guys always leave out) which means he predicted what would happen in a hypothetical depression years before it would happen.
buff “strengthening labor” is not the same as “weakening business” and driving companies overseas. That said, you point to one reason that we need smart people thinking about how to strengthen labor.
Just to be clear, if I knew the answer, I wouldn’t suggest asking Krugman to answer it.
“‘Stengthenig labor.’
“How does that work without driving more businesses overseas? “
I don’t know, but Germany managed it.
Also, we have to stop attacking labor overseas, which we do through the IMF, World Bank, and WTO. We have to slap on tariffs or refuse to import items produced by sweat shops, child labor, pollution, unsafe working conditions, and so on. (Fat chance, but we ought to. In a global economy we should enforce the same standards for foreign made goods that we have for our own.)
jazzsbumpa: “I think he was pretty apolitical in those days, and got politicized by the Bush admin. I followed rather a similar path, but it was the Clinton impeachment that made the scales fall from my eyes.”
Yeah, Bush politicized me. It was Katrina. I believe that that government is best that governs least. But that means efficient, effective government, not incompetence and irresponsibility. Myself, I would not have voted for all of our social programs, but once they have been established, the duty of the executive is to carry them out effectively, not to sabotage them.
Nice summary Bruce
In 2003 we had a different economic climate, one in which raising taxes to pay for our wars was a good idea. Since the financial crisis we have a different climate, where borrowing money to repair infrastructure, to employ teachers, police, and firemen, to send people to school, to retrain laid off workers, etc., etc., is a good idea. Gov’t deficits and surpluses are neither good nor bad in themselves, it depends upon the circumstances.
Min;
No tariffs, tax the multinationals
Bruce,
Funny…..but you write that immature comment on a laptop, probably kicked back in a Lazy-Boy, and enjoying a standard of living 10 times over the rest of the world.
The bitching from the Left has never rung more hollow.
If you guys would have actually made something happend after the country put your people in power, the people that you insisted we had to have because they were so much smarter than us idiots on the Right, then maybe we would have listened more closely to the perspective from the Left.
But instead you haters ended up doing exactly what we thought you were gonna do, and now anyone on the Left has the credibility of Fly Infested Hand Flung Monkey Shit! When you guys lose in November, don’t be crying to us that you guys didn’t get your shot. You’ve had 6 years of control in Congress, and 4 years in the Executive Branch. Its times for you guys to quit pushing the Anti-Capitalist agenda and understand that no matter how bad you guys want your Socialist Utopia, the population isn’t going to accept it.
Don’t worry after the economy recovers and we start fixing all this damage the Democrats have done, we’ll let you guys take credit for it, and you can brag to your grandchildern how great the Obama Presidency was to your hearts content. The modern Marxists, Statist Capitalists, and Collectivist Eco Warriors as represented thru the modern Democratic Party have proven that they are not mainstream and far too Radical to be respected and taken seriously, and hopefully America can put this all behind us.
Ken Tuckey:
I am going to post to this so everyone can see how immature you are and can delete it. Nice rant!
Run,
Whats wrong?……Did it hit to close to home?
Yup, that standard of living in Canada, Sweden, Australia, Germany and Finland is awful. Horrible. No laptops and Lazy Boys there!
Beverly,
The claim was that not enough boats were raised by the rising tide…which is completye BS. What does that have to do the countries you listed other than the fact that the United States created an environment in the world so that these countries could thrive, which makes Bruces comment even more BS. Comparing the United States to countries with populations and economies not even in the same ball park is ridiculous and only the useful idiots of agenda driven politics attempt those comparisons.
“The claim was that not enough boats were raised by the rising tide…which is completye BS.”
Real median income in 2007 (before the current depression) in the U. S. was about what it had been 30 years before. That’s a lot of boats that did not rise.
Selective tariffs send a clear message. 🙂
“Funny…..but you write that immature comment on a laptop, probably kicked back in a Lazy-Boy, and enjoying a standard of living 10 times over the rest of the world. “
Ken Tucky you don’t know Ken Fucky about my current lifestyle. And anyone who thinks that the typical American enjoys a standard of living 10 times over the rest of the world whether that be in the advanced Social Democracies of Northern Europe now or for that matter in 1953 is too effing ignorant for words.
This is an Econonblog devoted to actual data points and what is clear as clear is that the years from around 1945 to sometime between 1973 and 1980 saw productivity improvements reflected with tracking improvements in Real Wage in part as a result of post-war developments including the GI Bill and public support for Public Education. Developments that essentially came to a stop with Reaganism-Thatcherism and the belief that general welfare would be improved by shoveling every more benefits to the top 20% then 10% then 1% while claiming that the lower 80 then 90 then 99% would get EVEN MORE benefit than the Middle Class saw in the post-war pre-Reagan period.
Didn’t happen. And only people profoundly ignorant of comparative world economics think any different. So shove the Mint Julips where the horses don’t run. At least for any of the rest of us.
Plus you fuck-wad I am long term unemployed and living in a homeless shelter. But thanks to funding from the VA and the Berkeley Public Library still have access to the internet. In part on my pay by the minute cell phone which I still manage to hold onto from my previous middle class lifestyle. Along with a couple nice pair of shoes and some sport coats. But no Lazy-Boys.
It is not so bad that your American Exceptionalists believe that your Born on Third Basedom is universally shared among all Americans but that ignorami like you think the rest of the world is still digging itself out of 10,000 BC. You need to get out more.
