Paul Krugman Is The 'Mean Girl' Of Economics

Great article!

Reading Paul Krugman isn’t like reading most other economists. In a field whose notoriously poor track record in predicting the future (or even quantifying what has already happened) tends to generate a becoming modesty, he is utterly certain about everything. Breaking with the fraternal nature of the academic community, he is extraordinarily combative. Ever-snarky but never witty, his writing emits a sour smell of contempt.

Another way he stands out among academics: He repeatedly cites the authority of the mob as support for his positions.



This is an odd tactic for someone who would impress upon you the empirical rigor of his thinking. Like a Mean Girl given to saying, “Everyone is wearing wedges this summer” or “the in-crowd knows that animal prints are super-hot right now,” he is an alpha who is constantly looking over his shoulder to reassure himself that a pack is following closely behind. At times reading “The Conscience of a Liberal” is like a dip into the psychodrama of Teen Vogue or “Glee.”

Not long ago, Harvard economist Gregory Mankiw (who mentions Krugman solely in respectful, grownup terms, as one professional to another) published a thoughtful and reasoned defense of the most successful Americans, the so-called one-percenters. Krugman began his remarks with, “A number of people have already piled on to Greg Mankiw.” It was like writing,, “Did you know everyone is talking about how Emily looked fat in that Empire waist dress?”

With Krugman, it’s as if science (or even philosophy, to which economics bears more resemblance than some of its most notable practitioners can bear to admit) is subject to a vote. “John Boehner’s remarks on recent financial events have attracted a lot of unfavorable comment, and they should.” Toldja Isabelle was nasty, now it’s all over school.

Krugman says that there’s “Sad reading from British economic analysts these days — sad, that is, for anyone who likes to believe that evidence actually matters for policy.” Molly’s new prairie skirt is so pathetic, but only to anyone who cares about looking good. He writes, “Many of us wish that Obamacare were a simpler system, one that directly provided health insurance.” And many of us don’t. So what?

Arguing that tighter emissions standards will actually increase employment (!), Krugman wrote, “Everything you’re going to hear about the downside of the new regulations will be wrong.” Everything? One can say that in advance? Is that how science works? Don’t be fooled by the whole Allison crowd, even if they look on-trend to you I’m telling you they’re really not. On warnings that the Fed might unleash inflation, “Those of us who had studied Japanese experience…shot back that this was foolish.” On Greek austerity, “Just about all of us on the Keynesian side were warning, loudly” against it. On The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz’s opposition to New York City’s new bike-sharing program, “Like many of us, Atrios is still having fun with the hysterical WSJ screed against rental bicycles.” Us, us, us. There’s lots of us. Don’t you want to be one of us?

Attacking a conservative healthcare-policy analyst, Avik Roy, who pointed out the obvious fact that healthy young people are going to pay higher insurance premiums under ObamaCare, Krugman wrote, “The point Jonathan Cohn, Ezra Klein, and yours truly are all making here isn’t just that Avik Roy is wrong; it is that Avik Roy’s side of the debate is not arguing in good faith. Obviously fraudulent arguments get made; get knocked down; and soon pop up again.” This is less an argument than a character attack. Pssst…Ashley slept with the entire lacrosse team, everyone is saying so, don’t be her friend anymore.

Krugman went on doggedly, not to say fiercely, “If someone says the sky is green, you prove that it’s actually blue, and the next day he comes back once again insisting that the sky is green, and this happens repeatedly, you eventually have to acknowledge that mannerly debate about the color of the sky just isn’t enough; you have to go meta, and talk about the fact that this guy and his friends just aren’t in the business of honest discussion.”

In fact, as Will Wilkinson pointed out while refereeing the matter for The Economist, Roy’s reasoning was in fact “sober” and “nobody actually disagrees about any of these facts, as far as I can tell. So why not be frank about the fact that Obamacare is going to stick it to the young and healthy on the individual market?”

There are other teenage aspects to the eminent economist’s work. He employs a strangely forced idiom of adolescent casualness that clashes like polka dots with zebra stripes against the polysyllabic jargon of his trade. He has written, ”Stuff is happening…the European Commission is sorta kinda relaxing its demands for austerity.” He has said he was “jet lagged up the wazoo” (You won’t find many wazoo references in Robert Samuelson’s work), remarked that, “It’s news to me that demand curves turn vertical at low prices, but whatever” and noted that “Joe Stiglitz is an insanely great economist.” Well, which is it: Is Stiglitz insane or is he great? Is he kinda sorta both? Whatever! Oh my God!

Krugman also deals out a lot of high-school sarcasm. On Britain opting out of the Euro: “the decision was made on the basis of — gasp! — actual analysis.” On what he sees as a flawed take on inflation by conservative blogger Erick Erickson: “OK, this is awesome.” And as a generalized slap at all opponents of President Obama, any failure on whose part must be purely imaginary, “It is after, all what should be happening with atheist Islamic socialists in power, so it must be happening.”

Much of Krugman’s energy is directed at devising cute nicknames for the various kinds of fools he despises. Just in the past few weeks, he has lashed out at: “Dead enders,” “Derpistan,” “farbissen” thinkers (they’re the ones who want others to be unhappy) the “always wrong club,” “fanatical minorities,” “hard money men,” and “Macroeconomic hippie-punching.” Opponents of tying up more of Manhattan’s already snarled traffic in order to make more room for bicycle enthusiasts who habitually ignore red lights? They must all be loons who thinks of two-wheeled transport as “Islamic bikes from Hell.” See how name-calling works? Once you start questioning your opponents’ character, honesty or motives, you assume they’re doing the same. That leaves you free to ignore their best arguments. Krugman has actually called George Will “crazy.” (And not crazy-good, like Joe Stiglitz.)

But, hey: What do I know? I’m merely part of what Krugman calls, personalizing what isn’t personal, “the fairly large anti-me industry,” as if I oppose him personally, maybe because he spilled punch on me at the prom, instead of his statist ideas. But his personal attacks are really, if you listen closely, just honest analysis: “By the way, I’m sometimes accused of making ad hominem attacks because I say that so-and-so is making a dishonest case for such-and-such a policy.” I only called Megan a lying beeyotch because she is one.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kylesmi...s-paul-krugman-is-the-mean-girl-of-economics/

 

And Ricter worships this asshole?

 

After reading the article, I'm convinced Ricter tries to emulate him.

 

Nobody should pay any attention at all to Krugman.

On his best day, he's a butt-sniffer.

 

in my kids language.

he bossed him up.
Or he took krugman down like a boss.

the boss reference is to the toughest rivals in video games.