Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future 1st Edition

by Paul Krugman (Author)

8 ratings

in Economic Conditions

ISBN-13: 978-1324005018

ISBN-10: 1324005017

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An accessible, compelling introduction to today’s major policy issues from the New York Times columnist, best-selling author, and Nobel prize–winning economist Paul Krugman.

There is no better guide than Paul Krugman to basic economics, the ideas that animate much of our public policy. Likewise, there is no stronger foe of zombie economics, the misunderstandings that just won’t die.

In Arguing with Zombies, Krugman tackles many of these misunderstandings, taking stock of where the United States has come from and where it’s headed in a series of concise, digestible chapters. Drawn mainly from his popular New York Times column, they cover a wide range of issues, organized thematically and framed in the context of a wider debate. Explaining the complexities of health care, housing bubbles, tax reform, Social Security, and so much more with unrivaled clarity and precision, Arguing with Zombies is Krugman at the height of his powers.

Arguing with Zombies puts Krugman at the front of the debate in the 2020 election year and is an indispensable guide to two decades’ worth of political and economic discourse in the United States and around the globe. With quick, vivid sketches, Krugman turns his readers into intelligent consumers of the daily news and hands them the keys to unlock the concepts behind the greatest economic policy issues of our time. In doing so, he delivers an instant classic that can serve as a reference point for this and future generations.

From the Publisher

Review

“In an era when facts are too often disdained and discarded, Paul Krugman wields them like a rapier. A brilliant scholar and polemicist, Krugman's incisive columns are a beacon for anyone who cares about public policy and progressive change.”
- David Axelrod

“Years after appearing in the daily newspaper, Paul Krugman’s columns resonate because he avoids the herd mentality of most journalism. Applying history, math, and humanity, he transforms our understanding of great issues and when writing on economics translates the dismal science into plain English.”
- David Cay Johnston, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, an IRE Medal, and the George Polk Award

From the Back Cover

Praise for Paul Krugman:

"The most celebrated economist of his generation."
– Economist

"The Mick Jagger of political/economic punditry."
– Asia Times

About the Author

Paul Krugman, recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics and best-selling author, has been a columnist at The New York Times for twenty years. A Distinguished Professor at City University of New York, he resides in New York City.

Hardcover: 464 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (January 28, 2020)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1324005017
ISBN-13: 978-1324005018
Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Customer Reviews: 8 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #643 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Economic Conditions (Books)
- #1 in Macroeconomics (Books)
- #1 in International Economics (Books)

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Customer reviews

8 customer reviews

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wsmrer

Fish Wrap?

January 28, 2020

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

How informative is yesterday’s newspaper? Depends on whether you have read it or not, to some extent.
But there is an unkindly view, if you have recently read works such as Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another, our media has wandered off somewhere strange.

Krurgman’s work falls within that concern as it is a collection of his ‘Opinion’ pieces from the New York Times with a short essay on his bend in doing economic reasoning that sheds little light on what occupies him these days as a pundit. If you are a fan you will read for his wit and twist of phrase and he has a firm grasps on the idiocy of our time, but Times’ defined as it were.
Full disclosure I gave up reading him for economics – my field – but sometimes briefly attracted with the topical topic he has listed. If not a Times reader you will likely be entertained by some of his pieces.
Zombie Economics being used in a partisan manner, but he admits economics as such holds minimal interest to the public.

If the ideological bend of economics in the last forty years holds any interest Krugman out of graduate school in 1977 fall within its starting point and his one governmental job was with the Reagan administration, but he was neither advocate nor critic of neoliberalism within his fields of Trade and Geography; following the 2008 crash and the great recession he begins to join criticism forming among leading economists today, as you may notice in his post recession pieces. He is a wise entertaining writer if his subjects hold interest for you.

24 people found this helpful

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Charles Decker

The trolls have already found it

January 29, 2020

Format: Hardcover

The book has been out for less than a day and the first comments are one and three stars. The trolls cannot stand that this beloved economist might question anything this corrupt administration might do. I cannot comment on the book itself since I haven't read it, but if it's a collection of his most salient columns then it has intrinsic historical value --and I have read those columns fervently over the last year in the NY Times.

