The Newspeak of Paul Krugman
Destruction is creation.
In his September 28 New York Times blog post, Paul Krugman announced that “economics is not a morality play.” That turn of phrase is his way of defending the idea that in unusual times, such as the sort of deep recession we are in, we can get strange relationships between economic cause and effect. The result is that actions which we might find highly distasteful can have positive effects. Thus we cannot afford to be overly concerned with morality if the goal is to get out of the recession.
Specifically, Krugman defends the claim that World War II got us out of the Great Depression, because “this is a situation in which virtue becomes vice and prudence is folly; what we need above all is for someone to spend more, even if the spending isn’t particularly wise.” Even spending on something destructive like war, he argues, is what is needed to solve the problem, especially when the “political consensus for [domestic] spending on a sufficient scale” is not available. In Krugman’s version of Orwell’s Newspeak, destruction creates wealth, and war, though not ideal, is morally acceptable because it produces economic growth.
Thankfully, we can get behind his Newspeak to see the fallacy of his economics. To believe that spending — any kind of spending — is the cure for what ails us is to ignore the subjective nature of wealth and the microeconomic basis of economic growth in favor of an absolute reification of economic aggregates such as GDP and unemployment. Spending trillions of dollars fighting a war can certainly bring idle capital and labor into employment, driving up GDP and lowering unemployment. But this does not mean we are any wealthier than we were before.
Mutually Beneficial Exchange
Wealth increases when people are able to engage in exchanges they believe will be mutually beneficial. The production of new goods that consumers wish to purchase is the beginning of this process. When instead we borrow from future generations to spend on goods and services connected not to the desires of consumers, but rather to the desire of the politically powerful to rain death and destruction on other parts of the world, we are not allowing individuals the freedom to do the things they think will make themselves better off. And we are certainly not extending that freedom to those killed in the name of our economy-enhancing war. At a very basic level, the idea that any kind of spending is desirable overlooks the fact that spending on war (and, I would argue, public works as well) actively prevents people from enhancing their wealth through production and exchange linked to consumer demand.
Employing people to dig holes and fill them up again, or to build bombs that will blow up Iraqis, will certainly reduce unemployment and increase GDP, but it won’t increase wealth. The problem of economics is the problem of coordinating producers and consumers. This coordination happens when we produce what consumers want using the least valuable resources possible. That is why it is wealth-enhancing to dig a canal using earth-movers with a few drivers rather than millions of people using spoons, even though the latter will generate more jobs.
Sending soldiers off to war is a waste of human and material resources, and is almost by definition wealth-destroying, no matter what it does to GDP or unemployment rates. The only way one can view economics amorally, as Krugman wishes to, is if one is only concerned with total GDP and not its composition. However, it is the composition of GDP, in the sense of how well what we’ve produced matches consumer wants, that ultimately matters for human well-being. It’s easy to create jobs and generate spending, but those do not constitute economic growth, and they are not necessarily indicators of human betterment.
So yes, Professor Krugman, it does matter how we try to get ourselves out of depressions. The world is not upside down and vices aren’t virtues. War isn’t peace and destruction isn’t wealth-creation. The real solution to digging out of a recession is to remove the barriers to the free exchange and production that actually comprises wealth-creation. Borrowing trillions more from our grandchildren to spend on building the equivalent of pyramids or on blowing up innocents abroad only digs the hole deeper. And when one is reduced, as Krugman is, to saying we “needed Hitler and Hirohito” to get us out of that hole in the 1930s, one has abandoned morality to worship at the altar of economic aggregates.
No critic of free-market economics can ever again accuse us of being irrational and immoral when it is Paul Krugman who says destruction creates wealth, and war is an acceptable second-best path to economic growth. Don’t let Krugman’s Newspeak fool you: War and destruction are exactly what they appear to be. To argue as Krugman does is to abandon both economics and morality. Big Brother would be proud.
Comment by Steve Hogan on 30 September 2010:
How can Krugman write such drivel and be given any credibility or respect? “Yeah, we slaughtered a million people and destroyed a country, but GDP went up!” The man has lost his marbles.
Comment by VA Classical Liberal on 30 September 2010:
I’m fairly sympathetic to many leftist goals (though ***not*** their methods). So let’s cast this debate in terms that will make Krugman’s fallacy clear to leftists.
If we were to cut down and sell for lumber all the trees in all the national parks, that would boast our GDP. According to Krugman, that would be a good thing.
