{"id":1770,"date":"2009-10-24T00:56:05","date_gmt":"2009-10-24T04:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=1770"},"modified":"2009-10-24T00:56:05","modified_gmt":"2009-10-24T04:56:05","slug":"can-someone-explain-paul-krugman-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/24\/can-someone-explain-paul-krugman-to-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Can someone explain Paul Krugman to me?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m deeply confused by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/10\/23\/opinion\/23krugman.html\">a Paul Krugman article<\/a> in the October 22 New York Times. He argues that the Chinese are ruining the world economy, and our economy, by keeping their currency weak. Chinese exports are too cheap. I can&#8217;t figure out why this is bad. Would we be better off if we paid higher prices for Chinese-made car parts, electronics, clothing, etc.? Wouldn&#8217;t that leave us with less money to spend on other stuff and therefore worse off?<\/p>\n<p>And what about this finance professor from University of Chicago, John Cochrane, who <a href=\"http:\/\/faculty.chicagobooth.edu\/john.cochrane\/research\/Papers\/krugman_response.htm\">tears apart one of Krugman&#8217;s earlier pieces<\/a>? Whom are we to believe, the Nobel Laureate Krugman or a glider pilot who lives in a part of the country with no ridge lift (see the bottom of <a href=\"http:\/\/faculty.chicagobooth.edu\/john.cochrane\/research\/Papers\/\">his papers page<\/a>)? Cochrane seems to be a bit of a contrarian, <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052970203440104574403144004792338.html\">arguing in the Wall Street Journal<\/a> that the Lehman failure did not cause the Collapse of 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m deeply confused by a Paul Krugman article in the October 22 New York Times. He argues that the Chinese are ruining the world economy, and our economy, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Can someone explain Paul Krugman to me? - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/24\/can-someone-explain-paul-krugman-to-me\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can someone explain Paul Krugman to me? - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;m deeply confused by a Paul Krugman article in the October 22 New York Times. 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