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It's the Brian Laird Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone.

First of all, thanks to David First and Bridget Bergen for handing off today in this end of year.

Pledge Drive Day donations that have been coming in this morning, very helpful on our one-day end-of-the-year fundraiser.

Thank you.

I'm not really going to talk about it

now except to say, you count on us and we count on you at this time when journalism is under so much

financial and political pressure, right? And human beings being the last minute creatures that we are,

me included, people make so many of their gifts to nonprofits in these last days of the year.

So thanks for yours if you can at WNYC.org, match in effect.

And here's where we begin the program today.

It's a kind of exit interview today with Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winning economist

who just wrote his last New York Times column after 25 years on the opinion page.

It was called my final column, Finding Hope in an Age of Resentment.

Dr. Krugman, we always appreciate when you come on with us.

Welcome back to WNYC.

This is your 441st appearance on the show by our count since you started your

Times column. So welcome back for number 41. Well, thank you. Always good to, except for the

reminder of how old I am, but that's great. And you start the column by comparing the widespread anger and

resentment that's around today to the optimism that many people had when you launched the column

on January 2nd in the year 2000. Would you begin by taking us back to then? Who was optimistic

about what? Oh, almost everybody was optimistic about almost everything.

...