And the next year, when we spend billions on erosion control and other attempts to mitigate the ill effects of cutting down trees, that would boast GDP.
Yet despite the higher GDP, only a fool would claim we are richer because of these policies.
How is this tree killing scheme any different than the claim WW II (and blowing up 40% of our output) made us richer?
Comment by Bastiat on 30 September 2010:
^
Exactly, Krugman should read Bastiat’s “The Law” which explains the broken window fallacy and the effects of the seen vs the unseen. But I doubt he reads anymore, he clearly sustains his intellectual rigor with his own delusional drivel. Maybe a youtube video would be more palatable for this Nobel laureate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG3AKoL0vEs
Comment by Troy Camplin on 30 September 2010:
Why is is that Krugman’s “amoral” sound immoral? I keep telling people Krugman is, let us say, unethical (I have a stronger term for it), but nobody has seemed to have been listening. Glad Steve is saying it too, now.
Comment by cheech on 30 September 2010:
What about all the debt created employing people in worthless jobs and the money stolen from savings, the real job creator.Governments can NEVER create net jobs.
Comment by Daniel Kuehn on 30 September 2010:
What do people think of this post from Krugman: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/is-it-good-to-live-in-a-destroyed-world/
I found its absence from Steve’s post quite conspicuous.
Comment by rtaylortitle on 30 September 2010:
If Keynesian spending is the cure, wouldn’t it have made more sense to spread all the bailouts directly to the populace where spending would have been quicker and more effective? Why target banks, investment firms, et al instead? That concept alone should shoot a cannon-sized hole in the stupidity of the actions of Bush, the GOP, the Demos and the big “O” and his progressive theology.
Comment by Bogart on 30 September 2010:
The worst part of the argument that WWII got us out of the depression is that it did not. Sure more people wasted their labor building things that kill others who were doing similar things, but the population at the time faced rationing and the loss of new products and services that can never be calculated.
And although GDP numbers and employment numbers grew, the supply of capital, capital goods in service to consumer demand lagged for several years after as one would expect. The Dow Jones for example did not fully recover to its 1929 high until November 1953. So the goodness of the war did not get the equity markets back to their pre-Depression highs for 8 years.
Comment by Hmmm on 30 September 2010:
“Spending trillions of dollars fighting a war can certainly bring idle capital and labor into employment, driving up GDP and lowering unemployment. But this does not mean we are any wealthier than we were before.”
So you concede that spending on war (or public works) can increase the total value of goods and services produced in a country (GDP) and lower unemployment… but somehow this isn’t “real” wealth? It sure as hell looks like real wealth to the previously-unemployed people who can finally get jobs, and to the people who can buy more stuff thanks to the higher GDP!
Look, I’m not defending war here. My point is that it is absurd to say that something which OBVIOUSLY makes people happier (like reduced unemployment) is not really good for “wealth creation”. What is wealth, if not a measure of subjective happiness?
Comment by Tibor R. Machan on 30 September 2010:
The only point of writing about Krugman is to illustrate just how intellectually corrupt some prominent academics and pundits can become and how immune they are to serious rebuke for their ill advise ideas and proposals. This man has too much power, is too well situated, to consider making any changes in his thinking. He is well paid for his academic and journalistic malpractice. No matter how good the arguments are that are presented to him, he just moves along his misguided ways most stubbornly. This is the nature of power, even in a relatively open society. Best for the critic to just point a finger at Krugman and show how wrong someone with stature and at a prestigious place can be. That is a good lesson to take home.
Comment by Peter G. Adamson on 30 September 2010:
The war did not cause economic recovery, the baby boom did. When people have babies they act responsibly. They go to work on time and hang onto their jobs. They save money for their children’s future. In short they are good citizens. Further, their spending is focussed on real goods and services that represent real wealth, such as food, clothing, education, transportation and real estate. Population growth causes economic growth because it creates spontaneous and sustained demand.
Comment by Edward Krueger on 30 September 2010:
@Hmmm: GDP is the total ($) product of “goods”, not the total value of goods. GPD estimates are usually made using the expenditures approach which equates spending with value. Spending by individuals and firms is likely be the same as the value of the goods created, but political spending is not. With a political process, more may be spent on thing than the things value. Warfare is a good example. The other GPD estimators, by design, include government spending as well.
