Help. Paul Krugman's Assessment of the Financial Disaster

[Mike 03]

I have to preface this by saying Paul Krugman is quickly becoming one of my heroes. I always like the few columns my parents would pass onto me that he had written in the NYT. The guy seems absolutely brilliant when I see or hear him interviewed.

This morning I ordered Krugman's new book (or, to be precise, vastly updated book from ten or so years ago) "The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008."

Over the past month I have watched online segments of interviews he has conducted (most of them posted here--thank you!) and heard several of the interviews he has conducted on Bloomberg. One example was his cryptic comments regarding the Citi rescue, which were posted here by Babylonsister (thank you!). The interviewers never take it to the next step and ask him: What will happen if we DON'T save (fill in the institution of your choice).

He continues to say that his fear is that the stimulus package will not be "big enough," even though we are speaking now of figures in the $400 billion to $700 billion range.

In the interviews I have heard, the idiot interviewers don't ask him what he means by this, and what mistakes he envisions Obama's team making, and what he thinks the package should consist of!

Does anybody know exactly what Krugman is worried about, what he hopes will happen, and what he envisions will happen if this stimulus fails?

I wish I could get inside the guy's mind and know what he's really thinking here. Maybe the book will help.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any replies.

[HereSince1628]

1. Nobel prize winners are usually brilliant. Krugman can also communicate

at a 10th grade level so his stuff is accessible.

[applegrove]

3. Well put.

[glowing]

2. I would assume a world wide depression.. which would result in utter chaos and wars and a lot of

dead people. Perhaps that is his worry.. the breakdown of society.