Cyber-Stalking Paul Krugman
These days people like David Warsh, who used to write about how the New York Times's editors needed to hold Paul Krugman to "elementary standards of courtesy and fair play" now write that Krugman "turned out to be absolutely right [on the California electricity mess]. The industry’s conduct was the real story in California— 'looting' behavior every bit as shocking... as that of many bankers in the... American savings and loan crisis... And Krugman played the key role in alerting the rest of the world..."
So it seems like it's time for an update on Paul Krugman's principal cyber-stalker caballeros. How are they doing as it becomes more and more clear that Krugman was right about more and more things? I took a look at the top three, and pickings are slim:
Andrew Sullivan appears to be continuing his cyber-stalk, and attempted trashing, Paul Krugman. But the stalking and trashing is absolutely pitiful--he's clearly just going through the motions. Here are the last four examples:
October 16, 2003: BAD DAY FOR KRUGMAN: More people are getting jobs.
September 30, 2003: FINALLY, DIVERSITY: At the NYT, David Brooks writes about Paul Krugman.
September 30, 2003: And since I'm not part of the Krugmanian Bush-Is-Hitler/Nixon/Saddam crowd, I'll leave the hyper-ventilating to Josh Marshall until we know more.
September 30, 2003: Jeffrey Sachs , formerly sane Columbia University professor, joining the Krugman wing of the Democrats.
Note that Sullivan has absolutely no complaints to make about Paul Krugman's writings--how could he? Does he want to argue that the Bush administration was clear and straight with America on the reasons it went into Iraq? That Bush economic policy would not be better if it had been made by bonobos? That Bush social policy is a light unto the nations?
So he adopts a bizarre rhetorical strategy--that to call someone a "Krugman" is to call them something bad, but that he cannot be bothered to explain or even mention anything Paul Krugman has written that is wrong.
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Mickey Kaus appears to have given up his cyber-stalking. He hasn't tried to sink the knife in since June 12. But before he quit the business, his attempts had gotten as lame as Sullivan's--indications that Kaus simply wasn't listening when people patiently told him that extra productivity growth is a good thing when demand is (or can be made to) grow as fast as productive potential, but that extra productivity growth causes disappointingly bad news about employment when demand growth is insufficient:
June 12, 2003: Articles like Dionne's... suggest that... the latest Bush tax cuts will give Democrats--when they get back into power--more room to add necessary health care spending... [But] even Dionne--and Paul Krugman , who also got a column out of Obey's stunt--don't convince me that the second round of Bush tax cuts was a good idea.
May 8, 2003: Paul Krugman's Web-only explanation.... Why not make this a NYT column? [ Not partisan and dumbed-down enough?...
April 20, 2003: Paul Krugman... with high-status people who disagree... tones down his hyperbolic Bushies-are-evil last-angry-man foaming...
March 25, 2003: But wait. Wasn't it only five months ago that Paul Krugman was telling us rapid labor force growth was bad, because "an economy that is growing, but in which employment grows more slowly than the labor force... will feel like it's still in recession.".... [T]he favorable productivity trend, which Krugman describes as a dark lining, becomes more of a silver cloud -- boosting the overall wealth even a smaller labor force can produce?
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The last of the Three Krugman cyber-stalking caballeros, however, is still in there trying. National Review (motto: Joe McCarthy was misunderstood)-financed Donald Luskin, in between pushing books with titles like The Bush Boom (I kid you not), trying to forget that he has accused senior members of the White House staff of being members of a conspiracy to commit treason, and pretending to wax wroth at being accused of cyber-stalking (if he really does think Krugman has accused him of a felony, he's much stupider than even I thought possible), does keep trying.
In his latest, he attacks Paul Krugman for offenses like running a "campaign of lies, exaggerations, and sexed-up intelligence designed to fool the American people into thinking that America's federal budget deficit is a deadly threat."
Well, here's a (significantly overoptimistic) chart using the deficit projections from the Bush administration's last ("Rosy Scenario") budget submission:
Luskin's big problem is that Bush administration projections, using Bush administration forecasts of economic growth, assuming that the laws are what the Bush administration wants them to be--projections tuned to be overoptimistic with the return of "Rosy Scenario"--say that we are exactly where Paul Krugman says we are: the policies of the Bush Administration put the U.S. once more on the path to national bankruptcy in that they direct us to a place a couple of decades hence where the commitments of the government--to defense, administration of justice, the safety net, and the large elderly programs of Medicare and Social Security--will be far beyond the reach of federal revenues.
Because the Bush administration's long-run deficit projections are within shouting distance of everybody else's, Luskin couldn't challenge Krugman on the economics even if he wanted to (and knew how to: think of the economic skill and judgment of a guy who would start a mutual fund in 1999 must be). So he is in as bad shape (if much more voluble shape) as the others.
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So I think it is long past time to ask these three guys to simply shut up. And I proceed to do so. Andy: since you agree that Paul has the economics and the social policy right--and that your judgments of the Bushes were completely wrong--can't you just admit you were wrong? Mickey, doesn't the same apply to you? Luskin: can't you just stop taking up useless airspace? Nobody inside or outside the White House save you believes that we are going to grow our way out of the Bush deficits.
Think how much happier all of us would be if these caballeros would just leave the field clear for intellectual adversaries who might be closer to Paul Krugman's caliber... |
