A video of a talk by Paul Krugman at Google has been making the rounds of the blogosphere. He was supposed to talk about his new book but decided to talk about the subprime crisis instead. I watched the video, and I have to say that Krugman is outstanding (and funny) when he talks about economics. I remember about 7 or 8 years ago, he came to my university to give a series of public lectures. The university’s biggest lecture theatre was packed every night, and because it was ‘free’ it was necessary to show up an hour early to get a seat. It was right after the Asian financial crisis, and rather than indulge in meaningless technowaffle, I remember that Krugman tackled the topic head-on, and did an outstanding job of explaining it to a non-specialist audience. For example, he explained the idea of a liquidity trap in terms that almost anybody could understand.

Just in case you’ve missed it, here’s the video: