With Tim Geithner set to resign, the U.S. is about to get a new Treasury Secretary.
So, who should it be?
According to some people, it should be Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning Princeton economist who is also a very popular (and controversial) columnist for the New York Times. There is a petition, started by actor Danny Glover, at Signop.org with nearly 225,ooo supporters as of Tuesday.
Unlike many economists who favor policies that conservatives like--austerity, reduced government spending, tight money--Krugman has been extremely outspoken in recent years about the need for more government spending to improve the economy. This stance has earned him the ire of Republicans, who believe that Krugman and his "liberal" ideas are part of the problem.
But unlike most conservative economists, Krugman has actually been right. The U.S. has not been consumed by hyper-inflation, the stimulus worked, the economy is growing, and unemployment is dropping, albeit slowly.
So it's not surprising that many people think Krugman should be Treasury Secretary.
But Krugman himself disagrees. He's flattered by the suggestion, but thinks he can do more in his current post than if he were appointed to be "an administrator."
Yahoo's Jeff Macke agrees.
Macke also thinks that appointing Krugman as Treasury Secretary would be a divisive move that would just rub Republicans' faces in the fact that they lost the election.
The Treasury Secretary is just a figure-head anyway, Macke argues.
And the economy is fixing itself.
So leave Mr. Krugman right where he is.
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