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ポール・ロビン・クルーグマン

End This Depression Now! ハードカバー – イラスト付き, 2012/4/30

英語版 Paul R. Krugman (著)

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The Great Recession is more than four years oldand counting. Yet, as Paul Krugman points out in this powerful volley, "Nations rich in resources, talent, and knowledgeall the ingredients for prosperity and a decent standard of living for allremain in a state of intense pain."How bad have things gotten? How did we get stuck in what now can only be called a depression? And above all, how do we free ourselves? Krugman pursues these questions with his characteristic lucidity and insight. He has a powerful message for anyone who has suffered over these past four yearsa quick, strong recovery is just one step away, if our leaders can find the "intellectual clarity and political will" to end this depression now.

本の長さ

259ページ
言語

英語
出版社

W W Norton & Co Inc
発売日

2012/4/30
寸法

16.51 x 2.54 x 24.38 cm
ISBN-10

9780393088779
ISBN-13

978-0393088779
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An important contribution to the current study of economics and a reason for hope that effective solutions will be implemented again. "

Starred review. Krugman (Fuzzy Math), winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics, takes an edifying and often humorous journalistic approach to the current economic crisis in this accessible and timely study. Rather than provide a mere postmortem on the 2008 collapse (though relevant history lessons are provided), Krugman aims to plot a path out of this depression. Krugman has consistently called for more liberal economic policies, but his wit and bipartisanship ensure that this book will appeal to a broad swath of readers from the Left to the Right, from the 99% to the 1%. "

著者について

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 lives in New York City.

登録情報

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0393088774
出版社 ‏ : ‎ W W Norton & Co Inc; Illustrated版 (2012/4/30)
発売日 ‏ : ‎ 2012/4/30
言語 ‏ : ‎ 英語
ハードカバー ‏ : ‎ 259ページ
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780393088779
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393088779
寸法 ‏ : ‎ 16.51 x 2.54 x 24.38 cm

Amazon 売れ筋ランキング: - 241,661位洋書 (洋書の売れ筋ランキングを見る)
- - 552位Economic Policy
- - 569位Economic Policy & Development
- - 619位Political Economy

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4.4 414個の評価

著者について

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ポール・ロビン・クルーグマン

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1953年生まれ。マサチューセッツ工科大学(MIT)でPh.D.を取得。イェール大学、MIT、スタンフォード大学などで教鞭をとる。現在プリンストン大学教授。82~83年、大統領経済諮問委員会委員。IMF、世銀、EC委員会のエコノミストも務める。91年、40歳以下の最も優れた経済学者に贈られるジョン・ベーツ・クラーク賞を受賞、2008年、ノーベル経済学賞を受賞した。著書多数(「BOOK著者紹介情報」より：本データは『自己組織化の経済学―経済秩序はいかに創発するか　(ISBN-13: 978-4480092564)』が刊行された当時に掲載されていたものです)

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4.4/5

414 件のグローバル評価

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上位レビュー、対象国：日本

レビューのフィルタリング中に問題が発生しました。後でもう一度試してください。

推奨

2014年5月20日に日本でレビュー済み

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どなたにもお勧めしたいアメリカン・ケインジアンの大御所Krugmanの最新作です（p.104では、Krugmanは自身を“sorta-kinda New Keynesian”だと述べています)。経済危機が発生するたびに、「未曾有の」「空前の」「根の深い問題」といった言葉が氾濫しますが、Krugmanは、Keynesの“magneto trouble”という比喩を引用しつつ、すべての危機の根源は単純明快であり、その原因を特定し、適切なタイミングで、断固たる政策措置を講ずれば解決策を見出すことは可能であり、我々はそのために必要な経験と知恵をすでに備えている、と自信を示しています(pp.22-23)。また、危機対応は、「長期的視点からの対応ではなく、今何をなすべきかという短期的視点が重要であることを強調しています。問題解決を後送りにすることが、さらに事態を悪化させるという理由からです。ここでも、ケインズの有名な警句を引用しつつ、“This long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run , we are all dead.”(p.15)と述べています。またKrugmanは、“新しい経済的思考とは、古典を再読することだ”というThomaのコメントを引用し、再読すべき古典としてKeynes、Fisher、Minskyの３人の著作をあげています(p.42)。いずれにせよ、読者は本書のいたるところで碩学の見事な洞察力と機知に接することができるはずです。理論的ないしは実証的な著作ではありませんが、示唆に富む啓蒙書として広く社会人や学生諸君に推奨したい一冊です。

2人のお客様がこれが役に立ったと考えています

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ビスマルク

クルーグマン教授とハイパー・インフレーション

2012年6月10日に日本でレビュー済み

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現在日本の政府の負債はGDPの200%を超え、このままではハイパー・インフレになってしまうという識者がいます。

