If Paul Krugman Is So Smart

Paul Krugman has a childish interpretation of the real world he lives in...

...and he's an ugly little troll.

one half of obama's stimudent package could give every man woman and child in the u.s. 2700 tax free dollars.

NYT's bankruptcy is a moot point. The newspaper industry is losing ground to the website news industry. Thats hardly groundbreaking news.

As much as some of the folk here would like to believe that websites such as this one are driving the end of the NYT, it simply isn't the case. Sure the NYT is going down. But it isn't being replaced by random sources - instead news websits, such as the BBC, are cashing in heavily - it recently started displaying advertisements on its worldwide sites (outside the UK).

As for Paul Krugman, he is always going to be a hell of a lot more influential than Kate and the denizens of SDA. Kate preaches ot the faithful here. People read Krugman's books the world over. Lets put it this way - as much as you folk don't think credentials matter, the real world does judge you by the weight of your paper resume. Krugman, Friedman et al will always find a global audience. Kate will continue to cater to Canada's angry right fringe. The fringe is usually smaller than the mainstream.

As for this website, I find it terribly amusing, but there is a lack of substance. And lots of anger. Let the abuse begin.

Kate,

Many thanks for the link. Your readers tripled my usual daily hits.

Phil @ Plumb Bob Blog.

Makes me proud that he is aNobel Prize winner.

Funny, hard to believe that if the NYT goes bankrupt it will be a "moot" point however pygmy is correct ,even I may buy Krugman's book when it hits the dollar bin at Chapter's.
I do suggest that pygmy a little more time here at SDA and observe the intellect and diversity of the SDA comments.
I want to support the NYT and the Star,its been a long winter and need a source of kindling.

Funny, hard to believe that if the NYT goes bankrupt it will be a "moot" point however pygmy is correct ,even I may buy Krugman's book when it hits the dollar bin at Chapter's.
I do suggest that pygmy spend a little more time here at SDA and observe the intellect and diversity of the SDA comments.
I want to support the NYT and the Star,its been a long winter and need a source of kindling.

Oh yes I agree with you about Krugman, Friedman but I wonder if only the very delusional left will read them. They better because when NYT closes shop that's about the only way their going to stay out of the bread line.

Say everyone a pygmy is a very small person so think about the comment@7:04pm.

Krugman is apparently highly regarded in his narrow field of international trade, for which he got the Nobel.

But beyond that, he's a terrible economist. In the view of the Austrians at Von Mises Institute, he can hardly be called an economist at all. For example, he subscribes to the bogus concept of the "paradox of thrift" which postulates that at certain points in the economic cycle, private savings are bad for the economy: private virtue = public vice. He not only subscribes to it, he has publicly stated that this is the section in his university course that he most looks forward to teaching!

Anyone subscribing to that nonsense, I immediately write off as an economic illiterate, Nobel prize notwithstanding.

The fallacy, of course, is the idea that money not spent on consumer purchases but banked, is out of circulation. However, even people with a high-double-digit IQ and minimal life experience know that money deposited at the bank is loaned out to people who can put it to more productive use like entrepreneurs making capital investments which is the source of future wealth creation. It's not put in a vault (the bank equivalent of a mattress).

But I strongly suspect he got the Nobel mostly for his BDS. Like Harold Pinter for literature.

I do suggest that pygmy a little more time here at SDA and observe the intellect and diversity of the SDA comments.

Nah,-angry right fringe,-I think he's got it.

"there is a lack of substance. And lots of anger."

Darn I guess this place is getting as bad as the NYT.

The validity of any economic theory is directly proportional to the number of people who believe it is true...and their willingness to accept that truth on the basis of an Argument from Authority.

So sayeth pygmy.

And you know Krugman is an Absolute Authority because the same people who gave a Nobel Peace Prize to Yassar Arafat ought to know an Economic Genius when they see one, right?

I mean, c'mon, janet, this is the crowd that thinks Sarah Palin should be a seventy year old heartbeat away from the presidency.

Pygmy; I wish to remind you that Al Gore got a Nobel prize also.They are both in the same category,i.e. BS 101.Mr.Nobel started this prize thing because someone thought of him as dead and reminded the world of the terrible things that dynamite hath wrote.He thought,in his own mind, that he was the saviour of the world.

