‘Smug’ Krugman On End Of President's Twitter Rant

Following hot on the heels of his criticism of the British government’s austerity policy, U.S. economist Paul Krugman has been making friends elsewhere in Europe; but this time, his comments have received a response…

In his blog for the New York Times, Krugman called the 2008-2009 output drop in Estonia a “depression-level slump”, followed “by a still incomplete recovery”, before writing: “Better than no recovery at all, obviously – but this is what passes for economic triumph?”. The comments did not go down well with Estonia’s president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who took to Twitter to respond.

Ilves also added:

The Estonian president's office confirmed that he was responsible for the tweets, and said in a statement that the comments were "a sincere and immediate defense of the major and often difficult efforts of Estonia to deal with the economic crisis and to stick to the rules adopted in the European Union".

Over to you, Paul.