Paul Krugman Smoking Crack Cocaine

[enrieb]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8099408.stm

UK's economy is 'best in Europe'

The UK is in the best shape out of all the economies in Europe, according to a leading economist.

Paul Krugman, who won the 2008 Nobel prize for economics, said that the UK's economic policies had been "pretty good" and called them "intelligent".

The government also deserved more credit for its policies, he said in an interview with The Observer newspaper.

His comments come at the end of a week when the pound has risen to its highest level this year.

But Professor Krugman believes the earlier fall in the value of sterling may have helped the UK.

"The UK has achieved a lot of monetary traction in the way that no one else has through the depreciation of the pound. In effect, you've carried out a successful beggar-my-neighbour devaluation," he said.

"I think the UK economy looks the best in Europe at the moment."

The government's policies had managed to stabilise the banking system, he said.

He added: "If the government can hold off having an election until next year, Labour might well be able to run as 'we're the people who brought Britain out of the slump'."

[anonguest]

A well known liberal leftie speaking up for (perceived) liberal lefties. Big deal. Nothing to see here move along........

Edited June 14, 2009 by anonguest

[Stay Beautiful]

The Observer is over HPC like a rash today.

[HAMISH_MCTAVISH]

UK's economy is 'best in Europe'

Hmmm, who should I believe?

A Nobel Prize winning economist, or a bunch of crackpot tin-foil-hatters on HPC????

[Bloo Loo]

so, the banks ARE the economy.

I suppose he has a point.

and a strange set of priorities....or is he about to retire and is looking for a directorship or 10.

[CokeSnortingTory]

Hmmm, who should I believe?

A Nobel Prize winning economist, or a bunch of crackpot tin-foil-hatters on HPC????

You should never believe Nobel-prize winning economists. (Google 'LTCM' for verification)

[anonguest]

Hmmm, who should I believe?

A Nobel Prize winning economist, or a bunch of crackpot tin-foil-hatters on HPC????

I assume you are being sarcastic? (I'm always very bad on knowing when people are or are not)

I think, to be fair, the small handful of well written/articulate souls here on HPC who explained/warned sufficiently in advance of the now undeniable crash should be paid more attention to than all those Nobel laureates who did not!

Sometimes you just dont need a PhD in Meteorology to know if its going to rain tomorrow - you just need to get your head out of your books and computer models and just look out the window and apply some common sense!

Edited June 14, 2009 by anonguest

[The Spaniard]

Hmmm, who should I believe?

A Nobel Prize winning economist, or a bunch of crackpot tin-foil-hatters on HPC?

Who has the better track record so far?

[crash2006]

best in Europe at the moment

focus on that, it can look best compared to others but still be in crisis.

[enrieb]

Hmmm, who should I believe?

A Nobel Prize winning economist, or a bunch of crackpot tin-foil-hatters on HPC????

Argument from authority or appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative. The most general structure of this argument is:

Source A says that p.

Source A is authoritative.

Therefore, p is true.

For example when posters on HPC questioned the value of AAA rated securities, concerns were dismissed with appeals to the authority of the ratings agencies and government regulators.

I mean who would you believe 'teh government' or a bunch of crackpot tin-foil hatters???

[RajD]

Hmmm, who should I believe?

A Nobel Prize winning economist, or a bunch of crackpot tin-foil-hatters on HPC????

Which perfectly illustrates the depths of your ignorance...

[loginandtonic]

if he sits next to a stray dog in his local park, he'll find him gently nibbling through his beard for scraps of food,

although some dogs really dont appreciate that kind of scrounging off them

[Cogs]

The full interview is here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/ju...globalrecession

Relevant excerpt:

WH: In Britain, there is now a new consensus forming that the government's economic forecasts, which were roundly mocked at the time of the April budget for being wildly optimistic, could be right - that is, growth will start to resume in 2010, albeit at a very low rate.

PK: Well, the UK has achieved a lot of monetary traction in the way that no one else has through the depreciation of the pound. In effect, you've carried out a successful beggar-my-neighbour devaluation.

WH: So, the United Kingdom might actually get through this in reasonably good shape?

PK: Yeah. That's why I've been watching with an outsider's slight puzzlement, your bizarre political circus.

WH: Darling and Brown deserve more credit than they're given?

PK: If the government can hold off having an election until next year, Labour might well be able to run as "we're the people who brought Britain out of the slump".

WH: So your advice to the Labour Party is: hold steady.

PK: Probably.

WH: Probably?