Wow. What an angry, furious spit flecked backlash to pygmy@ 7:04.

I mean,c'mon,philboob,this is the crowd that thinks an empty suit shouldn't actually be the President, while the totally incapable, Joe Biden is a heart beat away from the presidency.

I think this is the first time I successfully pre-empted the abuse. I should do that more often - anticipate the abuse, because it has actually managed to keep you lot civil. I don't see any point in posting the myriad of abusive posts here at SDA - you have all seen them.

But back to my main point - sure the NYT is disappearing, but it is not being replaced by random sources such as the various one-man shows that parade as news sources on the blogosphere. It is being replaced by equally "mainstream" sources, which have a similar reputation and an equally long history. NYT goes; BBC surfaces. The one-man show that masquerades as a newssite continues to cater to its niche crowd.

As for the substance on this thread, I know you are well-meaning Janet, and there are some posters who actually do provide interesting viewpoints (ET, for instance) but I think the following quotes prove my point sufficiently.

"They better because when NYT closes shop that's about the only way their going to stay out of the bread line.

Say everyone a pygmy is a very small person so think about the comment@7:04pm."

"Wow. What an angry, furious spit flecked backlash to pygmy@ 7:04."

Then, of course, we have the rather bizzare dismissal of the Nobel Prize, simply because the blatantly political Nobel Peace Prize has been given to some unsavoury characters. Al Gore doesn't deserve it- I agree.

The well-informed denizens of SDA are no doubt unaware that there are numerous categories of Nobel Prizes - in Medicine/Physiology, Chemistry, Physics and Literature. The Economics Prize is itself relatively new, having only been created in 1959 by the Swedish Central Bank.

I think most of you are smart enough to realize that the same folk do not decide all the Prizes. The Peace prize is awarded by a panel elected by the Norwegian Parliament. The Medicine prize, on the other hand, is awarded by a panel elected by the Royal Caroline Institute (one of Europes largest Medical universities). The Physics, Chemistry and Economics prizes are awarded by a panel elected by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and so on and so forth.

Which begs one question - Why oh why do you, T. Robert Wolfram, make statements like this without at least bothering to check your facts:

"And you know Krugman is an Absolute Authority because the same people who gave a Nobel Peace Prize to Yassar Arafat ought to know an Economic Genius when they see one, right?"

They are two distinct panels selected from different pools by different sets of people. The Royal Swedish Academy of Science can hardly be held accountable for the selection of a group elected by the Norwegian Parliament. See what I mean about the substance, Janet? Suffice to say, Wolfram old chap, I would trust Krugman a hell of a lot more than I would trust you. In some cases (admittedly few and far between), Authority has to be earned. Your approach is interesting - why believe anyone? You have unwittingly provided the answer, too. Namely that some people know what they are talking about, while pretenders, like yourself, are caught.

Others, like Spike 1, really ought to realize that there are multiple Nobel prizes. Al Gore did not win a Nobel Prize for physics. He won a Nobel Peace Prize. it is NOT the same prize. A Nobel Prize for Medicine is worth respecting. A Peace prize - not so much.

Me No Dhimmi,

What an interesting stand to take. Why don't you add the rest to it - that the Austrian School of Economics basically rejects the kind of mathematic modelling that most of the prominent economists use, particularly on this side of the ocean? Don't get me wrong, I agree with the Austrian School of Thought, but this diatribe against Krugman should be extended to all non-Austrian school economists, including pretty much all North American Economists. I guess you think Milton Friedman was wrong too?

Thoroughly amusing. Low on substance.

M.pygmy...."people read Krugman's books the world over"

true..and when i was a younker people the world over bought Liberace albums and grooved on the truth of them........but now we know whereupon 'Lee' sits on the Pantheon of Former Colossi...

so your point is ?

Me No Dhimmi wrote: "The fallacy, of course, is the idea that money not spent on consumer purchases but banked, is out of circulation."

Yeah, he made that same error in the Times editorial, too. I initially objected to that, but decided it was peripheral to the topic, so I excised the paragraph. The Nobel laureate actually seems to think that savings is a bad thing, but he's correct in thinking that government checks shuffled into savings have little short-term stimulus value.

