Paul Krugman

By Teymoor Nabili in Business on January 31st, 2010

As anticipated, the fourth quarter growth of the US economy has prompted fresh optimism about the strength of the US recovery.

For some breakdown, here's John Mauldin:

By Samah El-Shahat in Business on November 9th, 2009
Photo by Getty Images

America is in a depression, and so is the UK.

I hate to say it, but those words spilled from the lips of my lunching companion, the brilliant Stephen Lewis from Monument securities, and frankly I agree. This is what he had to say:

“Depression is a prolonged period of sub-optimal economic activity in which policy measures are ineffective in improving performance on a substantial basis and based on this, then the USA is in depression”

Well in the light of the awful double-digit US unemployment figure that came recently, this idea is not so inconceivable.

So what does this mean for America?

Well it would mean that for the next year or two, it will not feel like much for a recovery but more of a recession.  Moreover, there is no doubting that unemployment still has a long way to go before peaking. I am guessing that it might hit 12%. 

By Teymoor Nabili in Business on October 18th, 2009

The Economist magazine this week held its first "Buttonwood" conference, calling together the great and the good of global finance and economics to worry further about where the world is headed. (The conference title is in reference to the buttonwood tree that served as the first New York Stock Exchange.)

The conference took place against a backdrop of still-soaring stock markets and yet more declarations that the recession is over. Even Paul Krugman is admitting to a "smidgen of optimism", as industrial production puts in an unexpected surge.

By Teymoor Nabili in Business on May 24th, 2009

There’s an old joke that goes: “even if you laid all the world’s economists end to end, head to feet, they still wouldn’t reach a conclusion.”

Practitioners of the dismal science haven’t done much to improve that reputation during the past year. In fact, it’s been remarkable how many of the top minds in the field have consistently disagreed on the cause, the nature and the solution of this economic crisis.

The differences are clearly on view at, of all places, The New York Review of Books, which recently organised a conference to debate the issue. On the panel were  former U.S. senator Bill Bradley, historian Niall Ferguson, Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman  and his researcher at Princeton University Robin Wells, financier George Soros and the man who has built a reputation on apparently seeing it all coming, economist Nouriel Roubini.

Al Jazeera Live

What's Hot


Recent Comments

This work is licensed under Creative Commons. Please read our attribution policy.