Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The creator of the fake Krugman statement confesses!!

So, the perpetrator of the Hoax has come clean! One wonders if the Obama administration's Department of (In)Justice will come after him in the way they have gone after S&P for downgrading U.S. paper. (Yeah, the DO(In)J has another explanation, but politics is politics.

I do find it interesting that Krugman DID classify the earthquake and tsunami in Japan as possibly being "expansionary" events, so while he did not make the statements on the U.S. earthquake, nonetheless he has said similar things elsewhere. Say what you want, but Paul Krugman IS a practitioner of the Broken Window Fallacy.

No, I don't support forgeries, although I do remember that a lot of Democrats and assorted lefties did not condemn the use of forged documents against President Bush by CBS News and Dan "The Frequency" Rather in 2004. In other words, for some people, if a forgery is politically useful, then it is OK.

12 comments:

Major_Freedom said...

My favorite part in all this was how so many of Krugman's supporters came out to defend the faux comment.

It gives strong evidence that the comment is something Krugman would say.

William L. Anderson said...

I didn't see the defenders' comments. Could you put some up on this board, as I would love to read them?!?

Vince Bullinger said...

Check Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Libertarian/comments/jslkc/psychopathic_paul_krugman_laments_lack_of/ You'll have to read all of the comments. It's pretty good.

Anonymous said...

So does this show your blog as being on par with any random commenter on the Internet?

I hope you're keeping up on Krugman's blog, professor. I believe his "personal incredulity" post is just for your type. I've never seen you admit your model may not be right, but seeing as how you've not presented one to refute I guess it shouldn't be so surprising.

Mickey T. Hobart said...

Heh, funny. I almost feel disappointed that I failed to realize it wasn't actually Krugman...

nimrod said...

Please excuse my petulance.

But what the hell is wrong with you people? You’d think after all this time economics would be down to a science, with at least all the variables figured out, including the “emotional” aspects. Yet we still have PhD’s worshipping Keynes, and other PhD’s worshipping the Austrian school! Is it really that hard? I know that psychology had its fuzzy exploratory / debate infant years... But lately even they seem to have been settling around neuron connective plasticity with some genetic temperamental and environmental limitations, and stuff.

What can I do to help get this show on the road? Do we need to take some formal logic classes here? Are there enough good mathematicians? Is not enough known about adjacent or related sciences? Is being wrapped around the axle of ones own theories just too comforting and/or lucrative to let it all go in a quest for real truth?

And for the love of god, Major, have you been to Hotair to see their comments? There are so many people who believe everything they see in print I’m afraid to leave my house anymore.

Lord Keynes said...

"My favorite part in all this was how so many of Krugman's supporters came out to defend the faux comment."

What garbage.
By "so many", you mean about 3 people on this reddit tread:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Libertarian/comments/jslkc/psychopathic_paul_krugman_laments_lack_of/

am said...

No LK, I think he meant the original Google+ page (which appears to have been taken down).

There were dozens of Krugman's followers happily defending the statement.

Jason Calley said...

@ nimrod "Yet we still have PhD’s worshipping Keynes, and other PhD’s worshipping the Austrian school!"

Well, you are right that adherents of either school are wrong if they base their belief on hero worship. We need to examine the various explanatory models and see which ones make sense and give the most accurate predictions. In my case, for the last eight or ten years, I have adopted the Austrian interpretation. I am approaching retirement age and have a background in physics and math, but with a strong streak in history as well. Still, for decades, I could never get a grasp of modern economics. It did not make sense. It seemed to have too many holes in the reasoning, too many assumptions, too much hand waving. It was not until I ran across the Austrian School that economics actually (at last!) made sense. Having a good approach to economics also helps sort out the facts of history. I have a friend who is an expert on the Eastern Roman Empire. He was telling me about the extreme long term stability of the Empire. My question was "Tell me about their monetary system." I guessed the answer before he told me.

The point? Pretty much as you said. Don't support systems because of hero worship. See which system makes good predictions.

nimrod said...

So... What can the Job Creators, or the Gubmint, do in this recession (or not do) to get Say's Law (supply and jobs) rolling again?

Lowering taxes is good. But methinks we're running out of taxes to lower.

Anonymous said...

Considering Krugman made similar remarks about the disasters in Japan, I don't see why any of the keynesians would gloat. If anything, they should be embarrassed over someone exposing Krugman's faulty thinking to the masses.

Anonymous said...

If WW2 government spending got us out of the Great Depression as Krugman and keynesians believe, how about some surgical strikes throughout the US with B2 bombers? We could take out bridges, highways, neighborhoods, etc to really get the construction business booming again.