Mea Culpa

Krugman admits a couple of mistakes. 

I sincerely believe he and the other economists I link to on the right have been fantastic since the current crisis hit. It's very, very encouraging to witness the good guys make mincemeat out of their intellectual opponents, not to mention with humor and style. Really they have been life savers during a scary time.

However the mistakes I would argue Krugman has made our as follows: in the late 1990s he was very pro Free Trade whereas free trade really didn't do much for the middle or lower classes. He's changed on that somewhat.

He argued that the banks needed to be nationalized along the lines of what Sweden successfully did or else we'd have disaster. Maybe he exaggerated to push his case, but I don't believe the banks are as bad as Japan's were. This remains to be seen.

He ignores what happened with the European sovereign debt crisis and how that unexpectedly added some headwinds for the American economy. He doesn't want to give Obama/Summers any breaks.

After being attacked by Krugman, Ken Rogoff went after him about productivity gains in the 90s which Krugman cops to being wrong about, but Krugman has been pretty prescient and right on the arguments whereas Rogoff - former Chief Austerian at the IMF - has been all over the map lately. I'd be a little more modest if I was Rogoff given his inconsistencies.

He was right about Bernanke. If a guy like Hoenig had been in charge we would be in the midst of second Great Depression right now.

I might have been naive to place too much hope in Obama, unlike many older wiser people I respect, but again there's still a lot of time in the game left to play.