What has Paul Krugman gotten wrong?
Perhaps it's his Nobel Prize, but for some reason people still listen to Paul Krugman. We'd like to enumerate some of the things that call into question the credibility of the former Enron advisor.
- Answer (2)
- · Comment (1)
- · UnfollowFollow (0)
Answer by Ricipedian
Keynesian Economics
In June 2010, Krugman had this to say about deficit hawks like Germany [1]:
Many economists, myself included, regard this turn to austerity as a huge mistake. It raises memories of 1937, when F.D.R.’s premature attempt to balance the budget helped plunge a recovering economy back into severe recession. And here in Germany, a few scholars see parallels to the policies of Heinrich Brüning, the chancellor from 1930 to 1932, whose devotion to financial orthodoxy ended up sealing the doom of the Weimar Republic.
So let's compare the experience of the United States, where the Keynesians won out a with the massive TARP stimulus package, with that of the benighted Germans [2]:
Sources:
- "That 30's Feeling," The New York Times, June 17, 2010.
- John Lott and Grover Norquist, Debacle, 2012, p. 93.
Garrett Petersen: I like how the US part of the graph finally drops right around November 2010. Something big must have happened right around then...
- #1
- · April 21, 2012 at 11:44pm
- · LikeUnlike (0)
JimGoneWild: I wish we could see the chart going back to 2005.
- #2
- · May 25, 2012 at 6:03pm
- · LikeUnlike (0)
Join Ricochet or Sign In to add your comment.
Answer by Don Tillman
Oh goodness, Krugman is responsible for so many blazing falsehoods that it's really hard to tally. Possibly every column.
There is the Krugman In Wonderland Blog , that's highly recommended, but it's certainly not complete.
Just recently, in his Feb 20 column, Krugman specifically claimed that President Herbert Hoover made "savage spending cuts" to the federal budget. This stuff is easy to look up; Hoover actually increased federal spending by 50%. That's especially significant because federal spending had been absolutely flat for the 6 years before that. It was a major increase.
--------
There's an important meta-issue here; should we consider Krugman's writings as serious economics analysis, or as performance art? I mean, just because he's got an economics background and some Scandinavian award doesn't mean that he can't write gibberish. Or comedy. Or Marxist propaganda.
Don Tillman: [edit: I meant this as an answer]
Edited on April 12, 2012 at 8:56amJoin Ricochet or Sign In to add your comment.