Rating: 
Summary: Reviving the Economy
Review: This is a brilliant, insightful and very easy to read book - which is saying something, on all three counts, for a book by an economist and professor. He even has a good sense of humor.The short Introduction bowled me over. It's one of those things that you want to make mandatory reading for every presidential candidate, media employee and business person - or any acquaintance who starts talking about the economy or politics. It's astoundingly good. Living outside the political and media centers of Washington and New York has apparently helped Krugman maintain a clear head and rational perspective. The columns reprinted in the book display a clarity of thought and logic that one wishes everyone messing with or commenting on money possessed. Pulitzer, Nobel, Fed Chairman or the highest elected office - after reading this book Krugman's got my vote.
Rating: 
Summary: Please Read The Book
Review: To all you Krugman fans and would-be fans....I urge you to read the book. Unlike the dim bulb from Chicago, an ACTUAL reading of the book by someone with an intelligent an objective mind will find that it is mostly a collection of modified press releases and fleshed-out talking point memos distributed by the Democratic National Committee. On those infrequent occasions when the former Enron advisor actually writes a column on the subject of his alleged "expertise," it takes a veritable army of real economists to follow along behind and correct the numerous errors and misstatement of facts....sort of like the people in the circus with the brooms trailing behind the elephants.
Rating:
Summary: great writing, research, analysis
Review: Since I discovered Krugman through an email forward sent to me by a friend, I have visited the NYT every day looking for more. His writing is brilliant, the topics are hard-hitting and well-researched, and he comes from a theoretical base. It's not scattershot criticism. When I started to browse these reviews, I was startled to find that he has become a "whipping boy" for some scarey, out of control rightists (my favorite is "Seattle wife beater" - great signature there). It's clear to me that he touches too close to the bone, and that makes the bush-camp very nervous. I invite those of you reading to keep an open mind to these ideas. They're very powerful, and help me understand my country better. Thank you for your attention.
Rating:
Summary: for those who believe in the constitution of the U.S.A.
Review: I, for one, believe in and will fight for the constitution of this great country. I am not one who votes a straight ticket, I vote for whom I believe will do the best for our people and country because we have good people from each group. This is not a time to blindly follow any one person or group on just their say so because our country is in a very precarious situation and a single bad judgement could cause unreparable, or at the least, extremely costly damage control. Paul Krugman feels, as many people do, that our current administration is heading this country in a whole new direction away from our constitutional values. (you, as a people, can easily see this in their installing the patriot act and in their use of the supreme court to deny the voters their right to have their votes counted, and in denying thousands of voters in Florida the right to vote because their name resembled that of a felon-out of close to 60,000 people only around 3,000 qualified, the majority of the others were those they thought might vote for Gore, and also when Tom Delay and Lott sent their people down to Florida in planes belonging to Halliburton and Enron to physically stop the election people from recounting the ballots- they shoved the election judges around (this should have been a prison sentence for those people). Those are the things that all of us can see and recognize. Krugman shows us how the Bush administrations actions will result in the Social Security and Medicare program and others, will soon be null and void. He shows us how this plan has been in the makings for some time now. The people had to be lulled into a false sense of security by years of financial security and lack of wars and then had to be hit with something like 9/11 so that the leaders could get the cooperation of the people to take up arms and blindly follow in the belief that their leaders were looking out for them. The leaders would keep up the fear factor and attack anyone who questioned them as being unpatriotic, (which is actually unpatriotic on their part). This all happened to us. Also, if something goes wrong, blame it on someone else. Which they tried to do to Clinton, even though, Clinton warned them repeatedly that the terrorists would be the biggest threat to our country. When the World Trade building was bombed just days after he took office, you didn't see him whining that it was all former President Bush's fault-he did his job. He investigated and went from there. You have to wonder why the current administration, didn't want the investigation into 9/11 as that is the logical conclusion when something like that happens, when something breaks, you find out why so that you can prevent it from happening again. Krugman goes into great detail with logical and true facts proving his assumptions. He goes back into history and shows how certain individuals involved years ago in the same kind of takeover plot are again involved in this administration-like Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, etc. He explains how the fundamentalist christian group is a strong influence in this process-(these are not what I call true christians because Jesus would never take from the poor to give to the rich, he would never condone killing innocent people (ever wonder how many thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens have died due to Bush's orders?), the ten commandments says 'thou shalt not lie' but they did to get us into war, Jesus condemned the hipocrats who prayed to God in front of people for appearances sake and yet whose true God was greed). Both Condoleeza Rice and Powell have been reported as saying that Iraq held no threat before 9/11 but when Bush wanted to go to war they began lying to the public. They did not just lie to the liberals or Democrats, they lied to every single one of us and their lies are affecting every single one of us. This is not a party issue, this is an issue of whether or not you believe in our country and the constitution or whether you want a fascist government. Krugman lays out the cold hard facts. He didn't cause the problems of our country, the Bush administration did. These people have been in business for years, have handled money for years, huge amounts, so how could they have taken this country down into such a big deficit if it wasn't on purpose. If you went to the bank for a loan, do you think they would give you a blank check and not want to know what the money you are borrowing is going to be used for? The congressman who are willing and pushing to give Bush his 87 billion are not looking out for its people and they should be replaced with men and women who will look out for the taxpayers. Read the book with an open mind, look at the facts that he has given you and realize that he doesn't have a reason to be partisan because he doesn't depend on campaign funds, etc. from anyone, and that his interest is to help inform the people how and why this country is going downhill so that we can correct its downtrend. He loves this country. This is not a party fight it is a fight for our country and our constitution.
