Articles by Paul Krugman

We found 24 results.


Notes on Excessive Wealth Disorder
Paul Krugman | Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times, 1 Jul 2019

22 Jun 2018 – In a couple of days I’m going to be participating in an Economic Policy Institute conference on the problems and dangers created by extreme concentration of income and wealth at the top. I’ve been asked to give a short talk at the beginning of the conference, focusing on the political and policy distortions high inequality creates.

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Something Not Rotten in Denmark
Paul Krugman – The New York Times, 20 Aug 2018

16 Aug 2018 – To be or not to be a socialist hellhole, that is the question. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Last weekend, Trish Regan, a Fox Business host, created a bit of an international incident by describing Denmark as an example of the horrors of socialism, right along with Venezuela.

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Ending Greece’s Bleeding
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times, 13 Jul 2015

The campaign of bullying — the attempt to terrify Greeks by cutting off bank financing and threatening general chaos, all with the almost open goal of pushing the current leftist government out of office — was a shameful moment in a Europe that claims to believe in democratic principles.

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Breaking Greece
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times, 29 Jun 2015

25 Jun 2015 – I’ve been staying fairly quiet on Greece, not wanting to shout Grexit in a crowded theater. But given reports from the negotiations in Brussels, something must be said — namely, what do the creditors, and in particular the IMF, think they’re doing? At this point it’s time to stop talking about “Graccident”; if Grexit happens it will be because the creditors, or at least the IMF, wanted it to happen.

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That 1914 Feeling
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times, 8 Jun 2015

A forced Greek exit from the euro would create huge economic and political risks, yet Europe seems to be sleepwalking toward that outcome. The allusion to Christopher Clark’s recent magisterial book on the origins of World War I, “The Sleepwalkers,” is deliberate.

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Weimar on the Aegean
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate - The New York Times, 23 Feb 2015

You can argue that Greece brought its problems on itself, although it had a lot of help from irresponsible lenders. The simple fact is that Greece cannot pay its debts in full. Austerity has devastated its economy as thoroughly as military defeat devastated Germany — real Greek G.D.P. per capita fell 26 percent from 2007 to 2013, compared with a German decline of 29 percent from 1913 to 1919.

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Athenae Delenda Est
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Feb 2015

Rather than give any ground, they prefer to see Greece forced into default and probably out of the euro, with the presumed economic wreckage as an object lesson to anyone else thinking of asking for relief. That is, they’re setting out to impose the economic equivalent of the “Carthaginian peace” France sought to impose on Germany after World War I. The lack of wisdom is astonishing and appalling.

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Ending Greece’s Nightmare
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times, 2 Feb 2015

So now that Mr. Tsipras (Syriza) has won, and won big, European officials would be well advised to skip the lectures calling on him to act responsibly and to go along with their program. The fact is that the Troika have no credibility; the program they imposed on Greece never made sense. It had no chance of working. What actually transpired was an economic and human nightmare.

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The Fall of France
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times, 1 Sep 2014

It’s a remarkable spectacle. France isn’t Greece; it isn’t even Italy. But it is letting itself be bullied as if it were a basket case.

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No Big Deal
Paul Krugman – International New York Times, 3 Mar 2014

It’s far from clear that the T.P.P. is a good idea. The first thing you need to know about trade deals is that they aren’t what they used to be. The glory days of trade negotiations are long behind us. Why? Basically, old-fashioned trade deals are a victim of their own success: there just isn’t much more protectionism to eliminate.

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Rich Man’s Recovery
Paul Krugman, Economics Nobel Laureate – The New York Times, 16 Sep 2013

Basically, while the great majority of Americans are still living in a depressed economy, the rich have recovered just about all their losses and are powering ahead.

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Nightmare in Portugal
Paul Krugman – The New York Times, 3 Jun 2013

Don’t tell me that Portugal has had bad policies in the past and has deep structural problems. Of course it has; so does everyone. How can it possibly make sense to “deal” with these problems by condemning vast numbers of willing workers to unemployment? The answer to the kind of problems Portugal now faces, as we’ve known for many decades, is expansionary monetary and fiscal policy.

