Sunday, January 9, 2011

Paul Krugman: Dolt or Coward? Discuss

See, a wise man knows never to rush to make a judgment about a sudden event without having all the facts in hand.

“Is that a pussy,
or are you just glad to see me?”
Paul Krugman ain’t that wise man—all his strenuous pretentions to the contrary.

This is what happened: Representative Gabrielle Gifford (D-AZ) was shot yesterday, at a supermarket event with her constituents; she’s in critical condition, and likely her life changed irrevocably. Arizona District Court Judge John M. Roll was killed by the gunman, as was an as-yet unidentified 9 year-old girl.

This is a tragedy—and there is nothing intelligent that one can conclude from those bare-boned facts.

But Krugman? Oh, he doesn’t need boring old facts to get in the way of his conclusions!

In his blog post, “Assassination Attempt in Arizona”, Paul The Fool writes—
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.
This entire Krugman rant is based on the assumption that the killer, Jared Lee Loughner, was a right-wing nut.

But lo and behold!, the details coming out are that Loughner—far from being a right-wing nut—might have been a left-wing nut: According to a girl who knew him in college, Loughner was “left-wing, quite liberal, and oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy.”

Further details are emerging that Loughner likely was suffering from psychiatric problems that might—caveat, might—have rendered him delusional.

At this point, it’s too soon to tell about Loughner—

—but it’s not too soon to tell about Krugman: Paul The Fool immediately came to the conclusion that the shooting was a political act, and ran with it, long before he had the facts all in.

Compare this attitude of Krugman’s to, say, Glenn Greenwald: Both are equally liberal, but the difference is, Greenwald never flings shit until he’s absolutely sure of his facts.

Krugman just flings shit—and when he’s proven wrong, he makes the cowardly move: He quickly changes the subject, while silencing debate.

As the facts about Loughner started to come out, Krugman posted another blog entry on the health care legislation—then shut off the comments on his Arizona killings post with the following update:
Update: I’m going to take down comments on this one; they would need a lot of moderating, because the crazies are coming out in force, and it’s all too likely to turn into a flame war.
The real reason he shut off comments on his blog post is not because “the crazies” were coming out in force—Krugman shut off comments on his blog because the truth was coming out in force: His blog post was likely being overwhelmed by people pointing out that Loughner wasn’t some zombie under the Svengali control of Beck, Limbaugh, et al.—he was just a disturbed nut-case.

We all make mistakes—some big, some small, some private, some public. How we deal with our mistakes is the measure of our worth.

Do you see Krugman retracting his foolish proposition that the killer, Loughner, might well not have been swayed by Beck, Limbaugh, et al.? Do you see him doing the adult thing, and saying word to the effect that, “I might very well have jumped the gun, and made some inferences and drawn some conclusions which are not consistent with the facts”?

Do you see Krugman acting like a man? 

No you do not.

QED, Professor Krugman is not only a dolt—he’s also a coward.

This is an important quality, that we must understand about Krugman: His cowardliness.

See, a brave man—or at least a non-coward—can realize he is mistaken, stand up and say, “I was wrong.” A coward, of course, cannot.

Krugman wrote in his blog post about the Arizona killings: “Violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate.”

Why do you think he wrote that?

The answer’s easy: Since Krugman cannot defeat his opponents on an intellectual level—because his policy prescriptions are demonstrably wrong, and he lacks the courage to face facts and change his position—Krugman labels anyone disagreeing with his policy prescriptions as “creating a climate of hate”: Therefore, he justifies their silencing, because these people who disagree with him might be “violent”, might be “dangerous”.

So be forewarned: Krugman’s agenda is to identify those who have rational arguments that succesfully question his ideology as people who “create a climate of hate”. His strategy is to have those who disagree with him be identified with violence—and thereby create the excuse to have those people silenced.

Silenced permanently? Well, if Krugman had his druthers . . .

18 comments:

  1. G,
    Having a liberal or conservative bias affects ones ability to accurately assess events. Either side can fall into this mental trap. It's like a trader that once has a position in the market only looks for confirming information on their trade in spite of the position going against them. As well some of this is just noise.

    I recommend Douglas's books on Trading Psychology or Nassim Taleb's well known work.

    Remain unbiased is important.

    Jef

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  2. X,

    Good point—but isn't Kurgman's whole schtick that he's unbiased, and only going for the truth?

