Posts by Terence Wood
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The reason why the Nats don't talk so much about interest rates: tax cuts will most likely raise them.
Simon G - three languages in one sentence. Have you considered the possibility that kids these days are too literate...
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Am I the only one posting here who had to go and look up what 'X' actually is?
Happy to help - the letter before 'Y'.
Surely, even in Hataitai...
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Don I take it you mean core inflation not 'core interest rates'?
There's actually an interesting debate to be had about just how harmful moderate levels of inflation are, but I think the problem with the argument you cite is that international competitiveness is unlikely to be the most important reason for wanting to fight inflation.
Stagflation, if that is what it is to be, does offer a real dilemma though - and there's certainly a case to be made for living with some inflation rather than kicking your economy when it's down.
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Ralstonomics 101:
To fight inflation we must cut taxes and lower interest rates.
WH is right Keith: public discourse on economics would be far better served if you wrote for the Herald and Bill Ralston was confined to commenting on Deborah Coddington's blog...
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...and, despite the fact that I promised to say no more about Krugman, because I love things going full circle I feel obliged to point out that Robert Reich was the chief target of Krugman's assaults on the early Clinton administration.
As it happens, the dispute was over industrial policy and the impact of globalisation on American workers. And, if anyone's changed their stance over the intervening years (on globn not IP) it has been Krugman who is now more inclined to believe that globalisation is harming US workers. Krugman would probably quote Keynes in his defence ("when fact's change I change my mind") but Reich can probably smirk a little on this one.
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Craig,
I agree - now would be a good time to agree to disagree seeing is everyone else on this thread is discussing weightier things than the merits of Paul Krugman.
I stand by my points of course: Krugman - great economist, good columnist.
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Craig,
I don't dispute the fact that Friedman was a great technical economist; nor does Krugman.
Friedman's work on consumption behavior would, in itself, have made his academic reputation. An even bigger triumph, however, came from his application of Economic Man theorizing to inflation...By predicting the phenomenon of stagflation in advance, Friedman and Phelps achieved one of the great triumphs of postwar economics. This triumph, more than anything else, confirmed Milton Friedman's status as a great economist's economist, whatever one may think of his other roles.
As for the rest of your little rant, Krugman's strength as a writer is that he writes about complex economic issues gracefully. And he knows his stuff. Oh yeah, and he was right about Bush long, long, long before Andrew Sullivan or David Brooks or their ilk started lurching towards the life rafts. I'll keep reading him. You do what you want.
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I get the feeling that Krugman's commentary at the moment is being skewed by his links with the Clintons. He seems unduly cranky.
I was unaware - what links are those?
Way back in LBB* Krugman made a name for himself by strongly criticising (Bill) Clinton’s economic team for caving in to the left and flirting with industrial policy. So I’d be surprised to find that he was allies with them now. (But I am open to being corrected).
I think that he is, at times, unfair on Obama but that he’s bang on about the flaws in Obama’s health care plan and that he’s also right that Obama’s ‘reaching across the isles’ rhetoric has little to offer in practice in a the age of movement conservatism.
Craig: It’s not argument from authority it’s just good evidence that he is a very good economist. As for your other comments, it would be more succinct if you’d just said that you personally don’t like him. You offer nothing of substance.
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*Life Before Bush -
Really Craig, why?
For what it's worth Krugman is a Bates prize winner and a highly acclaimed economist. He was also right about George Bush. Right from the start. And a long time before almost anyone else in the punditocracy.
I agree with you on Brooks's merit vis a vis his fellow conservative columnists, though. (Not that I agree with him often mind you...)
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Brad Delong does a good job, I think, of explaining the potential strength of Obama's Plan
On the other hand (well it is economics, after all) here's Paul Krugman criticising Obama in favour of HRC and JE.