I think Krugman fans just like to bask in the intellectual glow they believe he possesses and show their support. I wouldn't be surprised if many of them don't bother to read his articles beyond the first paragraph or two before dutifully giving it a heart and moving on.
Chris change your name and go comment the hell out of him. No, wait. You keep writing for us, and we’ll go comment the hell out of him. Although I’m not sure I have the stomach for it. Yeah. Better leave him alone with his cats.
He started it in 2021, and hasn't posted since March that year until yesterday.
I'm not very familiar with Krugman as an economist but from skimming a post there, he reads as a classical "Has read Keynes but failed to understand him"-economist?
"The case for debt-financed infrastructure" is a huge red flag, for me. Debt-funded /might/ work, and that's a conditional and tentative "might"; debt-financed leads to disaster as the cost of keeping things running will escalate towards bankruptcy, every time.
“Debt financed infrastructure” is good or bad depending on the revenue to be derived from the infrastructure. The Harris County Toll Road Authority (home of Houston) was created to build toll roads away from local jurisdictions’ ability to screw with the finances. They’ve built 4 major ones that rake in HUGE revenue and easily satisfy the debt service. That’s ALL the HCTRA does – it has no conflicting priorities.
Debt incurred to build EV charging stations of unknown numbers and locations, and $42B incurred (and spent) to build “rural high speed internet” (of which none has been installed this go-round) are just thinly-veiled theft.
Of course, there’s the Ohio Turnpike example: The State issued toll-financed bonds to pay for the turnpike in the early ‘50s, and the Feds required Ohio to terminate tolls when the bonds were to be eventually retired in exchange for the Feds including the Turnpike In the Interstate system. That retirement occurred in 1980, but strangely the tolls continue to this day. It seems Jimmy Carter permanently waived that requirement. Oddly, when the Feds started picking up 90% of repair & maintenance costs, the tolls didn’t decrease.
As a conservative, you have to pick your horse and then ride it. If government is too big and encroaches on private enterprise, then we can’t complain when discrete projects are carved off into separate entities and made to self-finance. Each new project, if economically viable, is one fewer thing from which the ”legislative function” (city/county/state) can siphon money to finance 🐂💩 causes.
I've been driving from Miami to the Carolinas since the mid 1980s. Florida always has road construction. I'd be happy to pay tolls in the Carolinas if the Governors focused on road construction.
My trophy, a Mercedes CLK320, was abused by the horrible roads throughout South Carolina. Potholes and shitty patches destroy the vehicles, especially the low riders.
As a corollary to my previous reply, if infrastructure is not debt financed, what is the alternative? Paying cash?
I think a state/local entity sitting on an unencumbered pot of cash in the hundreds of millions or low billions in preparation for a major project would be perfectly safe, don’t you? Al Sharpton & his moral ilk would have no inclination to try to get a slice, nor would elected officials to hand some out to donors. (Sorry/not sorry for the sarcasm)
Americans, compared to everyone else in the world, are very optimistic about a lot of things. What they are NOT optimistic about are the elites that run the Regime, nor are they optimistic about the Regime (for all the reasons you enumerated).
Krugman’s basic issue is that he thinks he is one of the elites and that he had a seat at the table of the Regime and as such it is beyond his ability to see, or imagine, that We The People don’t hold him or anyone like him in high regard. In fact, we loathe the Krugmans of the world. That does not compute for people like him. And, our optimism is inversely proportional to the number of Krugmans that have a seat at the Regime’s table. Get out of our way and see how optimistic we can be.
"Alcohol-Induced Deaths Still Much Higher Than Before Pandemic.
Since 2020, alcohol-induced young adult deaths have fluctuated from one quarter to the next, but have remained elevated. As a result, the number of such deaths in 2023 was 53 percent higher than in 2019."
And people like Krugman wonder about trust in experts?
I doubt Krugman could put the economy and alcohol-induced-deaths together to come to a relevant conclusion. Krugman is so lost in theory that he is incapable of identifying cause and effect.
Krugman has been wrong on everything he has ever written Reality is the exact opposite of what Krugman thinks. The fact that this fool got a Nobel prize tells us that Nobel Prizes are worthless. The fact that the NYT allowed him to write such wrongheaded pieces for 20+ years and Princeton University allowed him tells us that neither the NYT nor Princeton have any credibility whatsoever left.
Not directed at you, personally, but I would like to say that there's no Nobel Prize in economics. Alfred Nobel, as did most in his time, didn't regard economics as real science but as accountancy dressing up as ideology.
The prize in economics is a prize instituted by the state bank of Sweden, awarded in "the memory of Alfred Nobel" - essentially, the prize is "stolen valour" riding the coat-tails of the real one despite having nothing to do with it.
But media being lazy has led to even most of us here thinking there's "Nobel Prize in economics".
Problem is that mainstream economists are generally quite numerate, Krugman and Stiglitz exceptionally so. It seems that the part of the brain that facilitates calculation is quite distinct from the part associated with general intelligence. A lot of idiots can calculate, but not figure!
In short, the mathematical ability of an economist is no more a guarantor of intelligence than a dog's exceptional sense of smell is, and I doubt that Krugman has an exceptional sense of smell.
“…economics [not] as real science but as accountancy dressing up as ideology.”
As a 45 yr CPA, I take unlimited umbrage in being compared to an economist. I deal in FACTS, while economists are slaves to the phrase “But on the other hand…”
Uhm, well. . . It was meant as showing accountants in a more favourable light than economists.
I'll blame "lost in translation": In Swedish, you can use "ekonom" for economist and accountants both (though a CPA is always referred to as "auktoriserad revisor" - authorised accountant; a protected title you have to qualify for with quite a high bar to clear).
Swedish phrase: "You know you're successful when you have to hire an authorised accountant to do your taxes"
At least in the U.S., establishing one thing’s value by comparison to another that’s horrible is known as “damning by faint praise.”
I apologize that I didn’t convey my intended humor – my “umbrage” is manufactured. I’m aware that “CPA” doesn’t rate very highly on the “scintillating personality” index.
We don't have that idiom - I've seen it in writing of course. Wonder we don't have any equivalent to it? Closest I can manage in Swedish is just a coarse phrase:
"Det var ju också en djävla jämförelse!"
"That's one Hell of a comparison!"
which doesn't convey anything of the same nature in either language, does it. (And the translation is iffy: "djävla" means "of the Devil" as "Djävul" means "Devil", and "Djävulen" The Devil" - a centuries-old "swedification" of Diavoli/Diaboli.)
A cashier, a CPA, and an economist apply for a bank job. They all have to advise the banker on what to do with fractional cents. The cashier says “you either have a penny or you don’t, truncate”. The CPA says “in a longer view the fractions will accumulate, round”. The economist lowers the blinds and locks the door before whispering, “what do you want to be a penny?”
Actually he received it b/c he was “Not Bush.” Biden would receive a “Not Trump” Nobel Peace Prize (despite Trump bringing the ME the Abraham Accords) except that he’s brought the world to the brink of WWIII.
When one remembers that Krugman views himself and his circle as ‘center ring’ Elite, the caterwauling about the vulgar Lumpenproletariat is revealed as mere post election wound-licking. You didn’t listen to your betters, America! I shall slam the door as I dramatically walk out! ( and then try to return to my podium in six months)
The thing I've never understood about Krugman is what an utter mediocrity he is. How did he retain an editorial perch at the NYT for 25 years? If he were writing things I agreed with I'd find him an embarrassment. Prime journalistic real estate handed over to a nonentity. Lifeless prose, predictable positions, no sense of humor, no literary flair. A little gray man, tethered to the Gray Lady.
Maybe the Gray Lady is cleaning out the corners to open up room for columnists that realize 50 percent of the country is not as far left leaning as the average Antifa member.
No not likely, but all that is required is a couple of open minded billionaires that need a vanity project to fill their weekends some new management and presto……
Their business model depends on being a mouthpiece for government and big Pharma. If not for those subsidies from the CIA and Pfizer, would they even have a business model?
Your claim is simply untrue. Their business model now primarily depends on getting subscriptions from well-to-do leftists.
Sure they get *some* advertising revenue from Big Pharma. But there is no evidence suggesting this is a major portion of their revenue - advertising in its entirety is no longer the biggest portion of their revenue.
And I defy you to show ANY evidence of material subsidies from the CIA.
They are a mouthpiece for big government because a) that is the ideology of all who work there and b) that is the ideology of most of their customers.
Two words: Good. Fucking. Riddance.
OK, three words.