アメリカでも、このまま財政赤字が拡大するとジンバブエや1920年代のドイツのようになると脅かす人がいるようです。

そのような人たちに向かって教授は次のように答えています。

「企業が商品の価格を上げるのは、マネー・サプライが上昇したからではない、彼らの作る商品の需要が上昇したからだ。」

これを短くして、No boom , no inflation.、と書いてあります。

つまり、景気が加熱しなければ、インフレなどなりようがないというわけです。

ところが、現在の金利は日米ともに0近辺に張り付いているのですが、誰も作った以上のモノを買わないのです。

このような場合は、政府支出の増加で対応するしかないと教授は書いています。

さらに、ハイパー・インフレ論者の矛盾点を教授は指摘しています。

つい最近、10年モノの日本国債の金利が9年ぶりに、0.8%を下回ったというニュースが出ていました。

マーケットは、全然ハイパー・インフレを予想していないわけです。

ところが、ハイパー・インフレ論者はいいます。「今、増税しなければ、いずれ銀行は日本国債を大量に売り出すだろう。そうすればマーケットで金利が暴騰して終わりだ。」

このような人に対して教授は、「マーケットの期待に添う政策をうたっておいて、現実のマーケットを無視するのはおかしい」と幾分皮肉をこめて書いています。

11人のお客様がこれが役に立ったと考えています

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tomomori

21世紀のニューディール政策を。

2012年8月8日に日本でレビュー済み

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緊縮財政か財政出動か、という日本人には大変に馴染み深いテーマの一冊。日本についての言及もチラホラ見える。ホラー小説代わりに金融危機分析本を腐るほど読んできた者だが、英米の著者で「ニューディールを！」と堂々と叫ぶのは勇気が要る（ような気がする）。著者が市場関係者だったりすると判で押したように緊縮財政推進派である。クルークマン教授は言う。まるで中世医療だ。弱った体に瀉血治療を施すようなものだ。蛇足だが、リチャード・クー氏の同様の提言に「ポール・クルークマンと同じコト言ってるだけじゃん」とかコメントしていたどこぞのアメリカ人の素人がいたが、逆だ、リチャード・クー氏の方が先だ。
金融マフィアに支配された彼の国では絶対に受けなそうな、もしかしたら最初から負け戦かもしらない闘いに挑んで東奔西走し、いまやアクティヴィスト経済学者と化しているポール・クルークマン教授に敬意を表して、皆さん、ご一読を。「国債暴落！」「ハイパーインフレ！」と懸念している方々も、納得するかどうかは置いといて、高名なノーベル経済学者の分析と見解をご覧になってみて損はないかと。文章が素晴らしく読み易い上に、存命中の有名経済学者たちを名指しで貶す教授の血気と怒りが堪能出来る。「経済学は贖罪譚ではない」という教授の言葉には拳拳服膺すべきものがあると感じた。確かに、清算主義者の修辞には何気に道徳劇的カタルシスがあるが、カタルシス提供は経済学者のお仕事ではない。私はクルークマン教授に一票入れるが、ついでに現代版ペコラ委員会設置も強く切望する。
去年あたりからアメリカでは銃の売り上げが記録的に伸びているそうだ。一ヶ月で300万本売れたとかニュースを聞いた。いいなあ、銃製造会社は景気が良くてー、ではなく、アメリカというのはある部分で刀狩り以前の国なのねぇ、と改めて驚くのである。まあその良し悪しは置いといて。米の銀行重役なんかはボディガード付きで行動しているのだらうか…。

9人のお客様がこれが役に立ったと考えています

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イットク

ノーベル経済学賞受賞者による大不況を解決する本

2013年5月6日に日本でレビュー済み

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アベノミックスの意味と欧米日本の直面する不況打開策を数字を極力省いて読みやすく書いてある本。説得力があり、日本人としては我が国経済の復権が確実に進んで存在感を高めてゆく方法が説かれている気がして、中韓両国が焦っているのも無理がないとわかる小気味よい本である。

1人のお客様がこれが役に立ったと考えています

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松下重悳

不況には財政出動をと訴求するKeynes主義

2014年4月18日に日本でレビュー済み

　有名なNew Keynesianである筆者の論文は門外漢なりに幾つも読んでいるが、著書はKindleで初めて
2014/4に手にした。集大成を見たかったからだ。昔は盛んに日本経済を取り上げていたが、最近は日
本への関心が薄れたのか取り上げてくれない。表題のThis Depressionとは米国の不況で、日本は所々
に比較対象として登場する。原本は2012年2月の出版で、激動の世界経済の中ではやや古い。しかし米
国の場合を日本に引き直し、2012年以降の経緯を踏まえながら読めば論旨は明快であり制約を感じさ
せない。

　Abenomicsの第1・第2の矢よりも本書の出版は早いが、本書の考え方がAbenomicsの背景になってい
る。本書の外では筆者は当然Abenomicsを称賛している。

　本書は、景気は一寸した契機で好況にも不況にもなることを説く。つまり人々が何かで不安を抱き
モノを買わなくなると、需要減が供給減・稼働率低下を招き、それは収入減になるから益々需要減に
なる。逆に好循環が起これば好況になる。だから需要減が不況を惹き起している場合は、政府が果敢
に財政出動して需要を喚起すれば、容易に不況退治ができるということが、筆者が一番強調している
点だ。それに反対する米共和党などの論拠を取り上げ否定していく。

