The New York Times asked four economists- Paul Krugman, Simon Johnson, Brad DeLong and Mark Thoma- to state their opinion on the Geithner Plan. Krugman hates it, Johnson thinks it isn’t enough, DeLong says it is “better than nothing” and Thoma is uncertain. Probably not the best of signs.
Last night, I bought Paul Krugman’s latest book The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008. I’m only about a quarter into the book but the writing style is the same as it was in his previous books and in his column and blog: approachable, informative and entertaining. It is a book for those that have a knowledge of politics but a cursory understanding of economics. For economic wonks, it would be more of a light appetizer than a meal but that’s not necessarily a criticism. Krugman states in the forward that he has purposefully toned down the wonk so that it is more readable (but by no means dumbed down) for the general population.
Paul Krugman reported having a spot of trouble the other day:
Unusually, I’m having a vocabulary problem. There has to be some word for the kind of person who considers his mild discomfort the equivalent of torture, crippling injury, or death for other people. But I can’t think of it.
What brings this to mind is this [...]
Okay, day after Christmas, back at it. Paul Krugman graced us with this in yesterday’s New York Times:
…President-elect Barack Obama, riding a wave of revulsion over what conservatism has wrought, has said that he wants to “make government cool again.”
Before Mr. Obama can make government cool, however, he has to make it good.
True enough, as [...]
Notes from ’round the InterTubes…
Krugman gloats:
Seriously, isn’t it amazing just how impressive the people being named to key positions in the Obama administration seem? Bye-bye hacks and cronies, hello people who actually know what they’re doing.
archcrone begs to differ:
For myself, I had no illusions that I would be writing this post, asking the Obama administration [...]
Saturday tidbits for the attention-span impaired:
That damn Krugman beat me to it.
Three polls in the space of a week show Obama and McCain neck-and-neck in — wait for it — North Dakota.
Here we go again:
Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Saturday accused Democratic rival Barack Obama of favoring a socialistic economic approach by supporting tax [...]
I love it when Nobel Laureates get all gossipy:
There are all sorts of connections between the Nixon administration and the Bush administration. But here’s one I didn’t know about: Hank Paulson was John Ehrlichman’s assistant in 1972 and 1973.
I had no idea either, but I don’t find it even remotely surprising. The last eight years [...]
Paul Krugman has been awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences today. I am very, very far from being an economist but the economic knowledge I do have has mostly been gained through reading Krugman’s New York Times column and his book The Conscience of a Liberal. What Krugman does as a writer can be [...]
Things are not looking good for Iceland. Paul Krugman mentioned last week that the country’s government had performed its own bank bailout to the tune of $859 million (adjusted to the small population size, that is equivalent to $850 billion). The government asked for a 75% stake in the equity of that bank in return. [...]
The economy hit the ground with a thud last week and people stood by with their chalk in hand, ready to draw the outline. But Henry Paulson has an idea. If we give him $700 billion without restrictions, he can fix this. And by “we”, I of course refer to the American taxpayer who had [...]
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