Comment by Kent Lalley on 30 September 2010:
“War can really cause no economic boom, at least not directly, since an increase in wealth never does result from destruction of goods.” — Ludwig von Mises
Comment by Phil Lewis on 30 September 2010:
Paul Krugman is about as intelligent as my beagle … and, she’s quite dumb. How this man achieved any level of credibility and a job at Princeton is beyond me. Every time I hear Krugman speak, or read his drivel, I’m baffled. Completely detached from reality … delusional idiot.
Comment by Gavin on 30 September 2010:
@ Hmmm:
Government spending doesn’t make society wealthier. Building bombs that are just going to be blown up, or digging holes just to fill them back up, does nothing to create the things that give society a better standard of living.
People wouldn’t be able to purchase more stuff, because precious resources would be squandered on unproductive projects, rather than producing consumer goods.
Comment by Chuck Baird on 30 September 2010:
I don’t think most government spending can lead to increased GDP, much less increased wealth. What government spends has to come from somewhere: taxes, borrowing, or inflating the currency. The net effect is zero. It is only the composition of GDP that is changed — and for the worse.
Krugman’s Nobel prize was clearly undeserved. It, along with Obama’s Nobel prize, was based on politics, not accomplishment.
Comment by Guillermo Barba on 30 September 2010:
Daniel Kuehn,
I found Krugman’s article and the conclusion: “In general, devastation is bad for business.”, supporting Dr. Horwitz arguments. With a lack of aggregate demand even destruction is better!
Comment by Anonymous on 30 September 2010:
Did the war make us better off? Born in 1931 into a poor family, I remember the effects of both the deep depression and the war years. Both were bad times, only the source of the fears and discontentment were different. My dad had little or no work during much of the 30′s which caused much unhappiness and fear. He had plenty of work during the war years but I can’t say I was happier. My unhappiness and fears were due to the uncertainty of the outcome of this disastrous conflict. We were separated from loved ones for years during which we never knew if we would see them again. We had more money but there was nothing to spend it on. We couldn’t travel, we had no gas and the tires would blow out every 50 miles or so. On top of all that was the fear that we would lose the war and have to live under a horrible dictator. Then on VJ day the joy was greater than any I had ever experienced. No, I will take depression over war any day. Krugman is an “ends justifies the means guy,” which is immorality personified.
Comment by Hmm...No on 30 September 2010:
An expansion of goods/services and lower unemployment founded upon debt is a bubble, not actual growth. As governments have proven through time, war is costly and ushers in a later contraction. You might find yourself favored to be the only large fish left in a small pond, and indeed that will make things better relative to your devastated neighbors.
Comment by Mark John Hunter on 30 September 2010:
Newspeak? The above twisted interpretation of what Klugman wrote is newspeak – Orwellian double speak, like so much from the “free market” think tanks. It is disturbing to see people who claim to have scholarly credentials murdering reason.
Pingback by Recomendaciones « intelib on 30 September 2010:
[...] The Newspeak of Paul Krugman, by Steven Horwitz [...]
Comment by Phil Lewis on 30 September 2010:
Public works: there’s nothing wrong with a society investing in infrastructure assets … within reason. It’s the responsibility of leaders and managers to assure a proper economic mix of public works and legitimate private employment. It all goes awry when politicians use the resources of a nation to create a false impression while squandering the public resources. Stimulus? Phooey … a monumental scam. Our infrastructure needs investment … and, I see little money being spent wisely on timely projects.
Krugman is clueless.
Comment by No Affiliation on 30 September 2010:
If this were true, the US should have seen immense strides in wealth in the past year. All I see is immense debt.
Comment by Hmmm on 1 October 2010:
@Edward Krueger: Political spending includes paying the wages of government employees. Those employees then proceed to use the wages they got to purchase various goods and services. This is the typical method by which government spending stimulates individual consumption.
You are saying that the exact same money should not count as “real value” when you receive it in your paycheck, but SHOULD count as value when you go and spend it at the supermarket. That makes no sense whatsoever.
