My accountant friend said the problem social security ran into is that there is no dedicated fund, but SS Taxes are in fact being put in the general fund category.

I‘m curious if the trending extreme inequality is spliting America and taking a growing portion of Americans out of social and political involvements. The country performs at suboptimum?

I was right there with you Paul when you said Sanders is not a Socialist. Then you lost me when you attempted to describe socialism. I believe you described what is called "State Capitalism," where the Government Bureaucrat replaces the private owner and assumes his/her role. Capitalism is still in place, workers simply have a different boss. The key fundamental of Socialisms critique of Capitalism was the employer/employee relationship. Socialisms final solution was to have employees own the business/factory or modes of production and eliminate the single private owner of capital, who exploits employees labor to obtain a profit. Essentially, the goal was to bring Democracy into the workplace, where people spend most of their adult lives, giving each employee one vote as joint owners of the company. This allows the workers to decide what to produce, how to produce, where to produce, and what to do with the surplus. Under this system, I doubt the workers would vote to move their jobs to China, pollute their community, or pay one employee 300 times more then the lowest paid employee. This is why the elites hate/fear Socialism so much. It cuts off their power at the head. These elites would do whatever it takes to resist socialism. Fascism is usually the oligarchs last weapon of choice, when propaganda fails. But others, such as Otto Von Bismarck and Roosevelt, enacted a type of welfare state to keep the socialist at bay and maintain the capitalist system. This is why we need social Democrats like Sanders, to create policies like Universal Health care, public Colleges, and a progressive tax system to act as a relief valve to curb some of capitalisms harmful externalities. If not, we get Fascism.

Slim Shady on the deckline.

Lol I feel the same way about Verizon I refuse to do business with them !

31minutes in. Yes, but on the green new deal and carbon tax, wouldn't a carbon tax cause an economic incentive in alternative energy development? And I think a carbon tariff would be a lot harder to implement than a carbon tax. Maybe not harder to get approved but harder to accurately and effectively implement. It's easier to put a direct tax on energy, gasoline and electricity, and tie a unit of energy or a volume of fuel to a direct amount of co2 that it emits into the atmosphere than a shoe or a cell phone, or an automobile.

KRUGMAN'S PESSIMISM CAN ONLY BE CONSIDERED ACCURATE . THERE IS CERTAINLY A CHALLENGE AHEAD . pww

We try to say that all "men" are created equal, but that is not the case. If you start out poor your chances of accumulating a lot of money while someone else starts out with dad's fortune , things are neither fair nor equal. The rich justify that by calling it the "death tax."

Why on earth do they ask economists to predict the future? Remember all those economists warning about the impending crash of 2008? No? Exactly.

Their shoes let down the whole show too bad

Ha hahaha

pk is 100% right. now bring on the zombie commenters!

He has learned to have less faith in markets. He must becoming Irish and European. Oh, we tend to have a good society and far more fair and effective that the US.

Mr Krugman, you live in a different world. Social Security- it's broke, inefficient, and regressive. It takes from the poor to give to the rich. If people could invest SS like their own money, it would make 7% over the long haul. The post office is one of the worst run institutions- UPS & Fedex operate much better because they can hire & fire the people they need to. Same with Amtrak, the VA, the national highway system, NASA, FDA and many others. So with that record of success, you want a takeover of healthcare and education?

This guy, and his Keynesian economics has caused all the Bubbles that are now popping. This guy is wrong about almost everything.

As an Economics teacher I think your economics is spot on Paul, but your political bias is absolutely appalling as well as your host. Just by his question, "what is it going to take to beat Donald Trump in November?" Go ahead and put either one of your losers (Joe or Bernie) up against Trump. You're smarter than this Paul.