Wednesday, July 3, 2013

More Proof the Nobel Prize Committee Often Makes Mistakes.

A dispute on economics between Paul Krugman and Paul Krugman's textbook

City Square

Compare and Contrast:
* "Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker's incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of 'Eurosclerosis,' the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European countries."-- former Enron adviser Paul Krugman and Robin Wells (Mrs. Krugman), "Introduction to Macroeconomics," second edition, 2009
* "In general, modern conservatives believe that our national character is being sapped by social programs that, in the memorable words of Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, 'turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency.' More specifically, they believe that unemployment insurance encourages jobless workers to stay unemployed, rather than taking available jobs. . . . The move to slash unemployment benefits . . . is counterproductive as well as cruel; it will swell the ranks of the unemployed even as it makes their lives ever more miserable."--Krugman, New York Times, July 1, 2013

Paul Krugman, like Barack Obama, is proof the Nobel Prize Committee occasionally makes mistakes.

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