Rating: 
Summary: Three stars to balance the teeter-totter
Review: So this is where FReepers and DUers meet. Should be amusing. Oh, by the way, Krugman's analysis is pretty much a given, but the pendulum always swings back.
Rating:
Summary: A GREAT BOOK.....IF YOU'RE A MORON
Review: This book, comprised of Mr. Krugman's New York Times columns over the past several years, should have the same appeal as did their initial appearance in the Times. Unthinking people, especially those with paranoia traits, eat this kind of nonsense up like starved Russian wolfhounds. And like that particular breed, Krugman readers tend to be those that were shortchanged when brains were distributed.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but very unbalanced
Review: This book is an anti republican economics manifesto. Putting aside much biasness, Krugman makes some interesting points. Most of what he writes is accurate. But, he tells you the truth, not the whole truth. On fiscal topics, Krugman is on strong ground. His main theme is that republican administrations for decades have worked at chipping away at the great government programs created by democrats, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. His fiscal and tax analysis goes back to Reagan first term in the early eighties, and as can be expected, has a real field day with Bush Jr. His analysis concludes always the same thing. The Republican tax cuts always benefited the very rich, had very little impact on the middle class, and did not help out the poor that much. On the economy, Krugman questions the beneficial impact of these tax cuts. Here Krugman takes an interesting tack. He is a Keynesian, and believes government spending or tax reductions are indeed expansionary and can benefit a struggling economy. What he argues with is the Supply Side miracle. He believes in plain arithmetic. You reduce tax rates, you get fewer tax dollars, and not the opposite as Supply Siders maintains. Krugman is right. Krugman attacks on Reagan and Bush Jr. is not only that they cut taxes, but that in his views, they both lied to the American public and misrepresented the impact of their respective tax cuts. They both used the Supply Side miracle analogy not out of economic naiveté, but as a manipulative ploy. Both Presidents used the same creative arithmetic. We cut taxes, we augment defense spending, and over time the Budget deficit will decline thanks to huge pick up in economic growth. As we know, this fiscal postulate does not work that well. During the Reagan years, the economy actually fared very well, but the Budget Deficits continued rising rapidly. In a sense, the exact same thing is happening currently. Bush cut taxes three years in a row, the U.S. economy has been the locomotive of the whole World during this worldwide economic contraction, but now we have a large structural deficit, that won't just evaporate. To the contrary, our fragile fiscal house is going to incur a tidal wave of fiscal costs associated with the retirement of the baby boomers starting in 2010. So what is the whole truth that Krugman is not telling you about. Well Krugman runs into issues of ideological framework. The first one is his obsession about the unfairness of Republican tax cuts. The truth is that in a very progressive income tax system such as in the U.S., the rich pay the majority of taxes and incur by far the highest effective tax rates, the middle class does not pay a whole lot, and the poor actually do not pay any taxes, they actually receive tax credits. So, just about any tax cut will benefit the rich more than other classes, because that is who pays the taxes. Is that so unfair? Krugman really thinks so. The other issue is his criticism that American society would be so much better off if Americans paid a lot more taxes. He mentions that in the U.S. taxes represent only 26.3% of GDP, which is so much lower than in Canada (38.2%), France (45.8%), and Sweden (52.2%). However, all these countries with such a higher tax burden have performed so much poorly than the U.S. for decades. You can look at any metrics, including: GDP growth, GDP growth per capita, job creation, technological innovation, unemployment rate, labor productivity, rising living standards, capital formation. And on all counts, the U.S. has routinely outperformed all of them. Also, you would think that these higher taxing countries would be better prepared to face the tidal wave of fiscal costs associated with the retirement of the baby boomers. But, on the contrary, their respective situation is more severe than in the U.S. because of demographic factors (lower fertility rates and inmigration rates than in the U.S.). So, would American society be so much better off with a European level of taxation. Economic historical evidence suggests it would clearly not be. As reviewed, there is a whole lot missing from Krugman analysis. He is calling Reagan and Bush Jr. liars and manipulators. But, by deeds of omission, he has committed the exact same sins.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent analysis from a top-notch economist
Review: Krugman does in this book what he has always done best - move beyond the political rhetoric on both sides and look to the real numbers, the raw data, to find the truth. And the truth he reveals is as disturbing as it is well-researched. The reality is that the vast majority of economists will agree heartily with Krugman's analysis and his outline of the scope of the problems this nation's policies have wrought. Some might disagree on the solutions; then again, that's politics, not economics. A must-read for Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives alike.
