The federal government is basically an insurance company with an army. Paul Krugman More Quotes by Paul Krugman More Quotes From Paul Krugman [D]ebt increases that didn't arise either from war or from extraordinary financial crisis are entirely associated with hard-line conservative governments. Paul Krugman lines government war America's political landscape is infested with many zombie ideas - beliefs about policy that have been repeatedly refuted with evidence and analysis but refuse to die. The most prominent zombie is the insistence that low taxes on rich people are the key to prosperity. Paul Krugman keys america ideas If you are a good economist, a virtuous economist, you are reborn as a physicist. But if you are an evil, wicked economist, you are reborn as a sociologist. Paul Krugman reborn wicked evil Unsustainable situations usually go on longer than most economists think possible. But they always end, and when they do, it's often painful. Paul Krugman painful goes-on thinking The trouble with poverty, as an issue, is that it has basically exhausted the patience of the general public. Paul Krugman poverty issues patience 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. Paul Krugman momentum real needs What Republicans have actually put on the table is almost nothing. All of the rest is just big talk. So how is the president supposed to negotiate with people who say, 'Here's my demands. By the way, I can't give you any specifics. Just make me happy'? Paul Krugman president giving people Social Security is a social insurance program - it is not designed to be the same thing as a 401(k). Paul Krugman program security social [The US] budget is dominated by the retirement programs, Social Security and Medicare - loosely speaking, the post-cold-war federal government is a big pension fund that also happens to have an army. Paul Krugman army retirement war These days, however, the main problem comes from the right - from conservatives who, unlike most economists, really do think that the free market is always right - to such an extent that they refuse to believe even the most overwhelming scientific evidence if it seems to suggest a justification for government action. Paul Krugman government believe thinking Our popular economics writers, however, are not in the business of giving their readers a ringside seat on the research action; with no exception I can think of, they use their books to do an end run around the normal structure of scholarship, to preach ideas that few serious economists share. Often, these ideas are not just at odds with the professional consensus; they are demonstrably wrong, and sometimes terminally silly. But they sound good to the unwary reader. Paul Krugman silly running book Yes, over the centuries economic progress has reduced some gross disparities - modern Americans are relatively unlikely to simply starve to death (though it can happen), so in that sense the gap between rich and poor has narrowed. But the question isn't whether society is, in some sense, more equal than it was in 1900. It's whether it is radically more unequal than it was in 1970. And of course it is. Paul Krugman gaps progress justice I have friends, political scientists, sociologists, who all share an interest at least in certain kinds of science fiction. Paul Krugman political kind fiction For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy a process that reached its epitome when George W. Bush won re-election by posing as America's defender against gay married terrorists, then announced that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security. Paul Krugman cutting gay america The Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. Paul Krugman cult-of-personality becoming campaigns It has been obvious all along, to anyone paying attention, that the politicians shouting loudest about deficits are actually using deficit hysteria as a cover story for their real agenda, which is top-down class warfare. To put it in Romneyesque terms, it's all about finding an excuse to slash programs that help people who like to watch Nascar events, even while lavishing tax cuts on people who like to own Nascar teams. Paul Krugman cutting team real If you can create even the illusion of high profitability for a few years, then when the thing collapses you can walk out of the wreckage a very rich man. Paul Krugman wreckage men years Can we break the machine that is imposing right-wing radicalism on the United States? The scariest part is that the media is part of that machine. Paul Krugman united-states media wings We have a lot of evidence on what happens when you raise the minimum wage. And the evidence is overwhelmingly positive: Hiking the minimum wage has little or no adverse effect on employment while significantly increasing workers' earnings. Paul Krugman adverse-effects hiking political In short, what the living wage is really about is not living standards, or even economics, but morality. Its advocates are basically opposed to the idea that wages are a market price-determined by supply and demand, the same as the price of apples or coal. And it is for that reason, rather than the practical details, that the broader political movement of which the demand for a living wage is the leading edge is ultimately doomed to failure: For the amorality of the market economy is part of its essence, and cannot be legislated away. Paul Krugman apples essence ideas
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