Paul Krugman is judicious and sober:
Rashomon in the desert: Dubai or not Dubai — that is the question. Dubai’s sorta-kinda default (a state-owned enterprise seeking a rescheduling of its debts) is, by itself, not that big of a deal. But who else looks like Dubai? [...]
A number of readers wrote me this morning and asked what I thought of Paul Krugman's column today. Krugman writes:
As Gary Gorton and Andrew Metrick of Yale have shown, by 2007 the United States banking system had become crucially dependent on “repo” transactions, in which financial institutions sell assets [...]
Here’s a letter that I just sent to the New York Times:
Paul Krugman supports a “Tobin tax” as a means of reducing speculation (”Taxing the Speculators,” Nov. 27).
Bad idea. Speculators buy assets only when they predict that these assets’ prices will rise; speculators sell assets only when they predict [...]
Paul Krugman today argues in favor of a financial-transactions tax on the grounds that it would discourage over-reliance on ultra-short-term repo markets, among other reasons. In other words, reliance on repos is a bad thing, and it's a good idea for government policy to “nudge” financial institutions away from [...]
From Econbrowser (Yes the future deficits are worrisome):
Paul Krugman ([1], [2], [3]) has been arguing vigorously that U.S. budget deficits are no cause for concern. I see things differently.
...
Is it possible that some time within the next five years, the U.S. Treasury will run an auction in which there [...]There have been many posts on this topic lately, start with Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong if you need to catch up. Today I have a few simple points:
1. Even if "it is fine to borrow more" is the most likely scenario, it is not the only scenario. Let's take [...]
I here plead guilty to interpreting Paul Krugman unfairly. I’ve long read a passage in this 2002 New York Times Magazine essay by Krugman as being evidence of his endorsement of the common but false belief in zero-sum economics — the belief that Joe can get richer only by [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent few days ago to the New York Times:
Paul Krugman asserts that Beijing increases global unemployment by “siphoning much-needed demand away from the rest of the world into the pockets of artificially competitive Chinese exporters” (”World Out of Balance,” Nov. 16). This nefarious outcome [...]
I think Paul Krugman needs to get out and about a little more often. In his recent column he writes about Obama’s worries about the growing national debt:
But in a recent interview with Fox News, the president sounded diffident and nervous about his economic policy. He spoke vaguely about [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent today to the New York Times:
Paul Krugman insists that the nearly ten trillion dollars of projected U.S. government budget deficits over the next decade is a “phantom menace” (”The Phantom Menace,” Nov. 23). The real problem, according to Mr. Krugman, is that government’s [...]
Edmund Andrews has a long front-page story today on what he calls “the United States’ long-term budget crisis” — and has occasioned a strangulated “Urg” out of Paul Krugman in doing so. Krugman wrote a very smart blog entry on Friday (Tyler Cowen called it one [...]
What's really behind the deficit hawkishness?
MY WORKING theory of the Obama administration's recent deficit tough talk has been that the powers that be believe any new, deficit-funded stimulative measure would be impossible to get through Congress without some nod toward reining in the growing debt. Paul Krugman seems [...]
Paul Krugman reads the tea leaves in what looks like the best piece of economic analysis I have read this month. When we do the things we do well, this is the kind of thing we do:
Interest rates: the phantom menace: From various bat squeaks I’ve put together [...]
Paul Krugman is right to be worried about the unintended consequences of the AIG bailout:
We’ve greatly increased the chance of a Japanese-style lost decade, with I would now give roughly even odds of happening. Why? Because bank-friendly policies have squandered public trust in all government action: try talking to [...]
It's about deals to be struck, not sabres rattled
PAUL KRUGMAN'S column today makes a point I brought up not long ago—that there's a real danger to the global trade system of having high American unemployment figures juxtaposed against headlines on China's trade surplus for months on end. That [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
Columnist Paul Krugman writes that policies to promote “job sharing” are “worthy of consideration” (”Free to Lose,” Nov. 13).
Let’s start at the New York Times. I know several economists currently without jobs (and certainly without regular newspaper columns). [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
Paul Krugman is impressed that in Germany “unemployment is only slightly higher than it was before the crisis” (”Free to Lose,” Nov. 13). Indeed, Krugman is so bedazzled by the results of Germany’s extensive labor-market interventions that he [...]
Commenting on this post, Daniel Kuehn suggests that when Paul Krugman advocates European-style labor-market restrictions and subsidies, he (Krugman) does so not as a means of increasing employment today – in the midst of a recession – but, rather, as a means of keeping employment from falling as [...]
Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times:
To combat unemployment, Paul Krugman supports “labor rules that discourage firing” (”Free to Lose,” Nov. 13). If a student in my Principles of Economics course ever wrote such a thing on an exam, he or she would earn [...]
