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THE_PEDDLING_PROSPERITY_OF_MEMORY

                                             September 04, 2021
                                             September 21, 2021

"Peddling Prosperity" (1994)
by Paul Krugman.                   UNICORNY

A Paul Krugman book I had
kicking around floated to the
upper layers of my stash
largely because I was thinking
about throwing it out after
what I regarded as some
inexcuseably bad behavior from    KRUGMAN_BERNIE_WARS
him during the 2016 primary...
                                                       I take my revenge
                                                       where I can, no matter
Instead, as is the way of these things, I ended        how tiny or pathetic.
up reading it (the box of discards was kicking     
around the downstairs bathroom...).               

    It was actually a much better book than I
    remembered it.  Krugman's later books are      PEDDLING_PROSPERITY_RECYLED
    often just things like collections of his
    NYT columns, and while they can be okay
    reads there's typically little in the way
    of a coherent thread to them.

    This particular book is an interesting
    dual history: it covers both the
    developments in economic thinking inside
    the academic Economics profession, and it
    also covers the shifts in economic
    arguments in the outside world of policy
    debates and political influence...

    Krugman makes the point that these two
    are often only loosely connected to each
    other.


        As I closed in on the end of the book, I realized
        why it was better than I remembered: I don't think
        I've ever read it all the way through.   To me,
        this was an "early" Krugman book from some years
        before I got interested in following him.

        The sole reason that I own a copy is I'd taken on
        the rather thankless, annoying job ("taking out
        the trash", those blogospheroids used to say) of
        going through some Richard Posner remarks in
        detail.  Posner did a lot of posturing about what
        was supposed to be a slamdunk takedown of this
        Krugman book:

             PEDDLING_PROSPERITY


             KRUGMAN_INCLINED



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