Krugman On the Media

     Krugman was saying that, in general, economics reporting has improved over the last decade, but he made one exception, here is a close paraphrase: that you can't be taken seriously on foreign policy unless you were wrong about Iraq, and you can't be taken seriously on the housing crisis unless you were wrong about the bubble.  He was saying that the only people who get quoted who are "sell-side" in the housing industry.

     Strangely, later he made a strange timeline mistake.  Smoot-Hawley was passed in mid-1930, but Krugman said it was passed before the Great Depression started (1929).  At least he said, following Ha Joon-Chang, that the numbers don't add up to pin any serious blame on Smoot-Hawley for worsening the depression.  They do not add up at all.