Ding Dong, Paul Krugman is gone!
He’d done enough damage in 25 years. Plus, the debut of “The Best of Substack" …
I don’t write as much about economic issues as I thought I would when I started “Bill Rice, Jr.’s Newsletter,” but a recent piece of news deserves mention.
I just learned from this essay by William L. Anderson of The Mises institute that New York Times’ economics columnist Paul Krugman has retired.
For people like me, this is great news, but it’s probably tragic news for those who work behind the curtain and have used Krugman’s theories to help unleash their society-destroying programs on the world.
I copied and pasted a few excerpts from Mr. Anderson’s non-tribute to one of the Left’s pundit heroes. (Emphasis added by myself).
By William L. Anderson
“After spending 25 years as a columnist for the New York Times, Paul Krugman is finally retiring from that position—25 years too late, if one wishes to be honest. It is hard to measure the influence he had from that perch, but his columns surely were the deciding factor in his winning the Nobel in economics in 2008 after eight years of lambasting the George W. Bush administration.”
To frame his essay, Anderson quotes a Krugman admirer (Kathleeen Kingsbury):
“In little time, Paul became an essential read in Opinion, helping countless readers become more fluent in and mindful of how trade, taxes, technology, the markets, labor and capital intersected with political leadership, ideology and partisanship to shape the lives of people across America and the world ..”
Back to Anderson’s counter take:
“To Krugman, an economy is a purely circular thing in which we produce something to put on the shelves and spending is the process by which we remove the goods from the shelves so we can produce something else to put on the shelves—and so on …”
“… In other words, government spending on wars was just as economically useful as spending money on new capital and research that increases crop yields because, after all, someone is spending money.
“… Indeed, Krugman has been influential, but his influence hasn’t been a good thing. He is a disciple of John Maynard Keynes and has played an important role in legitimizing the application of Keynesian schemes by governments to “stimulate” their economies.
“Those governments were unsuccessful, Krugman claimed, because they had failed to inflate their economies enough to break out of the Keynesian “liquidity trap,” an imaginary state of affairs that Murray N. Rothbard fully debunked.
“… Krugman even resorted to fantasy in his quest to fight the mighty “liquidity trap,” claiming that if the US were to prepare for a never-to-come alien invasion, the burst of government spending would revitalize the economy. That nonsense alone should have discredited him as a serious economist, but instead cemented his status as the great advocate for the Keynesian trope that government spending is the key to economic prosperity.
“… Given Krugman’s inability to understand the basics of economic logic, perhaps it isn’t surprising that he made the wild prediction: “By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.” Someone who cannot understand how production of goods drives demand for other goods most likely isn’t going to comprehend how improving pathways for information will also improve commerce.
(Krugman) referred to the Austrian Business Cycle Theory wrongly as “The Hangover Theory,” turning a well-developed theory that meticulously explains the processes of booms and busts and reducing it to a morality play.
Writes Anderson of the Mises Institute:
“It is not surprising that regime-minded elites worshiped his every declaration. Governments were not spending too much money; they were spending too little!
“Those who print money hand-over-fist, who intervene in the markets to direct resources to politically-favored winners are the real public benefactors. Those who question the wisdom of untrammeled government spending are the true enemies of the people.”
“… At a Southern Economic Association meeting in 2004, I asked Krugman if he was endorsing the 70 percent tax rates that existed before 1981. “No,” he replied emphatically, “Those rates were insane!”
“When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for the return of 70 percent marginal rates in 2019, Krugman said he believed those rates were “reasonable.” No doubt, he would attribute that change of heart to personal “growth” or just an evolutionary change in his thinking.
“In truth, believing in an all-powerful state that can, in Keynes’ own words, turn “stones into bread” through the magic of spending and creation of new credit does not require personal growth or maturity. Instead, it reflects a mind that prefers fantasy over reality, lies over truth.
“Paul Krugman can retire peacefully, knowing that he has sanitized the use of raw state power in place of mutually-beneficial exchange that characterizes the marketplace.”