Rating:
Summary: How the mighty have fallen...
Review: Former economist, now political partisan, Paul Krugman (D), offers a compendium of his work from the last couple of years as a foot soldier for the DNC. Now, if you want this book to go along with your collection of hysterical, dumbed-down, hate driven, mass marketed political drivel (Franken, Moore, and the like) then stop reading this review; my comments will offer nothing you might value, whereas you'll find in this latest Krugman opus a gold mine. If however you remember Krugman from his days as a brilliant scientist, from his work in economies of scale in international trade, or from his previous opinionated yet sober "popular" books on economics, you might be sadly disappointed, even a bit depressed, to see how even those brought up under the rigors of science can be utterly incapable of examining the current political setting with anything resembling an objective analysis. Yes, Krugman unleashes his mighty pen against those evil Republicans, blaming them for everything that's ever been wrong, from "crony capitalism" to the energy crisis in California, from the recession to Moslem fanatics' hate of America, from stealing elections to the budget deficit, from growing inequality and racism to the collapse of Enron, education, the environment, health care, the fall of Constantinople, the extinction of the Mammoth, etc, etc, etc. Krugman's allegations are not intrinsically false. Yes, the Reps are guilty of granting big contracts to favored companies without challengers or open bidding (crony capitalism), neglecting the environment (to be extremely mild), creating a budget deficit, and many other unspeakables. And yes, those were indeed tax cuts for the rich. Yet what is missing in all that is any kind of intelligent analysis. Instead of stylishly rambling on for pages about the demise of America at the hands of conservatives and reducing every issue to a black and white, one dimensional contest between those being right and those being wrong, someone of his former stature should engage the reader in a generous exposition of the subjects in all their complexities and ambiguities. More so being an economist, he could for example speculate on the possibility of those tax cuts for the rich being privately invested, bringing about gains in productivity, increasing the marginal product of labor, and thereby improving the long term income of workers. But it's not his inclination to bother seeking ambiguous conclusions or to make his readers think. He'll just tell them what's right and wrong. Predictably, the Democrats are conspicuously absent when the heavy artillery is unleashed, as is any kind of constructive suggestions or ways to make things better. You would get the feeling from reading this book that his party, the Democratic party, is the last stronghold of honesty, wisdom and lucidity; very hardly the case from the party whose leader allegedly traded presidential pardons for everything from votes for his wife, to money for his wife's brother, yet you'll hear none of it from Mr. Krugman, busy as he is saving the world from the big R. Probably the greatest indictment of this tome is the fact that people either adamantly defend it or strenuously vilify it. It doesn't teach or enlighten. It just makes people angry at either the author or George W. Bush.
Rating:
Summary: WHY are the right wingers so mad?
Review: I'm not so sure why the right wingers are so mad at paul krugman. What he is saying is that the libertarian right is trying to make the united states a libertarian country. I could see someone in disagreement with his opinions on Iraq but of course where are those weapons?
I talked to my economics proffesor. Krugman is right on target economically, it is his politics that make him angry. He is of course the MAN in the world for currency crises. The Bushies know full well we can't keep S.S and medicare with the future bush tax cuts. That it will force the future president to choose between goverment programs or raising taxes to a much higher level. Krugmans fear of course is that it might be political suicide to cut goverment programs and political suicide to roll back tax cuts and then of course intrest rates rise out of control and hello argentina!
Krugman is no leftist. He loves social saftey nets true, but he is a mainstream neo-classical economist and one of the best in the world. Disagree with him on the welfare state sure but not on whats happening with the economy.
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