PK: I don't know enough about the other aspects of politics, but I would guess that the option value is quite high that the economy might actually have turned a corner. That's unique. That's a uniquely British thing. None of the other G7 countries has anything like that.

Oh, this is the bit that is being quoted:

PK: I still think his economic policies have been pretty good. They really kind of lost their nerve on fiscal policy, but I do understand it's harder to do it here. I think the UK economy looks the best in Europe at the moment. I have no position on all of the crazy stuff. But I think the policies are intelligent. The fact of the matter is that Britain did manage to stabilise the banking situation. I'm not ecstatic, but I'm not sure I know what I could have done better.

Edited June 14, 2009 by Cogs

[godless]

Not a believer of Black Swans it seems

Krugman says that his interest in economics began with Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels, in which the social scientists of the future use "psychohistory" to attempt to save civilization. Since "psychohistory" in Asimov's sense of the word does not exist, Krugman turned to economics, which he considered the next best thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)

It would be fascinating to see Krugman vs Taleb in a debate

[Cogs]

Not a believer of Black Swans it seems

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)

It would be fascinating to see Krugman vs Taleb in a debate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of...erstellar_Trade

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Hmmm, who should I believe?

A Nobel Prize winning economist, or a bunch of crackpot tin-foil-hatters on HPC????

Krugman is a doctrinaire lefty. His roots lie in a less than salubrious part of Long Island. Everything he spews out is contaminated with political prejudice. I'm sure I could trawl up a nobel prize winning economist or 10 who would disagree with his nonsense. Though perhaps not publicly - Krugman tends to throw nasty insults at anybody who disagrees with him.

Edited June 14, 2009 by gruffydd

[Tonkers]

Not a believer of Black Swans it seems

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)

It would be fascinating to see Krugman vs Taleb in a debate

So believing in science fiction doesn't work? Try ecnomics.

What got this man respected? He's just krapping on in the article, did he really make a good an argument there, unless I glazed over and missed it.

[Bloo Loo]

So believing in science fiction doesn't work? Try ecnomics.

What got this man respected? He's just krapping on in the article, did he really make a good an argument there, unless I glazed over and missed it.

how did he get a nobel prize? Im sure McTacky would like one.

[InternationalRockSuperstar]

You should never believe Nobel-prize winning economists. (Google 'LTCM' for verification)

true.

[Cogs]

Krugman is a doctrinaire lefty. His roots lie in a less than salubrious part of Long Island. Everything he spews out is contaminated with political prejudice. I'm sure I could trawl up a nobel prize winning economist or 10 who would disagree with his nonsense. Though perhaps not publicly - Krugman tends to throw nasty insults at anybody who disagrees with him.

Kind of odd that the secret service didn't find this out before he spent those years (actually year...so maybe they did!) working for Ronald Reagan...

Edited June 14, 2009 by Cogs

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Stiglitz is a far more able economist than Krugman might ever be. A true intellectual giant.

http://www.josephstiglitz.com/

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Kind of odd that the secret service didn't find this out before he spent those years (actually year...so maybe they did!) working for Ronald Reagan...

"It was, in a way, strange for me to be part of the Reagan Administration. I was then and still am an unabashed defender of the welfare state, which I regard as the most decent social arrangement yet devised." - Paul Krugman.

I guess advising Reagan furthered his career? He wasn't 'obliged' to join his administration.

[anonguest]

Krugman is a doctrinaire lefty. .......... Krugman tends to throw nasty insults at anybody who disagrees with him.

Just like most other lefties who, shocked to discover that you actually have the temerity to disagree with their ideas, often resort to insults - rather than try and intellectually and rationally reason with you.

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Enron

Krugman was one of several economists who served on a panel that offered Enron executives briefings on economic and political issues. He did this in early 1999, before New York Times rules required him to resign when he accepted an offer to be an op-ed columnist in the fall of 1999. Krugman later stated that he was paid $37,500 for the consulting that required him to "spend four days in Houston", and that the fee was "rather low compared with my usual rates.".

