The Nobel laureate also went after what he called “a virtual Who’s Who of conservative economists and pundits,”* who published an open letter to the Federal Reserve chairman at the time, Ben Bernanke, warning that his policies risked “currency debasement and inflation.” He neglected to mention that they doubted the Fed asset purchases would achieve the Fed’s goal of promoting employment.

“Reality, however, declined to cooperate,” writes Mr. Krugman. By reality he apparently means “core inflation,” the element of the consumer price index that excludes items on which prices are rising. The actual debasement of the dollar — its collapse in value — did turn out to be breathtaking. Mr. Krugman doesn’t mention it, but the value of the dollar fell at one point to less than an 1,800th of an ounce of gold from the 1,368th of an ounce of gold at which it was when the conservatives wrote their letter.