Posted on 10/13/2008 9:23:02 AM PDT by My Favorite Headache
Columnist Paul Krugman wins Nobel economics prize
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Paul Krugman, the Princeton University scholar and New York Times columnist, won the Nobel prize in economics Monday for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect trade patterns and the location of economic activity.
Krugman has been a harsh critic of the Bush administration and the Republican Party in The New York Times, where he writes a regular column and has a blog called "Conscience of a Liberal."
He has come out forcefully against John McCain during the economic meltdown, saying the Republican candidate is "more frightening now than he was a few weeks ago" and earlier that the GOP has become "the party of stupid."
"Krugman is not only a scientist but also an opinion maker," economics prize committee member Tore Ellingsen said. He added that Krugman's analyses tend to back free trade and his research gives no "support for protectionism."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
“His work on international trade, for which he won the award, is very influentially in the field of international economics.”
Obviously, nobody has read his stuff because the international markets haven’t been doing too well lately.
I think Gore got the Peace prize which is actually handed out by a Norwegian committee. It ha always been “political”.
We’ve known for eons this thing is a joke. So, let’s not worry about it.
We need to start one for conservatives!
But not as poetic.
;^)
I've read most of his assorted treatises, including the one the Nobel committee alleges is 'prizeworthy'. They are uniformly quasi-Marxist, and Krugboy is virtually the ultimate 'economist' advocate of state intervention in EVERY area of a nation's economy.
Who ya kiddin', Andy? Certainly not me, m'friend.
Looks like Nobel Prizes come in Cracker Jack boxes now.
Norway hands out the laughable ‘’Peace’’ prize. The other Nobels are all — if I’m not mistaken — handed out by the Swedish committee.
Since the explanation all has to do with the phenomenon of the effect of increasing returns to scale on trade, I am not sure what you think is Marxist about it.
“Gore, Krugman, Arafat...”
don’t forget Jimmy Carter
Three guesses. First two don't count.
Have fun, laddy!
I agree that is probably the argument for his prize. However, my point is that he has seriously damaged science and that, in my judgement, would reduce his suitability for the Nobel. I would balance his career work — if he made a significant discovery or advanced a new and explanatory theory, that would be diminished if his hobby was public dishonesty about matters that effect the lives of a great many people. I am not suggesting that is his situation, but if that was the case, the prize would be unwarranted. How could anyone determine where his honest science left off and his dishonest activities took over. Could you trust his research?
The paper as I read it is merely a description of Krugman's analytical contributions to understanding the observed patterns of trade and are does not discuss any policy prescriptions. I simply see nothing "Marxist" in the article.
You demonstrate the same lack of comprehension of how the scientific world operates as most people. You seem to think that a scientists work is relied upon as somehow being trusted and becomes some sort of gospel, prescription or recipe that is blindly followed, but that is never the case.
An influential scientist paper only becomes influential because other scientits read the paper and discovers that the paper provides a way of analyzing a problem or measuring a phenomenon that others had not thought of before. The solution demonstrated, however, other scientists will replicate that calculation or that experiment for their own purposes. Either they will verify the result, confirming the original paper or refuting it.
The only advantage that a scientist's reputation brings him is that his papers will be more broadly read than those of other scientists. It means that they are also more carefully scrutinized than other scientists, and if he starts turning out whacky or incorrect stuff, his reputation will vanish in meteoric splendor. A flash and then gone.
Folks don’t understand that this reaction to sound scientific achievement is why scientist despise conservatives. They think that conservatives are closed minded, ignorant bigots, and the closed minded bigoted conservatives conspire to prove them right.
Here is what Donald Luskin of the Krugman Truth Squad has to say about his prize ) :
KRUGMAN WINS THE NOBEL PRIZE The Nobel Prize is never posthumous — it is only awarded to living persons. So some great minds such as John Maynard Keynes and Fischer Black never received the prize in Economics. All that has changed. With today’s award to Paul Krugman, the Nobel as gone to an economist who died a decade ago. The person alive to receive the award is merely a public intellectual, a person operating in the same domain as Oprah Winfrey. And even as a public intellectual, the prize is inappropriate, because never before has a scientist operating in the capacity of a public intellectual so abused and debased the science he purports to represent. Krugman’s New York Times column drawing on economics is the equivalent of 2006’s Nobelists in Physics, astronomers Mather and Smoot, doing a column on astrology — and then, in that column, telling lies about astronomy.
But what’s done is done. The only question now is whether Krugman will pay taxes on the prize at the low rates enabled by the Bush tax cuts he has done so much to discredit, or if he will volunteer to pay taxes at higher rates he considers more fair.
Krugman has much to be faulted for, but not his work on international trade. It would be nice if just for once a criticism of Paul Krugman receiving the award would focus on the issue at hand.
(shrug)
Furthermore, I have long been familiar with Krugman's brilliance at creating simple mathematical models to explain complex economic behavior, which is what he is really famous for.
The Marxist view of his Times writings is dumb, and he discredits himself by writing that trash, but he is a brilliant economic analyst.
Maybe, if you are speaking of long ago work, before unhinged rage became the man's most defining characteristic. The bile he has been unleashing for quite a while is wrapped around his status as an economist and about economic topics. Everybody is entitled to political opinion, especially in a science so intertwined politics and policy. But do you ever remember Friedman or Galbraith red faced while declaring their hatred for anybody? If you had do you think that may have discredited their work?
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