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Daniel Okrent, a New York Times ombudsman, criticized Paul Krugman for "the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults." Okrent has also said that "when someone challenged Krugman on the facts, he tended to question the motivation and ignore the substance."[55] Throughout his career as a columnist, Krugman has been highly critical of what he regards as dubious economic ideas, such as: strategic trade and its main exponents, Robert Reich, whom he called "offensive" and Lester Thurow whom he called "silly"; protectionism, with attacks on Pat Buchanan on the Right and Ralph Nader on the Left; a return to the gold standard as promoted by editorial writers in the Wall Street Journal; and especially supply-side economics, which he described as economic "snake oil" in Peddling Prosperity. He has frequently been criticized in turn by exponents of these ideas; the journalist James Fallows spoke of his "gratuitous spleen," and Clinton Administration Undersecretary of Commerce Jeffrey Garten complained that "He behaves like someone with a massive chip on his shoulder."[56] Krugman's critics have also accused him of employing what they called a "shrill" rhetorical style.[28][57][58]

A November 13, 2003 article in The Economist reads: "A glance through his past columns reveals a growing tendency to attribute all the world's ills to George Bush…Even his economics is sometimes stretched…Overall, the effect is to give lay readers the illusion that Mr Krugman's perfectly respectable personal political beliefs can somehow be derived empirically from economic theory."[59]

Robert Barro has criticized Krugman's work frequently and Krugman has referred to him as "boneheaded".[60][61] A blog article by Krugman noting that the argument for short-run protectionism (during conditions of a liquidity trap and without a coordinated global policy response) "needs to be taken seriously"[62] due to the 2008-2009 world economic recession, even if protectionism would be "second-best", drew strong criticism from Barro, who accused Krugman of hypocrisy.[60]

Economist Daniel B. Klein published during 2008 a paper in Econ Journal Watch (of which he is the chief editor) that reviews and criticizes Krugman's columns for the New York Times. Klein contends that Krugman's "social-democratic impetus sometimes trumps people's interests, notably poor people's interests... Krugman has almost never come out against extant government interventions, even ones that expert economists seem to agree are bad, and especially so for the poor."[citation needed] Examples cited by Klein of policies on which, he says, economists are agreed, but which Krugman has failed to support include school vouchers, abolition of the Food and Drug Administration and abolition of occupational licensing. On the other hand, Klein lists these examples of government interventions that Krugman's columns have opposed: "rent control; US agricultural subsidies; international trade; [...] ethanol mandates and subsidies/tax breaks; NASA manned-space flight; European labor-market restrictions; and the Terry Schiavo case."[63]

Economist William L. Anderson has argued that Krugman's economic views are politically partisan and consistently promote a socialist agenda.[64] Donald Luskin of the National Review is another frequent critic of Krugman. He has argued that that "Krugman’s liberal agenda always takes precedence over economic principle."[65]

[edit] Enron

Krugman was one of several economists who served on a panel that offered Enron executives briefings on economic and political issues. He did this in early 1999, before New York Times rules required him to resign when he accepted an offer to be an op-ed columnist in the fall of 1999. Krugman later stated that he was paid $37,500 for the consulting that required him to "spend four days in Houston", and that the fee was "rather low compared with my usual rates".[66]

When the story of Enron's corporate scandals broke, critics accused him of having a conflict of interest and the job of having been a bribe to control media coverage, charges he denies, referring to it as "a game of gotcha" and "tabloid journalism."[67] He states that the payment from Enron did not "cause me to write anything I would not have written otherwise."[67] For one thing, he says, he was not a journalist at the time: "when Enron approached me there was no hint that a Times connection lay in my future. As soon as I shook hands with the Times, I resigned from that board."[67] Further, his "normal fee for a one-hour business speech in Boston or New York was $20,000 - more if the speech involved long-distance travel. The Enron board required that I spend 4 days in Houston";[67] thus the sum involved was not large, in his view. He says that in columns written before and after the scandal, he disclosed his past Enron relationship when he wrote about the company.[66][68] He was critical of the company: he was one of the first writers to argue that deregulation of the California energy market had led to market-manipulation by energy companies (in a column in the New York Times on December 10, 2000 called "California Screaming"); Enron was the largest in this market - "I have been criticizing Enron since January 2001, long before everyone else started bashing the company."[67][66]

He writes in The Great Unraveling that:

I was no more perceptive than anyone else; during the bull market years [of the late 1990s] some people did send me letters claiming that major corporations were cooking their books, but - to my great regret - I ignored them. However, when Enron - the most celebrated company of its time, lauded as the very model of a modern business enterprise - blew up, I immediately saw the implications: if such a famous and celebrated company could have been a Ponzi scheme, it was very unlikely that the rest of U.S. business was squeaky clean. In fact, it quickly became clear, the bubble years were both the cause and effect of an epidemic of corporate malfeasance. (p. 26)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman

No wonder this guy supports Gordon Brown!

Edited June 14, 2009 by gruffydd