Book Description Review “In an era when facts are too often disdained and discarded, Paul Krugman wields them like a rapier. A brilliant scholar and polemicist, Krugman’s incisive columns are a beacon for anyone who cares about public policy and progressive change.” – David Axelrod“Years after appearing in the daily newspaper, Paul Krugman’s columns resonate because he avoids the herd mentality of most journalism. Applying history, math, and humanity, he transforms our understanding of great issues and when writing on economics translates the dismal science into plain English.” – David Cay Johnston, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, an IRE Medal, and the George Polk Award Read more From the Back Cover Praise for Paul Krugman:“The most celebrated economist of his generation.” – Economist“The Mick Jagger of political/economic punditry.” – Asia Times Read more About the Author Paul Krugman, recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics and best-selling author, has been a columnist at The New York Times for twenty years. A Distinguished Professor at City University of New York, he resides in New York City. Read more Customers Review: The book has been out for less than a day and the first comments are one and three stars. The trolls cannot stand that this beloved economist might question anything this corrupt administration might do. I cannot comment on the book itself since I haven’t read it, but if it’s a collection of his most salient columns then it has intrinsic historical value –and I have read those columns fervently over the last year in the NY Times.
The problem with the political right of recent history is not that they don’t think like the left, or that they operate according to a different political philosophy. The problem is that the right has no qualms about presenting intentionally misleading and false information to achieve political gains at all costs (The left at times can do this too, of course, but not nearly to the extent of the right.)Since the right operates according to a very simplistic platform, they are ideologically wedded to very simplistic economic policies that, despite years of contradictory evidence, they simply refuse to abandon. That’s why they continue to push for tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation, and further privatization, which are all the causes of, not the solution to, most of today’s major economic problems and growing levels of inequality.What’s more is that the right is not only pushing bad ideas; they’re also pretending to not be. They seek to cut Medicare and other critical social programs while promising the opposite, and they make claims that their political opponents spread false information while they blithely do the same.In this collection of essays, Krugman is not afraid to call out this massive disingenuity or to discuss the underlying motives of the modern right. While you’re not going to find in-depth technical analysis of economic policy in these articles, you will come to understand the motives and history behind the intellectual black hole that is the modern conservative movement.
Throughout the insanity of supply-side arguments that come to no logical point, Krugman has steadfastly retained his wit and wisdom. The title is appropriate since anyone who truly believes that by giving wealthy people more money the working poor and middle class will benefit must be, at least, partially brain-dead. Since Reagan wages have been flat while corporate profits soar. The investor class reaps windfalls while paying little or no taxes on their gains while the average worker lives paycheck to paycheck. Investment in the middle class and working poor through infrastructure stimulants and tax breaks have always been the correct antidote to income inequality. Yet the lie of trickle-down voodoo economics lives on even though it is widely known that our nation’s economy does better under demand-side economic leaders (dems). We look forward to the day when this supply-side nonsense will finally be put to permanent rest. Until then – hold onto your Social Security and Medicare. They’re coming for that next.
How informative is yesterday’s newspaper? Depends on whether you have read it or not, to some extent.But there is an unkindly view, if you have recently read works such as Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another, our media has wandered off somewhere strange.Krurgman’s work falls within that concern as it is a collection of his ‘Opinion’ pieces from the New York Times with a short essay on his bend in doing economic reasoning that sheds little light on what occupies him these days as a pundit. If you are a fan you will read for his wit and twist of phrase and he has a firm grasps on the idiocy of our time, but Times’ defined as it were.Full disclosure I gave up reading him for economics – my field – but sometimes briefly attracted with the topical topic he has listed. If not a Times reader you will likely be entertained by some of his pieces.Zombie Economics being used in a partisan manner, but he admits economics as such holds minimal interest to the public.If the ideological bend of economics in the last forty years holds any interest Krugman out of graduate school in 1977 fall within its starting point and his one governmental job was with the Reagan administration, but he was neither advocate nor critic of neoliberalism within his fields of Trade and Geography; following the 2008 crash and the great recession he begins to join criticism forming among leading economists today, as you may notice in his post recession pieces. He is a wise entertaining writer if his subjects hold interest for you.
Intelligent analysis of economic impacts resulting from policy decisions. Krugman provides backup for his positions and analysis, and rationale for his policy recommendations. Some people don’t like to see well reasoned policy discussions. Those people attack the author for lack of a substantive response on the issues.
We’ve all been worried about the next big viral outbreak causing the Zombie Apocalypse – but turns out that the infections already been going on for a long time – in our collective economic consciousness. I’m straight forward and elegant terms Paul Krugman helps root out the dead cells of past outbreaks and expose them to the light. Hopefully the cure doesn’t come too late! |
32 reviews