Krugman v. Taylor

I'm still new enough at this internet thingy that I still think free video-on-demand is a marvel. Anyway, I was delighted to be able to go back and pick up the "debate" (if you can call it that) between Paul Krugman and John B. Taylor over health care and the deficit. For your convenience, see link infra.

..but I have to say I thought it a disappointment. Here we have two of the most highly regarded economists, orchestrated by one of the most discriminating of TV hosts (Fareed Zakaria) and this is the best they can do? Oh dear... Maybe there just wasn't enough time. My screen says it ran for 16 minutes, which is an eon in TV-talk, but not very much for a decent debate. Or maybe the debate format itself is inadequate, unless you are Lincoln and Douglas. But they barely joined issue. Are the deficits inflationary? Taylor (who, I must say, never seems to have had this problem with Bush deficits) said oh no doubt about it. Krugman seemed to try to make a few points as to why they are not, but got distracted, or distracted himself. Is government health care bound to be inefficient. Krugman said no, look at Medicare. Taylor said Medicare is different, but never got around to explaining how. Both of these are central issues--and issues where, I suspecct, there are at least coherent arguments on each side. I don't doubt for a moment that these guys are on top of their brief, but that is the point: if they can't get a handle on the format, I doubt that anyone can.