Most days, I get an email from an economist, urging me to keep the heat on the shrill screeds of Paul “Enron” Krugman. Here’s a typical one:
It might be worth pointing to today’s Krugman column as an example of how intellectually slack this once able economist has become. He completely mischaracterizes “line 47” (the rate reduction credit on the 2001 Form 1040) as some sort of snatching away of the $300/$600 tax credit we all received last fall. In fact, it is an opportunity for those who did not receive a check they should have received to claim the credit. And the $300 was not, in any case, an “advance on future tax cuts”, it was the immediate implementation of the 2001 tax cut retroactive to the beginning of 2001. Doesn’t this guy check his facts anymore? I met Krugman once circa 1994 when he was still a working economist. At that time, most economists thought of him as a highly skilled trade theorist whose work had been mischaracterized by those more intellectually sloppy than him (he had written some papers showing how free trade was not desirable in some limited circumstances, and the anti-trade lobby had used it as ammunition against free trade generally). Economics is a profession where rigor is usually prized above ‘money calls’ (not that good economists don’t get money calls too sometimes), and Krugman was on everybody’s short list of future Nobel Laureates. It’s rather sad to see him trading on a stale reputation.
Here’s another more succinct synopsis:
Please keep pounding on Krugman. I have known Paul for 25 years and once regarded him as one of the better, if not best, international economic theorists in the world. Alas his sojourn into being an op/ed columnist has totally perverted him.
I wonder if this is the consensus now among professional or academic economists. There’s always an element of resentment toward fellow academics who make it into the mainstream and get “money calls,” but the constant chorus I keep getting from professionals suggests the Krugman credibility problem is now much deeper than that.
The Dish 