He also said that he thinks the economic team has learned their lessons and that they're not ideologues. Though he did wish that there were contrarian voices on the inside as well.

After reading Krugman, I invariably send his column to one of my friends with the message: Krugman for President. Guess this is the next best thing. Krugman is a wise, wise man and Obama would do well have his counsel.

It's great to hear that the economic transition team is communicating / 'working' with Professor Krugman.

In the midst of the economic turmoil is the potential power shift. I hope that the 'E' team is factoring the liquidity of China and India into its calculations. There are disturbing parallels with the fall of Europe in the 1873 Panic and today's global financial meltdown - and many differences. http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=477k3d8mh2wmtpc4b6h07p4hy9z83x18

Krugman's great strength is his ability to cut through the heap of economic talking points and find the crystal clear gem.

I have all the respect for Krugman in the world, but what exactly is the purpose of a macroeconomic economist who is "temperamentally unsuited to public office"?

I'd disagree, btw. If you know what you are talking about then you, by definition, are suitable for public office, although the office may need to be redefined.

Thank goodness that OBama's team apparently didn't take Krugman at his word.

It was only an 11 word comment. More liberal media bias.

I have all the respect for Krugman in the world, but what exactly is the purpose of a macroeconomic economist who is "temperamentally unsuited to public office"?

Teaching. Analysis. For the truly gifted, taking massively complex ideas and models and finding a way to get non-economists to understand WTF it might all mean. Important stuff, actually.

When academic folks bandy about the term "temperamentally unsuited" I take it to mean that they're unable to "toe the party line" and keep their opinions to themselves, no matter how much their jobs depend on it. Which is ultimately why tenure was invented - so that academic folks can't get punished for neglecting to keep their opinions to themselves.

I think Krugman is confusing sometimes. He wants a big stimulus, but suggests it will take a while to take effect. It's a deflating recession, so everyone wants a big stimulus, and if you spend your way out of it in a way that increases employment, that is going to have an immediate impact on the 2/3rds consumer economy. People just have problems switching gears, you know, afraid we will run up the national debt beyond WWII levels or something (unlikely, but as long as we are on the good side of price stability, who cares?) Soon enough we will be back to a surplus.

Most of what we need to do isn't too hard, and doing it will put the consumers back at work where they will figure out what to do (spend and save) while the Baby Boomers retire. While we all wait for January 20th to roll around and the orders for X hundred million tons of wind turbines, plug-in hybrid cars, and health care system streamlining (how much streamlining in a ton?), things are going to get worse.

But I think they will get better a lot sooner than Krugman thinks they will get better.

offering economic advice

Different from what he writes in his columns?

My prediction is that he will soon lament that the Obama administration did not take his advice. He'll write subtle revisions of what he has written to date, and emphasize qualifications that seemed minor when you first read them.

This is good news. Steve Benen's surprise baffles me, however.

There is a big difference between 'advisor' and 'public office' holder. Nothing Krugman has said about not being suited to public office means he isn't suited to giving advice to the Obama admin. Indeed his columns, blogs, TV appearances and other writings are all about giving advice to government.

Council of Economic Advisors, that's my guess. Although it could be called a "public office" it's not bureaucratic. That's where I think he could me most useful, too.

Maybe the headline is backwards: the Obama team is in contact with Krugman.

We're entering a new energy era, and the thrashing of the fossil fuel era is not pretty.

Other commenters have noted how Krugman is effective at communication. The hope is that Krugman will continue to illuminate what lies ahead as we shed light on the recent past - shuffling money around does not equal 'growth'. Is it possible that our current crisis is that we are stumbling, crawling, and leaping into an era in which our investment produces tangible services, increases in productivity, and benefits to society as a whole?

"Green" is not just a good thing to promote. It's the area of our economy where lasting growth and increased freedom from imported oil can be achieved.

We need all the talking points we can muster to help persuade a frightened populace and a terrified moneyed class that there will be prosperity for all. Perhaps there will not be excess but who wants us to continue our gilded and mammon dominated age?

People...afraid we will run up the national debt beyond WWII levels or something (unlikely, but as long as we are on the good side of price stability, who cares?)

If it results in our foreign creditors refusing to continue to lend us money, we all better care.

I'm glad to finally start to hear that there is no going back to where we were. Where we were is the reason we crashed. The "Republican utopia" is a nightmare which has trashed our country. It is a race to the economic bottom, outsource everything, slash and burn economy, which has finally drained the middle class and is now going to wipe it out if we continue. It is an economy not based on new science, new markets or new technology. It is simply a con game by the Republicans to bilk this people and this government in the most expedient manner.

How about a return to "America Can Do Great Things" non-bubble with a return to sustainable, green, and economically sound economy? How about the "Return of the Middle Class" non-bubble with good jobs, and good pay, and health care for everyone? How about an economy not based on financial mumbo jumbo which just turned out to be a giant Ponzi scheme?

This is good, but I'd like even more to see Krugman actually on the Obama team somehow.

Krugman shamelessly used his column to shill for Hillary and rag on Obama throughout the primary campaign. I still want to know what that was about.

Teaching. Analysis. For the truly gifted, taking massively complex ideas and models and finding a way to get non-economists to understand WTF it might all mean. Important stuff, actually.

The guy just won the Nobel prize. I like to think that his talents can be used for more than simply preparing the next generation of economists or writing a column for non-economists at the NYT. I do hope that he is tapped for the Council of Economic Advisors. I understand not being a bureaucratic type, but he really should be giving direct advice to the President and not expecting Obama to get his thoughts -- as Sarah Palin would have it -- through the media filter.

I think Krugman is confusing sometimes. He wants a big stimulus, but suggests it will take a while to take effect.

Well, yeah. And he's right.

It's a deflating recession, so everyone wants a big stimulus, and if you spend your way out of it in a way that increases employment, that is going to have an immediate impact on the 2/3rds consumer economy.

Everyone wants a big stimulus, though not everyone wants it spent in a way that increases employment. And the present fact of deflation is an incentive to hoard rather than either spending or investing, which reduces the effect of any stimulus (of course, the more money that goes to people that can't afford not to increase their spending with increases in income, the less this is true.)

Additionally limiting the incentive to invest is the high perception of risk, which is why short-term federal government securities (the closest thing to a risk-free investment) are trading at near-zero and sometimes negative yields recently. This has a positive feedback effect -- the reluctance to invest and the jumpiness of investors fearing any sign of doom & gloom makes teh markets more volatile, increasing the perception of risk.

Its going to take a lot of carefully crafted stimulus, maintained over a substantial period of time, to get us back to a place where the economy is both generally functional and not heavily dependent on continued direct stimulus to stay that way.

(And the TARP, insofar as most of it is going to banks with very few strings on use, is about as good as the government borrowing money and then lighting it on fire: banks don't do anything stimulative with money, at best they make it available to people who put it to stimulative use; but they do so in response to market forces, and when investment is disincented by the perception of risk to the extent that 0-yield governmetn securities are seen as a good investment, they aren't going to do anything stimulative with it, they're going to hoard it waiting for conditions to change.)

Obama needs Pat Buchanan on his economic team.