Yeah, and when Krugman expresses an opinion about business siting decisions (the area for which he got his Nobel in Economics) I will give him due attention and defer to his expertise. However, his opinions on macro-economic policy seem to have less basis in fact than my own and his policy prescriptions based on them appear to be materially harmful to the interests of the United States and the world economy.
He is as useless in the area of macro-economic policy, despite being an economist, as I am in the area of analytic number theory, despite my being a professional mathematician. Of course, were I to get a swelled head and start making ill-founded assertions about the Riemann conjecture, it wouldn’t potentially have a harmful effect on our economy, society, and civilization, the way Krugman’s inflated self-opinion about his macro-economic expertise could.
This statement reminds of a cartoon my grad school daughter sent me.
First Panel shows biologists and says, “Whoops we're wrong!”, next panel says .”Millions die from world wide plague!”. Another panel shows chemists and says, “Whoops we're wrong!”, next panel says ,”Thousands die from giant explosion!”. The next set of panels shows physicists and says, “Whoops we're wrong!”, the following panel shows the world disappearing into a black hole. The last set of panels show mathematicians and says “Whoops we're wrong!”, next panel says “ Great now I have to buy Fenster donuts for a week !”
Here's another that expresses my respect for mathematicians
I think what you guys do is so cool !