Its unfortunate but any economist given a voice has to partially tow the party line:
Think of it this way: during the period 1960-85, when the U.S. economy seemed able to achieve full employment without bubbles, our labor force grew an average 2.1 percent annually. In part this reflected the maturing of the baby boomers, in part the move of women into the labor force.
This growth made sustaining investment fairly easy: the business of providing Americans with new houses, new offices, and so on easily absorbed a fairly high fraction of GDP.
Now look forward. The Census projects that the population aged 18 to 64 will grow at an annual rate of only 0.2 percent between 2015 and 2025. Unless labor force participation not only stops declining but starts rising rapidly again, this means a slower-growth economy, and thanks to the accelerator effect, lower investment demand.
This passage is self contradictory - with a declining labor force participation rate we already have millions and millions of unemployed (see
The Age of Oversupply for more exact numbers) so how can we possibly need population growth?
If you want growth simply try to get the large percentage of this country that is locked out of full economic participation involved and if you want more growth try the same around the world where billions more lead lifestyles common place a century ago.
Later on in the next post Krugman links in a blog with this
Another answer could be sustained, deficit-financed fiscal stimulus. But, you say, this would lead to exploding public debt! Actually, no – not if the real interest rate is persistently below the economy’s growth rate, which it will certainly be if it’s persistently negative. In that case the government can run a primary deficit even while keeping the debt-GDP ratio constant – and the higher the level of debt, the higher the allowable deficit.
Its really the same category mistake as above. We already have literally trillions of "stimulus" being sucked up by banks and other bad economic actors. There is no proof that additional funding will reach the real economy instead of just lining the pockets of the already should be criminal financial sector and assorted CEOs.
This zeal for ignoring corruption is there in the Larry Summers speech that Krugman is agreeing with also. Larry wants everyone to be overjoyed that financial markets were stabilized while simultaneously admitting that labor force participation has not improved. What then was the point of "stabilization" other than making the ultra rich into oligarchs? We should have nationalized the hell out of everything financial and thrown many of the people Larry is so proud of saving into jail.