Great Writing, But Chillingly Accurate

One month later, I still think one of the best, possibly the best, think piece that I've seen about the economic crisis is Paul Krugman's The Widening Gyre column in the New York Times in late October.

His first paragraph:

Economic data rarely inspire poetic thoughts. But as I was contemplating the latest set of numbers, I realized that I had William Butler Yeats running through my head: "Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the center cannot hold."

He refers one of the few poems I know relatively well. Its last line is

And what great beast, its hour come round at last, slouches its way to Bethlehem to be born?

Krugman also refers to the leadership crisis in the United States. His conclusion is:

What's happening, I suspect, is that the Bush administration's anti-government ideology still stands in the way of effective action. Events have forced Mr. Paulson into a partial nationalization of the financial system -- but he refuses to use the power that comes with ownership.

Whatever the reasons for the continuing weakness of policy, the situation is manifestly not coming under control. Things continue to fall apart.

Unfortunately, looking from one month later, that has been way too true. Bailouts, crisis of confidence and all, the lame duck government's absence has been very obviously part of the problem.

Paul Krugman was awarded the Nobel Prize a while back for his work in Economics. He's been chillingly accurate these last few months about our economic crisis. He should get a Pulitzer to add to his award shelf, not exactly for his work in economics, but for his writing about the economic mess.

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Comments

[Yachnoff]

Paul Krugman was the first columnist/writer I read who sounded an alarm that the housing bubble would burst and the ensuing credit problems would be enormous. I agree he deserves a Pulitzer for his insight and skills as a writer.

[DuganS1]

Krugman's articles in the NY Times are much more partisan rhetoric than facts and data based analysis. I've always considered most his articles as mediocre to poor. Krugman is an absolutely brilliant economist, but his articles portray more of a partisan and strongly biased political hack. Most his articles are simply politically based criticisms of Bush and anything he considers to the right of his very populist views.. I wish he'd stick to economics.

[jmpurser]

Well yes if you mean the party of "Being right" and a strong bias towards truth. I will agree it's hard to tell the difference between someone who's intelligent, informed, and honest and someone who's just criticizing Bush and the political "right".

[Justinpassing]

Ahh Good!, I've been waiting for someone to broach this vein of subject matter, because to me, it is at the heart of why none of it is working. First, the number one characterestic about derivatives, (and the main reason Uncle Sam jumped all into them in the first place), is that "they delay the settlement of debt, (unfortunately they also compound debt once math moves below the break-even level). But back to the CRUX... Ours is SUPPOSEDLY a free-market system, and as such is BY DEFINITION, suppost to be allowed to FAIL just as preciently as it is SUPPOSE to be allowed to CORRECT ITSELF. So now we have leadership (I say with throw-up in mouth) who are using tools of socialism to try and correct problems that had their birth in the freemarket system.....yeah with geniuses like the ones running our establishment, al kieda gets a leg up. I mean think about it, Wall Street comes up with The Grandfather of all bastardization of responsible accountanc­y......cal­led derivatives and Congress goes along without the first challenge.....and is thus totally conplicit in the the melt-down of the GLOBAL economy. It is thus a FACT that Wall Street and Congress have done more harm to the US National Security than any terrorist organization that I'm aware of.

[Tim Berry - Huffpost Blogger]

Interesting ... I suspect you and I are at opposite ends of the political spectrum, but I'm struck with how hard it would be to argue against your main point there. "Wall Street and Congress have done more harm to the US National Security than any terrorist organization." Certainly they've done more harm to the US economy, and it's not too hard to go from there to security.