Comparative Advantage: How Paul Krugman became the most important political columnist in US [BARF]

The Washington Monthly ^ | December 2002 | Nicholas Confessore

[Timesink]

These days, however, there's a good market for journalists willing to be a little relentless when it comes to the Bush administration. Of course, Krugman, like any good economist, knows that in most markets the biggest profits come from having some sort of monopoly. But mon-opolies don't endure; competitors always arise. Right now, when it comes to analyzing the intellectual underpinnings of the Bush administration, Krugman has no competition. But as is usually the case, it might be better for everyone else if this particular monopoly didn't last.

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They'll never learn. They're completely incapable of critizing anyone as long as they're a RAT and/or a liberal, no matter how damaging they might be to "the cause."

Which is great for us, of course.

[All typos are directly from the original article, not introduced by me.]

[sauropod]

Whoever the reporter was that did the piece, is a complete Krugman-rumpkisser!

Shameless.

[RippleFire]

His intellectual prowess is somewhat limited by his inability to get his facts straight. Of course, he could just be a dishonest liberal columnist.

[RippleFire]

Hold my thought alert!

[free me]

From Opinionjournal.com's "best of the web" today...


Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman is upset that so many prominent people's children are in positions of political influence:

Just ask the Bush brothers. Talk to Elizabeth Cheney, who holds a specially created State Department job, or her husband, chief counsel of the Office of Management and Budget. Interview Eugene Scalia, the top lawyer at the Labor Department, and Janet Rehnquist, inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services. And don't forget to check in with William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and the conservative commentator John Podhoretz.

To be precise, Krugman is upset that so many prominent Republicans' children are in positions of political prominence. He doesn't mention Al Gore, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Patrick Kennedy, Jesse Jackson Jr., Nancy Pelosi, Harold Ford Jr., Richard M. Daley, Bill Daley, Andrew Cuomo or Evan Bayh. Well, actually, he does mention the Kennedys in passing, but only to say things were much better in their day:

It wasn't always thus. The influential dynasties of the 20th century, like the Kennedys, the Rockefellers and, yes, the Sulzbergers, faced a public suspicious of inherited position; they overcame that suspicion by demonstrating a strong sense of noblesse oblige, justifying their existence by standing for high principles. Indeed, the Kennedy legend has a whiff of Bonnie Prince Charlie about it; the rightful heirs were also perceived as defenders of the downtrodden against the powerful.

Here's an example: The Washington Post reports that Sen. Ted Kennedy called US Airways "to rescue the jobs of the two women employed there, according to Kennedy spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter":

The two employees worked for the airline's Executive Services, which zips important travelers (including some lawmakers) through Reagan National Airport, minimizing the hassles faced by other travelers and providing a secluded waiting room, away from the masses--and from business travelers, for that matter.

That service was canceled Oct. 29, but it was reinstated almost two weeks later, after a telephone call from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a beneficiary of the three-year-old service.

Teddy Kennedy, the Young Pretender.

[Leto]

Let's net this out, the Guy hates Bush, has an economic degree, can walk and chew gum at the same time, additionaly he doesn't drool on himself.....Yep that qualifies him as a genius and deep thinker with the Liberial media.

[Timesink]

Whoever the reporter was that did the piece, is a complete Krugman-rumpkisser!

Well, the Washington Monthly is practically a house organ of the Democratic Party...

[Timocrat]

Stein, who majored in economics in college, accused Krugman, a likely future Nobel laureate

If this happens we'll know it's gone the way of the peace prize. This idiot wrote a piece about Bush and the University of Texas endowment fund. He got his "facts" completely wrong.

[ReleaseTheHounds]

It's not immediately clear why. Krugman is a pretty good writer, but not a great one. He's adept at explicating numbers and statistics in clear English, but he's not a stylist like Dowd or the The Washington Post's Michael Kelly. Krugman isn't well-connected in Washington; in fact, he almost never leaves the environs of Princeton University, where he has taught economics since 2000.

This idiot author neglects to include "and Krugman is rarely right in any of his analyses or assertions."

He's from that Princeton school of economists who think that raising the minimum wage has NO negative impact on entry-level employment levels. And all their supporting research turned out to be tainted and unsupportable but they've never changed their opinion.

This brings to mind George Will's recent wonderful quote (referencing Algore's revisionist history of the Florida recount): "He is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."

[Leisler]

Murray Kempton would kick his.....

[Gunslingr3]

Krugman invariably prefers state control of the economy over the markets (that is to say, over individuals setting and enacting their own priorities as they see fit with their time and earnings). The New York Times picked him as their columnist on economic matters only because Stalin's economists didn't survive Lubyanka.

For a few mentions of Krugman's 'wrongs' check any of these articles:

Bush, Krugman, and the Market

Forced Labor and the Left

Krugman and Taxes

Contra Krugman

Is Terror Good for the Economy?

Price Controls, Again

Keynes the Great?

Keynesian Confusions

Blind Faith in Government

Inequality Serves a Social and Economic Purpose

[Lee_Atwater]

...he was acclaimed as the heir to John Kenneth Galbraith

Does Krugman really want that crown?

[finnman69]

I think it was Ann Coulter who said(but im not sure)
"Paul Krugman is the only economist I know who is anti freemarket"

[Dog Gone]

If Dowd could win a Pullitzer a couple of years ago, Krugman is certain to win the Nobel. You have to be a commie symp who is anti-Bush to be considered, and Krugman leads the pack.

[PianoMan]

Liberal Media Circle Jerk Alert!

Krugman lost all his credibility in economics when his column was awarded "most partisan in America" by an independent group. Only a socialist outfit like WM could possibly think this was a statement in favor of a column.

[altayann]

I beg to differ. Krugman's been right on far too many occasions.

For example, he was one of the first people to suggest that perhaps the Internet boom wasn't quite what it appeared to be. I can remember articles of his suggesting that it was odd that the productivity gains the computer revolution was supposed to be bringing about didn't seem to be showing up in the economic data.

[altayann]

Are you insane? Or just plain lazy?

Winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics:

1991: RONALD H. COASE for his discovery and clarification of the significance of transaction costs and property rights for the institutional structure and functioning of the economy.

1976: MILTON FRIEDMAN for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy.

1974: GUNNAR MYRDAL and FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON HAYEK for their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena.

Please call these guys commie sympathizers. I dare you.

[Dog Gone]

Times change, and Nobel committees change as well. Deal with it.

[jwalsh07]

Krugman was once a good economist. Now he is a braindead follower of the left. I follow his columns closely and they are atrocious. Inuendo, half truth's and mistruth's are Krugmans current coin of the ralm.

He is a lost soul wandering in Marxworld.

[jwalsh07]

Krugman was once a good economist. Now he is a braindead follower of the left. I follow his columns closely and they are atrocious. Innuendo, half truth's and mistruth's are Krugman's tools of the trade.

He is a lost soul wandering in Marxworld.