If the New York Times needs the cash, I'd pay a dollar to kick him in the seat of the pants on the way out.
He just started a substack rofl
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-fraudulence-of-waste-fraud-and
Noooooooooooooo no no no no no
Uggghh almost 1000❤️over on that stack 🤮… 🤡
Bro. You forget that most people, that would read his BS, just aren't that bright.
True. But what a chance to be a productive troll it gives me.
Almost 1,200 hearts at this point, but fewer comments than on this article. Have bots come to Substack?
I think Krugman fans just like to bask in the intellectual glow they believe he possesses and show their support. I wouldn't be surprised if many of them don't bother to read his articles beyond the first paragraph or two before dutifully giving it a heart and moving on.
Omg I just put a bunch of 🤮🤮🤮and above me some fag said “Dr. Krugman, I’ve always been a fan..🤢🤮
Hey, let’s coordinate a time to “post” on his loser page!
How many of those votes are even real? Looks like reddit-style bot-voting.
Chris change your name and go comment the hell out of him. No, wait. You keep writing for us, and we’ll go comment the hell out of him. Although I’m not sure I have the stomach for it. Yeah. Better leave him alone with his cats.
Those cats need rescue.
No!
Made me go look at it.
He started it in 2021, and hasn't posted since March that year until yesterday.
I'm not very familiar with Krugman as an economist but from skimming a post there, he reads as a classical "Has read Keynes but failed to understand him"-economist?
"The case for debt-financed infrastructure" is a huge red flag, for me. Debt-funded /might/ work, and that's a conditional and tentative "might"; debt-financed leads to disaster as the cost of keeping things running will escalate towards bankruptcy, every time.
“Debt financed infrastructure” is good or bad depending on the revenue to be derived from the infrastructure. The Harris County Toll Road Authority (home of Houston) was created to build toll roads away from local jurisdictions’ ability to screw with the finances. They’ve built 4 major ones that rake in HUGE revenue and easily satisfy the debt service. That’s ALL the HCTRA does – it has no conflicting priorities.
Debt incurred to build EV charging stations of unknown numbers and locations, and $42B incurred (and spent) to build “rural high speed internet” (of which none has been installed this go-round) are just thinly-veiled theft.
Of course, there’s the Ohio Turnpike example: The State issued toll-financed bonds to pay for the turnpike in the early ‘50s, and the Feds required Ohio to terminate tolls when the bonds were to be eventually retired in exchange for the Feds including the Turnpike In the Interstate system. That retirement occurred in 1980, but strangely the tolls continue to this day. It seems Jimmy Carter permanently waived that requirement. Oddly, when the Feds started picking up 90% of repair & maintenance costs, the tolls didn’t decrease.
Only problem is the self fulfilling need to exist on toll road authorities. A problem on a few bridges in Florida. Personal experience.
As a conservative, you have to pick your horse and then ride it. If government is too big and encroaches on private enterprise, then we can’t complain when discrete projects are carved off into separate entities and made to self-finance. Each new project, if economically viable, is one fewer thing from which the ”legislative function” (city/county/state) can siphon money to finance 🐂💩 causes.
I've been driving from Miami to the Carolinas since the mid 1980s. Florida always has road construction. I'd be happy to pay tolls in the Carolinas if the Governors focused on road construction.
My trophy, a Mercedes CLK320, was abused by the horrible roads throughout South Carolina. Potholes and shitty patches destroy the vehicles, especially the low riders.
As a corollary to my previous reply, if infrastructure is not debt financed, what is the alternative? Paying cash?
I think a state/local entity sitting on an unencumbered pot of cash in the hundreds of millions or low billions in preparation for a major project would be perfectly safe, don’t you? Al Sharpton & his moral ilk would have no inclination to try to get a slice, nor would elected officials to hand some out to donors. (Sorry/not sorry for the sarcasm)
Shocka!
I just saw that.
🙄
Count me in, Chris!
If anyone deserves a kick in the nuts, he’s on the list.
I'd pay two to kick him in the crotch.
A great loss for the NYT. Krugman’s presence always make David Brooks and the others look smart. Now who’s gonna do it?
Lol, add asshole and make it four.
Who do you think you are, Joe Biden?😅
C'mon, man!
That's two words if you use Joe Biden math.
Joe Biden would have slurred it into one incomprehensible word.
It was worth the extra word.