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The 1 Percent’s Solution
Paul Krugman – The New York Times, 13 May 2013

Two big questions remain. First, how did austerity doctrine become so influential in the first place? Second, will policy change at all now that crucial austerian claims have become fodder for late-night comics?

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Hot Money Blues
Paul Krugman, 2008 Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times, 1 Apr 2013

Whatever the final outcome in the Cyprus crisis — we know it’s going to be ugly; we just don’t know exactly what form the ugliness will take. The truth, hard as it may be for ideologues to accept, is that unrestricted movement of capital is looking more and more like a failed experiment. Global capitalism is, arguably, on track to become substantially less global.

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Loading the Climate Dice
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times, 30 Jul 2012

Climate change denial is a major industry, lavishly financed by Exxon, the Koch brothers and others with a financial stake in the continued burning of fossil fuels.

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Another Bank Bailout
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate – International Herald Tribune-NYT, 18 Jun 2012

Oh, wow — another bank bailout, this time in Spain. Who could have predicted that? The answer, of course, is everybody. In fact, the whole story is starting to feel like a comedy routine: yet again the economy slides, unemployment soars, banks get into trouble, governments rush to the rescue — but somehow it’s only the banks that get rescued, not the unemployed.

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Those Revolting Europeans: How Dare the French and Greeks Reject a Failed Strategy!
Paul Krugman, Economics Nobel Laureate – The New York Times, 21 May 2012

The French are revolting. The Greeks, too. And it’s about time. Both countries held elections Sunday [6 May 2012] that were in effect referendums on the current European economic strategy, and in both countries voters turned two thumbs down. It’s far from clear how soon the votes will lead to changes in actual policy, but time is clearly running out for the strategy of recovery through austerity — and that’s a good thing.

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Pain Without Gain
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics laureate – The New York Times, 27 Feb 2012

Last week the European Commission confirmed what everyone suspected: the economies it surveys are shrinking, not growing. It’s not an official recession yet, but the only real question is how deep the downturn will be. Look, I understand why influential people are reluctant to admit that policy ideas they thought reflected deep wisdom actually amounted to utter, destructive folly. But it’s time to put delusional beliefs about the virtues of austerity in a depressed economy behind us.

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Confronting the Malefactors
Paul Krugman – The New York Times, 31 Oct 2011

There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear, but we may, at long last, be seeing the rise of a popular movement that, unlike the Tea Party, is angry at the right people.

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The Path Not Taken
Paul Krugman – The New York Times, 31 Oct 2011

“But a funny thing happened on the way to economic Armageddon: Iceland’s very desperation made conventional behavior impossible, freeing the nation to break the rules. Where everyone else bailed out the bankers and made the public pay the price, Iceland let the banks go bust and actually expanded its social safety net. And there’s a lesson here for the rest of us: The suffering that so many of our citizens are facing is unnecessary. If this is a time of incredible pain and a much harsher society, that was a choice. It didn’t and doesn’t have to be this way.”

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S&P and the USA
Paul Krugman – The New York Times, 8 Aug 2011

On the other hand, it’s hard to think of anyone less qualified to pass judgment on America than the rating agencies. The people who rated subprime-backed securities are now declaring that they are the judges of fiscal policy? Really?

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The Finite World
Paul Krugman – The New York Times, 3 Jan 2011

So what are the implications of the recent rise in commodity prices? It is, as I said, a sign that we’re living in a finite world, one in which resource constraints are becoming increasingly binding. This won’t bring an end to economic growth, let alone a descent into Mad Max-style collapse. It will require that we gradually change the way we live, adapting our economy and our lifestyles to the reality of more expensive resources. But that’s for the future. Right now, rising commodity prices are basically the result of global recovery. They have no bearing, one way or another, on U.S. monetary policy. For this is a global story; at a fundamental level, it’s not about us.

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Eating the Irish
Paul Krugman, Economics Nobel Laureate – The New York Times, 29 Nov 2010

But Ireland is now in its third year of austerity, and confidence just keeps draining away. And you have to wonder what it will take for serious people to realize that punishing the populace for the bankers’ sins is worse than a crime; it’s a mistake.

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Who Cooked the Planet?
Paul Krugman – The New York Times, 2 Aug 2010

There will be no climate bill. Greed, aided by cowardice, has triumphed. And the whole world will pay the price.

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