Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Some Freshwater Saltiness

The navel-gazing turns nasty....

Paul Krugman's NY Times Magazine article "How Did Economists Get it So Wrong?" (see this earlier post) has generated quite a volume of reaction, usefully rounded up by Mark Thoma. Representing the "freshwater" school, John Cochrane is not happy. He asks "How Did Paul Krugman Get it So Wrong [.doc] ?" and part of his answer is:
So what is Krugman up to? Why become a denier, a skeptic, an apologist for 70 year old ideas, replete with well-known logical fallacies, a pariah? Why publish an essentially personal attack on an ever-growing enemies list that now includes practically every professional economist? Why publish an incoherent vision for the future of economics?

The only explanation that makes sense to me is that Krugman isn’t trying to be an economist, he is trying to be a partisan, political opinion writer. This is not an insult. I read George Will, Charles Krauthnammer and Frank Rich with equal pleasure even when I disagree with them. Krugman wants to be Rush Limbaugh of the Left.
Yikes. On his blog, a semi-response from Krugman.

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