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

~ Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman Politics Truth

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.

~ Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman Belief Democracy Democrats Economy Government Liberalism Liberals Politics Society

These are tough times for state governments. Huge deficits loom almost everywhere, from California to New York, from New Jersey to Texas.Wait—Texas? Wasn't Texas supposed to be thriving even as the rest of America suffered? Didn't its governor declare, during his re-election campaign, that 'we have billions in surplus'? Yes, it was, and yes, he did. But reality has now intruded, in the form of a deficit expected to run as high as $25 billion over the next two years.And that reality has implications for the nation as a whole. For Texas is where the modern conservative theory of budgeting—the belief that you should never raise taxes under any circumstances, that you can always balance the budget by cutting wasteful spending—has been implemented most completely. If the theory can't make it there, it can't make it anywhere.

~ Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman 2010 2011 Balanced Budget Budgets California Deficit Spending Economics Economy Of California Economy Of New Jersey Economy Of New York Economy Of Texas Economy Of The United States Financial Crisis Of 2007 2011 Governor Of Texas New Jersey New York Politics Rick Perry State Governments Of The Us Taxes Texas Texas Elections 2010 United States United States Elections 2010

The media are desperately afraid of being accused of bias. And that's partly because there's a whole machine out there, an organized attempt to accuse them of bias whenever they say anything that the Right doesn't like. So rather than really try to report things objectively, they settle for being even-handed, which is not the same thing. One of my lines in a column—in which a number of people thought I was insulting them personally—was that if Bush said the Earth was flat, the mainstream media would have stories with the headline: 'Shape of Earth—Views Differ.' Then they'd quote some Democrats saying that it was round.

~ Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman Bias Conservatism Conservatism In The Us Democratic Party United States Economics Flat Earth George W Bush Media Media Bias Politics United States

[Conventional wisdom] very heavily tends to reflect the preferences and the interests of the elite.

~ Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman Capitalism Conventional Wisdom Economics Economy Elites Greed Money Political Politics Wisdom

The appeal to the intellectually insecure is also more important than it might seem. Because economics touches so much of life, everyone wants to have an opinion. Yet the kind of economics covered in the textbooks is a technical subject that many people find hard to follow. How reassuring, then, to be told that it is all irrelevant -- that all you really need to know are a few simple ideas! Quite a few supply-siders have created for themselves a wonderful alternative intellectual history in which John Maynard Keynes was a fraud, Paul Samuelson and even Milton Friedman are fools, and the true line of deep economic thought runs from Adam Smith through obscure turn-of-the-century Austrians straight to them.

~ Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman Economics History

Some people want the past repeated and have an interest in making sure we don't remember it.

~ Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman Culture History Spiritual Warfare

Now, it’s true that some of the protesters are oddly dressed or have silly-sounding slogans, which is inevitable given the open character of the events. But so what? I, at least, am a lot more offended by the sight of exquisitely tailored plutocrats, who owe their continued wealth to government guarantees, whining that President Obama has said mean things about them than I am by the sight of ragtag young people denouncing consumerism.

~ Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman Barack Obama Consumerism Economics Inequality Occupy Wall Street Plutocracy Protest United States Wealth

Programmers have a saying: garbage in, garbage out.

~ Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman Economics Economics Philosophy Health Microeconomics

And that's just the beginning. More and more, conventional wisdom says that the responsible thing is to make the unemployed suffer. And while the benefits from inflicting pain are an illusion, the pain itself will be all too real.

~ Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman 2010 Conventional Wisdom Economics Fiscal Austerity Unemployment

[W]hat possible purpose does this lashing-out serve? Will activists be shamed into recovering their previous enthusiasm? Will Republicans stop their vicious attacks because Obama is lashing out to his left? It was pure self-indulgence; even if he feels aggrieved, he has to judge his words by their usefulness, not by his desire to vent. This isn't about him.

~ Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman 2010 Activism Barack Obama Bush Tax Cuts Compromise Leftism Liberalism Republican Party United States

The science fiction world has a lot of people doing seriously imaginative thinking.

~ Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman Thinking World People

The problem isn't that people don't understand how good things are. It's that they know, from personal experience, that things really aren't that good.

~ Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman Good People Problem

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

~ Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman People Long Think