Niall Ferguson Goes Searching For Paul Krugman's Embarrassing "Childhood Trauma"

Update: Krugman's sociopathological (he welcomes the adjective - it "gets the public's attention") response to Bloomberg is below:

"My view is that I am indeed raising public awareness in an effective way -- because the crucial first step is to get the public's attention. We have a situation in which almost the whole political and media establishment is wedded to a pro-austerity narrative; as Ezra Klein pointed out recently, on fiscal issues reporters seem to feel that the usual rules about not taking sides don't apply. So anyone taking on that narrative has to be forceful about it."

"As for Ferguson: what a pathetic response. Notice that he is doing precisely what I never do, and making it about the person as opposed to his ideas. All I have ever done to him is point out that he seems to not know what he is talking about, and that he has been repeatedly wrong. I would never stoop to speculating about his childhood! If he can't handle professional criticism -- which is all that I have ever offered -- he should go find another profession."

"As for Mr. Rehn's complaint, I don't think he gets the meaning of the term 'personal attack.' I have never said anything about him as a person; I don't know anything about him as a person. All I have done is point out that he has been consistently wrong, and that he keeps making the same claims despite years of evidence refuting his propositions. Yes, I write colorfully, to get peoples' attention. But that's not a personal attack."

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Those who have a life outside of finance (or any for that matter), will be excused to know that the man who has done everything in his power to become the biggest laugh out loud joke in the economic establishment (that would be Paul Krugman obviously) at least for those who harbor an original thought and are not indoctrinated by absurd political bias, has been recently engaged in a very public spat with a bunch of other sad self-caricatures, in this case assorted pro-austerity Eurocrats (where the concept of austerity is anything but what it should be, i.e., cutting spending and hiking taxes as seen by the ongoing records in debt in both Spain and Italy) personified mostly by European commissioner Olli Rehn. Krugman has written down his thoughts, for those who can stand his illogical, megalomaniacal, self-aggrandizing Keynesian gibberish, on the matter in "Rehn of Terror [9]", and "Of Cockroaches and Commissioners [10]", while the European take of this sad economist who thinks that "this time is different" and massive debt is the only fix for what is a "massive debt" problem, can be followed here [11].

[12]

And so finally the man who has been taking ad hominem shots at his opponents for years, instead of actually challenging their ideas because his ability to engage in a logical, factual manner is non-existent at best, and utterly humiliating at best, finally and deservedly finds himself on the receiving end of public ridicule and mockery.

To wit:

Stephen Roach: "This style of personalizing attack journalism is not effective in going deep and important policy issues."

Olli Rehn: "I would rather comment on the analytical substance rather personal attacks."

But the best comes from Niall Ferguson who told Bloomberg TV the following:

"In my view Paul Krugman has done fundamental damage to the quality of public discourse on economics. He can be forgiven for being wrong, as he frequently is--though he never admits it. He can be forgiven for relentlessly and monotonously politicizing every issue. What is unforgivable is the total absence of civility that characterizes his writing. His inability to debate a question without insulting his opponent suggests some kind of deep insecurity perhaps the result of a childhood trauma. It is a pity that a once talented scholar should demean himself in this way."