And the Bluegrass State has enough problems living down stereotypes about cave dwelling Goobers without you coming along and convincing all of us you Ken Bucky’s just fell off Gomer’s pickup truck.
BuffPilot at least has a track record here long enough that he gets some residual respect and attempts at good humor. You? Far as I am concerned you can set on it and rotate.
And yes that is a little immature. Well sucks to be you.
Bruce,
I’ve lived overseas. I know everything I need to know about the beauty of the United States. Just because you want a hand-out, doesn’t mean you deserve it.
You sound like a spoiled brat.
I have been here just as long as Buff if not longer. Stick to S.S……..you haven’t been right yet, but I respect the effort, maybe someday you’ll actually contribute some economic sense instead of the typical Leftist Bitching and complaining.
It’s not like I didn’t expect a response filled with personal attacks and insults……I’ve rumbled with you before. The only thing to learn here is how to tow the latest Leftist talking point. If your unwilling to do so your either shouted down or banned. How impressive!
Min and run,
Thanks for the reply. (And sorry for my mis-spellings – I swear the keyboard is doing it!! 🙂
I just keep hearing people say ‘strengthen labor’ but no one tells me exactly what that means. Tariifs? Strong anti-illegal immagration and deportations (reduces labor force pushing up labor wages due to scarcity? Eliminate H1B visas and associated ilk (why not give these high-tech people green-cards instead??) Up minimum wage?
Probably some other items, but if this is the way to do it why haven’t I heard anything from Obama and the Democrats? Its been 3 years…
Bruce – sorry about your job situation and sorry I so poorly phrased what I was trying to say. I was rushed and it didn’t come out correctly. I just grew up in the rust-belt and watched the Europeans and Japanese/Korea crush the industries I grew up around, lots of my HS classmates are hurting like you also. I got out of the area as fast as I could since I saw the hand-writing on the wall, but many stayed and its been tough ever since.
And who is Ken Tuckey? I thought he was new also…
Islam will change
Jeremy you’re right I have taken these quotes out of context. Here’s the context: His 2003 column was an explication of how the invasion of Iraq would destroy the U.S. economy. His column from last week was another characterization of his political opponents as ignorant, racist, liars. That’s how he gets paid. He is a political writer with a veneer of economics. The good professor uses his CV to impart his political views in a wraper of economic “deep thinking”. Progressivism has discarded the Woody Guthries of the world and replaced them with college teachers! No wonder they’re losing the battle of ideas.
read this
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/11332-paul-krugman-austerity-is-so-wrong
Buff
there is a good chance we got kicked in the head by the Fed pursuing a monetarist policy without knowing what “money” is… or had become.
the oil embargo could as easily led to deflation as inflation. it was the Fed that caused the inflation.
buff
like Bruce says, you redeem yourself.
i don’t think the question “how to strengthen labor” has no answer. but you are right that we don’t hear much about the how from the leaders we have chosen. You could look at Obama’s treasury secretaries for a guess as to why.
Kentuckey
you started out with abuse, so you did not expect personal attacks and insults? or you did, that’s why you started that way?
I can understand Bruce giving you back what you came in with. I used to try to be kind to the ignorant, but folks like you have taught me that it doesn’t help.
Please go away.
little john,
yes it’s a shame the R’s winning ideas are destroying the country.
it’s even more of a shame that the D’s have decided that R’s ideas are how to win elections, helping to destroy the country.
my guess is that it’s too late to do anything about it. but that’s no excuse for not trying.
2003 was a long time ago. and I can remember when Krugman was very wrong about Social Security because he lazily took the conventional wisdom for “truth.” He has since done a little more arithmetic, but seems to me to still miss the main point… as, tragically, so does most of the Left.
Now, I hardly think you are the man, but nevertheless I suggest getting behind all the “political” crap and try thinking… real thinking… about the problems you think you see. It will be very hard for you to think clearly if you have a head full of propaganda… from either side.. but that is your only hope. Hope, that is, if you want to be sane. If you do manage… and it is very difficult… to get beyond all those things you “know” are true, you will still have the problem of trying to convince everyone else.
“Probably some other items, but if this is the way to do it why haven’t I heard anything from Obama and the Democrats?”
The Democrats have pretty much abandoned labor, at least on the national and international level. The Dems have controlled Congress for most of the last half-century or longer, certainly while income inequality has grown to dangerous proportions. IIUC, the most economically efficient way to counter income inequality is to impose confiscatory taxation at the top (a cap). Never gonna happen. It’s unfair and un-American. Another way is to peg the minimum wage to inflation or to average income, or the like. Other things have cost of living adjustments, why not the minimum wage? That should be a no-brainer. Why haven’t the Dems done that, in all the years of Congressional control?
My answer is that they do not care about the minimum wage, as long as there is one. Not having it increase automatically with the cost of living means that from time to time they can have it out with the Reps about an increase in the minimum wage. The outcome does not matter, what matters is the theater.
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I have a laptop that is in dire need of repair. The problem is that the place that the manufacturer (Toshiba) recommends has a policy of erasing the hard drive if it is damaged or “the software is corrupted”. The laptop’s hard drive is perfectly fine, but it has only Linux installed on it, and I expect that Linux will be regarded as “corrupted” software, resulting in an unnecessary erasing of the disk.
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