Americans, compared to everyone else in the world, are very optimistic about a lot of things. What they are NOT optimistic about are the elites that run the Regime, nor are they optimistic about the Regime (for all the reasons you enumerated).
Krugman’s basic issue is that he thinks he is one of the elites and that he had a seat at the table of the Regime and as such it is beyond his ability to see, or imagine, that We The People don’t hold him or anyone like him in high regard. In fact, we loathe the Krugmans of the world. That does not compute for people like him. And, our optimism is inversely proportional to the number of Krugmans that have a seat at the Regime’s table. Get out of our way and see how optimistic we can be.
This!
If only Musk were as smart as Krugman.
If only sarcasm was a font
😂😂😂😂
I use italics
🙌
Government report on Recent Trends in Young Adult Mortality in California.
https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2024/4945/Recent-Trends-in-Young-Adult-Mortality-121024.pdf
One snippet:
"Alcohol-Induced Deaths Still Much Higher Than Before Pandemic.
Since 2020, alcohol-induced young adult deaths have fluctuated from one quarter to the next, but have remained elevated. As a result, the number of such deaths in 2023 was 53 percent higher than in 2019."
And people like Krugman wonder about trust in experts?
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Send this to Krugman.
I doubt Krugman could put the economy and alcohol-induced-deaths together to come to a relevant conclusion. Krugman is so lost in theory that he is incapable of identifying cause and effect.
But his “theories” are alchemy – complete 🐂💩
Spot on. Sadly, he has lots of company.
Yes but we should try 😏
It’s rather self explanatory, don’t you think?
Pity the kitty he clutches to his chest
The stale bureaucrat of lost words
Limps away as the Mars Starship
Falls laughing to a triumphant Earth.
I'm pretty sure this should be the top comment.
Krugman has been wrong on everything he has ever written Reality is the exact opposite of what Krugman thinks. The fact that this fool got a Nobel prize tells us that Nobel Prizes are worthless. The fact that the NYT allowed him to write such wrongheaded pieces for 20+ years and Princeton University allowed him tells us that neither the NYT nor Princeton have any credibility whatsoever left.
Not directed at you, personally, but I would like to say that there's no Nobel Prize in economics. Alfred Nobel, as did most in his time, didn't regard economics as real science but as accountancy dressing up as ideology.
The prize in economics is a prize instituted by the state bank of Sweden, awarded in "the memory of Alfred Nobel" - essentially, the prize is "stolen valour" riding the coat-tails of the real one despite having nothing to do with it.
But media being lazy has led to even most of us here thinking there's "Nobel Prize in economics".
An economist is someone who aspired to be a accountant, but didn't have the personality.
More like... couldn't do the math.
Problem is that mainstream economists are generally quite numerate, Krugman and Stiglitz exceptionally so. It seems that the part of the brain that facilitates calculation is quite distinct from the part associated with general intelligence. A lot of idiots can calculate, but not figure!
In short, the mathematical ability of an economist is no more a guarantor of intelligence than a dog's exceptional sense of smell is, and I doubt that Krugman has an exceptional sense of smell.
Good one! 👍🤣
“…economics [not] as real science but as accountancy dressing up as ideology.”
As a 45 yr CPA, I take unlimited umbrage in being compared to an economist. I deal in FACTS, while economists are slaves to the phrase “But on the other hand…”
Uhm, well. . . It was meant as showing accountants in a more favourable light than economists.
I'll blame "lost in translation": In Swedish, you can use "ekonom" for economist and accountants both (though a CPA is always referred to as "auktoriserad revisor" - authorised accountant; a protected title you have to qualify for with quite a high bar to clear).
Swedish phrase: "You know you're successful when you have to hire an authorised accountant to do your taxes"
At least in the U.S., establishing one thing’s value by comparison to another that’s horrible is known as “damning by faint praise.”
I apologize that I didn’t convey my intended humor – my “umbrage” is manufactured. I’m aware that “CPA” doesn’t rate very highly on the “scintillating personality” index.
We don't have that idiom - I've seen it in writing of course. Wonder we don't have any equivalent to it? Closest I can manage in Swedish is just a coarse phrase:
"Det var ju också en djävla jämförelse!"
"That's one Hell of a comparison!"
which doesn't convey anything of the same nature in either language, does it. (And the translation is iffy: "djävla" means "of the Devil" as "Djävul" means "Devil", and "Djävulen" The Devil" - a centuries-old "swedification" of Diavoli/Diaboli.)
