Paul Krugman Quotes

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.

Rising inequality isn’t about who has the knowledge; it’s about who has the power.

Bad ideas flourish because they are in the interest of powerful groups.

A snarky but accurate description of monetary policy over the past five years is that the Federal Reserve successfully replaced the technology bubble with a housing bubble

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.

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.

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.

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.

Middle-class societies don't emerge automatically as an economy matures, they have to be CREATED through political action.

There are no atheists in foxholes and there are no libertarians in financial crises.

Europe is often held up as a cautionary tale, a demonstration that if you try to make the economy less brutal, to take better care of your fellow citizens when they're down on their luck, you end up killing economic progress. But what European experience actually demonstrates is the opposite: social justice and progress can go hand in hand.

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.

We should try to create the society each of us would want if we didn't know in advance who we'd be.

Outrageous fiscal mendacity is neither historically normal nor bipartisan. It’s a modern Republican thing.

If you want to understand opposition to climate action, follow the money.

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.

I think so long as fossil fuels are cheap, people will use them and it will postpone a movement towards new technologies.

The raw fact is that every successful example of economic development this past century ... has taken place via globalization.

Debt is one person's liability, but another person's asset.

The goal in the end is not to win elections. The goal is to change society.

I believe that the only important structural obstacles to world prosperity are the obsolete doctrines that clutter the minds of men.

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.

Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth.

[T]he next time you hear serious-sounding people explaining the need for fiscal austerity, try to parse their argument. Almost surely, you'll discover that what sounds like hardheaded realism actually rests on a foundation of fantasy, on the belief that invisible vigilantes will punish us if we're bad and the confidence fairy will reward us if we're good. And real-world policy - policy that will blight the lives of millions of working families - is being built on that foundation.

Sometimes economists in official positions give bad advice; sometimes they give very, very bad advice; and sometimes they work at the OECD.

Economics is not a morality play.

In our country, learned ignorance is on the rise.

If you want a simple model for predicting the unemployment rate in the United States over the next few years, here it is: It will be what Greenspan wants it to be, plus or minus a random error reflecting the fact that he is not quite God.

The problem with digital books is that you can always find what you are looking for but you need to go to a bookstore to find what you weren't looking for.

If you're doing your job right, some substantial group of people [is] going to be mad at you.

What our economy needs is direct job creation by the government and mortgage-debt relief for stressed consumers. What it very much does not need is a transfer of billions of dollars to corporations that have no intention of hiring anyone except more lobbyists.

What saved the economy, and the New Deal, was the enormous public works project known as World War II, which finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs.

Congress has always had a soft spot for "experts" who tell members what they want to hear, whether it's supply-side economists declaring that tax cuts increase revenue or climate-change skeptics insisting that global warming is a myth.

The key reason executives are paid so much now is that they appoint the members of the corporate board that determines their compensation and control many of the perks that board members count on. So it's not the invisible hand of the market that leads to those monumental executive incomes; it's the invisible handshake in the boardroom.

I've always believed in expansionary monetary policy and if necessary fiscal policy when the economy is depressed.

Most work in macroeconomics in the past 30 years has been useless at best and harmful at worst.

I've always believed that a speculative bubble need not lead to a recession, as long as interest rates are cut quickly enough to stimulate alternative investments. But I had to face the fact that speculative bubbles usually are followed by recessions. My excuse has been that this was because the policy makers moved too slowly - that central banks were typically too slow to cut interest rates in the face of a burst bubble, giving the downturn time to build up a lot of momentum.

Can we break the machine that is imposing right-wing radicalism on the United States? The scariest part is that the media is part of that machine.

Default is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

For most Americans, economic growth is a spectator sport.

Simple doesn't mean stupid. Thinking that it does, does.

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.

Anyone who thinks that the last 80 years, ever since FDR took us off gold, have been a doomed venture, that strikes me as kind of cranky.

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.

If you can create even the illusion of high profitability for a few years, then when the thing collapses you can walk out of the wreckage a very rich man.

There is no economic policy. That's really important to say. The general modus operandi of the Bushies is that they don't make policies to deal with problems. They use problems to justify things they wanted to do anyway. So there is no policy to deal with the lack of jobs. There really isn't even a policy to deal with terrorism. It's all about how can we spin what's happening out there to do what we want to do.

Are you, or is someone you know, a gadget freak? If so, you doubtless know that Wednesday was iPhone 5 day, the day Apple unveiled its latest way for people to avoid actually speaking to or even looking at whoever they're with.

Surely I'm not the only person to ask the obvious question: How different, really, is Mr. Madoff's tale from the story of the investment industry as a whole?

Seven habits that help produce the anything-but-efficient markets that rule the world. 1. Think short term. 2. Be greedy. 3. Believe in the greater fool 4. Run with the herd. 5. Overgeneralize 6. Be trendy 7. Play with other people's money

However, the fact that an economist offers a theoretical analysis does not and should not automatically command respect. What is needed is some assurance that the analysis is actually relevant.