Comment by Ned Netterville on 1 October 2010:
I love Paul Krugman. Jesus suggested we love our enemies. Krugman is a child of God, and an enemy of rational economics. As an economist, he is an amoral dingbat. I have leveled essentially the same charge against him as Professor Horwitz on various economic forums since shortly after he published his column of November 10, 2008.Read some of what I have said here: (http://www.jesus-on-taxes.com/ON_PAUL_KRUGMAN.html
Here is a synopsis of what Krugman said that drew my ire:
“But the new administration should try not to emulate a less successful aspect of the New Deal: its inadequate response to the Great Depression itself… F.D.R. did not, in fact, manage to engineer a full economic recovery during his first two terms…[His New Deal only served to prolong it.]…What saved the economy, and the New Deal, was the enormous public works project known as World War II, which finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs.” (see his NYT column of 11/10/08 here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/opinion/10krugman.html)
Now in his latest comment Krugman essentially reiterated the same economic gibberish: “The point is that it would have been much better if the Depression had been ended with massive spending on useful things, on roads and railroads and schools and parks. But the political consensus for spending on a sufficient scale never materialized; we needed Hitler and Hirohito instead.”
Anyone who carefully reads what Krugman is saying and doesn’t find it economically demented can only be a dedicated Keynesian. Of course Keynes too was demented, for as Krugman points out Keynes did in fact propose “burying bottles full of cash in coal mines, so people could dig them up again: since any proposal to spend money on things we need got shot down on grounds of prudence and efficiency, he proposed completely pointless spending instead.”
Both Keynes and his epigone Krugman aim their policies at the nirvana of “full employment,” at any cost, which obviously includes war if necessary. K and K may not openly advocate war, but they both are ready to accept it as a last-resort expedient on the road to their nirvana. (Oh, and btw, Keynes never precisely defined “full employment,” or rather defined it differently at different places in his highly unintelligible GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST AND MONEY.) What any average-to-dull economist notices, which completely escapes K and K, is that war leads to full employment only through involuntary servitude (the draft), a reduction in the workforce through military casualties, and putting people to work building things to blow up things and people, and then rebuilding. Only Keynesians see this as a net economic gain. Only Keynesians believe that WW II ended the Great Depression. Apparently Keynesians don’t even know about rationing and the losses of many liberties that Americans suffered during WW II. Most Americans would have gladly returned to the Great Depression rather than sacrifice their dead or wounded children, spouses, parents and other loved ones to WW II. And we haven’t yet analyzed the economic costs of the War to working men and women living in Dresden, London, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Iwo Jima, Guam, the Phillipines, Leningrad, Rome, Warsawm Nanking, China, Europe, Asia, etc., etc. etc., where Krugnman’s “public works project” (sic.) and “fiscal stimulus” took an even greater toll.
Comment by Troy Camplin on 1 October 2010:
Daniel,
A careful reading of what Krugman wrote in the article you link to only supports Horwitz’s argument. He argued that since there was little trade between the U.S. and the countries it destroyed, their destruction didn’t negatively affect our economy. He then argued that we did in fact benefit from the Marshall Plan, where we rebuilt those economies. He then ended the article with, “In general, devastation is bad for business.” The “in general” is the lead in to the next article, where he argues that war is good for the GDP.
Hmmm,
Let me tell you a story of two countries. Country A and Country B both make Good X. Each makes the same amount of Good X — to make life simple, let’s say each makes 1 unit per year. However, Country A keeps each unit they make, while Country B destroys each unit they make. Both countries have a GDP of 1, but after 5 years, A has 5 units of X, while B has 1 unit of X. Thus A is 5x wealthier than B. One way of looking at it: A is a country at peace; B is a country at war. One CANNOT create wealth during war, and a high GDP is not equivalent to wealth creation, as I have just proven.
Comment by Daniel Kuehn on 1 October 2010:
Troy – he argued that their destruction did negatively affect our economy. The whole point is that the lack of trade was bad for the U.S. economy, and that we artificially boosted trade with the Marshall Plan.
Comment by Troy Camplin on 1 October 2010:
He pointed out that we had little trade before the war, and just as little trade after the war — but a boost in trade in the immediate aftermath of the war with the Marshall plan. In other words, he argued that there was a lack of trade during regular peacetime, but an uptick in trade caused by our rebuilding the countries we destroyed. Thus, he is arguing that the trade caused by our rebuilding efforts after destroying those countries was beneficial to the U.S. economy. This is essentially an argument for the broken window fallacy, using trade. There is little question that increased trade during regular peacetime would have been economically beneficial to the U.S. economy — but Krugman went farther and argued that trade caused by destruction benefited the U.S. economy. See my analogy for Hmmm for why he couldn’t possibly be more wrong. What Krugman is saying is incredibly obvious to me — as transparent as anything could be. You have to take off the rose-colored Krugman glasses.
