It's from Dante. Paul Krugman might want to add it to the banner of his blog.
I’m detecting a trend in commentary that I find slightly ominous. Some of the economic news lately has been slightly better than expected, which was bound to happen at some point (on average, after all, half the news should be better than expected). Mostly this is in the form of things getting worse more slowly, but it wouldn’t be surprising if we see, say, an uptick in industrial production in a few months, as the inventory cycle runs its course.I don't think Krugman's necessarily wrong. In fact, I fear he's right. I also fear that not enough people are listening. Not to make too many literary allusions in one post, but Krugman can take heart (or not) from a character in Greek mythology named Cassandra:
If so, that doesn’t mean the worst is over. There was a pause in the plunge in early 1931, and many people started to breathe easier. They were wrong.
So far, there’s nothing pointing to a fundamental turnaround this year, or next, or for that matter as far as the eye can see.
In Greek mythology, Cassandra (Greek: Κασσάνδρα "she who entangles men"[1]) (also known as Alexandra[2]) was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy. However, when she did not return his love, Apollo placed a curse on her so that no one would ever believe her predictions....The recent Newsweek cover story on Krugman contained the following that, I think, describes the Krugman phenomenon perfectly:
While Cassandra foresaw the destruction of Troy (she warned the Trojans about the Trojan Horse, the death of Agamemnon, and her own demise), she was unable to do anything to forestall these tragedies since they did not believe her.
If you are of the establishment persuasion (and I am), reading Krugman makes you uneasy. You hope he's wrong, and you sense he's being a little harsh (especially about Geithner), but you have a creeping feeling that he knows something that others cannot, or will not, see.
