A follow-up: I think the main sign of poor economics discourse in Krugman’s article is that he didn’t even think it necessary to pre-empt your obvious counterpoint, thereby making his argument woefully incomplete. It would have been a lot more productive if he had added, “It wouldn’t do any good to sell babysitting services below the coupon face value, because ____. This corresponds to ____ in the broader economy, which is bad because …”
A follow-up: I think the main sign of poor economics discourse in Krugman’s article is that he didn’t even think it necessary to pre-empt your obvious counterpoint, thereby making his argument woefully incomplete. It would have been a lot more productive if he had added, “It wouldn’t do any good to sell babysitting services below the coupon face value, because ____. This corresponds to ____ in the broader economy, which is bad because …”
Also, I agree with Vladimir M.