　財政出動が景気を良くすることに疑義はないとしても、その財源が政府債務を増大させることが問
題で、だから財政出動は制約されてきた。しかし筆者は政府債務を増やすことを躊躇してはならぬと
する。日本のように年々債務が増えていると問題だが、増えなくなれば減らなくても塩漬けに出来る
という。インフレとGDP増で相対的な負担が減るからだ。逆に財政規律のために政府支出を削ると間違
いなく不況になるという。財政規律を重視すべきであるという考え方を筆者は否定し攻撃している。

　上記に留まらず、米不況の詳細経緯、米国の格差拡大、インフレ発生の仕組みと防止法、Euroの歴
史と今後、財政規律主義の危険など、世界経済のトピックスに判り易い説明を加える。よく整理され
た書でスラスラ容易に読める。New Keynesian、リフレ＝Reflation主義を理解するには好適。

2015年4月30日に日本でレビュー済み

2012年春の発売から丁度3年。その間何が変わったかというと、欧州ではECBのマリオ・ドラギ総裁が、債務危機国の国債購入を含め「whatever it takes」の精神で取敢えずマーケットは沈静。デフレ仲間が増えた日本は、アメリカに先を越してもらい、アベノミクスと銘打った追随キャンペーンを行っている。また、OECD・BIS・IMFが緊縮財政やら利上げを推奨していたが、少なくともIMFは「やっぱり不景気の時の緊縮財政はだめらしい」と認めた。

欧州がここまでポール・クルーグマンがお勧めしないことを次々と行うので、欧州の緊縮財政や金融政策の考え方がどうも間違えていることに経済学を生業としないものにも明らかになってきている。そして全て（本書が出る前からも）クルーグマンが予測したとおりである。しかし、本書がお勧めなのは「当たっていたから」というより、誤った結論に対して一つ一つ丁寧に反論しており、かつその理由とコンテクストが明確である点だ。（たぶん、クルーグマンからすれば1930年代の大恐慌の経験を焼きなおしただけで「予測」という発想さえナンセンスかもしれない。）

本書はタイトルだけ見ると季節物のような気がするが、企業投資が進まない理由・利上げの考え方・所得格差のもたらす経済への影響（クルーグマン自身はPrinceton大学をやめ、こちらに専念するらしい）など今・将来のテーマを考えるためにも、しっかりしたベースを読みやすい本書で再確認したいものである。星5個中7個。

*なお、他のクルーグマンの和訳からすると山形氏の和訳はニュアンス的に非常に微妙なので、気にならない方は原版をおすすめする。（平易だし、ブログはどっちにしろ英語なので。。）

1人のお客様がこれが役に立ったと考えています

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他の国からのトップレビュー

すべてのレビューを日本語に翻訳

Dennis Littrell

Clearest explanation of why it happened and what can be done

2012年10月25日にアメリカ合衆国でレビュー済み

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Krugman makes it clear in the kind of prose that even middle school students can appreciate that what we need now is more spending not less. The problem for most of us is that we think about the US government's finances in the way we think about our household or small business finances. If we spend more than we take in we are in trouble. However the US economy as a whole doesn't work that way and neither does the government. As Krugman observes in reference to why we are still in what he calls (variously) "a slump," "a great recession," and in the title, "a depression": "...your spending is my income and my income is your spending." He asks, "if ordinary citizens are tightening their belts--spending less--and the government also spends less, who is going to buy American products?" (p. 28)

So the solution to our economic problem, Krugman insists, is not austerity (which might work for households) but the opposite. We need the government to spend money to create jobs so that people can buy other people's goods and services. We especially need some infrastructure building here at home instead of in the Middle East.

"Collectively," Krugman asserts, "the world's residents are trying to buy less stuff than they are capable of producing, to spend less than they earn. That's possible for an individual, but not for the world as a whole. And the result is the devastation all around us." (p. 30)

The other thing to understand about governments, especially huge governments like the US with a $15-trillion a year economy is that government intervention can smooth out a crisis. This is because the US will not run out of people to buy its debt since its tax base is so huge that the risk of default is miniscule. When the economy gets back on its feet tax revenues will increase and the debts will be paid. Well, not paid in full. That is unlikely to ever happen, since it makes little sense. To borrow to buy something you don't need like luxuries is not wise. (Wars are usually luxuries for governments.) But to borrow to help grow the economy is a fine investment. Sound companies borrow because borrowing allows them to take advantage of their knowhow in producing goods and services that people will buy allowing the company to make money. Borrowing to party big time to impress the neighbors or your girlfriend grows no wealth. (Wars are sometimes shock and awe parties for heads of state looking to stay in power.)

Aside from offering the solution to our economic woes in simple, straightforward terms, Krugman also does an outstanding job of explaining how we got into this mess in the first place. I've read several books and a number of articles explaining the mortgage crisis, the "too big to fail" bank welfare fraud and the derivatives hustles, but nowhere is this spelled out in as clear as fashion as Krugman does here. He is simply the best economist writing for an informed non-professional public at work today. This is not to mention that he is also a Nobel Prize winning economist.

