Paul Krugman

For breathtakingly stupid political ideas and catastrophic “solutions” to America’s biggest problems, it’s hard to beat the New York Times op-ed page.  There, joined by such jihadists of the Left as Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd, resides the peerlessly wrong-headed economist Paul Krugman, whose Nobel Prize was as well-deserved as the one Yasser Arafat received for helping to bring Peace to the world. Until yesterday, we might have thought Krugman had cornered the market for the absolute worst ideas on how to revive the economy.

In this very informative interview between The Browser and Peter Boettke, the professor of economics discusses the contributions made by the Austrian School, and explains the various nuances of the economic school by way of recent books by "Austrians." He also explains what we can learn from Mises and Hayek, and argues that economics is the sexiest subject.

When these two agree, look out!

We have now entered the fifth year of this Fourth Turning Crisis. George Washington and his troops were barely holding on at Valley Forge during the fifth year of the American Revolution Fourth Turning. By year five of the Civil War Fourth Turning 700,000 Americans were dead, the South left in ruins, a President assassinated and a military victory attained that felt like defeat. By the fifth year of the Great Depression/World War II Fourth Turning, FDR’s New Deal was in place and Adolf Hitler had been democratically elected and was formulating big plans for his Third Reich. The insight from prior Fourth Turnings that applies to 2012 is that things will not improve. They call it a Crisis because the risk of calamity is constant. There is zero percent chance that 2012 will result in a recovery and return to normalcy. Not one of the issues that caused our economic collapse has been solved. The “solutions” implemented since 2008 have exacerbated the problems of debt, civic decay and global disorder. The choices we make as a nation in 2012 will determine the future course of this Fourth Turning. If we fail in our duty, this Fourth Turning could go catastrophically wrong. I pray we choose wisely. Have a great 2012.

It just may turn out that Europe's strategic "plan" of kicking the can down the road indefinitely, or at least until aliens can come down and bail out the global central banking cabal - aka the Deus Ex Alpha Centauri plan - may have worked! In a rather curious announcement, the SETI website of UC Berkeley has announced that it has found signals that "look similar to what we think might be produced from an extraterrestrial technology. They are narrow in frequency, much narrower than would be produced by any known astrophysical phenomena, and they drift in frequency with time, as we would expect because of the doppler effect imposed by the relative motion of the transmitter and the receiving radio telescope." And in the off case that said aliens prove to have an atavism to rude European waiters, at least Paul Krugman will be delighted: after all there is nothing better for the economic voodoo shamans out there than intergallactic warfare. Then again, since Keynesianism appears to be a popular universal delusion, we wouldn't be surprised if it is us who ends up having to bailout them...

It is one thing (what thing that is we are not sure, but we have heard others say it, so like all good lemmings we will say it too) for Rick Perry to call Social Security a ponzi scheme. After all he is some crazy, foaming in the mouth conservative, as uber-Keynesian liberal Paul Krugman may call him. And that's fine. What confuses us, however, is why Social Security would be called a ponzi by the same liberal noted previously: none other than Paul Krugman himself.

We truly can only hope that this Google Plus account of Paul Krugman is merely a well-orchestrated parody, because if it is indeed that of the self-styled uber-Keynesian, the time for the public outrage, his economic beliefs aside, has arrived. In a blast post on Google's imitation of twitter and facebook, which should immediately result in the termination of the Nobel prize winning economist if it was indeed penned by him, this particular account of "Paul Krugman" writes: "People on twitter might be joking, but in all seriousness, we would see a bigger boost in spending and hence economic growth if the earthquake had done more damage." Translation...well it's pretty obvious, but for those laboring under the aftermath of a full frontal lobotomy, the person who tweeted this essentially yearns for his voodoo economic religion to be validated following countless failures of Keynesianism (no, really, after this latest injection of X^x *illion dollars into the economy things will really be well), at the expense of death and destruction. Even more poignant translation: "Krugman" would like nothing more than to put an equal sign between the death of a human being and its proportional GDP replacement value. What next: Krugman lamenting that only certain races end up getting killed in conflict, those whose replacement potential is too low, demanding more death? Or that X number of deaths would have been more stimulative if it was really XXX? This is about as close as we will get to a Keynesian admitting that reparations for death and destruction are the only two special clauses under which fiscal stimulus does work. Which of course means that with idiots such as the poster of the above who actually thinks this, be it Krugman or some of his countless voodoo brethren, and with their proximity to the president, the only logical explanation is that a war is coming, and is being welcomed by all these s[h|c]am "economists", for whom human death and suffering is a fair tradeoff in preserving their tenure or modestly-paid, liberal publication blogging jobs. If this indeed Krugman's account, it is imperative that the NYT immediately terminate this pathologically deranged and homicidal psychopath. Institutionalization in a mentally insane ward may be a proper subsequent action.

