While the U.S. economic recovery isn’t booming, that’s a far cry from the “depression” that Paul Krugman claims we’re in, says Niall Ferguson, professor of history and business at Harvard.
“It's not as if the U.S. economy will contract,” he told CNBC. “It will grow at a slower rate.”
GDP grew 2.7 percent in the first quarter.
As for Krugman, he wrote in The New York Times that we’ve entered the country’s third depression.
The first was the “Long Depression” that began in 1873, and the second was the “Great Depression” that began in 1929.
“(This one) will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression,” Krugman wrote.
“But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.”
Ferguson’s response: "With all this talk of great depression from Professor Krugman, I'd like to check with you guys that there are no shanty towns in Central Park in New York."
The real problems are in Europe, Ferguson says. "The picture is definitely bleaker in Europe than in the U.S."
Money manager John Hussman leans closer to Krugman than Ferguson on the U.S. economy.
“Based on evidence that has always and only been observed during or immediately prior to recessions, the U.S. economy appears headed into a second leg of an unusually challenging downturn,” Hussman wrote in his weekly market comment.
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