Paul Krugman may not be that concerned by the Obama administration's new projection that the unified federal budget deficits will sum to $9 trillion dollars over the next 10 years. But I am.

Here's the argument Paul Krugman gave for why $9 trillion maybe isn't as huge a sum as it sounds:

even if we do run these deficits, federal debt as a share of GDP will be substantially less than it was at the end of World War II. It will also be substantially less than, say, debt in several European countries in the mid to late 1990s.

Political Math (hat tip: Russ Roberts) takes a closer look at Paul's first comparison:

implicit in his observation is the concept that since we did fine after WWII, we'll do fine now. But the years after WWII saw drastic reductions in the inflation-adjusted debt driven by drastic reductions

Richard Posner has a critique of public intellectuals who work in the public sphere (with special reference to Christina Romer), either in government service, or in journalistic fora. Mark Thoma and Brad Delong have already made clear the (many) points at which Mr. Posner has gone astray. Parenthetically, I'll add that I wonder about the analytical abilities of anybody who lumps Phillip Glass (!) and Elliott Carter together into the highbrow music category (see page 18 in his tome Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline (1991)). More substantively, I have a few of additional observations, some of which are amplifications of Brad Delong's points.

First, I agree with Mark Thoma that Mr. Posner apparently has little understanding of macroeconomics, either of old-style Keynesian type, or the new(er) real business cycle type, or certainly New Keynesian approaches. His charge that her current pronouncements are at sharp variance with

This post provides links to a number of thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find of interest. Please also add the links to any other thought-provoking articles you would like to share to the comments section.

• Paul Marson (Financial Times): Cause for caution on US earnings, August 12, 2009. The US second-quarter earning season is now ending, apparently on a good note as nearly three quarters of US companies have beaten consensus expectations. But a closer look at these earnings shows there is cause to be more cautious about the health of corporate America than the headline numbers would suggest. The cloud of euphoria that followed recent results had more to do with extraordinarily low expectations, than to any meaningful and lasting improvement in prospects, which still require a rapid recovery in economic activity. This suggests