Indeed, Krugman has been influential, but his influence hasn’t been a good thing. He is a disciple of John Maynard Keynes and has played an important role in legitimizing the application of Keynesian schemes by governments to “stimulate” their economies. Those governments were unsuccessful, Krugman claimed, because they had failed to inflate their economies enough to break out of the Keynesian “liquidity trap,” an imaginary state of affairs that Murray N. Rothbard fully debunked.
Krugman even resorted to fantasy in his quest to fight the mighty “liquidity trap,” claiming that if the US were to prepare for a never-to-come alien invasion, the burst of government spending would revitalize the economy. That nonsense alone should have discredited him as a serious economist, but instead cemented his status as the great advocate for the Keynesian trope that government spending is the key to economic prosperity.
Good riddance to bad rubbish, is the most generous thing I can say about this annual clown show Keynesian. He was blind to what was going on around him and made many a wonky prediction about economics that looked to be pure fantasy. He was a true columnist at the New York Times.
Krugman was a Keynesian, which is bad.
Worse, though, is that he was a completely disingenuous partisan propagandist.
Who could blame him? He was getting paid by the New York Times for writing and they only want their slant on issues published. Their slant seems to be disingenuous partisan propaganda and leftist
BSinformational view.I’m not sure in which world he earned a Nobel Prize in Economics, though. Must be clown world.
His Nobel was actually awarded for really innovative work on trade theory that he did during grad school.
There was a long standing conflict between conventional economic predictions based on comparative advantage and what actually occurs in trade flows. Krugman was the first to offer a plausible explanation for it. Other, more plausible, explanations have been developed since, but his work was a big step in the right direction.
OK, so he did work as a grad student under a supervising professor who may have suggested his avenue of research. Who was his graduate advisor, in that case? I will have to read about Krugman’s thesis, then.
I think the tragedy of Krugman isn't just how bad he was, but that he was capable of doing legitimately brilliant work.
I was just reading something else and found this gem:
Once he got on the NYT gravy train, I guess he saw no reason to get off of it. He must not have had a real urge to further his research. That is really a shame. He was in on the ground floor of the trade theory but left it for the NYT.
His internet prevision is hilarious, so ignorant and malevolent person
I don’t know about malevolence, but he is hilarious in his prognostications. He would never make it as an entrepreneur, as they have to accurately foresee future needs and start satisfying them now.
Then again, maybe he was a good entrepreneur because he was providing a desired service to the loathsome NYT.
Could be a great seller of powdered water.
Is that the one where you have to rehydrate it with water? What a wonderful idea!!! :)
Just add some water and there you go.
Better than sliced bread.
years of writing shit and making people poorer with his most famous moment being when he said the impact of the internet would be nothing more than that of the fax machine.
and yet I'm sure he's rich, living like a king, and now sitting on a fat pension, never acknowledging his mistakes
utterly disgusting
Yes, but he feathered his nest very well, didn’t he? I think being like that would make me sick.
he's feathered one hell of a nest yes. although i expect in his mind, he just sees himself as a genius, Nobel prize winner and he's right all the time, even when he's wrong
Wrong, when was he ever wrong, he was with the mighty NYT? ;(
have you seen my Nobel prize!?
Oooooooo………. It is so shiny and impressive!!! :)
just Paul enjoying retirement
He goes for a lot of bling, doesn’t he. I guess the Nobel award hangs nicely on the neck.