    And this obvious bias that he has—how has it affected his academic work? Can it be trusted, or was he looking only for things that would confirm what he already believed, but which might not be true?

    GL

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  3. Krugman has historically been a laughable douchebag. Anyone with two brain cells(that excludes anyone reading NY Times business/economics section) has never taken this guy seriously. Hes not a serious man..he's a fluffer for Keynes...credit to you for the analogy about B Delong being the fluffer...

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  4. I would personally place Beck and Limbaugh in the same toilet with Krugman.... Your narrative on Krugman is something that I do agree with, however this same narrative applies to Beck and Linbaugh as well... I would classify all three of them along with many other members of the MSM as political televangelist, pop journalist.... In other words "douche-bag, come-mierdas...

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  5. Krugman epitomizes the word "hack."

    I lost a all respect for the Nobel committee when I found out they had given him the prize.

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  6. Krugman like treasonous Greenspan are cowards who lack a moral compass. There is no difference between them and Manson or the Son of Sam, they lack an inner voice that guides most of us as to what is right and wrong.

    The rape and pillage of Ireland is meaningles to them. Stealing (e.g., Fed digitally printing, bailing out the elite (TBTF)) or leading us to war does not trigger any sense of remorse. That is why they can lie to easily. They are sinners to the core!

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  7. perhaps he watches a lot of movies; therefore has underdeveloped critical thinking skills.

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  8. Krugman will say whatever he thinks will fit his political view. Even his own blog commentators are starting to realize he is an academic clown.

    Interesting to read that the nearest he came to business was as an adviser to Enron...suffice to say the rest is history.

    “Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error”

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  9. Not long ago, Krugman was exhorting US officials to "get out the baseball bat" to force China to revalue the yuan. So of course he's both a dolt and a coward, but he also suffers from a clinical lack of self-awareness and was almost certainly bullied as a child.

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  10. Hey, he has a Nobel prize...

    Oh, but so does Obama, Gore, and Arafat.

    I forgot that doesn't mean anything any more.

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  11. I think he is just so drunk on academic hyperbole that he can drag his arguments in any direction he wants. Environment of hate? A right only issue? Please, Paul, I beg you to conduct a science experiment. Please attend an AGW conference and present a data based argument suggesting that you are not convinced AGW is occurring. or at least not as we currently are suggesting... If you live, I will be surprised. There is not a stronger hate than the environmental zealots. Earth First? There is no tolerance for any opposition. They would gladly kill to righteously defend their opinion. That is a left issue, friend.

    Ironic that he uses the words environment, climate, and hate all together.....

    I suggest we resort to those good ol' standbys of logic, data, and civilized discussion. But it is difficult to be logical when hyperbole is fundamental to the argument.

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  12. Yeah, three op-eds on nytimes today and all implicating political speech.

    Now, If you read more about the shooter, he is simply as crazy as they come. Can't even take a college class without coming up daily with shocking new ways to disrupt the class.

    But those cock impersonators over at the times are only interested in making political hay over this tragedy. Shameful really.

    Also a big fan of this new format.

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  13. Funny how the Fort Hood shooter wasn't viewed as a political or religious zealot of any sort by the MSM...

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  14. Krugman is an ass. I can't stand the guy.

    This site is extremely slow in my Firefox browser. In fact this is the slowest page I have ever been on with Firefox. Is there some funky new code here?

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  15. "It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose."

    --Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit, Princeton U. Press, 2005

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  16. OT, I like this site very much.

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  17. Both Krugman and Bernanke have a loony glint in their eyes and bright faces when photographed.Krugman is also panicking because he knows that once people become aware of the fact that there is no,one accepted school of economics.They will automatically follow the one that mirrors their own,common sense experience of the World: The Austrian School

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  18. Gonzalo,

    I realize Hourly G is currently hybernating, but will put this question out anyways.

    What is the deal with margin requirments on silver getting changed abuptly - USA and else where? Isn't that bad business to change the rules on customers without any notice? Are the changes a pseudo form of banking - like changing the interest rates after you already signed for a fixed rate on a home, and already moved into it?

    How far legally can margin requirments on silver or any other commodity get changed? Is there any competition out there for people to take their positions?

    Thanks from Kansas.

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Knock yourself out!

The cult of stability is a culture of death.