Posted by JO on November 28, 2010 at 11:24:11:
In Reply to: Anybody read Paul Krugman's book posted by WHF on November 27, 2010 at 14:58:47:
He also has a blog at:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
: Anybody read Paul Krugman's book "The Conscience of a Liberal"?
: He is professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics. In 2008, he won the Nobel Prize in Economics.
: In these times, when economic dumbness is the order of the day, it's an unbelievably smart book. He talks about how as an economist he paid little attention to politics. He did not consider himself a conservative or a liberal. He thought what the conservative no-regulation policies of the Reagan administration Republicans were not smart, but at least they had the wacky trickle-down theory underlying what they were doing. But then, he says, the Bush administration introduced the politics of deceit, obfuscation, and outright lying to get their way. He says the conservatives were obviously manipulating the economy for their own gain and using outlandish propaganda to fool the people into believing helping the rich get richer would, in the end, help them get richer. He says it was easy to see where that would lead--into economic disaster. He says Republican ideology was so self-serving and so heartless and cruel to the little guy, that it finally turned him into a liberal. He started writing about it in the New York Times which, of course, was when the attacks on him from the right wing began.
: Interesting reading about politics, history, and how political movements now influence the economy more than traditional economic forces.