Hating on Krugman: the Cassandra Syndrome

Paul Krugman has got to be one of the favorite demons of Republicans, billionaires, right-wingers, Eurocrats, Chicago School economists and no doubt others. Why so? How did this happen to a highly respected economist.

Well there is the fact that he is acerbic, sarcastic, and really good at mockery. Moreover, he is fiercely mocking while managing to keep his critiques substantive, unlike his critics who flail and resort to childisn name-calling - yes, I'm talking about you, John Cochrane and you, Niall Ferguson.

That's probably a minor point though. Another factor is his bully pulpit as an NYT Op-Ed writer..

The real problem, I think, is that he has been so infuriatingly right. He was, as he reminds us, one of the few public figures to call "Bullshit!" on the Bush administration's justification for the Iraq War, and almost certainly the most important single critic. He did so from a newspaper and editorial page dominated by pro-Iraq-war propaganda.

Then there was the great crash of '07. While Chicago whistled Dixie and predicted a quick rebound, Krugman saw the dimensions of the impending disaster. He also prescribed a cure, and the US took about 1/2 of the cure he and others prescribed. The result was our current and continuing half to one-third of a recovery.

Meanwhile, the wise men of Europe declared for austerity. Again he predicted disaster for the weaker Euro zone countries and disaster they have gotten. Nowhere has austerity accomplished what was promised. (The much earlier German experiment with mini-austerity took place in a much different economic climate, and is irrelevant to the response to a huge recession/depression.)

The trouble with being a successful prophet is that those you have exposed as fools resent it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more