OK, so according to Paul Krugman, Alderaan should be the richest planet in the galaxy:
People on twitter might be joking, but in all seriousness, we would see a bigger boost in spending and hence economic growth if the earthquake had done more damage.
Well, if he means that if Washington had been destroyed, as I (jokingly) suggested (and some anticipated) earlier, he might have a point, but I doubt that’s what he means. I really think he’s serious.
[Wednesday morning update]
Krugman is claiming that he didn’t write it, and it was a case of identity theft.
[Update a few minutes later]
The identity thief ‘fesses up.
It sure as hell helped out Japan’s economy right?
Why does anyone listen to this guy anymore? They should take his Nobel back. Fake alien invasions and earthquakes to stimulate the economy? He’s done.
There’s no doubt he’s serious. And, barking mad. In Krugmania, all processes are simple, there are no interrelations between variables, and no opportunity costs. There are just people with money, and people without. And, if the bad people with money would just give it out to the people without it, everyone could live like royalty on the cornucopia of goods and services which would magically appear to be bought with it.
Someday, they will realize that they’re just doing things the hard way, and there is no difference in principle between what they advocate, and simply mailing a check for a million dollars to every man, woman, and child so that we can all be millionaires overnight.
Which makes me think, as so many things so often do, of THGTTG and the Golgafrinchans:
They’ve destroyed the meaning of credibility. I long for adults.
I started watching a documentary today about poverty.. I think I got about 8 minutes in before someone said “with such a large percentage of the world living in poverty, I think there is no reasonable way to explain how our current system can possibly be anything other than a total failure.” After yelling at the screen that perhaps it might be educational to consider that different places in the world have different systems.. hell, any given place in the world has had different systems at different times.. and, get this, different places in the world have different levels, and even concepts, of poverty. Perhaps we might be able to learn something by studying these differences. Then I turned it off.
…you watch TV?
There are plenty of matters on which to pick on Rick Perry. Such as getting a “D” in Feeds and Animal Feeding. Does this many not know which end of the cow you put the hay?
On the other hand, the Liberal Left Commentariat has circled the wagons on Mr. Perry’s suggestion that the Scientific Consensus on Anthropomorphic Global Warming is less than solid, well, that one has folks screaming “Liar, liar, liar!”
My modest proposal to Mr. Perry is that his campaign hand out the transcript to Richard Feynman’s Caltech commencement address entitled “Cargo Cult Science.” Dr. Feynman explained how, even in the absence of any overt fraud or malice, scientific results can be skewed by wishful thinking, group-think, or just plain slothfulness, and that it takes the most rigorous and disciplined committment to skepticism and second guessing of one’s own findings to get science right.
I suppose in the November 2009 CRU Tape Letters or Climategate or whatever you want to call it, there was never any proof of fraud or data manipulation or perhaps the things Mr. Perry is alleging, so there is nothing to see here and please move along. But the kind of rigorous and disciplined committment to skepticism needed for good science, hoo boy was there an absence of that.
But maybe if Mr. Perry got better grades, he would have had the intellectual tools to more carefully frame the argument . . .
IF there had been a huge quake, centered where it was, with associated damage up and down the Eastern Seaboard, the current WH would have sent FEMA to Oregon, and blamed Bush for not funding them enough at their start.
THEN, they (he) would have written an Executive Order to spend a half a trllion dollars, to be spent via the UAW / SEIU / MI Teachers Union to build new houses in Detroit to house displaced people from the disaster zone.
From there, things would only get worse.
Actually, if the east coast earthquake had been powerful enough, it would’ve done wonders for the economy. Like I’ve written before, government can’t be a net producer of private sector jobs. However, government can and does destroy private sector jobs all of the time. Had the earthquake been powerful enough to knock the bureaucracies offline, it would’ve been a natural form of deregulation. Mother Nature would’ve done more to boost the US economy than the federal government has done in decades.
Pity the earthquake was too small. Not that wanted anyone to die but simply for a bunch of people to be unemployed for an extended period, like the rest of their lives.
In Krugman’s world, all that “will be” has been. In order to grow the economy, you don’t innovate and do something new. You destory what has already been done and do it over again.
