Paul Krugman Quotes
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I've always believed in expansionary monetary policy and if necessary fiscal policy when the economy is depressed.
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The raw fact is that every successful example of economic development this past century every case of a poor nation that worked its way up to a more or less decent, or at least dramatically better, standard of living has taken place via globalization, that is, by producing for the world market rather than trying for self-sufficiency.
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I predict that in the years ahead Enron, not Sept. 11, will come to be seen as the greater turning point in U.S. society.
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To the extent that sacrifices need to be made, shouldn't the people who've made out like bandits this past generation be first in line? The problem with getting out of the slump is that we need to spend more. It's not that somebody needs to spend less. We have idle workers who have the skills and the willingness to work. We have idle factories. Dealing with this is not about saying somebody needs to suffer. It's saying that we need to be prepared to open the taps.
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What the Depression teaches us is that when the economy is so depressed that even a zero interest rate isn't low enough, you have to put conventional notions of prudence and sound policy aside.
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There's nothing magic about spending on tanks and bombs rather than roads and bridges.
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Some years down the pike, we're going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes. It's going to be that we're actually going to take Medicare under control, and we're going to have to get some additional revenue, probably from a VAT. But it's not going to happen now.
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Default is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
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I know that when I look at today’s Mexicans and Central Americans, they seem to me fundamentally the same as my grandparents seeking a better life in America. On the other side, however, open immigration can’t coexist with a strong social safety net; if you’re going to assure health care and a decent income to everyone, you can’t make that offer global. So Democrats have mixed feelings about immigration; in fact, it’s an agonizing issue.
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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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...as an economics professor I am by nature inclined to the view that the truth isn't out there, it's in here - that usually you learn a lot more by thinking really hard about the data than you do by sniffing around for supposedly inside information.
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I admit it: I had fun watching right-wingers go wild as health reform finally became law.
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I have friends, political scientists, sociologists, who all share an interest at least in certain kinds of science fiction.
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Middle-class societies don't emerge automatically as an economy matures, they have to be CREATED through political action.
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There has been plenty to criticize about President Obama’s handling of the economy. Yet the overriding story of the past few years is not Mr. Obama’s mistakes but the scorched-earth opposition of Republicans, who have done everything they can to get in his way - and who now, having blocked the president’s policies, hope to win the White House by claiming that his policies have failed.
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Simple doesn't mean stupid. Thinking that it does, does.
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The science fiction world has a lot of people doing seriously imaginative thinking.
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I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law. That makes me a liberal, and I’m proud of it.
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Unsustainable situations usually go on longer than most economists think possible. But they always end, and when they do, it's often painful.
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I think if you're a liberal, you believe that we all are, at least to some extent, our brothers' keepers, you really believe that we have a sumptuary responsibility to make sure that life is decent for everybody in America, that you believe that society out to be broadly shared, and you believe that you can't have a real democracy unless you have a little bit, at least, of economic democracy.
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As I've often said, you can shop online and find whatever you're looking for, but bookstores are where you find what you weren't looking for.
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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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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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Governments do not necessarily act in the national interest, especially when making detailed microeconomic interventions. Instead, they are influenced by interest group pressures. The kinds of interventions that new trade theory suggests can raise national income will typically raise the welfare of small, fortunate groups by large amounts, while imposing costs on larger, more diffuse groups.