Krugman

Archive for Krugman

Vote for the Most Astounding Statement I Heard This Week

Once again, it’s time for one of the more popular features on Free Advice, where you the reader get to vote on The Most Astounding Statement I Heard This Week. Our first contestant is documentary maker Ken Burns, who said the following in a Reason interview with libertarian bad boy Nick Gillespie: [M]y politics are […]

People Draw Different Lessons From History

Paul Krugman talking about the Europeans’ amazing reluctance to print as much money as he thinks they should: The point here is that we have a couple of centuries’ experience with central banking, and that experience clearly shows that the lender of last resort function is crucial. The Federal Reserve basically was created after America […]

Potpourri

Lots of links have been piling up here… * You know how Keynesians liked that one journal article showing that businesses were more worried about bad sales than regulations? Well, when a survey shows the exact opposite, they still take it as further evidence that the demand-side story is right. (Note that I’m not saying […]

Krugman Is the Herman Cain of Bailouts and the Euro

No, I don’t mean Krugman favors a $999 billion bailout (that’s much too small), I mean that he simultaneously tries to take both sides of a hot-button issue. (Poor John Stossel!) In a snarky post entitled, “A Tale of Two Krugmans,” I alluded to the fact that Krugman thought he blew up the case for […]

Friendly Monthly (Price) Inflation Update

Relying on the official BLS reports that came out yesterday and today on the Producer Price Index (PPI) and Consumer Price Index (CPI) respectively, here are the price increases for various categories over the course of the year from September 2010 through September 2011: Consumer Prices not counting food and energy: +2.0% Consumer Prices, all […]

Quick Question for the MMTers

For those of you intrepid (foolish?) enough to wade through the comments on this blog, you will note that–contrary to perhaps your initial perception–the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) proponents do not actually say that the issuer of a fiat currency can’t become insolvent. Rather, they qualify it in the following way: To qualify for the […]

Krugman on Europe: “I Do Believe in Fairies!”

(In deference to some who were concerned about my rough treatment of a youngster, I should note that I am not actually quoting Krugman in the post title.) Anyway, Krugman today seems to be explaining movements in interest rates based on “confidence”: There has been a rhythm to the euro crisis: again and again, investors […]

In Defense of David R. Henderson

David R. Henderson has the enviable task of being the Wall Street Journal’s go-to guy every year when the Nobel (Memorial) Prize in economics is announced. For this year’s recipients, David said the award was given to people whose work put “a sizable chink in the Keynesians’ armor.” Now David gives a bunch of evidence […]