44 people found this helpful

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Marco Spani

Intelligent economic analysis of policy decisions

January 28, 2020

Format: Hardcover

Intelligent analysis of economic impacts resulting from policy decisions. Krugman provides backup for his positions and analysis, and rationale for his policy recommendations. Some people don’t like to see well reasoned policy discussions. Those people attack the author for lack of a substantive response on the issues.

23 people found this helpful

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Mark Swanholm

If you still think tax cuts pay for themselves READ THIS

January 29, 2020

Format: Hardcover

We’ve all been worried about the next big viral outbreak causing the Zombie Apocalypse - but turns out that the infections already been going on for a long time - in our collective economic consciousness. I’m straight forward and elegant terms Paul Krugman helps root out the dead cells of past outbreaks and expose them to the light. Hopefully the cure doesn’t come too late!

17 people found this helpful

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J. White

Classic Krugman

January 28, 2020

Format: Kindle Edition

It’s an interesting read for sure. Clearly Krugman is bored with economics. Krugman is kind of a left wing version of Trump. His main objective in life is just to troll, rather than foster consensus - which is required to actually get something done.

The book largely consists of past writings. A really nice collection and well written. Really enjoyable to read.

11 people found this helpful

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The Hairy Optimist

Mental Swill

January 28, 2020

Format: Hardcover

The Mental Swill of the ‘progressive’ mind. Smart people don’t listen to Krugman’s elitist propaganda. Krugman is infamous for getting it wrong.

12 people found this helpful

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D. Kiley

What we need before it's too late!!

February 4, 2020

Format: Hardcover

If I could only get my hard-headed family members to read it! Actually, I wish ALL of America would read more, study BOTH sides of anything, and make choices in life with informed, personally considered opinions. Stop letting social media tell you what to believe- but we would likely need a magic spell or Harry Potter to get that to happen in this day and age!

7 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Show how Regressive Tax Cuts do absolutely nothing but steal *your* tax dollars to give to the 1%.

February 6, 2020

Format: Kindle Edition

It systematically deconstructs how much of a failure cutting taxes for the rich has been in paying for itself. Paul Krugman outlines in perfectly layman, non-patronizing prose how every time a Republican President runs the deficit up 300bn by cutting the taxes to the 1%. That 300bn essentially dissappears, never to be seen again by public service enterprise. As in, these so-called "Pay for themselves" tax cuts or the similar/more common lie, "Trick Down Economics", never seem to trickle down. No matter how confident Republicans in Congress or White House are about these mechanics being able to run surplus.

The tax cuts of 2017 didn't pay anything back. In fact over 90% of what the 1% saved, isn't trickling down at all. It automatically goes into stock buybacks. Republicans love touting the GDP or the deficit as proof of how bad a Democratic President is, yet when a Republican manages to make each of those worse x2, there is no political repercussions. Exactly 1 year after the 2017 Tax Cuts were passed, the GDP ballooned up 3%. Thus Trump and party claimed victory and that the cuts worked. They said 2019 is gonna be another 3% increase, the deficit will be go down, and that investments into real businesses would go up. So there would be new salaried jobs and investors creating a trend upwards for economic growth of new business.

Except none of that happened, 2019 ended with a volatile GDP growth that dropped far and rather quick to end the year at an increase of 2.3%. Far below Republicans and Trump's predicted steady 3%growth rate.

Also, real business investments into new companies, warehouses, construction, and heavy equipment to kickstart a wave of new business growth, didn't happen either.

Like I said, Stock buybacks took all the money from those tax cuts. In fact, Stock buybacks hit 1 trillion last year. So the tax cuts perked up the 2018 growth rate but it did nothing, as the above-cited investment numbers imply, to lift the economy's underlying productive capacity.

If history, economists, and patterns teach us anything, it's only trend is going to be downwards. And if they continue to Cut incredibly aggressively, the only thing that will be earning money, is the people who have it all.

So this books argues, why should we carry the burden of such massive deficits if its just going into the 1%'s net worth and stock profits? How about we actually invest that massive amount of deficit into a program like Universal Child Care, or public school. Those *literally* pay for themselves. They create healthy and smart adults who can get good jobs and more than afford to pay taxes. See how it really works?

Trickle down economics only *works* if you flip the glass upside down to display the money from the people lower in class, giving it to the rich for nothing in return.

2 people found this helpful

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5 star		45%
4 star		15%
3 star		25%
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1 star		15%

Arguing with Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future 1st Edition

From the Publisher