RoR: Forum

Post 0

Monday, October 13 - 6:29am

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This creep (a compliment I use advisedly) is of note for one reason - his opposition, from the che-mao-ist left, to everything Bush for the past eight years. If you have not seen him speak, he makes Jim Ignitowski look calm, and osama bin laden look benevolent. (Note the name on the book he's using to scratch his arse.)

Post 1

Monday, October 13 - 6:29am

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What a joke! He is the most incompetent excuse for an economist I have ever seen. Pick someone like Thomas Friedman, even though he is just repeating the same stuff he did before at least he came up with some decent ideas in the past.

Post 2

Monday, October 13 - 7:14am

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Prizes are always problematic. Having won several from the American Numismatic Association for writing -- all of my Nobel Prizes have been in physics -- and others from the Michigan State Numismatic Society and Women in Numismatics, I have to admit that while I surely busted my hump working hard on the ones I liked best, in the long run, I am not sure that my work this year or that was better than all others in the same window. Contrary, I am also pretty sure that in this year or that I did much better work than the prize winners. So, too, with the Bank of Sweden Prize. No one here complained about it having gone to Milton Friedman or F.A. von Hayek or Gary Becker or Ronald Coase or (my favorite) Robert Mundell[1].

On the other hand, the X-Prize is for something demonstrable.

[1] Mundell is my favorite because one of his papers footnotes on of mine, the closest I ever got to a Nobel Prize in economics. (See here.)

Post 3

Monday, October 13 - 7:47am

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The sad thing is that Krugman used to be a rational free market advocate. Many years ago Mr. Armaos and I saw him lecture for the New England Skeptical Society on how economics is one of the arenas where it is more important than virtually any other that we have a rational scientific assessment because it so directly affects our daily lives. He advocated free market economics quite clearly and at the time was the head of economics dept at BU. It seems like he pulled a Dr. Stadler once offered the job at the NYT.

Post 4

Monday, October 13 - 8:16am

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I think the prize should go to a faculty member at the University of Chicago one year, then to some third-world free market Marxist the next, and then to a columnist the next. Set that in stone and we never have to argue the merits of recipients, like Krugman, again.

However, that system is not in place yet and Krugman did get the nod for reasons difficult for me to understand. Figuring out that nations and companies with large amounts of capital will end up controlling markets seems like a good high school paper, but apparently it makes one eligible for recognition as an expert and front line economist too.

Perhaps the award was given for Krugman's work advocating the destruction of poor families and communities in support of government programs. Or, maybe, it was tossed his way as a 'thank you' for his work as an anti-Bush fanatic.

I'm not sure.

Post 5

Monday, October 13 - 9:58am

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All things considered, it well could be that last...

Post 6

Tuesday, October 14 - 5:22am

Tuesday, October 14 - 6:04am

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Thank you, Stephen - that was interesting... can see the early free-marketness in that, yet also see the usual notion that all governments are much the same and have little bearing on trade, and the other that 'one car is much like another car', which gives rise to trade restrictions...

Post 8

Tuesday, October 14 - 6:48am

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This from the Mises Institute ---

http://mises.org/story/3152

Post 9

Tuesday, October 14 - 2:07pm

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Ted, I got a good caption for the first picture of Krugman: "Leave Bond to me." :)

Post 10

Friday, November 7 - 10:49am

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Can anyone substantiate this from Tracinski:

"The most grotesque expression of the broken window fallacy was a Paul Krugman column in the New York Times shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks, in which he claimed that the destruction of the World Trade Center would stimulate the economy because of all the office space that would have to be rebuilt in lower Manhattan."

To think that Krugman could win anything other than the Michael Moore award for personal grooming....

Post 11

Friday, November 7 - 2:15pm

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Ted,
Here's a link to a column Krugman wrote:
http://www.pkarchive.org/column/91401.html
It may be what you're looking for.
Thanks,
Glenn

Post 12

Friday, November 7 - 3:40pm

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Yes, it is the article. You're welcome very much.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 11/07, 3:41pm)

Post 13

Friday, November 7 - 5:09pm

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Ted,

You are right - he has absolutely no grasp of economic principle. He really did talk about the demand for increased office space in Manhattan. Would someone please ask him and his cat to step outside of their home, just long enough so we could demolish it, thus creating new demand for the books he had, the furniture destroyed, the cat box disintegrated, and his lost wardrobe. How could he object to our stimulation of the economy?

Could it be those folks in Stockholm got the name wrong and no one noticed?

In that article he said, "...like the original day of infamy, which brought an end to the Great Depression..." He still buys into that old saw that WWII was the cause of the end of the depression.

sigh... In a rational society he wouldn't be able to pass Intro to Economics 101 for non-economics majors - not even the test at the end of the first quarter!

Post 14

Friday, November 7 - 5:22pm

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Do you oppose creating a demand for cats and columnists?

Post 15

Friday, November 7 - 6:27pm

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Ted wrote,

Can anyone substantiate this from Tracinski . . .?

One thing that I can substantiate from Tacinski is that he neglects to publish his monthly magazine for protracted months on end, with no explanation as to why. The last issue I received was the March 2008 issue (Vol 19, No. 12), which I didn't receive until the end of April. The previous issue, Vol. 19, No. 11, was published in November of 2006, a lapse in publication of well over a year. The current issue (Vol. 20, No. 1), I have yet to receive. I have no idea when it was supposed to have been sent. He no longer includes the date of publication on the cover.

When I email him for an explanation, I get no response. When I call him on the phone and leave a message, I get no response. He is evidently counting on the Objectivist faithful to overlook his ongoing failure to honor his contracts with them. But if he were the publisher of the Atlantic Monthly, for example, his subscribers would be up in arms.

Here is a leading Objectivist intellectual crusading for individual rights, while refusing to give his subscribers what they paid for. How he rationalizes that, I have no idea. Would you trust what he says in his magazine, without some independent verification? I wouldn't.

- Bill

Post 16

Friday, November 7 - 7:50pm

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I take it then, Bill, that you do not oppose "creating a demand for columnists."

Post 17

Saturday, November 8 - 2:12am

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One doesn't create a demand for cats - they do it on their own... ;-)

Post 18

Saturday, November 8 - 10:02pm

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I take it then, Bill, that you do not oppose "creating a demand for columnists."

Well, Ted, "creating a demand for editors" might be more accurate! ;-)