Paul Krugman Channels Abe, Humblebrags

“… Japan never had the kind of employment and human disaster we’ve experienced since 2008. Indeed, our policy response has been so inadequate that I’ve suggested that American economists who used to be very harsh in their condemnations of Japanese policy, a group that includes Ben Bernanke and, well, me, visit Tokyo to apologize to the emperor. We have, after all, done even worse.”

Paul Krugman has an op-ed that should be appearing any time now on Prime Minister Abe’s FB page. Just one paragraph should suffice to give you an idea of what it says about the fiscal-monetary policy package.

“But Mr. Abe returned to office pledging to end Japan’s long economic stagnation, and he has already taken steps orthodoxy says we mustn’t take. And the early indications are that it’s going pretty well.”

But the quintessential Krugmanism here is the sequence that I copied at the top. Of course Krugman, unlike Bernanke, had no role in the policy response to the ongoing global financial crisis. It’s like Soichi Ohya’s post-WW II ichioku souzange; by sharing in the responsibility, h*He’s condemning the ones who have actually been in charge.

* See comments for clarification.

That said, as METI rebel Hiroyuki Kishi tweets, “If only a solid growth strategy follows…”