In the latest Next American Economy breakfast series, Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow Bo Cutter interviews Paul Krugman, Nobel-prize winning economist and New York Times op-ed columnist. Krugman discusses how and why the “two great centers of world economic activity, of democracy, and of everything else are both in deep trouble.” He says, “Europe made the terrible mistake of having a single currency without a single government, and the United States has one of its two major political parties that has gone completely mad.”Watch Krugman explain these two major structural problems causing global economic crisis:
Interview : Paul Krugman from Roosevelt Institute on Vimeo.
According to Krugman, we are in a “classic depression” for the first time in 80 years, and it is high time for increased government spending to help our economy while our private sector builds itself back up. But “instead, because of the way our politics have worked, we’ve actually had unprecedented fiscal austerity.” He argues that this dangerous paralysis is “exactly what 80 years of economic analysis tells us we should not be doing.” Krugman sighs at the continual Republican assertion that we can’t spend because of our deficit and we instead need to focus on long-run fiscal responsibility. Meanwhile, 8.2 percent of Americans are unemployed, and as Keynes said, “in the long run we are all dead.”
At the same time, Europe is sliding further and further into economic catastrophe. “It’s unthinkable that anybody should leave the Euro, and yet it’s becoming increasingly unthinkable that policymakers will take the steps needed to prevent that from happening.” Europe is basically demanding that Spain slash wages as well as spending, “which is a recipe for depression.”
European will to properly solve this problem is just not there, since “Europe is a currency but not a country.” In contrast, he discusses the fiscal bailouts of Florida and Texas that worked because in America, “we are a nation.” As Cutter notes, “it would be good if we stayed so.”
For more, watch Krugman’s full presentation:
Paul Krugman :: Lecture from Roosevelt Institute on Vimeo.
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