As NewsBusters reported
earlier, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and MSNBC's Joe
Scarborough had quite a heated discussion about the budget, debt, and
the economy on PBS's Charlie Rose Monday evening. Near its conclusion, Scarborough actually scolded Krugman for pompously
behaving like a sighing Al Gore (video follows with transcript and
commentary)
When Paul Krugman dies, he’ll be primarily remembered for
three things: He won the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics; he has been one
of the world’s most-read and most-influential political pundits; and he
said with total seriousness (watch the video) that a way to fix
America’s economy would be for the government to spend a ton of money
preparing for a nonexistent alien invasion because at least that would
get people working. I’ll save you the trouble of writing in with the riposte,
“Where’s your Nobel Prize?” The Nobel committee is not infallible (the
guy who invented the lobotomy and declared it “always safe” got a
Nobel), but even if it was, Krugman’s award was not for political
philosophy but for an arcane point of technical analysis, and even if it
were for political philosophy, many economists with the opposite
philosophy (Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, Friedrich Hayek) have also won
the Nobel.
Krugman is a most unusual economist. Others may measure their words,
issue caveats, acknowledge that the research isn’t conclusive, admit
that their biases influence their reading of facts. Not Krugman. Krugman
is remarkable for his freewheeling writing style, which frequently
leads to lively metaphors (“invisible bond-market vigilantes,”
“confidence fairy”). He is often dismissive, misleading and tendentious.
He changes the subject, ignores inconvenient evidence and plays
playground bully to people he sees as ideological enemies (a list longer
than Nixon’s). He blasts away at others’ work without even providing
the basic courtesy of a link to what he’s talking about, which is a
disservice to readers who might like to review the other side of the
argument to decide for themselves.
In his new book “End This
Depression Now!” (W. W. Norton & Company), he compares Ben Bernanke
to the moronic Chance the Gardener in “Being There” — and Bernanke is
the man who hired Krugman at Princeton.
Krugman “writes
with more vitriol than I find attractive,” writes Harvard economist and
fellow Times columnist Greg Mankiw. He treats anyone who disagrees as “a
mendacious idiot,” writes George Mason University economist Alex
Tabarrok. “Krugman should stop bullying people,” wrote columnist Michael
Kinsley.
In short, to use the kind of colorful language the great Nobelist favors, Paul Krugman is a jackass.
Take
his recent, bizarre feud with economist Veronique de Rugy. Whenever she
cites a number, he wrote recently, “You can pretty much assume that
it’s wrong.” Rugy writes from a pro-free-market perspective. Krugman’s
principal job may be to throw his readers the liberal equivalent of red
meat (organic, sustainable, fair-trade soy with nontoxic pink dye?). But
is this the professional courtesy one academic has for a colleague in
the field?
As you may recall, Monday afternoon on Bloomberg TV’s Street Smart, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman got into a heated debate with Congressman Ron Paul.
This morning, after he presumably received a great deal of criticism
from Paul fans and/or read the general web buzz that declared Paul the
victor, Krugman took to his blog to insult the congressman and his fans:
…[P]eople react based on their prejudices. If Ron Paul
got on TV and said “Gah gah goo goo debasement! theft!” — which is a
rough summary of what he actually did say — his supporters would say
that he won the debate hands down; I don’t think my supporters are quite
the same, but opinons may differ.
What pomposity. Mr. Krugman’s fans couldn’t possibly be as voracious as Paul’s because Krugman’s are high-minded New York Times subscribers.
Of course opinions will differ. Krugman’s followers can often be just
as sycophantic. You have to be sorely out-of-touch to assume that your
followers could never be fanatical like some of Ron Paul’s admirers.
But what’s even more unnerving about Krugman’s post is the way he
describes Paul’s rhetoric as “Gah gah goo goo debasement! theft!” This
is how I imagine Nobel laureate Krugman hears all of his
opponents. Dr. Paul, willing to engage a well-known popular economist,
brings up serious points about monetary policy (points that have long
been made by Nobel laureates like F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman), and
Krugman behaves like the child with his fingers in his ears: “Nah, nah,
nah, I can’t hear you!”
Krugman, nose firmly pointing upward, describes his debate with Paul
as “the perfect illustration of a point I’ve thought about a lot, the
uselessness of face-to-face debates.” But contrary to what Krugman may
think, the general consensus about the “Paul vs Paul” segment was that
it was a truly thoughtful discussion, a refreshing break from the usual
talking-heads banter.
He continues on:
Think about it: you approach what is, in the end, a
somewhat technical subject in a format in which no data can be
presented, in which there’s no opportunity to check facts (everything
Paul said about growth after World War II was wrong, but who will ever
call him on it?).
No one will call Dr. Paul on it, because he was right about
spending cuts after World War II. From 1944 through 1948, the federal
government cut spending by roughly 75%. I don’t know how that could be
at all ambiguous to Mr. Krugman.
But it seems as though Mr. Krugman feels he is above the shallow
art of talking-head debates, and we should all be thankful he came down
to our level for roughly 13 minutes of what us little people considered
“thoughtful television.”
So if he has such disdain for the process, why did he bother participating?
So why did I do it? Because I’m trying to publicize my book, which does have lots of data and facts…
Student of Life, lover of God, Black, conservative Democrat, believer in self-responsibility, traditional values and morals, resident of New York City. Follow me on Twitter at @MrGreyGhost1.
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