As for wages being too high, Krugman writes:

"...today it's often argued that more labor market `flexibility'--a euphemism for wage cuts--is what we really need" (to cure high unemployment). "But while an individual worker can improve his chances of getting a job by accepting a lower wage, because that makes him more attractive compared to other workers, an across-the-board cut in wages leaves everyone in the same place, except for one thing: it reduces everyone's income, but the level of debt remains the same. So more flexibility in wages (and prices) would just make matters worse." (pp. 52-53)

I think the average person, even the fairly well educated average person, doesn't really understand how banks work and how they make money. I didn't until I was well into my fifties. Certainly the core of the Tea Party doesn't, although some of the supporters of financial institution deregulation do and that is precisely why they want deregulation. Here's how Krugman explains this in part:

First he notes that the Glass-Steagall act of 1933 primarily did two things. It "established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) which guaranteed (and still guarantees) depositors against loss if their bank should happened to fail" (p. 59) Additionally, "Glass-Steagall limited the amount of risk banks could take. This was especially necessary given the establishment of deposit insurance, which could have created enormous `moral hazard.' That is, it could have created a situation in which bankers could raise lots of money, no questions asked--hey, it's all government-insured--then put that money into high-risk, high stakes investments, figuring that it was heads they win, tails the taxpayers lose."

Krugman then reminds us that this is exactly what happened during the savings and loan scandal of the Reagan administration. Likewise, the big investments banks knew during the later years of the George W. Bush administration that they were in fact too big to fail and the government in order to prevent a massive financial meltdown would have to bail them out if their Pandora's Box of risky derivatives (and other "financial instruments") went toxic. This knowledge gave them free rein to gamble like drunken sailors--well, that knowledge and the (how sweet it is!) deregulation of investment banking that took place primarily in the Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. Toxic those gambles went and both the Bush and the Obama administrations found themselves with no choice but to bail the banks out lest the whole economy come tumbling down.

One of the results of deregulation has been the enormous increase in the wealth of the top one percent (yes, those people) and what has happened to the real income of most of the rest of us. Krugman has two charts on page 74 showing the growth in household income from 1947 to the present. While the rich have indeed gotten richer the average family has seen its income growth "slowed to a crawl."

But it's even worse than Krugman makes it appear. That's because the only reason middle income Americans have been able to tread water is because many of those families became two income families. In other words the head of household's real income has actually fallen.

Another factor in the actual decline in the average worker's buying power and the amazing increase in CEO compensation comes about, Krugman suggests, because worker's unions have lost a lot of their power. "It's surely relevant here to note the sharp decline in unionization during the 1980s, which removed one major player that might have protested huge paychecks for executives." (p. 82)

One more point. Krugman argues that the harsh austerity measures currently being acted out in Greece and other places in Europe are not only mistaken but based on a kind of "morality play" mentality. We all understand how it feels when our neighbors get away with something like buying houses they can't afford. We don't want the government to bail them out. They were fiscally irresponsible and should have to pay the piper. However even if that is true it doesn't help us by administering punishment in the form taking place in Greece, Ireland, Spain, and elsewhere. Our standard of living will suffer if we place our desire to punish others ahead of our doing what is necessary to grow the economy. It would help a lot if somehow some of the mortgage indebtedness were to be forgiven, is what Krugman suggests.

In short, there's a tremendous amount of economic wisdom in this book, so much so I would recommend it as a supplement to a college macroeconomics text. You'll find that a number of the sometimes difficult ideas in those texts are illuminated almost incidentally by Krugman as he explains how we got into this mess and how we can get out. I wish this were required reading for high school students and the members of the Congress of the United States.

--Dennis Littrell, author of "The World Is Not as We Think It Is"

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J. Alan Bock

We can do it

2012年5月14日にアメリカ合衆国でレビュー済み

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In this book America's pre-eminent econcomist, Paul Krugman, offers his prescription for ending the depression that has been afflicting this country for five years. We know what to do, says Krugman, because the problems we have are recognizably similar to those of the 1930s. "Unfortunately we are not using the nowledge we have because too many people who matter - politicians, public officials, and the broader class of writers and talkers who define conventional wisdom - have, for a variety of reasons, chosen to forget the lessons of history and the conclusions of several generations' worth of economic analysis, replacing the hard won knowledge with ideologically and politically convenient prejudices. Above all, conventional wisdom among what some of us have taken to referring to, sarcastically, as Very Serious People has completely thrown away Keynes central dictum: "The boom, not the slump, is the time for austerity." Now is the time for government to spend more not less, until the private sector is ready to carrry the economy forward again - yet job-destroying austerity policies have instead become the rule."

One of the problems is long term unemployment. But Republican dogma says there is no such thing (ask Sharon Angle) - that anyone who wants a job can get one. Humorously, Krugman points out that the classic answer to such people comes from a passage near the beginning of the novel "The Treasure of Sierra Madre'' (the film starred Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston): "Anyone who is willing to work and is serious about it will certainly find a job. Only you must not go to the man who tells you this, for he has no job to offer and doesn't know anyone who knows of a vacancy. This is exactly the reason why he gives you such generous advice, out of brotherly love, and to demonstrate how little he knows of the world.."

