Paul Krugman Quotes
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In America, at least, we have a pretty good record for behaving in a fiscally responsible fashion, with one exception - namely, the fiscal irresponsibility that prevails when, and only when, hard-line conservatives are in power.
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One way in which Americans have always been exceptional has been in our support for education. First we took the lead in universal primary education; then the “high school movement” made us the first nation to embrace widespread secondary education.
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Friedrich Hayek is not an important figure in the history of macroeconomics.
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The trouble with poverty, as an issue, is that it has basically exhausted the patience of the general public.
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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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The science fiction world has a lot of people doing seriously imaginative thinking.
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The fact is that the two years or so after 9/11 were a terrible time in America – a time of political exploitation and intimidation, culminating in the deliberate misleading of the nation into the invasion of Iraq. It’s probably worth pointing out that I’m not saying anything now that I wasn’t saying in real time back then, when Bush had a sky-high approval rating and any criticism was denounced as treason. And there’s nothing I’ve done in my life of which I’m more proud.
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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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I think Stockman is an interesting sort of amalgam.
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The Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality.
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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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The planet will continue to cook.
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Debt increases that didn't arise either from war or from extraordinary financial crisis are entirely associated with hard-line conservative governments.
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I don't want a job in the administration; I think I'm more effective carping from the sidelines.
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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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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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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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Bad ideas flourish because they are in the interest of powerful groups.
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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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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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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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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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I have friends, political scientists, sociologists, who all share an interest at least in certain kinds of science fiction.
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If we discovered that, you know, space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space alien threat and really inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months. ... There was a Twilight Zone episode like this in which scientists fake an alien threat in order to achieve world peace. Well, this time, we don't need it, we need it in order to get some fiscal stimulus.