Who here bought "The Great Unraveling"?

[lancemurdoch]

I bought it last night and have been reading it. I've actually developed an interest in economics over the past few years (maybe I'm trying to figure out how I went from being a dot-commer to dot-bomber) and have been reading his books for a while.

I've been reading his NY Times articles on the web sometimes, but I didn't realize how bad he'd been slamming Bush on the Times editorial page. After September 11th, a lot of people clammed up, but as soon as Bush started doing retroactive corporate tax cuts (remember that?) or airline bailouts sans any relief for airline workers and so forth, Krugman pointed out what they were doing and was shocked how they'd use the tragedy to further their political gains.

I remember back then Oklahoma had an election for whether to be a work for less state or not which passed something like 51%-49%, massively funded by Wal-Mart, Kerr-McGee (Karen Silkwood's old friends) and so forth...a few days after 9/11 he had a phone bank call people and say it was important to go vote for the anti-union legislation due to "recent tragic events".

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3BA82AB8.BA4D8A66%...

But anyhow, I just wasn't paying attention and didn't realize how much Krugman has been looking at Bush's numbers for everything he's been putting out and saying how it just doesn't add up. He has an essay about "Blinded by the Right" and he said Bush's cronies were targetting him for similar reasons, and I believe him.

One interesting thing is he says he changed his mind and now he buys into the 1990's productivity boom more (although he sees other problems with what was going on then and afterwards). It's interesting reading.

[Raenelle]

1. I bought it, but I haven't started it yet.

It's next after Franken's book. Glad to hear you like it. I saw Krugman on Buchanan-Press today, and Buchanan went after him viciously. Krugman handled himself just fine. I really like this guy.

[lindashaw]

4. I was horrified, sent an e-mail to MSNBC. It was inexcusable!

[wtmusic]

2. About half way through, and it's awesome

if you have a mind for numbers you may even like it more than Franken's book. Do not mess with this guy--he can back up everything he says, and what he's saying will scare the hell out of you.

Thank god there are people like this around.

[Merlin]

3. Check in at Editorials on a daily basis.

Somebody always links to Krugman there. I look forward with great anticipation twice weekly to PK. He has been an unflinching, unyielding source of hope and wisdom over the unbearably difficult past 2-1/2 years.

He is truly the columnist of our age. Walter Lippman was the man during the post-war period and through the 50s. Then came Scotty Reston who held the fort up to Watergate. George Will was earned his stripes, and was actually almost honest (thought not one of us, like Lippman and Reston were) during the early Reagan era. Finally we have a new voice, and at a crucial moment. Krugman has played an historic role.

[frank frankly]

8. Yes, Krugman is the columnist of our age

And for comparision, we have Friedman, who use to simply be terrible, and is now a war mongering pseudo-intellectual

[the_real_38]

5. Krugman is the man....

... when it comes to deconstructing Bush's scammery - he's been doing it before dumbya got elected.

And he's an unabashed leftist - he worked on some economic commission during the Reagan administration - he wasn't a political appointee.

Go, Paul.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

6. I started reading "The Great Unraveling" last week.

It scared the living shit out of me, so badly in fact that I didn't even get past the preface. I figure I'll finish the Al Franken book first and then try to tackle that one again.

I knew it would make me angry, but when Krugman started talking about the right wing "revolutionary force" I realized that he is 100% correct and that my raging hatred of the Bush administration is in fact only about 5% of what it should be.

Thank god for people like Paul Krugman. We need his insight very, very badly right now.

[paulk]

9. Krugman would deny being a leftist

or even a liberal. Which actually gives him even more credibility.

[lancemurdoch]

12. Liberal maybe, not leftist

He is an admirer of Keynes, and I don't think he shirks from the liberal label, but he definitely draws the line between him and people left of him, which would probably include myself, especially on economic matters. A lot of the book concerns the right, though at the end of the book he argues with things left of him - anti-globalization activists, Ralph Nader's candidacy ("At times Mr Nader's hostility to corporations goes completely over the edge"), unions for tariffs - he even attacks Bush when he goes against free trade agreements. He has expressed similar views in previous books. One interesting thing about him is he is a real expert on things like foreign currencies and over the past years has been paid a lot of money to give talks at corporations (one of them was Enron, and the right tries to paint this against him, especially Andrew Sullivan, although he did little except give speeches to the board about currencies). One of the good things about him is he really knows what he's talking about economically, he has an encylopediac knowledge of economics similar to Noam Chomsky's encyclopediac knowledge of foreign policy, and similar to Chonsky is able to write about what is going on in a very simple and clear, yeat authoritative, manner.

[depakid]

7. It's a good compilation of his columns

With a rather frightening little introduction where he lines up some broad analysis with Henry Kissenger's doctoral dissertation (of all things). If you're a fan, you'll have probably read much of what's in the book before, although you may have forgotten it because the material is dated from between 2002 and 1997.

[paulk]

10. I just started it

I've read most of his columns already, but it's nice to have them all in one place. Krugman is the most important pundit of our time.

[proud patriot]

11. Not yet