Laments From a Fearless Laureate

It was just two decades ago that Paul Krugman's writing was aimed at the handful of Ph.D. readers who subscribe to the Journal of Development Economics. But in the early 1990s, Krugman went pop, penning accessible books like "The Age of Diminished Expectations" and "Peddling Prosperity." In 1996 he began writing for Slate.com, and his columns caught the attention of The New York Times, whose publisher decided to add the economist to its op-ed page. As a Times columnist, however, Krugman hasn't limited himself to writing about his specialty: he's spent much of the past eight years criticizing the Bush administration's handling of the war on Iraq and its foreign policy. Now, as the U.S. economy has become mired in a deep recession, his expertise has made him a must-read for policymakers and the public. A sampling of his New York Times columns:

 

COVER STORY: THE ECONOMY

Obama's Nobel Headache

Evan Thomas

Paul Krugman has emerged as Obama's toughest liberal critic. He's deeply skeptical of the bank bailout and pessimistic about the economy. Why the establishment worries he may be right.

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Laments From a Fearless Laureate

Treasury Secretary Geithner Hits His Stride

NEWSWEEK's Business Roundtable on the Economy

The Bailout and the Peril of Financial Linguistics

 

March 23, 2009
"Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, has persuaded President Obama to recycle Bush administration policy—specifically, the 'cash for trash' plan proposed, then abandoned, six months ago by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. This is more than disappointing. In fact, it fills me with a sense of despair."

March 9, 2009
"So here's the picture that scares me: It's September 2009, the unemployment rate has passed 9 percent, and despite the early round of stimulus spending it's still headed up. Mr. Obama finally concedes that a bigger stimulus is needed. But he can't get his new plan through Congress because approval for his economic policies has plummeted, partly because his policies are seen to have failed, partly because job-creation policies are conflated in the public mind with deeply unpopular bank bailouts. And as a result, the recession rages on, unchecked."

February 6, 2009
"Somehow, Washington has lost any sense of what's at stake—of the reality that we may well be falling into an economic abyss, and that if we do, it will be very hard to get out again."

January 23, 2009
"Like anyone who pays attention to business and financial news, I am in a state of high economic anxiety. Like everyone of good will, I hoped that President Obama's Inaugural Address would offer some reassurance, that it would suggest that the new administration has this thing covered. But it was not to be. I ended Tuesday less confident about the direction of economic policy than I was in the morning."

January 16, 2009
"I'm sorry, but if we don't have an inquest into what happened during the Bush years—and nearly everyone has taken Mr. Obama's remarks to mean that we won't—this means that those who hold power are indeed above the law because they don't face any consequences if they abuse their power."

September 22, 2008
"Don't let yourself be railroaded —if [the TARP] plan goes through in anything like its current form, we'll all be very sorry in the not-too-distant future."

September 12, 2008
"The Bush campaign's lies in 2000 were artful—you needed some grasp of arithmetic to realize that you were being conned. This year, however, the McCain campaign keeps making assertions that anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute, and repeating these assertions over and over again."

March 28, 2008
"Mr. Obama is widely portrayed, not least by himself, as a transformational figure who will usher in a new era. But his actual policy proposals, though liberal, tend to be cautious and relatively orthodox."

August 6, 2007
"Two presidential elections ago, the conventional wisdom said that George W. Bush was a likable, honest fellow. But those of us who actually analyzed what he was saying about policy came to a different conclusion— namely, that he was irresponsible and deeply dishonest. His numbers didn't add up, and in his speeches he simply lied about the content of his own proposals."

May 27, 2005
"If housing prices actually started falling, we'd be looking at a very nasty scene, in which both construction and consumer spending would plunge, pushing the economy right back into recession. That's why it's so ominous to see signs that America's housing market, like the stock market at the end of the last decade, is approaching the final, feverish stages of a speculative bubble."

© 2009