I really wish I could hear what Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman thinks about the economy .......

[Stinky The Clown]

...... and in hopes of that, I tuned in to Matthews' Hairballz show.

Matthews was the ever gracious host. He was so concerned about Krugman's well-being that he just spoke right over him and asked each of his questions six different ways before letting it go. Krugman, as a result was afforded the opportunity to rest his voice during the entire interview.

:eyes:

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. He actually covered it, and said something that made my ears perk

we are NOT in a depression, even if functionally we are in one.. and technically well...

Second item...

T-BILL returns and how close they are to ahem, zero... like oh... I don't know, well you know.

But we are not in a depression, though this will be the hardest since the great depression

[Stinky The Clown]

2. Actually, I heard all that, too .......

.... this thread, mainly, was snarking at Matthews' sorry-assed, self-aggrandizing interview style.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Well the style is faux lite, to be honest and it is grating

and if he runs for the Senate... the show either goes away or somebody else gets it

[KG]

3. i read an article in 2003 where krugman predicted a massive collapse and

explained why. he seemed to think it was imminent. i was just surprised it took so long to come about.

[pnwmom]

5. You should follow his column in the NYTimes. The most recent one

explains why no one should be worried about deficit spending right now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/opinion/01krugman.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=krugman&st=cse

Right now there’s intense debate about how aggressive the United States government should be in its attempts to turn the economy around. Many economists, myself included, are calling for a very large fiscal expansion to keep the economy from going into free fall. Others, however, worry about the burden that large budget deficits will place on future generations.

But the deficit worriers have it all wrong. Under current conditions, there’s no trade-off between what’s good in the short run and what’s good for the long run; strong fiscal expansion would actually enhance the economy’s long-run prospects.

The claim that budget deficits make the economy poorer in the long run is based on the belief that government borrowing “crowds out” private investment — that the government, by issuing lots of debt, drives up interest rates, which makes businesses unwilling to spend on new plant and equipment, and that this in turn reduces the economy’s long-run rate of growth. Under normal circumstances there’s a lot to this argument.

But circumstances right now are anything but normal. Consider what would happen next year if the Obama administration gave in to the deficit hawks and scaled back its fiscal plans.

MORE AT LINK.