Krugman is claiming that he didn’t write it, and it was a case of identity theft.
It’s possible this is true. However, didn’t Congressman Weiner say pretty much the same thing at first?
“There are plenty of matters on which to pick on Rick Perry. Such as getting a “D” in Feeds and Animal Feeding. Does this many not know which end of the cow you put the hay?”
I got an “F” in an English class in community college one year. That’s because that year I lost interest in school and gradually quit going to all my classes. In that way I had, I didn’t bother withdrawing or any of that boring paperwork stuff so the teacher had no choice but to give me an “F.” It was my first year of college — I was completely burnt out after twelve years of being a prisoner of the American educational system and I really shouldn’t have gone to college right after, but instead taken a year off or something instead of wasting everyone’s time and money.
Anyway, I use this to point out that there might be other reasons for Perry’s “D” grade in that class than “Well he’s a stoopid dummy head.” He might have taken on too many obligations, the way people often do, and not been able to keep up with his grades, missed the deadline for withdrawal, etc. But by all means, let’s just make petty fun, as well as being obsessed with good grades and other paper credentials like the liberals want us to be.
So if you see me quoted as saying something really stupid or outrageous, and it didn’t come from the Times or some other verifiable site, you should probably assume it was a fake.
That is really priceless.
The current DC regime is a massive pile of broken windows.
But based on the fake Krugman blogger’s citations of previous Krugman statements, you might consider his post “fake but accurate.”
It’s possible this is true. However, didn’t Congressman Weiner say pretty much the same thing at first?
And Weiner’s honesty is relevant how?
And Weiner’s honesty is relevant how?
When Krugman said pretty much the same thing as Weiner, I just wondered if he was being any more truthful. In this case, it appears he was but I tend to be skeptical about initial denials.
Isn’t all government stimulus spending the broke window fallacy writ large? Instead of “break the window, pay the glazier” it is “forcibly take the money, pay the glazier”. Is that really any different?
Paul Milenkovic Says:
August 24th, 2011 at 5:00 am
“But maybe if Mr. Perry got better grades, he would have had the intellectual tools to more carefully frame the argument . . .”
An “A” in “Feeds and Animal Feeding” would give you the tools to fight concerted social propaganda campaigns? Clearly, there is more to this subject area than meets the eye.
I suspect that Perry was studying how animals party rather than how they feed. Moreover, he appears to have made high marks in the former subject area, and that, IMHO, likely would find broader application in his chosen profession.
When the beautiful people harp on Perry’s leisurely approach to academic matters at the ripe old age of 22 or less, it would not be remiss to remind them that Al Gore made no less than 5 “F’s” in his undergraduate career, including courses on science and nature.
Isn’t all government stimulus spending the broke window fallacy writ large?
Yes
Instead of “break the window, pay the glazier” it is “forcibly take the money, pay the glazier”. Is that really any different?
No, but of course they’ll try to convince you otherwise with their belief in the magic multiplier effect that government spending is claimed to have. The truth of the matter is that the multipler as a whole for government spending is less than one because they have to take from the economy before they can spend it, being sure to skim off a good percentage for “administrative overhead” in the process.
different places in the world have different systems
Years ago there was a comedian that had the solution to poverty… LUGGAGE! “Don’t send them food, send them luggage.” He said, “We have deserts in America too, BUT WE. DON’T. LIVE. THERE.” Of course we do, but the joke still worked.
The biggest cause of poverty (from Thomas Sowell) is lack of land ownership. Over regulation comes in second. Ironically, this will also hold us back in space… a place with an embarrassment of riches in real estate. Enough to make the whole worlds space efforts amount to nothing.
Krugman writes:
(emphasis added) …the caveat being necessary for obvious reasons… else everything Krugman wrote would be suspected evidence of identity theft…. 😉
Considering that shortly after 9/11 Krugman stated that some economic good could come from the tragedy, and he recently said that a war with aliens would be the best thing for the economy, even if it turned out later on that it was a mistake and there weren’t any aliens… to me, he’s joined Malthus on the credibility scale.