Friday, February 06, 2009
About time
Paul Krugman won the Nobel prize in economics this year. Fair enough, but I always thought that his political and economic commentary is full of straw man arguments and personal attacks. He doesn't seem to understand the arguments of anyone who disagrees with him. Obviously, they must not disagree with him because he is obviously right, so they are sneaky and evil. I have been waiting for a long time for someone to say what Harvard economist Robert Barro just said:
"He said elsewhere that it was good and that it was what got us out of the depression. He just says whatever is convenient for his political argument. He doesn't behave like an economist. And the guy has never done any work in Keynesian macroeconomics, which I actually did. He has never even done any work on that. His work is in trade stuff. He did excellent work, but it has nothing to do with what he's writing about."
"He said elsewhere that it was good and that it was what got us out of the depression. He just says whatever is convenient for his political argument. He doesn't behave like an economist. And the guy has never done any work in Keynesian macroeconomics, which I actually did. He has never even done any work on that. His work is in trade stuff. He did excellent work, but it has nothing to do with what he's writing about."