Also, to those Chicago Board of Trade people who mocked anti-equality demonstrators by showering them with copies of MacDonald's job application forms advertising 50,000 new job openings, Krugman points out that roughly one million people applied!.

In a chapter entitled "Anatomy of An Inadequate Response", Krugman points out that the predicament Obama now finds himself in is largely of his own making. Whether he could have provided bold, innovative leadership like FDR in the 1930s is problematic. He didn' even try. His stimulus package was far too small for the job. While it mitigated the recession, it fell far short of what would have been needed to restore full employment, or even to create a sense of progress. There was nothing resembling an FDR-style Works Progress Administration. (At its peak the WPA employed three million Americans or about 10 percent of the workforce. An equivalent sized program today would employ thirteen million workers.) In answer to the question whether such a program was politically possible, Krugman says that his own take is that the politics of adequate stimulus were very hard, but we will never know whether they really prevented an adequate plan because Obama and his aides never even tried for something big enough to do the job. I would also like to point out that FDR does not seem to be one of Obama's heroes (at least he never talks about him.) On the other hand we do know that Obama considers Ronald Reagan to be the most transformative president of our times!

Krugman does address the problems of the deficit and inflation - the hobgoblins of Republican minds. First of all, he says, there was and is no evidence to support the shift in focus away from jobs and towards deficits. "Where the harm done by lack of jobs is real and terrible, the harm done by deficits to a nation like America in its current situation is, for the most part, hypothetical. The quantifiable burden of debt is much smaller than you would imagine from the rhetoric and warnings about some kind of debt crisis are based on nothing much at all. In fact, the predictions of the deficit hawks have been repeatedly falsified by events, while those who argued that deficits are not a problem in a depressed economy have been constantly right. Yet exaggerated fear of deficits retains its hold on our political and policy discourse."

For the past few years - especially since the election of Obama - the airwaves and opinion pages have been filled with dire warnings of high inflation just around the corner. Some have even predicted a full fledged hyperinflation along the lines of the Weimer Republic in the 1920s. The right side of the political spectrum has bught fully into theses fears of inflation. Ron Paul, a self-proclaimed devotee of Austrian economics, routinely issues apocalyptic warnings about inflation. The failure of his presidential aspirations should not blind us to his success in making his economic ideology Republican orthodoxy. Republican congressman berate Ben Bernanke for "debasing" the dollar and their presidential candidates compete over who can denounce the Feds allegedly inflationary policies most vehemently. But they are wrong. Three and a half years after the election of Obama the interest rate is still near zero. The Fed has continued to buy bonds and mortgages, adding even more to bank reserves; and budget deficits remain enormous. Yet the averge inflation rate over that period was only 2.5 percent, and if you included volatile food and energy prices, the average inflation rate was only 1.4 percent. The inflation rates were below historical norms. In particular, as liberal economists love to point out, inflation was much lower under Obama than it had been in Ronald Reagan's supposedly halcyon, "morning in America" second term.

This book, then, says Krugman, is an attempt to break the hold of that destructive conventional wisdom and to make the case for the expansionary, job-creating policies we should have been following all along. "I am trying to go over the heads of the Serious People who have, for whatever reason, taken all of us down the wrong path, at immense cost to our economies and our societies, and to appeal to an informed public opinion in an effort to get us doing the right thing instead."

Krugman' optimism is obvious on almost every page and he thinks that this job can be done - although it will be difficult "These are terrible times, and all the more terrible because it's all so unnecessary. But don't give up: we can end this depression, if we can only find the clarity and the will."

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Clancy Hughes

Depression II, but what about the trade deficit?

2012年5月12日にアメリカ合衆国でレビュー済み

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Paul Krugman's new book, End this Depression Now, paints the reality of Depression II with the colors of truth and the promise of a solution. Anyone concerned about current politics, jobs and our future, no matter the political persuasion, had better read this one. A Nobel Prize winner in Economics, Paul knows whereof he speaks ---a must read.

Dr. Krugman makes clear that indeed we are in a depression. He defines our present circumstances as a liquidity trap in which the majority of the population cuts back on spending in order to reduce debt. Businesses do the same; they lay off workers and build up a reserve. Banks too deleverage to ride out the storm, but get right back into the shadow-banking, derivatives and chinagins that helped get us into this mess. (J.P. Morgan just lost two billion through misdirected dark derivative trading.) Consumers will not borrow even at zero percent and interest rates can't go much lower than that. Like Japan for a decade, we cannot grow out of the liquidity trap.

Krugman goes to great lengths to describe the polarization of economists in their conflicting understanding or misunderstanding of the causes and solutions to our dilemma. Economists apparently understood the causes of the Great Depression, and legislators as well enacted regulations and safeguards to prevent it happening again. Since the 1980s, however, legislators supported newer, more fashionable and erroneous economic beliefs, systematically repealing those earlier safeguards. I like Krugman's description of current economists as: salt water economists versus freshwater economists. Those may be euphemisms for Democrats and Republicans. In any case Salt Water Economists appear to be the good guys.

