[keyjsgnsgdgn]

>Technological progress won’t create mass unemployment ... In Krugman’s celebrated example, imagine there are...

Stopped reading right there. Hypothetical scenarios are not a replacement for empirical evidence. I can just as easily imagine a scenario that runs contrary to the one given.

This kind of baseless speculation cheapens economics as a science and is why a lot of people don't take macroeconomics seriously.

[mrslave]

Then you'll just love Krugman's imagine we're at war with aliens economic stimulus!!!

[mandem]

If reasoning based on 'empirical evidence' were so good, economists and politicians would know everything that is going to happen. Yet they don't.

[AstralStorm]

1) They lack data and 2) sometimes they choose to ignore it.

First happens because sociological data collection is hard, slow and expensive. Second usually due to various kinds of politics and lobbying.

[UK-AL]

Empirical evidence is also on the side of not creating unemployment.