4 ms·

There are no GIFs, but I enjoyed the "Three Wrongs Don't Make a Right" article ( http://fee.org/freeman/detail/paul-krugman-three-wrongs-dont-make-a-right http:

There are no GIFs, but I enjoyed the "Three Wrongs Don't Make a Right" article ( http://fee.org/freeman/detail/paul-krugman-three-wrongs-dont-make-a-right http://fee.org/freeman/detail/paul-krugman-three-wrongs-dont... ): "Krugman, armed with his Keynesian model, came into the Great Recession thinking that (a) nominal interest rates can’t go below 0 percent, (b) total government spending reductions in the United States amid a weak recovery would lead to a double dip, and (c) persistently high unemployment would go hand in hand with accelerating price deflation. Because of these macroeconomic views, Krugman recommended aggressive federal deficit spending. "As things turned out, Krugman was wrong on each of the above points: we learned (and this surprised me, too) that nominal rates could go persistently negative, that the US budget 'austerity' from 2011 onward coincided with a strengthening recovery, and that consumer prices rose modestly even as unemployment remained high. Krugman was wrong on all of these points, and yet his policy recommendations didn’t budge an iota over the years. "Far from changing his policy conclusions in light of his model’s botched predictions, Krugman kept running victory laps, claiming his model had been 'right about everything.' He further speculated that the only explanation for his opponents’ unwillingness to concede defeat was that they were evil or stupid."

overgard 11y ago
Yeah, but why engage in thoughtful debate when you can show a gif of him punching people?
zurn 11y ago
This guy doesn't seem very credible judging by the WP article about him or the one about his employer (He works for an oil money funded right wing climate-skpetic "think tank").
- maxlybbert 11y ago
  Do you have any complaints about the article itself, or do you simply stop thinking once you find out that you don't agree with everything somebody says, or everybody somebody gets money from? Did Krugman claim that nominal interest rates couldn't go below 0%? Did Krugman claim that austerity would lead to a double dip recession? Did Krugman claim high unemployment would go hand in hand with spiraling deflation? Did Krugman claim that anybody who disagreed with him was evil or stupid? Has Krugman now decided that, even though interest rates went below 0%, austerity did not cause a double dip recession, and high unemployment did not accompany spiraling deflation that he was "right about everything"? Did the New York Times ombudsman say that Krugman has a "disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults"?
  - zurn 11y ago
    I do change my default attitude toward the message once I find it is coming from someone working for a neocon think-tank. They have a history of being intellectually dishonest to put it charitably. For a hashing of the claims you might have a peek in the comments about this article on Reddit (spoiler: claims don't exactly get a free pass): https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/386ntm/paul_krugman_three_wrongs_dont_make_a_right_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/386ntm/paul_krug...
    - maxlybbert 11y ago
      Then stay in your ideological bubble, don't bother to talk with anybody who disagrees with you, and see how well that works out.
comex 11y ago
I read the article. It's interesting, as it does point out situations where Krugman seems to have been somewhat wrong in hindsight - which may be more discrediting than it otherwise would be, despite the difficulty of most predictions, when combined with his constant self-praise. That said, the evidence is fairly subjective: for example, even as someone unfamiliar with economics I can be pretty confident that Murphy is overstating his case when he lambastes Krugman for talking about the zero lower bound, when it turns out that interest rates can go slightly negative - it may be more than "nitpicking", as he says, but the zero lower bound turning out to be less than zero hardly vindicates the idea that the entire concept is a "mentality" Krugman is "locked into". Also, a prediction that 'X will push the economy in the wrong direction' is not directly contradicted by the economy going in the right direction in the presence of X; it's evidence against the relation, but not necessarily strong evidence in a complex system with many other factors - yet Murphy uses words like "revisionism" and "withering and irrefutable criticism". Meanwhile, Wikipedia has links to articles where Murphy has made absolutely worded claims that have turned out to be completely wrong. That doesn't make Krugman right, but it's hard to take seriously anything about economics written by someone who said "We can’t know the timing of the impending monetary catastrophe, but it is coming. Smart investors will minimize their dependence on the dollar before it crashes. At this late date, no one should trust the government and media “experts” who assure us that the worst is over." [1] Maybe two excesses average out somewhere closer to the truth? But I'd like a more neutral source. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/killing-the-currency/ http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/killing-the-...
- maxlybbert 11y ago
  The argument isn't simply that Krugman is a human -- although that might be news to him -- but that, contrary to his claims, he hasn't been "right on everything" and has, in fact, been fundamentally wrong on the main thing he's been talking about for a decade. > the zero lower bound turning out to be less than zero hardly vindicates the idea that the entire concept is a "mentality" Krugman is "locked into". Krugman's been arguing that at the zero lower bound the regular laws of economics don't apply. That's not a caricature ("When depression economics prevails, the usual rules of economic policy no longer apply: virtue becomes vice, caution is risky and prudence is folly", http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/opinion/14krugman.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/opinion/14krugman.html ). Krugman's tried to establish himself as somebody able to reason in this weird realm (although his recommendations always amount to "spend more and don't worry about the deficit"), so it seems important to know where the weird realm actually is. It's certainly true that the US didn't have any experience with the zero lower bound, but it's also true that there are a few other free market economies in the world that might have given a deep thinker something to work off of. > Also, a prediction that 'X will push the economy in the wrong direction' is not directly contradicted by the economy going in the right direction in the presence of X; it's evidence against the relation, but not necessarily strong evidence in a complex system with many other factors But Krugman didn't say that austerity would simply cause headwinds, or just push the economy in the wrong direction. According to the Bloomberg article, he said people advocating austerity enjoyed inflicting economic suffering, and he coined the words "austerian" and "sadomonetarist." He routinely said that austerity would cause a new recession before we recovered from the first. Not that it would be hard to overcome austerity, but that it would be impossible to. Then, when the predicted double dip never occurred, he declared victory and claimed he'd been right about everything. The only substance I can see from the original Bloomberg article is that Krugman enjoys a scrappy technique when debating other economists. But his record doesn't really justify his statements that people only disagree with him because they are evil or insane.

