Posted on 05/07/2012 6:32:31 PM PDT by neverdem
Harry Truman famously complained about his economic advisers, who wouldn't give him simple, straight answers.
"All they say is 'On the one hand this, and on the other hand that,'" he was quoted. "I'm looking for a one-handed economist!"
Well, ol' Harry could have found economists who were absolutely cocksure -- and wrong.
Take Paul Krugman, the Jeremiah of the new New York Times Agit-Prop page. Dr K is absolshshtutely, posilutely sure that another trillion bucks of deficit spending will fix the US economy. Other economists may have their doubts, but Dr K knows the answer in his bones. Krugman never doubts his own prescriptions, except when he changes his mind, and decides to order more of the same. If we aren't swallowing enough cod liver oil, double the dose! That'll fix 'em.
Other than this curious fixation Dr. K has a marked tendency to rant, and rail, and rage at various folks who take exception to his medicine. This is a suspicious sign. Real physicians don't rant. They just do the job.
Krugmanite dogmatism is a lesson in medicine before 1900 -- before antibiotics and all the rest. Before scientific medicine, when the doc walked into your home with that little black bag it was filled shiny plumber's tools, along with pills and potions -- placebos that did nothing and poisons that made you sicker. In the famous Aubrey-Maturin seafaring novels by Patrick O'Brian, physician Stephen Maturin always brings plenty of chalk on their sailing voyages -- blue and white colored chalk -- to turn into placebo pills. The most effective placebo were powerful laxatives, and many a sailor spent the day sitting in the head of the ship convinced he was purging the bad humors. It worked better than the poisons -- mercury, antimony, Chinese Water Snake potion...
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Krugman is a pompous horse’s ass. He ought to go over to France and advise the new head frog.
So stupid-we’re drowning in debt and the churl says to borrow more
Excellent article.
Tis truth that no two economists will agree either.
Better yet, he ought to go to Germany and advise Merkel. Now that would be entertainment.
As with all these pseudo-intellectuals, there is no penalty for THEM if they are wrong. I think frauds like Krugman would be a bit more timid to advocate such nonsense if they were taken out and tarred and feathered before they were hung if they were proved wrong.
And Biffy and Buffie’s parents pay $50,000 a year to go to Princeton to have their kid’s brains mashed by the likes of Krugman, and Blinder
$200,000 for “education” - what a total waste of money!
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