By Bobby Feingold
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman stood in front of an audience in Blackman Auditorium and posed a simple question.
“Who’s going to take care of your mother-in-law?”
Krugman simplified complicated economic issues, including those surrounding current Social Security problems, for the Northeastern audience using that very question last Wednesday. Krugman came to Blackman Auditorium with a PowerPoint presentation and decades of insight into economic trends and policies.
Krugman, famous for his influence in the “new trade theory,” which supports the idea of national support for infant industries until they can compete internationally, spoke to an audience of about 200 students and faculty concerning today’s economic issues.
Krugman was brought to Northeastern by economics professor John Kwoka.
While many students said they went to see Krugman to fulfill a class requirement, it didn’t stop them from learning something new and enjoying the lecture.
Krugman’s speech “clarified the whole Social Security issue” for Ron Corpuz, a senior finance major.
“My whole understanding of the subject was a mix-match of different debates,” he said.
Krugman pointed out the flip-flopping of stances that many economists take on the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid issues.
With a sense of humor rare in economics, Krugman briefly joked about other political issues, with homemade graphics of the AARP’s faux-stance against Social Security and for gay marriage.
While he said he disagrees with Bush’s economic plans, he said it caused healthy debate, as well as easily let him write Times columns “bashing” his proposals. He credits himself as well as others like him who presented “cogent and intellectual arguments against the plan.”
Surprisingly enough, Krugman revealed the study of economics is “guesswork about things we know nothing [about].”
He told the audience that while the United States’ health care is one of the most expensive in the world, life expectancy in the U.S. is only “slightly better than Costa Rica.”
Before a short question and answer session from the audience, Krugman said he would “not be surprised to see a political shakeup” in the near future of the current administration.
Krugman, a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton, joined The New York Times in 1999. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale in 1974 and a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology three years later. He was awarded the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark medal in 1991, given to those who have made a “significant contribution to economic knowledge,” according to The New York Times Web site.
Tiffany Normandin, a senior economics major, attended the lecture for her Growth Theory class. She said she enjoyed Krugman’s speech but found it complex.
“It would be complicated without an economics background,” she said. “It was interesting, but kind of dry.”
Brad Silverman, a sophomore economics major, enjoyed the speech. He admitted he went for extra credit, but said, “Krugman had more personality for an economist. He made it more accessible by relating the issues to our lives.”
