Arnon Grunberg

Samuelson

Nobel

Paul Krugman writes in The Times: ‘Again, right now the world is awash in cheap money. So if China were to start selling dollars, there’s no reason to think it would significantly raise U.S. interest rates. It would probably weaken the dollar against other currencies — but that would be good, not bad, for U.S. competitiveness and employment. So if the Chinese do dump dollars, we should send them a thank-you note.
Second, there’s the claim that protectionism is always a bad thing, in any circumstances. If that’s what you believe, however, you learned Econ 101 from the wrong people — because when unemployment is high and the government can’t restore full employment, the usual rules don’t apply.
Let me quote from a classic paper by the late Paul Samuelson, who more or less created modern economics: “With employment less than full ... all the debunked mercantilistic arguments” — that is, claims that nations who subsidize their exports effectively steal jobs from other countries — “turn out to be valid.” He then went on to argue that persistently misaligned exchange rates create “genuine problems for free-trade apologetics.” The best answer to these problems is getting exchange rates back to where they ought to be. But that’s exactly what China is refusing to let happen.’

I wonder how many economists agree with Krugman.

For example one economist told me recently that the problem of the so-called trade deficit is not a problem at all in reality.
Bryan Caplan expresses the same opinion in his book “The Myth of the Rational Voter”.

I like Krugman but his predictions are not always right.

Probably you don’t get a Nobel for predictions.