Jesse Fell

I recently read Krugman's book, "The Return of Depression Economics" -- the original version, published at the time of the DOT COM boom. He was ridiculed then for making gloomy predictions in the midst of such a glorious boom. And as it turned out, his prediction of a bust in the financial markets, followed by a severe recession, not only came true, but it came true for precisely the reasons that he laid out in his book. More recently, he has written, over and over again, that the European remedy for the recession -- fiscal austerity -- could only make matters worse, and again, he has been shown to be right. And yet, in spite of his record of prescience, he has become the punching bag of the right, which prefers to hug its dogmas with one arm, while holding reality at arm's length with the other.