If pygmy is so smart, why is he posting snarky insults in the comments section instead of writing his own opinions on his own blog?

I suspect the reason is that he has no opinions worth sharing. I mean, it's easy to hurl insults based on irrelevancies like the procedure for selecting Nobel prizes, but none of the little fellow's objections actually accomplish anything other than gratuitous insult or repetition of American Democrat talking points.

A) New York Times going out of business because of alternative media rather than its own loss of credibility? I'll give you 50% on that one. The Times, alone among American papers, had such a sterling reputation of journalistic integrity and excellence at one time that it surely would have survived as an institution even through the New Media deluge. The reason it's going the way of the rest of the buffalo is that it's reputation is spent due to blatant partisanship, and nobody considers it a worthwhile institution anymore.

B) The Nobel a true measure of excellence? Look, I don't know the procedure for selecting Nobel prizes, but I do know that along with Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz was selected for a Nobel for his work in proving that free markets don't get perfect information. I debunked one of Stiglitz's public editorials as well a while back (see http://bit.ly/Turx) and decided that if this is what the Nobel committees are rewarding, they probably have the same leftist bias as the Peace Prize committee. Krugman is widely read, yes, but I've never read a thing of his that I thought was correct.

You trust him? Gee, that's nice. I'll bet you trust Al Gore, too, another widely-heard, Nobel-prize-sporting buffoon who's provably wrong. I think you know as well as anybody here, popularity is not by any means a measure of correctness.

C) Angry conservatives? Perhaps, but then, I've noticed that leftists seem completely unaware of their own spittle-flecked rage, which is painfully obvious to the casual observer. For example, I can't take seriously anybody who denounces the "venom" of Ann Coulter but enjoys listening to Keith Olbermann, who is at least twice as venomous.

By the way, objective measures of public perception controlled for political orientation consistently show leftists to be a lot more angry than conservatives. They show conservatives to be a lot more moral, too, but that's a different conversation.

D) Sarah Palin, a 70-year-old heartbeat away from the Presidency? Aside from the obvious robustness of that particular 70-year-old, Palin is provably better qualified to be President than the oafish, inarticulate (yes, I mean that,) unprincipled, habitually lying, philandering, unaccomplished hard leftist the American voters selected instead. She's actually accomplished things; what has The One accomplished? Chauncy saves me from having to mention the speed-limit-range IQ of Joe Biden, and I'm just curious, how vociferously did you object when the Democrats nominated for Vice President a 3-year Senator with no other public service record, no administrative experience whatsoever, and whose fortune was built deceiving mourning women into blaming their miscarriages on their doctors?

You are aptly named, sir: small, uncivilized, uneducated, and attempting to communicate in guttural grunts, clicks, and squeals that are indecipherable by educated Westerners. I'm sure you'd do just fine digging grubs out of the Kalahari, though...

Awww, plumb bob, did I ruffle some feathers. I had a blog once, but I stopped updating it - something about having a "real" job.

A) Of course, I suspect you are on of those 'angry' folk who surfaces every now and then to tear into the comments of one or two people you disagree wiht. If you had actually gone through the thread, you would have noticed I only brought the selection procedures up after some jokers went and said FACTUALLY INCORRECT things about it. I threw in some facts. So sue me. Am I smarter than them? Probably not. Do I check my facts before I put them out? Yes. Gratuitous insult? I can hardly be blamed for the fellows here who don't know what they are talking about.

B) Its interesting that you should say that the Times is going off the rails beause of its own partisanship. I daresay none of the replacements, even BBC (which I only bring up because I mentioned it earlier), are free of partisanship. If partisanship was the sole source of bankruptcy, no major news outlet would survive. Alternative news is purely partisan.

C) The odd thing about debunking the Nobel Prize is that virtually every eminent economist has won it. Why would a left-leaning selection committee hand over the Prize to Milton Friedman and the likes. Ignorance is not an excuse here. You cannot criticize the committee for being left-leaning when it has lauded all the big names of the 'right'. Gratuitous insult? Hardly. All I am doing is putting forth some FACTS, which you will no doubt deem irrelevant.

