Why Does Paul Krugman Think President Obama Is Listening To Him?

The Keynesian, Paul Krugman, recently wrote:

Talk with Barack Obama, and you’ll find that he has a basically Keynesian view of the world. It may have wobbled a bit in the past, at times when he seemed to buy into the Confidence Fairy, but it’s still his basic outlook.

Scott Sumner smacks down this view seven ways from Sunday:

A few weeks ago Paul Krugman suggested market monetarists were homeless.  By that he means we don’t have much support among GOP Congressman.  He doesn’t say why we’d want to have their support, after all, they don’t make monetary policy...

Most politicians are morons when it comes to economics.  That’s nothing to be ashamed of; I’m a complete moron about most non-economics fields in science and the humanities.  Would you care about my views on particle physics or French poetry? What I don’t see is why someone would be proud that certain politicians seem to like their economic theories.  I never get a chance to “talk with Barack Obama,” but I very much doubt he is a “Keynesian.”

Obama thought the high unemployment of 2008 was due to ATM machines taking jobs from bank tellers.  Maybe he’s a Luddite....

Obama would often leave Fed seats empty for long periods, believing the Fed could do nothing when rates had fallen to zero.  When he finally did appoint people to the Fed, they were not people who agreed with Krugman on monetary policy.  At one point 6 of the 7 members of the board were Obama appointees, and not a single one agreed with Krugman on monetary policy.  Obama didn’t even bother making any appointments in 2009...when he had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.  Maybe Obama only reads Krugman on the days where Krugman says monetary policy is ineffective at the zero bound, not the days when he says monetary stimulus is highly desirable at the zero bound.