Two Krugman Interviews

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Here's two interviews with Paul Krugman, economics professor, Clark Medal winner, and New York Times columnist. Krugman has a new book out soon: The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century.

  1. Liberal Oasis interview
  2. Buzzflash interview

In the Liberal Oasis interview, Krugman makes an interesting point about globalization. He's primarily pro-globalization, but aware that there are problems with it, particularly in Latin America. He notes that until we get America back on its feet, your postion on globalization is more or less irrelevant:

Liberal Oasis: Are issues such as trade and globalization more relevant to the long-term effects of the economy?
Paul Krugman: I have to say those issues - they seemed terribly big issues a few years ago. And I'd like to imagine us back to a situation where they become top issues.
But at this point, they're really second-order.
The key thing, in terms of the state of the world right now, is that the United States has gone mad.
Let's get some return to fiscal and environmental and general governmental sanity in this country, and then we can talk about we manage globalization.

I think this is a good attitude for all anti-Bush partisians to have. Let's bury the hachet until November 2004. Then we can pick up where we left off.