Paul Krugman Stunned by the Invisible Hand

Zerohedge.com gave a great analysis on the Paul Krugman Take-Down that happened in Spain. Here is their blow-by-blow commentary on the economics debate that shook Keynesian theory:

Forget Ali - Frazier; ignore Santelli - Liesman; dismiss Yankees - Red Sox; never mind Silva - Sonnen; the new undisputed standard by which all showdowns will be judged happened in Spain over the weekend. During a debate on Europe's crisis, Pedro Schwartz (a mild-mannered Spanish 'Austrian' economics professor) took on the heavyweight Paul 'I coulda been a Fed Chair contender' Krugman, and - in our humble opinion - wiped the floor with his Keynesian philosophy. From the medicinal use of more debt to fix too much debt, to the Japanization of world economies and the demand-side bias of every- and any-thing - interested only in the short-term economic growth; the gentlemanly Spaniard notes, with regard to the European crisis, the fact that "Keynesians got us into this mess and now we have to sacrifice our principals so that they can get us out of this mess". Humble and generous in his praise - though definitively serious with his criticism - Schwartz opines: "Often Nobel prize winners are tempted to pontificate on matters that are outside the specialty in which they have excelled," noting "the mantle of authority whereby what ever they say - whether sensible or not - is accepted with resignation from some and enthusiasm by others." Krugman's red-faced anger is evident at the conclusion as he even refused to shake Schwartz's hand after the debate.

For 15 minutes of both education and entertainment - this is as good as it gets...

Starting from around 35:00 the Spanish professor praises and criticizes in a thoughtful and gentle tone

At around 39:00, he addresses the demand-side description of the world
Krugman's less-than-happy response (which sparks quite a rowdy argument) begins around 48:20

I would prefer to use the Ali – Liston fight as an example. Paul Krugman was lying on the canvas, stunned by the invisible hand.


Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/ultimate-krugman-take-down

Paul Krugman's 9/11 Drive-by Snark

You just knew that when the 9/11 anniversary came about, there would be leftist crackpots who feel the need to bash republican leaders who had the misfortune of being in charge during one of the worst attacks on American soil since Pearl Harbor.

Paul Krugman, a shameless political hack in the guise of an economist, didn’t waste time. Here is his drive-by snarky comment:

The Years of Shame

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.

You would’ve thought that this Keynesian would embrace the Iraq war as means to spur economic growth. After all, this is the same man who hypothesized an alien invasion would be a boon for the nation’s GDP.

According to Paul Krugman and leftist like him, some wars are more equal than others, as long as the right party is in power.



Source: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/the-years-of-shame/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto

John Maynard Keynes was a Crackpot, Self-Promoting Propagandist

Was John Maynard Keynes a crackpot, self-promoting propagandist? The president of the John Locke Foundation seems to think so:

RALEIGH – President Obama is reportedly about to recommend yet another round of government stimulus and “job creation” gimmicks. He means well, I suppose, but seems hopelessly lost in the fantasies of John Maynard Keynes and other crackpot economists.

“Crackpot?” did you say? How can Keynes, the founder of 20th century macroeconomics, be considered a crackpot?

Easy. He advocated the economic equivalent of the following principles:

• Water runs uphill.

• Plants don’t need light to engage in photosynthesis.

• Gravity makes objects fall away from each other.

Only a crackpot scientist would try to make you believe these things. Similarly Keynes tried to make people believe that transferring money from one pocket to another made you wealthier, that destroying productive capacity of the economy made it healthier, and that lowering price of labor and other goods would not result in a higher demand for those goods.

Keynes was a clever propagandist. But his principles have not survived the test of time. As Harvard economist Robert Barro argued in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, the notion that governments can stimulate the economy through multiplier effects – magically turning a dollar of revenue into two or more dollars of output – is not only nonsensical but empirically false. There is “zero evidence,” Barro wrote, “that deficit-financed transfers raise GDP and employment – not to mention evidence for a multiplier of two.”

To read the rest of the article click the following link:

Source: http://www.carolinajournal.com/jhdailyjournal/index.html

Paul Krugman's Alien Invasion Theory

And this guy won a Nobel Prize? I guess that shouldn’t surprise anyone. Look at all the murderous despots, nimrods, and teleprompter readers who’ve won that dubious award; talk about Twilight Zone.

Keynesian Economics and World War II

This video pretty much says it all.  No matter how many times the Keynesians have been proven wrong the press always ignores the end results of this flawed theory.

Whenever you get into a debate with these statist, they always point to WWII and how the military machine and the heavy handed policies of FDR brought us out of the Great Depression.  That argument is being refuted.  Economist Robert Higgs points out the fallacy of this theory in his piece World War II and the Triumph of Keynesianism.  Here is an excerpt:

So, government policies created sustained high unemployment, and Keynesians blamed the market. The Keynesians then credited the government's wartime deficits for pulling the economy out of the Great Depression and continued to credit defense spending for preventing another economic collapse. In this way, sound economics was replaced by economic ideas congenial to spendthrift politicians, defense contractors, labor unions, and left-liberal economists.

How much better it would have been if the wisdom of Ludwig von Mises had been taken to heart. In Nation, State, and Economy (1919), Mises said, "War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings." The analogy was apt in World War I, in World War II, and during the Cold War. It is still apt today.

To read the whole article click on the link below:

http://www.fff.org/freedom/0395d.asp