[Billy Pilgrim]

Wow, Krugman finally brought some intelligence to the table. It's about time the BBC started giving screen time to proper intellectuals. I mean that Tory MP was just the epitome of ignorance. Do they really think the general public are too stupid to understand a lengthy, reasonably abstract discussion?

Anyway, I'm glad Krugman finally made a point of exposing these silly conservative MPs. They seem completely obsessed with the idea that we're all gonna go off and set up our own businesses! Utter madness...

[Rennit]

(Original post by Billy Pilgrim)
Wow, Krugman finally brought some intelligence to the table. It's about time the BBC started giving screen time to proper intellectuals. I mean that Tory MP was just the epitome of ignorance. Do they really think the general public are too stupid to understand a lengthy, reasonably abstract discussion?

Anyway, I'm glad Krugman finally made a point of exposing these silly conservative MPs. They seem completely obsessed with the idea that we're all gonna go off and set up our own businesses! Utter madness...

I know right! They were saying that the nobel award winning economist's work and theories were wrong! And then when he came on the offensive he completely made a mockery of all the government's excuses for why the economy isn't working!

I think its brilliant that the BBC are having more academics on. It certainly makes a refreshing change!

[Unkempt_One]

You've convinced me to watch this. The last time I saw a Newsnight debate, David Starkey was getting bombarded with straw mans by those pathetically stupid authors. It would be refreshing to see a more intelligent and focused debate.

[Billy Pilgrim]

Loved how they picked Paxman up on the rather tasteless 'kebab' analogy as well...

[internet tough guy]

Yeah I wish these idiots would stop making the false comparison between the national economy and family households as if they're even remotely similar

[Martyn*]

Making our young people the entrepeneurs of tomorrow! Well, if setting up business was that easy everyone would quit their job tomorrow, apply for a start-up grant and open up a corner shop.... that's if they've done their market research. Of course, the Tory MPs are living in cloud cuckoo, as are half the people who are employed in Emma Harrison's company A4E. Don't forget that these people were born with a silverspoon in their mouths. Many of them have inherited money which they could work with, and had little time to worry about economic insecurity, and the things that often plague ordinary people.

[Unkempt_One]

OK, that was entertaining. Krugman basically destroyed his competition there. I was surprised at just how convinced the conservative MP was that young people would be willing to attempt start-ups, let alone the thought that we can plug the gap in the employment market! The odds against any new business in this kind of market are extremely high, and the younger generation are well aware of that. I think Krugman's flat "the average young person is not going to start a business" was quite appropriate, and as for "why not?", the reasons are so obvious they don't require elaboration! At the end it seemed to me that Leadsom and Moulton had basically been forced into a massive retreat on practically all of their views, which was quite entertaining. The point Krugman raised about, what I'd essential describe as 'appropriate action for the situation', resonated with me quite a lot, because even without any economic or political reading, the idea that you can solve a situation simply through the application of ideological action seems like a fairly clear logical fallacy to me.

[MagicNMedicine]

Just watched it on iplayer.

Some of the stuff that's been written on Twitter and blogs about Krugman 'dominating' them is a bit over the top. To me it was basically a debate about economics, between two reasonably well informed non economists, and a Nobel Prize winner.

Jon Moulton and Andrea Leadsom were making usual arguments that people with understanding at the fringes would make, but they were going against a man at the top of his field on his own turf who was far better informed. Krugman usually beats (in person or in written arguments) rival economists in the US so those two were no match. Where Krugman is impressive is in person he is quite humble and doesn't dismiss people that he's arguing against just because he's more informed than them, he just makes his points politely and makes them in language people can understand, so he is difficult to argue against.

He made a lot of good points there but the killer point IMO was when they were trying to make the crowding out argument, that you had to reduce the size of the state to release resources for the private sector so the private sector could grow. This argument is made all the time and it's completely wrong in the current situation, which is what Krugman pointed out - we have large levels of unemployed workers, and large amounts of capital that's not being utilised, so the private sector isn't competing with the public sector for resources. The crowding out argument is more appropriate when you have full employment and capital utilisation and growth is being slowed down by an excessively large state.

Also I knew exactly the line he would take when Andrea Leadsome started talking about the solution being cutting corporation tax, reducing regulation and increasing bank lending to SMEs....the problem is one of lack of demand not supply. On the lending argument most SMEs that want to access finance get it anyway, yes lending conditions have got tougher but SMEs are not trying to borrow at the moment as there is no demand to justify it.

Krugman is spot on, it's really an ideological argument. People like Moulton and Leadsome support a smaller state which is a fair enough ideological position, but it's not an economic 'solution' to the current problems, it just makes things worse. The problem is although the state-shrinking austerity measures in Europe are failing and making the economic situation worse, the supporters are saying 'well we need to have an even SMALLER state then' and sounding more and more desperate. I had to laugh at the end when Moulton told Krugman that the 'evidence says....' on something where the evidence says completely the opposite, Krugman was too polite to really take the mick, then Moulton goes "well what about Estonia!" as the example to back up his point.