What’s Happening to Our Economy Is Like a Natural Disaster
The Biden administration’s first legislative priority is a $1.9 trillion economic rescue package. It’s the kind of mega-package where the individual policies contained inside it — a $15 minimum wage, $1,400 checks, a huge child tax credit expansion, a $50 billion virus testing infrastructure — would be big deals on their own. But together, this would be one of the most consequential packages ever passed.
So there’s a lot to talk about here. And who better to talk about it with than my now-colleague Paul Krugman? We dig into the details of the plan and then spiral off into some other topics I wanted to run by the nearest Nobel laureate: the major rethinking of debt and deficits among left-of-center economists, the differences between Keynesians and Modern Monetary Theorists, how Krugman made a bunch of money off Bitcoin (it’s not how you’d think!), why progressives need a better theory of technological change, Krugman’s favorite indie bands of the mid-2000s, and more.
Mentioned in this episode:
“Notes on the Coronacoma (Wonkish)” by Paul Krugman
“Why Markets Boomed in a Year of Human Misery” by Neil Irwin and Weiyi Cai
“Who’s Afraid of Budget Deficits?” By Jason Furman and Lawrence Summers
“Public Debt: Fiscal and Welfare Costs in a Time of Low Interest Rates” by Olivier Blanchard
“America’s anti-democratic Senate, in one number” by Ian Millhiser
Book Recommendations:
“Laundry Files” series by Charlie Stross
“Merchant Princes” series by Charlie Stross
“The Price of Peace” by Zachary Carter
Band Recommendations:
The Be Good Tanyas
Larkin Poe
Reina del Cid
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein.
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“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Rogé Karma and Jeff Geld; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld.
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