Quoting from the book, "Yet Lucas, a Nobel laureate who was a towering, almost dominate figure in macroeconomics for much of the 1970s and 1980s, wasn't wrong in saying that economists had learned a lot since the 1930s. By, say, 1970 the economics profession really did know enough to prevent a recurrence of anything resembling the Great Depression. --- And then much of the profession proceeded to forget what it had learned." Krugman goes on to explain, "How a mix of politics and runaway academic sociology, through which basically absurd notions, became dogma in analysis of both finance and macroeconomics."

I love the phrase, "runaway academic sociology." I take it as a foreshadowing of the trade deficit and the funneling of middle class wealth into the hands of the wealthy. I call it a money pump that drained wealth from the Middle Class, first to our trading partners and then back in the form of foreign investment into the hands of the nouveau riche plutocracy that so benefited from this flow of wealth, the 1% and the 0.01%. I thought - and I was mistaken - that Krugman would define academic-sociology as the near messianic belief that unregulated trade could do no wrong.

Krugman makes a compelling case for using the tools that we still have to end this depression. He argues soundly that the stimulus package did not go far enough. His suggestions listed first of all government-spending as the essential ingredient for getting us out of the liquidity trap. The list includes areas of immediate impact like funding states and local governments at such a level as to meet the need for projected but canceled spending on critical local measures -- such as teachers. The list further includes spending on critical infrastructure, not exotics, but things like the electric grid, rail-bed upgrades, roads, bridges and so forth. Interestingly, Krugman shows that a measured degree of inflation at around 4% could further stimulate production reduce the cost of debt and allow for a real interest rate below 0%. (The real cost of money must include inflation) Furthermore, Krugman establishes, at least to my satisfaction that inflation will not come roaring back. He additionally favors more and extended relief for those who struggle, and he further proposes mortgage payment relief through refinancing. He also mentioned the need to push China to follow the rules about the value of its currency.

Krugman attributes the depression to the systematic dismantling of the banking rules which had been designed to prevent the depression from recurring and the aggressive behavior of banks and other businesses as a result of loosening those safeguards.

I did not find any description of the role that the trade deficit did or did not play in this crisis. Last month's deficit in the balance-of-trade came in at over fifty billion dollars. The trade deficit just keeps growing -- and for many decades now. I do not know how you can explain the depression without acknowledging the not so slow drain on the US consumer from jobs, manufacturing and sales revenue going overseas. I do not see in Krugman's book, the big money flow that makes the 1 - 0.1% so wealthy and the middle class so poor. We all know that for generations now our wives have had to work. We also know the struggle to pay college tuition for our children, many if not most families deferring to college loans - but that's another story. Politically incorrect as it may be, the trade deficit looms as the unmentioned elephant in the livingroom. Six hundred billion a year amounts to over 4% of the GDP. Anyway we look at it that's a drain. Furthermore most of it returns in the form of foreign investment seeking a safe haven. It must keep hedge fund managers staying up at night thinking up investment instruments to sop up that transferred wealth. I don't see numbers equating the loss to the middle class by service jobs transfered overseas, or the loss of local jobs as a result of manufacturing overseas.

American companies' overseas profits remain overseas because of high corporate tax rates. Furthermore, domestic corporations reduce their tax burden by paying upper management inflated salaries. The executives manage tax shelters by their own means, thus paying less tax than the average middleclass consumer. So, the Middle Class not only unwittingly transfers wealth to the wealthy, but pays their share of the taxes on it as well.
Let's end this trade deficit now and end the money pump. Daddy Warbucks will scream his head off and pay a fortune in PR convincing the public that you can't do that. He is laughing all the way to the bank - he is the bank. Krugman's book stimulates these thoughts and questions in my mind. I hope more of the American public will ask these questions as well.

My economics was at Kansas. Not being too clear on Keynesian economics, I looked up my college professor's opinion of Keynesian theory. In John Ise's introduction to his 1950 text, Economics, He writes, "Although I do not regard Keynesian doctrine as the whole of the `new economics,` I have injected Keynesian theory at various points in the book, as well as in the new chapter."

Apparently, not all fresh water economists were anti Keynes, or was Kansas the exception with no water, just sod and wheat?

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Dr. R. G. Bullock

More than economics...

2013年4月24日に英国でレビュー済み

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Paul Krugman is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University and a columnist at The New York Times. He won the Nobel prize for economics in 2008. His book, `End this Depression Now!', argues that the present economic depression, dating from 2008, is not essentially different from other depressions, notably the Great Depression following the Wall Street crash of 1929. He argues that the experiences, actions and research of the 1930s and 1940s, augmented by recent research, has given us the tools to bring the economic situation under control. They are simply being ignored by governments in the USA, the UK and Euroland, or governments haven't the courage to do it.

He begins by outlining the tremendous costs of a prolonged depression, especially in human terms. His humanity comes through strongly, not something one normally associates with economists. For example, he notes research which shows that a graduate qualifying during a downturn has his or her whole career affected adversely, not just for the duration of the recession. Long recessions cause permanent, irretrievable losses that leave nations with weak industries and poor skill bases, unable to take full advantage of any recovery. They can lead to political extremism - look at Hungary and Greece today.

