Paul Krugman

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says we’re in an economic depression and we’ve got to act to end it. He joins us.

Nobel Prize-winning economist and policy warrior Paul Krugman is not shy about spelling out exactly what he thinks. And right now it’s this: Despite all the talk about “green shoots” and signs of recovery, the United States is, says Krugman, in an economic depression. The stimulus wasn’t enough to shake it. Austerity, here and abroad, is making it worse. Lives are being ruined.

And it’s going to stay bad until and unless we act. Krugman’s going after budget-cutters as blind. Ben Bernanke as part of the ‘the borg”.

This hour, On Point: Paul Krugman, on economic depression and how to end it.
-Tom Ashbrook

Paul Krugman, professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is also an author and columnist at the New York Times. His latest book is End This Depression Now! An excerpt of the book was published in the New York Times Magazine here.

The New York Times "While the Fed went to great lengths to rescue the financial system, it has done far less to rescue workers. The U.S. economy remains deeply depressed, with long-term unemployment in particular still disastrously high, a point Bernanke himself has recently emphasized. Yet the Fed isn’t taking strong action to rectify the situation."

Washington Post "Bernanke is making two arguments here. First, he’s saying that the situation in the United States isn’t as bad as it was in Japan. “We are not in deflation."

Business Week "Krugman’s own stance is clear. A Princeton University professor who won the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics, he’s best known as a New York Times columnist who hews to the teachings of John Maynard Keynes. "