overgard 11y ago

Yeah, but why engage in thoughtful debate when you can show a gif of him punching people?

zurn 11y ago

This guy doesn't seem very credible judging by the WP article about him or the one about his employer (He works for an oil money funded right wing climate-skpetic "think tank").

maxlybbert 11y ago
Do you have any complaints about the article itself, or do you simply stop thinking once you find out that you don't agree with everything somebody says, or everybody somebody gets money from? Did Krugman claim that nominal interest rates couldn't go below 0%? Did Krugman claim that austerity would lead to a double dip recession? Did Krugman claim high unemployment would go hand in hand with spiraling deflation? Did Krugman claim that anybody who disagreed with him was evil or stupid? Has Krugman now decided that, even though interest rates went below 0%, austerity did not cause a double dip recession, and high unemployment did not accompany spiraling deflation that he was "right about everything"? Did the New York Times ombudsman say that Krugman has a "disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults"?
- zurn 11y ago
  I do change my default attitude toward the message once I find it is coming from someone working for a neocon think-tank. They have a history of being intellectually dishonest to put it charitably. For a hashing of the claims you might have a peek in the comments about this article on Reddit (spoiler: claims don't exactly get a free pass): https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/386ntm/paul_krugman_three_wrongs_dont_make_a_right_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/386ntm/paul_krug...
  - maxlybbert 11y ago
    Then stay in your ideological bubble, don't bother to talk with anybody who disagrees with you, and see how well that works out.

comex 11y ago

I read the article. It's interesting, as it does point out situations where Krugman seems to have been somewhat wrong in hindsight - which may be more discrediting than it otherwise would be, despite the difficulty of most predictions, when combined with his constant self-praise. That said, the evidence is fairly subjective: for example, even as someone unfamiliar with economics I can be pretty confident that Murphy is overstating his case when he lambastes Krugman for talking about the zero lower bound, when it turns out that interest rates can go slightly negative - it may be more than "nitpicking", as he says, but the zero lower bound turning out to be less than zero hardly vindicates the idea that the entire concept is a "mentality" Krugman is "locked into". Also, a prediction that 'X will push the economy in the wrong direction' is not directly contradicted by the economy going in the right direction in the presence of X; it's evidence against the relation, but not necessarily strong evidence in a complex system with many other factors - yet Murphy uses words like "revisionism" and "withering and irrefutable criticism". Meanwhile, Wikipedia has links to articles where Murphy has made absolutely worded claims that have turned out to be completely wrong. That doesn't make Krugman right, but it's hard to take seriously anything about economics written by someone who said "We can’t know the timing of the impending monetary catastrophe, but it is coming. Smart investors will minimize their dependence on the dollar before it crashes. At this late date, no one should trust the government and media “experts” who assure us that the worst is over." [1] Maybe two excesses average out somewhere closer to the truth? But I'd like a more neutral source. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/killing-the-currency/ http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/killing-the-...

maxlybbert 11y ago
The argument isn't simply that Krugman is a human -- although that might be news to him -- but that, contrary to his claims, he hasn't been "right on everything" and has, in fact, been fundamentally wrong on the main thing he's been talking about for a decade. > the zero lower bound turning out to be less than zero hardly vindicates the idea that the entire concept is a "mentality" Krugman is "locked into". Krugman's been arguing that at the zero lower bound the regular laws of economics don't apply. That's not a caricature ("When depression economics prevails, the usual rules of economic policy no longer apply: virtue becomes vice, caution is risky and prudence is folly", http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/opinion/14krugman.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/opinion/14krugman.html ). Krugman's tried to establish himself as somebody able to reason in this weird realm (although his recommendations always amount to "spend more and don't worry about the deficit"), so it seems important to know where the weird realm actually is. It's certainly true that the US didn't have any experience with the zero lower bound, but it's also true that there are a few other free market economies in the world that might have given a deep thinker something to work off of. > Also, a prediction that 'X will push the economy in the wrong direction' is not directly contradicted by the economy going in the right direction in the presence of X; it's evidence against the relation, but not necessarily strong evidence in a complex system with many other factors But Krugman didn't say that austerity would simply cause headwinds, or just push the economy in the wrong direction. According to the Bloomberg article, he said people advocating austerity enjoyed inflicting economic suffering, and he coined the words "austerian" and "sadomonetarist." He routinely said that austerity would cause a new recession before we recovered from the first. Not that it would be hard to overcome austerity, but that it would be impossible to. Then, when the predicted double dip never occurred, he declared victory and claimed he'd been right about everything. The only substance I can see from the original Bloomberg article is that Krugman enjoys a scrappy technique when debating other economists. But his record doesn't really justify his statements that people only disagree with him because they are evil or insane.