Warmest congrats to Paul Krugman, plus: a challenge to readers

By Kathy G.

Huzzah, kudos, and all hail to this year's Nobel Prize winner in economics, Paul Krugman. Krugman was awarded the prize "for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity." Sayeth the Prize Committee:

This year’s Laureate is awarded the Prize for his research on international trade and economic geography. By having shown the effects of economies of scale on trade patterns and on the location of economic activity, his ideas have given rise to an extensive reorientation of the research on these issues.

To immerse yourself in the wonky details, see this, this, and this. 

This award is extremely gratifying, not only as recognition for the quality of Krugman's scholarship in and of itself, but also because it validates the idea that doing academic work of the highest caliber and being a public (and at times extremely controversial) intellectual are not mutually exclusive endeavors.

I've had the pleasure of meeting Krugman a few times, and I've come away impressed. Blessedly, he doesn't share the affliction common to all too many economists, which is a near-autistic lack of social skills. On the contrary, he was quite personable and down to earth.

Plus, at the Netroots Nation panel he was on this summer, he wore his sandals, which I thought was totally adorable.

Apart from his scholarship, for many of us on the left, Paul Krugman is a hero. Long before George W. Bush's approval rating sunk into the mid-20s, Krugman was virtually alone among mainstream media figures in calling the Bush administration on its bullshit. He took an enormous amount of flack for that, but he never backed down. There can be no doubt that he is a man of courage and integrity.

However, you just know this is coming: the wingnuts are going to have -- no doubt are already having -- the mother of all hissy fits over this. Because so many of them are anti-intellectuals who are incapable of understanding or respecting expertise, they've never been able to wrap their little peabrains around the fact that Paul Krugman knows a wee bit more about economics than they do, and that his knowledge gives him an authority to speak about economic matters.

The wingnuts, therefore, are not going to be able to countenance the notion that Krugman won this prize on the merits: on the basis of the quality of his work. So they are going to be dreaming up all kinds of elaborate rationales and baroque conspiracy theories as to how it is that Krugman was chosen for this, the highest honor his profession has to bestow.

With this in mind, I pose a challenge to my readers: go forth unto the wingnutosphere, and find for me:

1. The single most ungracious thing a wingnut has to say about Krugman's winning the Nobel; and

2. The most ludicrous conspiracy theory that attempts to explain the real reason why he won it.

I'm certain that, as I write, legions of wingnuts are dreaming feverish dreams about how Krugman only won because the Nobel Committee hates America. And I'm sure they'll discover that the dastardly machinations of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George Soros and other similarly infamous individuals are what is really behind this vast left-wing "conspiracy so immense."

I'd monitor this topic myself, but I'm heading off to England today and my blog reading will of necessity be light for the next 10 days or so.

But keep those entries coming. Mr. G Spot and I will read them all, and award the winners.

Comments

[Low Key]

Donald Luskin:

http://www.poorandstupid.com/2008_10_12_chronArchive.asp#900412095577268845

KRUGMAN WINS THE NOBEL PRIZE The Nobel Prize is never posthumous -- it is only awarded to living persons. So some great minds such as John Maynard Keynes and Fischer Black never received the prize in Economics. All that has changed. With today's award to Paul Krugman, the Nobel as gone to an economist who died a decade ago. The person alive to receive the award is merely a public intellectual, a person operating in the same domain as Oprah Winfrey. And even as a public intellectual, the prize is inappropriate, because never before has a scientist operating in the capacity of a public intellectual so abused and debased the science he purports to represent. Krugman's New York Times column drawing on economics is the equivalent of 2006's Nobelists in Physics, astromers Mather and Smoot, doing a column on astrology -- and then, in that column, telling lies about astronomy.
But what's done is done. The only question now is whether Krugman will pay taxes on the prize at the low rates enabled by the Bush tax cuts he has done so much to discredit, or if he will volunteer to pay taxes at higher rates he considers more fair.

[Brien]

www.corner.nationalreview.com

I win!

[Kathy G.]

Well, we only have two comments so far, but it will be hard to top that Luskin post for the award in the "ungracious" category. Hmm, bitter much?

Nevertheless, Brien's nomination is sure to provide stiff competition.

This should be fun.

[Low Key]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/023474.html

The Nobel Fraud
Posted by Bill Anderson at October 13, 2008 06:25 AM
Given the horrible state of the economy and the idiocy coming from mainstream economists, I would have thought that nobody would win the Nobel Prize in Economics this year. Instead, the Swedish Central Bank and its minions have awarded this prize to none other than Paul Krugman.

That's right, a man who gave up economics long ago in order to become a political operative now wears the title of "Nobel" winner.

STOCKHOLM, Oct 13 (Reuters) - American economist Paul Krugman won the 2008 Nobel prize for economics for bringing together analysis of trade patterns and where economic activity takes place, the prize committee said on Monday.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the prestigious 10 million crown ($1.4 million) prize recognised Krugman's formulation of a new theory to answer questions driving world-wide urbanisation.

"He has thereby integrated the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography," the committee said in its statement.

Just as the Nobel people committed fraud last year giving its Peace Prize to Al Gore (who advocates violence against people who burn coal), the Nobel in Economics this year goes to a person who has no understanding whatsoever of prices and markets.

Unfortunately, he now will be in an even greater position of influence, a man who has declared publicly that we need another "New Deal," and a man who believes that FDR lifted the economy out of the Great Depression. A man who believes war is good for the economy. A man who rarely says an intelligent thing in his column.

Indeed, this is another dark episode in economics. Prepare for many more, as Krugman now is going to have a prominent place in the upcoming Obama government.

