Krugman

Archive for Krugman

Krugman: Whether Potential GDP Is Up, Down, or Sideways, It’s More Evidence That I’m Right

Krugman has made such a strategic error in his advocacy for monetary inflation that even his teammates had to rebuke him. But first some context: “Potential GDP” is a mainstream economics concept referring to the maximum sustainable level of (real) GDP. In the standard New Keynesian paradigm, if actual (real) GDP is above potential, you […]

Krugman: Austerity Is Bad, Unless It’s Taxing Rich People

Krugman is up in arms over the faux austerians: All along they’ve been worrying about the budget deficits in Europe, but when France goes and raises taxes on rich people, they complain about that too! The nerve of these people. Yet as usual, Krugman doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. In his zeal […]

Krugman on Government Fiscal Hole: “Death panels and sales taxes is how we do this.”

In 1984, one of the minor characters early on disappears because he was just too enthusiastic in his zeal for Big Brother. I always think of this guy when Paul Krugman unfurls his refreshing candor and explains the full implications of his brand of political economy. The below clip is from a talk Krugman gave […]

Krugman: Failed Apocalyptic Predictions Are Laughable, Unless They Support Bigger Government

Not his exact words, mind you. Krugman in his November 7 review of William Nordhaus’ new book on climate change economics: Forty years ago a brilliant young Yale economist named William Nordhaus published a landmark paper, “The Allocation of Energy Resources,” that opened new frontiers in economic analysis…. For if one looks back at “The […]

Krugman: ObamaCare Rollout the Fault of Private Insurance; Single Payer Would Fix Everything

A lot of us have been warning that ObamaCare is a system that even many of its proponents knew would fail, but in so doing would pave the way for their true objective: the elimination of private health insurance to be replaced by the federal government as a “single payer” for all medical care. In […]

Explaining the Success of the Keynesian Revolution

A lot of times Austrian economists will say that the Austrians used to be really popular and influential, but that they were eclipsed by the Keynesians in the 1930s. Then they might explain this outcome along the lines of, “The Keynesian economists told government officials exactly what they wanted to hear: spend more money to […]

Is the International Status of the Dollar a Big Deal?

David R. Henderson has a thoughtful post that (among other things) endorses Paul Krugman’s recent thoughts on the significance (or lack thereof) of the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency. As David puts it, the role of seigniorage is relatively unimportant in its impact on Americans. In the comments I pushed back on David’s […]