The lessons of the Great Depression are outlined. Krugman sees himself as a "sorta-kinda New Keynesian" and argues that depressions are essentially due to lack of demand. This can be counteracted effectively by government spending of particular types - infrastructure spending, mortgage debt relief, temporary higher target rates for inflation, and effective devaluation of the currency and "printing of money". He criticises the stimulus package of President Obama as being far too timid and small to be really effective. Krugman does not think debts should not be paid off, but this should be done when the economy is stronger.

His remedies mainly apply to America but there is also discussion of the UK and Europe. He is scathing about the economic policies of the coalition government. As the UK has its own currency and central bank, Krugman states that we could easily apply a stimulus package without causing a troublesome run on the currency (he talks about the "confidence fairy" in debunking the excessive weight given to "confidence" in the design of policy). He shows that such countries (the USA, Japan, the UK, Sweden) are much less prone to being at the mercy of the market compared to those in the Eurozone. He contrasts Sweden and Denmark with Finland: very similar economies but as Finland is in the Eurozone, has suffered much greater speculative pressure. However, he is much more pessimistic about the Eurozone as a whole. The individual countries do not have their own currency, nor their own central bank and this, Krugman maintains, makes all the difference. The only solution he can see is Germany enacting, for a time, strong inflationary policies - totally against the grain in that country - combined with general wage reduction in southern Europe, again not likely to happen voluntarily.

So far, so Keynesian, but the really fascinating parts of the book lie elsewhere. For example, the "paradoxes": the "Paradox of thrift", where everyone saves (and so spends less) leading to generally declining income and shrinking of the economy. The "Paradox of deleveraging" - the more debtors pay, the more they owe. And the "Paradox of flexibility" - lack of demand leads to a cut in prices e.g. for labour - in short, wage cuts. Across the board wage cuts, incomes all reduced, but debt remains the same. It is such things which really counter the usual objection - you cannot cure debt by more debt. Krugman says we need to change the metaphors used to describe the economy in slumps. He shows that in a slump, normal concepts do not apply. He likens it to being on the other side of the looking glass, and I then saw it as akin to quantum mechanics compared to Newtonian physics, or the peculiar properties of materials at extremely low temperatures, e.g. superconductivity. Certain states need ways of thinking that are superficially not logical and counter-intuitive.

Another strong theme of the book is the increasing inequality in Western societies since the early 1980s (the time of President Reagan and "Reaganomics"). Krugman sees this time as the one where the dominant economics changes from Keynesian ideas to those of the laissez-faire economists who believe that human beings are logical and markets always do the right thing. This has the ring of doctrine, not science, and Krugman mentions the messianic tendencies of some of this ilk. Keynesian ideas were seen by conservatives as the thin end of the wedge - socialism would surely follow. Keynes was certainly not a socialist.

It was the time of deregulation of the banking sector and failure to regulate the "shadow banks" and the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act (to legalise, retroactively, an illegal merger in the banking sector!) All this went hand in hand with the increasing polarisation of politics in American (and the UK). The rich, consisting of corporate executives and "financial wheeler-dealers" in the main, somehow monopolised any increase in the GDP, leaving the incomes of the vast majority flat-lining. The rich managed to do this by fixing thing to their advantage: "soft corruption" at a political level: they had and have more access to power, they are articulate and influence disproportionately. They even influenced which economists had the strongest voice: To quote Krugman:

"The preferences of university donors, the availability of fellowships and lucrative consulting contracts...must have encourages [economists] not just to turn away from Keynesian ideas but to forget much that had been learned in the 1930s and 1940s".

Not only this, but Keynesians were actively discriminated against at some universities. This could sound like a conspiracy theory but it is not a club of rich people colluding to do something. It is a myriad of such people acting in their own interest in a myriad of separate, disconnected actions. These actions carry more weight than that of "little people". There is a net vector to such actions.

He outlines the story of the housing bubble, the subprime mortgage scandal and the ludicrous idea that risk can virtually be eliminated from the financial sector by complex "instruments".

The scope of the book is far wider than one might think from the title. He outlines much of what has gone wrong in the Western democracies over the past thirty years or so. The "culture wars" in the USA, sadly spreading to our blessed isle. The disregard of experts in favour of pure ideology. The disappearance of calm but passionate political discussion in favour of ad hominem attacks. In his postscript, he says: "Tribal allegiance should have no more to do with your views about macroeconomics than with your views on, say, the theory of evolution or climate change...hmm, maybe I'd better stop right there". Who says Americans don't do irony?

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Rob Julian

Very Keynesian, Very Convincing, Very Readable, . . . and more than a little Disconcerting

2012年6月1日に英国でレビュー済み

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As the title to this review suggests, this book convincingly argues that America (and in most cases the rest of the developed world) needs a boost in government spending to return our economies to a healthy state. As with all Krugman's books, this is very well written in an easy conversational style, which makes it very accessible to all those whom have only recently become interested in economics due to the recent troubles.