A cashier, a CPA, and an economist apply for a bank job. They all have to advise the banker on what to do with fractional cents. The cashier says “you either have a penny or you don’t, truncate”. The CPA says “in a longer view the fractions will accumulate, round”. The economist lowers the blinds and locks the door before whispering, “what do you want to be a penny?”
Did not know that. Thank you
Like!
Thank you!
I agree with Alfred Nobel. It's a dressed up accountant getting a prize.
What told us "Nobel Prizes are worthless," was obummer receiving one for being a color.
They jumped the shark long before that when they awarded Arafat the “Peace” prize.
That's true. I forgot all about him!
Actually he received it b/c he was “Not Bush.” Biden would receive a “Not Trump” Nobel Peace Prize (despite Trump bringing the ME the Abraham Accords) except that he’s brought the world to the brink of WWIII.
Chris Bray is a great writer.
I mean, I'm no Krugman
Aside and under my breath, "Thank God!"
LOL
Krugman has the advantage of being unrestrained by the truth.
Remember his statement that Bidenflation would be “transitory”? And all the other manure he kept pulling out of his ass?
At least, in my many struggles with my G.I. system, I had someone ELSE opining on the things that come out of my ass! That’s one better than Krugman.
No, and thank God for that. You skewered him like stale shish kebab; he could never aspire to your level of trenchantly perceptive wit and candor.
Taleb has a 3-letter acronym for Krugman (and Friedman):
IYI: Intellectual Yet Idiot
George Jonas once said about a similar intellect
“Educated beyond his intellectual means”.
A widespread affliction, happens with degree inflation and participation degrees
I once heard someone say an intellectual is someone who has had more education than their intellect can handle.
"A bag of noise with arms and legs". I need to never have liquid in my mouth when reading your articles.
💯!!!!
Yes this was particularly savage. In the best possible way. 🤣
I know right! Had me laughing out loud!
When one remembers that Krugman views himself and his circle as ‘center ring’ Elite, the caterwauling about the vulgar Lumpenproletariat is revealed as mere post election wound-licking. You didn’t listen to your betters, America! I shall slam the door as I dramatically walk out! ( and then try to return to my podium in six months)
Once again, I simply cannot detest these people enough.
Reminds me of Rob Lowe and Demi Moore in About Last Night. "It's okay to loathe these people."
Krugman is the Jim Cramer of economists.
Opposite Man.
The thing I've never understood about Krugman is what an utter mediocrity he is. How did he retain an editorial perch at the NYT for 25 years? If he were writing things I agreed with I'd find him an embarrassment. Prime journalistic real estate handed over to a nonentity. Lifeless prose, predictable positions, no sense of humor, no literary flair. A little gray man, tethered to the Gray Lady.
Paully Krugnuts! Don’t leave us now! Your best material is yet to come, in the next 4 years 🤣
Maybe the Gray Lady is cleaning out the corners to open up room for columnists that realize 50 percent of the country is not as far left leaning as the average Antifa member.
NOT. BLOODY. LIKELY.
Their business model now depends on the catering to the left.
And from a business/financial perspective, at least you gotta give them credit that they’ve made it work.
Unlike the rest of the MSM, which is bleeding money and readers/viewers/listeners by going down the identical path.
No not likely, but all that is required is a couple of open minded billionaires that need a vanity project to fill their weekends some new management and presto……
But that won’t increase their subscriber base. The MSM has a problem – after 11/5/24, Conservatives are no longer afraid to voice their views.
Their business model depends on being a mouthpiece for government and big Pharma. If not for those subsidies from the CIA and Pfizer, would they even have a business model?
Your claim is simply untrue. Their business model now primarily depends on getting subscriptions from well-to-do leftists.
Sure they get *some* advertising revenue from Big Pharma. But there is no evidence suggesting this is a major portion of their revenue - advertising in its entirety is no longer the biggest portion of their revenue.
And I defy you to show ANY evidence of material subsidies from the CIA.
They are a mouthpiece for big government because a) that is the ideology of all who work there and b) that is the ideology of most of their customers.
No government subsidy for this required.
I read the Krugman swan dive too quickly and need to go back and savor it now, in light of your hysterical review of it 😂
Swan dive - so good!