text: The joke here is that Krugman is convinced he can write.  He ends his little intro with the smug assertion that "maybe economists can write after all," offering himself as proof.  (Krugman cannot write well, but he has mastered the clumsy, undistinguished style of a bad lit professor---the kind of tenured mediocrity that dominates academic publishing---an accomplishment he's very proud of.  To use his own favorite "emphasizing" gimmick: Krugman stinks---full stop.)
  
  The punchline is that shortly afterward, The New York Times hired him.  It was a match made in middlebrow heaven.  (I should add that I do like the substance of Krugman's newspaper articles, if not the style.  An enemy of the current White House is a friend of mine.)
  
  As far as the economics go, he's pro-NAFTA and pro-"free trade" just like all establishment economists, and completely unwilling to critique the real forces at work in international markets.  Don't waste your time
  