jsalvatier comments on Mathematicians and the Prevention of Recessions - Less Wrong

8 Post author: JonahSinick 25 May 2013 04:12AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 25 May 2013 04:04:25PM 0 points [-]

If I'm understanding my Sumner right, Krugman is just plain wrong about this. Central banks can decrease interest rates, promise to keep future interest rates low, engage in quantitative easing, charge negative interest on reserves, and print physical money and drop it out of helicopters. "There is no zero bound" is a market monetarist slogan and I have to say it sounds a tad plausible from over here.

Comment author: jsalvatier 25 May 2013 10:40:58PM 1 point [-]

My understanding is that Krugman is not wrong, he just writes correctly but very misleadingly for reasons that are not totally clear.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 26 May 2013 01:58:20AM 8 points [-]

very misleadingly for reasons that are not totally clear.

Oh, I think his reasons are pretty clear. They basically amount to politics.

Comment author: gwern 26 May 2013 02:33:28AM 8 points [-]

I found the article "The Deflationist: How Paul Krugman found politics" educational on that point.

Comment author: SilasBarta 26 May 2013 05:23:35PM 1 point [-]

Holy crap: that article has "get to the point":fluff ratio of about 5%. I appreciate the link, but just want to warn readers they need to skip past a lot of meandering about scenes from NYC to get the answer to the question.