... is that he has very a tenuous grasp of history. Or, read another way: Paul Krugman does what other policy wonks with an agenda do, which is to cherry-pick data that fits his current mantra rather than examining all the evidence. Here's a perfect example, in a Krugman piece I've already partly engaged: Since all of us in this discussion seem to be big-spending types of guys, a lot of our discussion has been about what comes after-- about when and whether the economy can stand on its own. There are, I think, two historical models for this. On one side, World War II put a definite end to the depression economics of the 30s. On the other, Japanese stimulus efforts helped the economy while they were on, but it's not clear that they ever provided a long-term solution. So here's a question I haven't seen discussed (I'm sure someone has, but I haven't seen it): why did WWII "work", why did it prove the secular stagnationists wrong? I can think of se...