Paul Krugman

Since the New York Times (NYT) has placed a limit on the number of free website visits per month (10), I have reduced my viewing down to Paul Krugman's political columns and David Pogue's technology columns.  Who's got time for much else anyway?  Well, maybe Maureen Dowd's column or Gail Collins or maybe even David Brooks.  

I, like probably the vast majority of Americans, choose not to pay for the NYT at this time.  Maybe in the future....

Here's a succinct little snip from Paul's May 17 column:

Apocalypse Very Soon

snip: The story so far: When the euro came into existence, there was a great wave of optimism in Europe — and that, it turned out, was the worst thing that could have happened. Money poured into Spain and other nations, which were now seen as safe investments; this flood of capital fueled huge housing bubbles and huge trade deficits. Then, with the financial crisis of 2008, the flood dried up, causing severe slumps in the very nations that had boomed before.

At that point, Europe’s lack of political union became a severe liability. Florida and Spain both had housing bubbles, but when Florida’s bubble burst, retirees could still count on getting their Social Security and Medicare checks from Washington. Spain receives no comparable support. So the burst bubble turned into a fiscal crisis, too.

Europe’s answer has been austerity: savage spending cuts in an attempt to reassure bond markets. Yet as any sensible economist could have told you (and we did, we did), these cuts deepened the depression in Europe’s troubled economies, which both further undermined investor confidence and led to growing political instability.

Original