Krugman on how economists blew it

Don't have time to read this whole thing, but I want to note that although Krugman sometimes looks foolish when commenting outside his field (i.e. politics), he really does know his stuff when talking about economics and banking issues specifically.

Thanks for posting Krugman's article/opinions. I did read the entire piece.

I found it disingenuous that Krugman did not mention that in the run up to the Great Depression, which he mentions several times, and the run up to the current economic debacle, no mention was made of the role of the Fed in holding interest rates too low for too long...which is an an obvious aspect of many bursting economic bubbles. He did note Greenspans comments about his oversight of the obvious, but never once was the conversation widened to question the need for a Fed...but this is a normal proceedure for the MSM in America...endlessly debate the mundane but never ask the big question. If one asks the BIG QUESTION she is immediately catagorized as a quack or worse and her career is derailed.

If the Fed is in place to attempt to stop economic corrections when the economy has allocated capital to less efficient use then it is doing a damn poor job of it. The question that Krugman should have been asking or commenting on is 'once the current Keynesian approach to the current debacle fails, whence to then?'

Krugman is a fair scribbler but I think he is nothing more than an apologist for a discipline that is neither science or particularly good at what it is supposed to be doing. Economics does have the enviable attribute that none of it's hypothesis can be tested and retested and receive the status of theory...Economics is great because it gives economists a way to while away their time while seeming to accomplish something.

I believe that John Kenneth Galbraith had it right when he said...'The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.'

he does?

Krugman wanted Obama to double or triple the stimulus package. He wanted one about 2 trillion dollars. He blew the call on the economy just like the rest of them did.

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Can't take anyting Kurgman says seriously anymore. He's has taken every possible position on the recovery at one time or another in the last 6-months. All of them. No matter what happens he will be right because he's predicted everything from the recession is over, to impending doom and all in between. He's a hack.

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Links/Proof? What different positions has he had on the recovery? I keep up with his column fairly regularly and, at least to my recollectin, he has always opined that the stimulus needed to be bigger. What other stances has he taken? I'll stand corrected if need be.

I don't think it is fair to call him a hack. He is certainly an economist who favours liberal policies, but I wouldn't classify him as a liberal hack.

He has consistently been pro-globalization/free markets and opposed other traditional liberal ideology that is in conflict with his economic intuition. I have also noticed that he tends to acknowledge and sometimes even give creedance to the opposing argument to whatever idea/belief he is championing. He is certainly no hack in the sense that Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity are hacks.