The books I value the most are those which generate within me challenging questions and gut reactions, and reading this book has left me with a disconcerting amount of both. Can it really be that simple? Why hadn't I seriously supported this before? Could America really just government spend it's way out of a recession? Imagine how much cash it would take! . . . But then I suppose back in the 1930s perhaps the prospect of more government debt was also very scary at the time, but after a few decades of growth and inflation the debt seemed paltry. (Reader warning, homespun analogy coming up): A number of years ago I was unemployed for a few months and became very conscious of what I was spending. After I returned to work I wished I had spent a sizeable bit of money on renovating my flat, which would have been a better use of my time!

One difference between now and the last depression was that back then America had valuable manufacturing strengths and advantages, not yet developed by the majority of the world. Where as now Asia has caught up by gaining many of these positive externalities. Krugman mentions in passing that: "it's long past time to take a tougher line on China and other currency manipulators, and sanction them if necessary".p221. Generally though this book is domestic in its subject matter, and does not for me (see my profile) include enough about the subject of trade and protectionism.

However to be fair, he does counter the Chinese peril / doom mongers (of which I am a paid up member) by arguing that in fact the US "net international investment position, the difference between our overseas assets and our overseas liabilities, is in the red only to the tune of $2.5 trillion. ... of an economy that produces $15 trillion of goods and services every year."p44. I suppose if I earned say £30,000 a year, I would feel quite comfortable owing what would be the equivalent of £5,000 in net terms. He argues that most of Americans' debt's are inherently between one another and importantly in their own currency, and therefore not as economically dangerous as some would lead us to believe. He also notes that free market believers are obliged to observe, against their own preferred analysis, that the bond markets currently have very little worries about increasing government debt, as shown by historically low interest rates / yields.

This international dimension (or lack of) to the debt issue seems the key point to me. If America's debt really is mostly owed to itself, then Krugman has a point. If on the other hand the narrative is that China has lent America the money to buy Chinese made manufactured goods, then this is decadence and a route to economic dependence and decline.

One of Krugman's earlier short books was titled "A Country is not a Company" and Krugman here also warns against us falling for the "Paradox of Thrift" by applying moral housekeeping notions of prudence admirable in an open system environment, to the economics of a country which is more of a closed system, i.e. my spending is your income. But again the international dimension matters. The large American economy is mostly a closed system, but the international imbalances of trading partners like China provide leakages and distortions. If my spending is Chinese income, and too much of their income becomes not their spending on my produce, but their lending to me and purchasing of Western assets, then the Keynesian spending loop is kind of broken isn't it?

Besides the main government spending policy recommendation, Krugman also convincingly argues that increasing inflation over the next few years would be beneficial, and that deflation alongside debt is in fact the real danger to be concerned about. Krugman's treatment of the causes of the credit crunch and the section on the particular problems of the Euro are also very good. Regarding the Euro he argues for increased inflation which would allow a heating up of the German economy, resulting in higher German wages, while allowing Greek wages to stagnate, restoring their relative competitiveness. With the unlikely help of Milton Friedman he convincingly argues that currency devaluation is a better way to restore competitiveness compared to the messy unequal process of trying to reduce nominal wages, and relatively more inflation in the stronger trade surplus countries compared to the weaker ones, would be the eurozone equivalent to this. Krugman helped me to see that German economic policy, while admirably cautious and thrifty in isolation, can appear more divisive if you factor in the competitive advantages they receive from having the strength of the currency they are in pulled down by weaker members, while they still maintain their distaste for strong stimulus spending and inflation.

Even if you do not buy the book, you have to read the extract Krugman provides below from Michael Kalecki 1943, on the subject of why right wingers and business leaders don't want governments to be able to independently solve a countries unemployment issues.

"We shall deal first with the reluctance of the "captains of industry" to accept government intervention in the matter of employment. Every widening of state activity is looked upon by business with suspicion, but the creation of employment by government spending has a special aspect which makes the opposition particularly intense. Under a laissez-faire system the level of employment depends to a great extent on the so-called state of confidence. If this deteriorates, private investment declines, which results in a fall of output and employment (both directly and through the secondary effect of the fall in incomes upon consumption and investment). This gives the capitalists a powerful indirect control over government policy: everything which may shake the state of confidence must be carefully avoided because it would cause an economic crisis. But once the government learns the trick of increasing employment by its own purchases, this powerful controlling device loses its effectiveness. Hence budget deficits necessary to carry out government intervention must be regarded as perilous. The social function of the doctrine of "sound finance" is to make the level of employment dependant on the state of confidence."p94.

This extract puts words to what many people think and feel already: right-wing economic ideology serves to make society and governments more closely follow the interests of businesses and the rich. Krugman has a point when he criticises right-wing commentators for misleadingly overlaying potent concepts of morality and profligacy on these current issues. This narrative is very powerful as it can be understood (or misunderstood) by someone who knows nothing about economics. I have spoke to people who don't really grasp the complexities surrounding the competitiveness of regions within currency blocks, but who have heard all about 50 year olds in Greece getting generous pensions, and families of doctors in Greece paying no tax.

I noticed the broad range of star ratings for this book, suggesting that its bold thesis does not sit well with everyone. Perhaps some David Cameron supporters have read it, as his austerity approach comes in for criticism. If you are to the left and work for the state, you will love this book. If you are none of the above you should still read it, and you may find it disconcertingly convincing like I did.

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