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Yes, Over The Centuries Economic Progress Has Reduced Some Gross Disparities - Modern Americans Are Relatively Unlikely To Simply Starve To Death (though It Can Happen), So In That Sense The Gap Between Rich And Poor Has Narrowed. But The Question Isn't Whether Society Is, In Some Sense, More Equal Than It Was In 1900. It's Whether It Is Radically More Unequal Than It Was In 1970. And Of Course It Is.

-Paul Krugman

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Yes, Over The Centuries

Paul Krugman

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Yes, Over The Centuries Economic Progress Has Reduced Some Gross Disparities - Modern Americans Are Relatively Unlikely To Simply Starve To Death (though It Can Happen), So In That Sense The Gap Between Rich And Poor Has Narrowed. But The Question Isn't Whether Society Is, In Some Sense, More Equal Than It Was In 1900. It's Whether It Is Radically More Unequal Than It Was In 1970. And Of Course It Is.

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If You Can Create Even The Illusion Of High Profitability For A Few Years, Then When The Thing Collapses You Can Walk Out Of The Wreckage A Very Rich Man.

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I Admit It: I Had Fun Watching Right-wingers Go Wild As Health Reform Finally Became Law.

I Predict That In The Years Ahead Enron, Not Sept. 11, Will Come To Be Seen As The Greater Turning Point In U.s. Society.

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I Think Stockman Is An Interesting Sort Of Amalgam.

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The Great Thing About Fiscal Policy Is That It Has A Direct Impact And Doesn't Require You To Bind The Hands Of Future Policymakers.

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I've Always Believed In Expansionary Monetary Policy And If Necessary Fiscal Policy When The Economy Is Depressed.

Monetary Policy

It's A Funny Thing, By The Way, How People Who Love Free Markets Are Also Quite Sure That They Know That Investors Are Being Irrational.

The Growth Of The Internet Will Slow Drastically, As The Flaw In 'metcalfe's Law'–which States That The Number Of Potential Connections In A Network Is Proportional To The Square Of The Number Of Participants–becomes Apparent: Most People Have Nothing To Say To Each Other! By 2005 Or So, It Will Become Clear That The Internet's Impact On The Economy Has Been No Greater Than The Fax Machine's.

Our Grandfathers Lived In A World Of Largely Self-sufficient, Inward-looking National Economies - But Our Great-great Grandfathers Lived, As We Do, In A World Of Large-scale International Trade And Investment, A World Destroyed By Nationalism.

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Political Figures Who Talk A Lot About Liberty And Freedom Invariably Turn Out To Mean The Freedom To Not Pay Taxes And Discriminate Based On Race; Freedom To Hold Different Ideas And Express Them, Not So Much.

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What Republicans Have Actually Put On The Table Is Almost Nothing. All Of The Rest Is Just Big Talk. So How Is The President Supposed To Negotiate With People Who Say, 'here's My Demands. By The Way, I Can't Give You Any Specifics. Just Make Me Happy'?

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Simple Doesn't Mean Stupid. Thinking That It Does, Does.

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Approval Rating

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This Is A Serious Analysis Of A Ridiculous Subject, Which Is Of Course The Opposite Of What Is Usual In Economics.

If Europe’s Example Is Any Guide, Here Are The Two Secrets Of Coping With Expensive Oil: Own Fuel-efficient Cars, And Don’t Drive Them Too Much.

The Public Has No Idea That The Deficit Has Been Falling Like A Stone.

The French, Unfortunately, Actually Believe What They Say, And That Has Been Very Destructive.

Are You, Or Is Someone You Know, A Gadget Freak? If So, You Doubtless Know That Wednesday Was Iphone 5 Day, The Day Apple Unveiled Its Latest Way For People To Avoid Actually Speaking To Or Even Looking At Whoever They're With.

The Federal Government Is Basically An Insurance Company With An Army.

Insurance Companies

Tax Cuts Were Not Going To Be Effective At Creating Jobs, And The Job Creation Record Is Lousy.

Congress Has Always Had A Soft Spot For "experts" Who Tell Members What They Want To Hear, Whether It's Supply-side Economists Declaring That Tax Cuts Increase Revenue Or Climate-change Skeptics Insisting That Global Warming Is A Myth.

I Don't Think I've Had Any Great Success In Predicting Politics Or Social Change, Nor Have I Really Tried.

As An Economics Professor I Am By Nature Inclined To The View That The Truth Isn't Out There, It's In Here - That Usually You Learn A Lot More By Thinking Really Hard About The Data Than You Do By Sniffing Around For Supposedly Inside Information.

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