Paul Krugman
The problem isn't that people don't understand how good things are. It's that they know, from personal experience, that things really aren't that good.Collection: Experience
I think so long as fossil fuels are cheap, people will use them and it will postpone a movement towards new technologies.Collection: Environmental
Debt is one person's liability, but another person's asset.
As I've often said, you can shop online and find whatever you're looking for, but bookstores are where you find what you weren't looking for.
The real danger with debt is what happens if lots of people decide, or are forced, to pay it off at the same time.
We know that advanced economies with stable governments that borrow in their own currency are capable of running up very high levels of debt without crisis.
The great thing about fiscal policy is that it has a direct impact and doesn't require you to bind the hands of future policymakers.
The science fiction world has a lot of people doing seriously imaginative thinking.
Social Security is a social insurance program - it is not designed to be the same thing as a 401(k).
I admit it: I had fun watching right-wingers go wild as health reform finally became law.
I have friends, political scientists, sociologists, who all share an interest at least in certain kinds of science fiction.
I don't think I've had any great success in predicting politics or social change, nor have I really tried.
But Wall Street people are in fact very smart; they're funny, they're not company men who work their way up the chain.
Rising inequality isn’t about who has the knowledge; it’s about who has the power.Collection: Rising
The raw fact is that every successful example of economic development this past century every case of a poor nation that worked its way up to a more or less decent, or at least dramatically better, standard of living has taken place via globalization, that is, by producing for the world market rather than trying for self-sufficiency.Collection: Taken
The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in 'Metcalfe's law'–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's.Collection: Impact
Wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.Collection: Hysteria
In our country, learned ignorance is on the rise.Collection: Country
The economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth.Collection: Groups
Middle-class societies don't emerge automatically as an economy matures, they have to be CREATED through political action.Collection: Class
So what are the effects of increasing minimum wages? Any Econ 101 student can tell you the answer: The higher wage reduces the quantity of labor demanded, and hence leads to unemployment.Collection: Unemployment
There are no atheists in foxholes and there are no libertarians in financial crises.Collection: Atheist
I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law. That makes me a liberal, and I’m proud of it.Collection: Believe
Simple doesn't mean stupid. Thinking that it does, does.Collection: Stupid
It’s not about the budget; it’s about the power...So will the attack on unions succeed? I don’t know. But anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that it doesn’t.Collection: Government
If you want to understand opposition to climate action, follow the money.Collection: Climate Action
The federal government is basically an insurance company with an army.Collection: Army
We should try to create the society each of us would want if we didn't know in advance who we'd be.Collection: Trying
If you had to explain America's economic success with one word, that word would be "education".... Until now, the results of educational neglect have been gradual - a slow-motion erosion of America's relative position. But things are about to get much worse, as the economic crisis ... deals a severe blow to education across the board.... We need to wake up and realize that one of the keys to our nation's historic success is now a wasting asset. Education made America great; neglect of education can reverse the process.Collection: Education
The raw fact is that every successful example of economic development this past century ... has taken place via globalization.Collection: Business
Economists don't usually make good speculators, because they think too much.Collection: Thinking
Economics is not a morality play.Collection: Play
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.Collection: Evil
Under the gold standard America had no major financial panics other than in 1873, 1884, 1890, 1893, 1907, 1930, 1931, 1932, and 1933.Collection: Money
In short, it's a great economy if you're a high-level corporate executive or someone who owns a lot of stock. For most other Americans, economic growth is a spectator sport.Collection: Sports
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.Collection: Essence
Some years down the pike, we're going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes. It's going to be that we're actually going to take Medicare under control, and we're going to have to get some additional revenue, probably from a VAT. But it's not going to happen now.Collection: Real
The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.Collection: Party
Political figures who talk a lot about liberty and freedom invariably turn out to mean the freedom to not pay taxes and discriminate based on race; freedom to hold different ideas and express them, not so much.Collection: Mean
Most work in macroeconomics in the past 30 years has been useless at best and harmful at worst.Collection: Past
The economic expansion that began in 2001, while it has been great for corporate profits, has yet to produce any significant gains for ordinary working Americans. And now it looks as if it never will.Collection: Gains
It should be possible to emphasize to students that the level of employment is a macroeconomic issue, depending in the short run on aggregate demand and depending in the long run on the natural rate of unemployment, with microeconomic policies like tariffs having little net effect. Trade policy should be debated in terms of its impact on efficiency, not in terms of phoney numbers about jobs created or lost.Collection: Running
Raising the minimum wage and lowering the barriers to union organization would carry a trade-off - higher unemployment. A better idea is to have the government subsidize low-wage employment. The earned-income tax credit for low-income workers - which has been the object of proposed cuts by both President Clinton and congressional Republicans - has been a positive step in this direction.Collection: Philosophy
Generous unemployment benefits can increase both structural and frictional unemployment. So government policies intended to help workers can have the undesirable side effect of raising the natural rate of unemployment.Collection: Philosophy
[I]n America, at least, we have a pretty good record for behaving in a fiscally responsible fashion, with one exception - namely, the fiscal irresponsibility that prevails when, and only when, hard-line conservatives are in power.Collection: Fashion
People respond to incentives. If unemployment becomes more attractive because of the unemployment benefit, some unemployed workers may no longer try to find a job or may not try to find one as quickly as they would without the benefit.Collection: Jobs
Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth.Collection: Political
The trouble with poverty, as an issue, is that it has basically exhausted the patience of the general public.Collection: Patience
You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.Collection: Hate