Hi GW, It’s been so long! I’ve been skiing like a madman down here in Chile—but I did catch something you wrote, which I’d like to comment on, now that a blizzard has hit the slopes and I’m stuck inside with not much to do. You wrote a post yesterday, picked up by Zero Hedge and others, pointing out that Paul Krugman is advocating war as a fiscal stimulus solution. You pointed out that this position he holds is not only blatantly immoral, it is a position Krugman seems to have no problem openly pushing—your unspoken implication being that this is disastrous, considering how influential Krugman is in major policy circles. With regards to K. pushing for war as the ultimate Keynesian economic solution: I hate to say “I told you so”—but in this case—I told you so! (Cheers, mate.)

No, Mr. Krugman ... war is NOT good for the economy!

Following last night's largely irrelevant and extremely theatrical vote for a clean debt ceiling hike, this morning 150 economists (of which those belonging to Ivy League institutions can be counted on one finger... the middle one) have signed a letter warning that "a debt limit increase without spending cuts and budget reform will destroy American jobs." Luckily, since a clean debt ceiling hike will have no impact on the BLS birth/death model, there is no reason to bother Paul Krugman with the fact that ever more of his peers think that those calling for endless fiscal largesse are now a part of the problem, and not the solution. From the letter: "An increase in the national debt limit that is not accompanied by significant spending cuts and budget reforms to address our government’s spending addiction will harm private- sector job creation in America. It is critical that any debt limit legislation enacted by Congress include spending cuts and reforms that are greater than the accompanying increase in debt authority being granted to the president. We will not succeed in balancing the federal budget and overcoming the challenges of our debt until we succeed in committing ourselves to government policies that allow our economy to grow. An increase in the national debt limit that is not accompanied by significant spending cuts and budget reforms would harm private-sector job growth and represent a tremendous setback in the effort to deal with our national debt." The full list of signatories is below. Among them are Nobel prize winner and Euro scourge Robert Mundell, John Taylor, Alan Meltzer, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, as well as former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz, and many more. Suddenly the idea of buying US CDS does not seem so outlandish.

A must read reply to that discredited shaman of voodoonomics, Paul Krugman, by one of the more notable proponents of Austrian theory, Mises Institute's Robert Murphy."As many readers already know, last week Paul Krugman linked to one of my Mises Daily articles explaining the importance of capital theory in any discussion of the business cycle. Although Krugman graciously described my fable about sushi-eating islanders as "the best exposition I've seen yet of the Austrian view that's sweeping the GOP," naturally he derided the approach as a "great leap backward" and a repudiation of 75 years of economic progress since the work of John Maynard Keynes. To bolster his rejection, Krugman listed several problems he saw with the Austrian understanding. In the present article I'll first summarize the Austrian (in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises) positions on capital theory, interest, and the business cycle. With that as a backdrop, I will then answer Krugman's specific objections."

"You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers." Paul Krugman

In attending a Paul Krugman lecture yesterday, we came away with two main takeaways: 1) the Perceived Wisdoms of academic dogma run rampant throughout U.S. monetary policy; and 2) Keynesians really don’t get it. - Hedgeye Risk Management

What can we say: Rick is one of the lucky ones. Of course, once we move beyond the sarcasm, here is what Rick Santelli says on the Krug's solution (and cause) to all of life's problems (that would be spend, spend, spend and then spend some more to the uninitiated): "How dare we take away their spending privileges, those chosen few with letters after their name who say the only problem with the medicine is that we didn't give a big enough dose." Luckily, Krugman already has set up the "Worst Economist In The World" column placeholder. We are just waiting for him to actually start discussing the most worthy candidate in the category....

Paul Krugman doesn't know anything about Austrian economic theory but he feels competent to criticize it. He has refused to debate the topic in the past. Now a top notch Austrian theory economist is challenging him to a debate. The lure: $100,000. Will he do it?