D) And on the Angry Conservative bit, you are putting words in my mouth. I never said there are no angry leftists, nor did I make any mention of angry rightists such as Ann Coulter. All I said was that this site largely caters to an angry right fringe, and you have proven me correct, by debunking a Nobel Prize committee that you admit you know nothing about but which you deem inferior because it not managed to award both left and right-wing economists. Your chief problem with this award is that this award has also recognized the other end of the spectrum. I don't think Friedman felt insulted when people who opposed him completely won the award. But then again, he wasn't part of the angry right fringe that flocks to SDA. And I openly admit that there is an agry left wing that is as bad, or worse, than this fringe.

D) I don't recall saying anything about Sarah Palin. And I really don't care to weigh in.

"You are aptly named, sir: small, uncivilized, uneducated, and attempting to communicate in guttural grunts, clicks, and squeals that are indecipherable by educated Westerners. I'm sure you'd do just fine digging grubs out of the Kalahari, though..."

Gratuitous insults, perhaps? I am not in fact a pygmy, and I wonder what they did to deserve those insults, but then again, angry people lash out at whatever they can. I wonder if we'll ever hear from plumb bob again. Time to find another name, to hold on to

I will admit that Kate does put up a hell of a lot of interesting stuff. Its a shame its ruined by 'civilized educated westerners' such as Plumb bob.

yeah right M.pygmy....and Liberace sold millions of albums...he was big, pygmy....HUGE.....

but nowadays ?....not so much.....but back in the day he coulda won a Nobel prize dagnabbit......why, several times at White House galas he tickled them ivories for Presidents of the United States!

now all we got left is bittersweet memories....so don't make the same mistake WE made M. pygmy....don't put your faith in the latest flavour God.

Begley,

Are you Plumb Bob in disguise?

What would Liberace win a Nobel Prize for? Music? There isn't one.

You have an interesting attitude to life. Be an avowed contrarian because everything has a shelf life. Your only solution to everything is to reject it, be contrarian, and pat yourself on the back when it comes to an end. Not a very happy way to live.Whatever happened to living in the moment?

Me No Dhimmi: The fallacy, of course, is the idea that money not spent on consumer purchases but banked, is out of circulation. However, even people with a high-double-digit IQ and minimal life experience know that money deposited at the bank is loaned out to people who can put it to more productive use like entrepreneurs making capital investments which is the source of future wealth creation. It's not put in a vault (the bank equivalent of a mattress).

You need to get out more. Banks are rebuilding their capital bases, and loan volume is down significantly. In another thread, someone noted that roughly one-third of people trying to get financing for a new car get turned down. So, yes, banks ARE putting the money under their mattresses.

There's obviously something sick about a man who posts an insult in response to virtually every comment in a thread, and then taunts, "awww, did I ruffle some feathers?" when somebody points it out. Of course you ruffled feathers, moral pygmy. That was your goal. Narcissistic bullies live to irritate. That's a sad existence, I'm sure, but it appears to be yours.

A) Me, angry? Projecting, are we?

B) All partisanship is equal, eh? No such thing as "mildly partisan" versus "hyper-partisan?" No such thing as a reaction to partisanship where it never occurred before?

Besides, you observe "If partisanship was the sole source of bankruptcy, no major news outlet would survive." Few of them are, and if you'd read my analysis for content rather than for ammunition, you'd have seen that that's PRECISELY what I was arguing -- and observing that the Times could have been an EXCEPTION because of it's reputation.

However, since your goal here is ego-buttressing, I'm sure I'm expecting too much for you to actually respond to content.

C) If the Nobel committee has rewarded every major economist, then the award is worth nothing at all, neh? When everybody's special, then nobody is. I rest my case.

D) "I never said there were no angry leftists" is a chicken-shit, cowardly evasion to which leftists frequently resort. You implied that this "angry, conservative fringe" is something shameful, and clearly would exclude yourself from such shame.

It's equally clear that the description fits you better than it does anyone else here; the act of visiting a site where nobody agrees with you and hurling mindless insults at everbody is a common indication of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It looks to me like you need help. I'm completely serious.

E) The Sarah Palin comment was from philboyd, and I attributed it to you by mistake. Sorry.

F) After insulting everyone here, it's kinda tough to be taken seriously complaining about insults in return.

You've got nothing to say, pygmy, because you're only here to feed your damaged ego. Go get the help you need.