Paul Krugman — VOICES for REASON

If there is one economist who embodies everything that is wrong with the modern economics profession and the influence it wields, it is Nobel Laureate, Princeton Professor, and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. For nearly a decade, Krugman has consistently blamed any free elements of our mixed economy for our economic problems, and held more government intervention as the solution. Given his prestige in the field of economics, most Americans are inclined to regard him as a source of sage wisdom on economic recovery. For his part, Krugman’s recurring theme has been that the Obama administration is absolutely right to increase government control over the economy at unprecedented levels — it should just do it more.

I know from painful personal experience of discussions with disciples of Krugman’s New York Times columns that many, many Americans regard Krugman as an economic sage with unimpeachable credentials.

Well, in my opinion every column of Krugman’s is an impeachment of his economic ideas, his political convictions, and his cherry-picking intellectual dishonesty. But let’s leave that aside for now and focus on one particularly impeachable fact about Krugman that has been evaded for way too long: his advice early this decade, post dot-com bust, when the government was beginning to inflate the housing bubble.

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