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I'm especially baffled by the idea of taking insurance against a U.S. default. If America defaults, we're talking about a chaotic world - Mad Max, more or less - in which case, who imagines that insurance claims will be honored?

Paul Krugman

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Paul Krugman
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: February 28
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Paul Robin Krugman
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Consumer spending is now plunging at serious-recession rate ... even if the rescue now in train succeeds in unfreezing credit markets, the real economy has immense downward momentum. In addition to financial rescues, we need major stimulus programs.
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The real danger with debt is what happens if lots of people decide, or are forced, to pay it off at the same time.
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Outrageous fiscal mendacity is neither historically normal nor bipartisan. It’s a modern Republican thing.
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I really think that people have to think safety taking risks for higher yield is a bad idea once you're in late or latish middle age.
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We're living in a Dark Age of macroeconomics. Remember, what defined the Dark Ages wasn’t the fact that they were primitive — the Bronze Age was primitive, too. What made the Dark Ages dark was the fact that so much knowledge had been lost, that so much known to the Greeks and Romans had been forgotten by the barbarian kingdoms that followed.
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What our economy needs is direct job creation by the government and mortgage-debt relief for stressed consumers. What it very much does not need is a transfer of billions of dollars to corporations that have no intention of hiring anyone except more lobbyists.
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However, the fact that an economist offers a theoretical analysis does not and should not automatically command respect. What is needed is some assurance that the analysis is actually relevant.
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These days, however, the main problem comes from the right - from conservatives who, unlike most economists, really do think that the free market is always right - to such an extent that they refuse to believe even the most overwhelming scientific evidence if it seems to suggest a justification for government action.
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The goal in the end is not to win elections. The goal is to change society.
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Something terrible has happened to the soul of the Republican Party. We've gone from bad economic doctrine. We've even gone beyond selfishness and special interests. At this point we're talking about a state of mind that takes positive glee in inflicting further suffering upon the already miserable.
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The key reason executives are paid so much now is that they appoint the members of the corporate board that determines their compensation and control many of the perks that board members count on. So it's not the invisible hand of the market that leads to those monumental executive incomes it's the invisible handshake in the boardroom.
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If you are a good economist, a virtuous economist, you are reborn as a physicist. But if you are an evil, wicked economist, you are reborn as a sociologist.
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Whenever you see some business person quoted complaining about how he or she can't find workers with the necessary skills, ask what wage they're offering. Almost always it turns out what said business person really wants is highly (and expensively) educated workers at a manual-labor wage. No wonder they come up short.
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The world economy is in a nosedive, and understanding what I call depression economics - the weird world you get into when even a zero interest rate isn't low enough, and a messed-up financial system is dragging down the real economy - is essential if we're going to avoid the worst.
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When the Fed decides that inflation is too high, they have the tools, and they've shown historically that they have the will, to bring it down. And, it might be painful.
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Anyone who thinks that the last 80 years, ever since FDR took us off gold, have been a doomed venture, that strikes me as kind of cranky.
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Default is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
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The problem with digital books is that you can always find what you are looking for but you need to go to a bookstore to find what you weren't looking for.
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Economists don't usually make good speculators, because they think too much.
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Wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.
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