Rebutting Paul Krugman on InflationIf you don’t know whether to worry more about inflation or deflation — economists seem to be evenly split at the moment — a good technique is to parse the arguments being made by the two camps. Here is the case made by Paul Krugman, a leading proponent of the “worry...Read More
California’s Financial Mess You have to wonder if California’s political paralysis foreshadows the future of the nation as a whole. –Paul Krugman, “State of Paralysis“; The New York Times (5/25/09) Just in case you’ve been enjoying a blissfully off-line Memorial Day weekend, the big story percolating on the leading op-ed pages and blogs at the...Read More
“Who’s Who” Discussion of Financial CrisisBest read of the weekend: a roundtable called “The Crisis and How to Deal With It.” Participants are a “who’s who” of finance and public policy: Bill Bradley, Niall Ferguson, Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini, and George Soros. Warning: their (quite sober) analyses are not for the easily spooked or faint...Read More
The “Muddle-Through Strategy” What we’re really seeing here is a decision on the part of President Obama and his officials to muddle through the financial crisis, hoping that the banks can earn their way back to health . . . maybe we can let the economy fix the banks instead of the other way around....Read More
Fixing the Financial System If . . taxpayer funds end up providing windfalls to financial operators instead of fixing what needs to be fixed, we might not have the money to go back and do it right. And the lesson of Ireland is that you really, really don’t want to put yourself in a position...Read More
Obama’s Fiscal Stimulus Splits the Difference“Obama’s economic plan falls well short of what’s needed.”–Paul Krugman, “The Obama Gap” (NYT, 1/9/09)“Obama has vowed to do everything at once . . this will be the most complex piece of legislation in American history.”–David Brooks, “The Confidence Surplus” (NYT, 1/9/09)Depending on who you believe, President-elect Obama has devised...Read More
