I was relieved after a very long period of mostly silence, interspersed with a few non-committal statements on the TPP, to read Professor Krugman’s blog post curated below. But that relief is tempered by the timing and temperature of this position statement. Continue reading Responding to Paul Krugman on Trust and the #TPP→
A Fascinating Debate in the Macro Blogosphere
Jared Bernstein | On the Economy | April 2nd, 2015
The macro blogosphere is on fire, as Bernanke, Summers, and Krugman are having a fascinating discussion that starts with secular stagnation (persistently weak demand, even in expansions), adds a strong dose of international trade with an emphasis on the Bernanke savings glut observations, and thus speaks to a lot of what we think about here at OTE.
Paul K’s agrees with me on the core aspects of my post yesterday regarding our persistent trade deficits as a barrier to full employment, but disagrees the dollars status as a reserve currency has much to do with it.
One unhappy lesson we’ve learned in recent years is that economics is a far more political subject than we liked to imagine. Well, duh, you may say. But, before the financial crisis, many economists — even, to some extent, yours truly — believed that there was a fairly broad professional consensus on some important issues.
On Sunday The Times published an article by the political scientist Brendan Nyhan about a troubling aspect of the current American scene — the stark partisan divide over issues that should be simply factual, like whether the planet is warming or evolution happened. It’s common to attribute such divisions to ignorance, but as Mr. Nyhan points out, the divide is actually worse among those who are seemingly better informed about the issues. Continue reading Paul Krugman: Beliefs, Facts and Money | NYTimes→
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