Comment by DavidNcl on 2 October 2010:
Recovery came when millions of govt workers (soldiers) where let go. The fact that the US/UK had blown up most of their european and far eastern competitors industrial base didn’t hurt either.
Comment by Tom McMasters on 3 October 2010:
I found the arguements about policy presented in this article compelling. Then I read the NY Times blog post by Paul Krugman this author was mocking and wonder if this author has the ability to read. Nothing presented in this article even resembles the points Krugman was trying to make in his article. Why?
Comment by Kevin Carson on 4 October 2010:
Although I disagree on the desirability of war and destruction as ways of sustaining the economy, I agree with Krugman that WWII ended the Great Depression.
In countering Krugman’s argument with a description of how economic growth would be achieved in a free market, I think you’re ignoring the point that the industrial system we’ve had over the past 150 years hasn’t even remotely resembled a free market. It has been a corporatist system built from the ground up through overwhelming state intervention and massive collusion between big business and big government.
(Krugman makes the mirror-image error of ATTACKING the present system as a free market: “The market economy is a system for organizing activity… with no special moral significance. The rich don’t necessarily deserve their wealth, and the poor certainly don’t deserve their poverty…”)
In any case the simple fact of the matter is that the economy, as structured for these many decades, would fall into chronic depression if it weren’t for the artificial demand created by the replacement of “broken windows.”
The state has promoted the overaccumulation of capital in mass-production facilities that are only profitable when they can amortize the cost of their expensive specialized machinery by running at full capacity without regard to preexisting demand, and then find some way to dispose of the product. And the only way to dispose of that full product has been through state-aided planned obsolescence, state-aided expansion in to foreign markets, direct state purchases of surplus output and surplus capital, and–as a last resort–massive state destruction of output and capital in war.
This is not to say that these are the alternatives that would confront us in a free market. But a free market would restructure the industrial system beyond recognition, to something bearing a much closer resemblance to decentralized flexible manufacturing networks like that of Emilia-Romagna, with much lower capital outlays and overhead.
And I’m afraid that the restructuring process would be–will be–extremely painful. Getting from here to a free market is a lot like turning a sedan into a motorcycle by taking off two of the wheels.
But that’s really our only choice in the end, because Keynesianism is no longer sustainable.
Traditionally, Keynesianism treated deficit spending as an intermittent activity for the downswing of the cycle, to be compensated by countercyclical surpluses on the upswing. State capitalism has reached the point where there is no upswing without deficit spending. The chronic tendencies toward overaccumulation and underconsumption are so great that even half-trillion-dollar deficits every year can’t keep up full employment and utilization of capacity. The traditional Keynesian measures now require continuing deficits so large as to bankrupt the state. A trillion-dollar stimulus this year will avert depression–this year. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Pingback by An Immoral System Can Only Be Sustained By Immorality on 4 October 2010:
[...] the Foundation for Economic Education’s web magazine The Freeman Online, (in “The Newspeak of Paul Krugman,” Sept. 30), Steven Horwitz condemns Krugman’s assertion (in “Economics Is Not A [...]
Comment by Arkadian on 5 October 2010:
pay attention to the term State Capitalism, it is coming. For more deatils go to:http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=2487744689539554484
Comment by Arkadian on 5 October 2010:
This is where what he is heading for?
As reading through the UN forecast how the world be in 2025, beside expecting US to be de-developed to the level of the Third World and maintaining its leading position only because of the down spiraling world economy, frequently use term State Capitalism caught my eyes. It supposes to be solution to all ills the world suffer from “failing” Capitalism, they say, so what is it mean? For this we must go back to history.
When Karl Marx presented his case against the Capitalism, in his book “The Capital,” he saw entrepreneurs a evil and wanted for working class (blue collars) to take charge of the industry and the society as well. Seeds of his Socialistic philosophy took roots in Russia, eventually blossoming into Soviet Union. After liquidating millions of opponents, (roughly 90 millions) and confiscating all industry and business, nationalizing everything, the workers become the ruling class . . . and Soviet Union lagged behind the West until its disseverment in ’93.
Seeing it, wanting the Socialism as well, Italians under Mussolini and later Germans under Hitler rein, took different approach. Both rulers let business alone, controlling it from inside through the regulations. It brought desired progress indeed, so American counterparts, The Progressives led by President Wilson, tried to do the same, but since America was based on different principles it brought strong opposition and bringing the crises upon the nation the “progress” failed.