(Note: See Today’s Reader Comments for bonus info on the Mises Institute, which was once the intellectual home of Jeffrey Tucker, the founder of the incredibly influential and important Brownstone Institute.)
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The Best of Substack - Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn are always entertaining …
I’m going to start saving witty or profound snippets I find on Substack for a recurring feature I’ll call “The Best of Substack.”
I found these this morning in the transcripts of Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn’s always entertaining podcast:
Matt Taibbi: Do we need an intro like NWA had like, “Welcome to America This Week, coming straight from the underground.” I don’t think that would work for us. “Coming straight from …
Walter Kirn: Get ready to be horrified. It’s America This Week.
… Walter Kirn: Okay. Well, I mean, I haven’t kept a single resolution I’ve made on this show. Not on vaping. That didn’t work.
Matt Taibbi: Well, a lot of your predictions came true.
Walter Kirn: Oh, those will always come true. That’s the only thing I’m good at. The problem is that it’s very lonely. The space between making the prediction and other people realizing it is accurate, that’s a lonely time.
Me: The Substack podcast all-stars discuss Joe Biden’s unconditional pardon of Hunter in their recent episode. In doing so, they also discussed comedian Jon Stewart’s take on the same subject.
Matt Taibbi: Yeah. I like Jon Stewart and I think he did signal at times that he wasn’t down with a lot of the craziest stuff that went on in the last eight years. But we needed him to pipe up-
Walter Kirn: But did he ever spend a summer or two or five being shunned? Did he ever have things thrown at him or was he ever called a Russian?
See? Unless you’re called a Russian asset and have been for years, then you don’t get to play in the new arena as far as I’m concerned. Former Russian assets, at least alleged only, going forward. Jon always manages to... How can I put it? Get into the game just as it’s being won, just as the tide is turning.”
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Walter Kirn has quickly become one of my favorite Substack curmudgeons.
From the Mises Institute web page, I learned this about the author of this essay …
"William L. Anderson is Senior Editor at the Mises Institute and retired professor of economics at Frostburg State University. He earned his MA in economics from Clemson University and his PhD in economics from Auburn University, where he was a Mises Research Fellow. He has been writing about Austrian economics since 1981, when he first was introduced to the Austrian view by the late William H. Peterson. He is also a frequent contributor to LewRockwell.com."
WHAT IS THE MISES INSTITUTE?
"The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
"Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.
"Founded in 1982 by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., with the blessing and aid of Margit von Mises, Murray N. Rothbard, Henry Hazlitt, and Ron Paul, the Institute seeks a free-market capitalist economy and a private-property order that rejects taxation, monetary debasement, and a coercive state monopoly of protective services.
"... Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., served as Mises’s editorial assistant at Arlington House Publishers ..."
… Scholars and supporters alike are welcome to visit our campus in Auburn, Alabama, located 90 minutes south of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the busiest airport in the world.
In 1998, thanks to generous supporters, the Mises Institute built a campus at 518 West Magnolia Avenue in Auburn that houses an extensive and unique library in the social sciences. "
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I recently learned that Jeffrey Tucker, the founder of The Brownstone Institute, worked in Auburn at the Mises Institute for many years ... Jeffrey lived two hours from me and I didn’t even know it!
I’m not sure of the back story, but Jeffrey went on to create what’s quickly become one of the most influential “think tanks” - or writer communities in the world. Today the Brownstone Institute - started only about five years ago - challenges and debunks the many lies and/or dubious claims emanating from the captured MSM establishment.
For those who believe in giving to worthy organizations, a gift to Brownstone is a gift that counters the claptrap produced by influential writers like Paul Krugman and the writers of the New York Times.
https://brownstone.org/donate/
This is actually worse than the alien invasion nonsense Bill, Paul actually put out this headline on one of his ludicrous articles earlier this year:
“Should Biden Downplay His Own Success?“
I can’t even begin to guess at how nutty and unhinged the words under that headline were, but I’d rather waltz naked through the fires of hell than read them.