The WW2 was lost for National Socialists, and victorious Soviets exported their vision of the International Socialism to the world, destroying every country they stepped in. After collapsing, only few socialistic states remained; China, Korea and Cuba. It was China which foreseeing its demise opened the door to capitalism, but different brad, state controlled capitalism. Letting the west to built them the latest technology, factories and the whole industries, having money China state companies began expanding into the world market. I have seen their progress on my own eyes, and from outside it looks perhaps as America in roaring twenties; with minimum regulations almost everything is possible there, but this is misleading. One misstep and you’re gone, because the Communist rulers have the upper hand, controlling the life of its citizens from the cradle to the coffin. How long it will be successful? No one knows, but for now it is very attractive to Progressives as our president and his clique is, and this is where they are hording us now.
My question is…will we allow it? You see, America is done in this UN forecast, and as in media, citizen activities as the Tea Party movement is not expected to happen. WE suppose to be sheep, subdued and lazy nation by now, only unionized people is expected to be going to streets and protest, (as is happening in Greece , Franc, …in Europe,) on that they count, this is part of their plan.
Will we allow it happen?
Comment by jazzbumpa on 5 October 2010:
Steven -
Krugman derangement syndrome is alive and well. A few months back the meme was that he promoted the housing bubble. Now it’s that he’s a war monger.
What you should do is reread his article. He dismisses your frankly stupid accusation in the first few sentences. I defy you to find anything he has ever written either there, or anywhere else, that suggests that war “is morally acceptable because it produces economic growth.” That grotesque distortion is your mental construct, not Krugman’s.
This is what I always find in Krugman’s self-styled critics: a blatant disregard for reality and/or honesty. If Krugman were actually wrong, you could confront his actual statements and do an actual refutation. Instead, you are reduced to distortion and innuendo.
It’s impossible to take you seriously, when you aren’t criticizing Krugman at all. You are constructing a straw man by distorting what he said, and ignoring what he meant – which was that at the zero interest bound there is a paradox of thrift. But one would have to read Krugman regularly to have the context of what he talks about, and not just cherry pick and distort.
What is going on here? Are you so blinded by ideology that you can’t do a rational report on someone you disagree with? Are you incapable of reading with comprehension? Or are you simply a liar? Whichever, you are a crank.
This is particularly beautiful: No critic of free-market economics can ever again accuse us of being irrational and immoral.
I just did. Clearly, you must be one or the other of these, or just plain stupid – which I seriously doubt. It possible, however, that you are both, or all three.
This is really, really sad,
JzB
Comment by Ned Netterville on 17 October 2010:
JzB,
Evidently Steven isn’t going to roll in the mud to respond to your clumsy accusations, but I will:
What is really really sad is that you have been blinded, perhaps by Krugman’s Nobel prize, and morally blinkered, perhaps by your embrace of Keynesian economics.
Here exactly, in his own words, verbatim, is what Krugman said, and it is not taken out of context, for I linked to the full text of the early article in my previous post, and Professor Horwitz provided a linked to Krugman’s later blog post. As anyone can see, both Krugman’s ignorance of the economic consequences of war, and his moral turpitude on the issue of war are resplendent in both articles. Krugman said, “What saved the economy, and the New Deal, was the enormous public works project known as World War II, which finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs.”
And in his blog post Krugman said, “But the political consensus for spending on a sufficient scale never materialized; we needed Hitler and Hirohito instead.”
JzB, You asked and then attacked: “What is going on here? Are you so blinded by ideology that you can’t do a rational report on someone you disagree with? Are you incapable of reading with comprehension? Or are you simply a liar? Whichever, you are a crank.”
What is going on is the truth, and apparently you aren’t up to it. You are caterwauling about distortion, but I defy you to show it. I went back once again and read again both of Krugnman’s articles. My conclusion: Krugman views war as a public works project and an economic stimulus, ergo, he is demented.
Pingback by The illogical act of Osama bin Laden burial at Sea « woodry on 3 May 2011:
[...] Point in hand; let’s hypothetically build a ‘shrine’ for that brutal killer. Build it high and tall for all to see and let watch US and THEM as they both come forth. Watch as the two groups gather towards the said shrine. Watch as they look at their nemesis in the eyes and sing kum ba yah engage in similar means to bring that shrine to the ground. They both seek the same end result; that the shrine should not exist and it should be destroyed. Maybe we will even see Paul Krugman write a NYT op-ed showing how this act will create economic growth. [...]
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