[Low Key]

http://www.positiveliberty.com/2008/10/krugman-shrug.html

Krugman may be the go-to guy, for all I know, when it comes to matters of economic geography. I liked his columns much better, though, when the Times thought I should have to pay for them and thus kept them from my accidental perusal.

[David Moles]

Do we have a reaction from Ben Stein yet?

[Dave Maier]

Luskin, Rockwell, pfft – amateurs. I give you Roger Kimball (http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2008/10/13/what-a-way-to-celebrate-columbus-day-or-stockholm-takes-leave-of-its-senses/):

[preliminary anti-Stockholm snark elided]

"But today we have yet another illustration of Marx’s revision of Hegel’s version of the progress of history: things happen as it were twice: first as tragedy (Arafat) then as farce–witness this year’s Nobel Laureate for economics: Paul Krugman.

Yes, that Paul Krugman, laughing stock (well, one of them) of The New York Times’s editorial: the anti-capitalist, anti-American town crier whose hysterical maunderings about the economy and American society were embarrassing before they went entirely off the reservation and became merely part of the ambient left-wing static emanating from The New York Times. Krugman is not just a left-wing academic economist. He is a hard-left activist whose only claim on our attention is as a bellwether of a certain species of anti-American demagoguery.

Well, one must laugh to keep from crying. Meanwhile, Krugman will be $1.4 million richer–unless, of course, Barack Obama should be elected and start nosing around that “windfall” profit. That is not–not by a long shot–enough to make me wish for an Obama presidency, but it would be a pleasing consolation prize.

[UPDATE: It occurs to me on reflection that it would have been much more appropriate had the Nobel Prize Committee, since they were determined to honor a fantasist like Krugman, awarded him the Nobel Prize for Literature. I mean, he work is not more unreadable than many recent Nobel Laureates in literature, and it is just as untruthful.]"

[LFC]

This is not responsive to your 'challenge', but I note you wrote: "Apart from his scholarship, for many of us on the left, Krugman is a hero."
Yes: apart from his scholarship. I'm neither an economist nor all that familiar w Krugman's work, but my impression is that it's interesting but has no particularly leftist implications or orientation. If this is wrong, I stand willing to be corrected, of course.

[lt]

Wow, the snark from Luskin and Kimball about Krugman's taxes speaks volumes. The really, really can't imagine that anyone doesn't look at economics solely from the point of view of their own perks.

[Stephen Bank]

If you haven't seen this already, I thought of you and your blog immediately when I saw it.
http://www.poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=5589

[Michael Bérubé]

Well, you have to give it up to Roger Kimball -- the guy really knows his economics. But can we just wait a day or two until Andy McCarthy explains how Paul Krugman's work was really written by Bill Ayers? 'Cause that's gonna sweep the awards, I assure you.

[Loneoak]

LFC, he's certainly not a leftist in the anti-capitalist sense that Kimball et. al. would have it. But his work on financial crises certainly favors strong governmental response and his work on trade often touched on concerns about inequality between and within nations. So, it's not all that disconnected from his column writing.

[Dr X]

"File under Western Civilization, Decline: Krugman Wins Nobel"
http://sovereignspeculator.com/2008/10/13/file-under-western-civilization-decline-krugman-wins-nobel/

Excerpts:

I won’t comment on Krugman, other than to say that he is a socialist, and like many of his breed who do not actually implement collectivist scams (Raines, Paulson, Mozillo, Congress, et al.) but provide intellectual support for them, he seems to have a soul, albeit a lost one.

Anyone who understands the principles of the market and defends them in public these days must feel the way I do: that we are simply narrating the decline. You can’t argue with history. You can just put it down as you see it, now in the hope of carrying a few embers of common sense through or out of the West as it enters some kind of dark age...

This episode will play out over generations, and it will end with tens of millions dead and the end of the very civilization that codified respect for the individual.

The end of the Enlightenment means the end of freedom and the end of freedom means the end of centuries of increasing living standards, from food and health care, to travel and communication, to privacy and personal security.

The West is simply finished. It’s best hope is balkanization, in case any regional pockets of common sense remain, though I can’t think of any strong enough to have a good chance to withstand the violence to come. Perhaps Switzerland, for a while.

[Barrayaran]

You know, I decided years ago that my personal shibboleths for intelligent commentary were (1) the ability to properly pronounce "nuclear", (2) the ability to properly pronounce "pervert", and (3) the ability to tell the difference between "its" (possessive) and "it's" (contraction).

Sovereign Speculator is a sterling example.

[John Emerson]

"This episode will play out over generations, and it will end with tens of millions dead...." (Dr. X)

In ALL possible worlds, ALL multi-generation scenarios end with BILLIONS dead.

Suck it up, Dr. X. It's going to be grim.

[Brien]

Doughy has to get mentioned, just for sheer irony:
-------------------------------------

"Jonah Goldberg teamed with an Anonymous Coward: Krugman couldn’t be more different. He routinely fudges facts and, when called on it, refuses to admit error. He never presents both sides of an argument dispassionately and then uses reason and observed experience to discern the truth. He consistently demonizes anyone who doesn’t agree with him. His shrill, hysterical voice trivializes honest differences and invites counter-attack rather than reasoned rebuttal. Plus he’s not even well-informed on many issues that fall outside his academic specializations. I know the Nobel committee doesn’t judge entirely on the basis of someone’s career, but Krugman’s Nobel should make them rethink this. He continues to use his NYTimes column in a way that diminishes the intellectual standards of his field. This does significant, long-run harm to what the Nobel Committee calls “Economic Sciences,” perhaps entirely offsetting the value of Krugman’s academic contributions."

Brad Delong has a roundup of sorts.

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/10/crooked-timber.html

[Jeet Heer]

We have a winner. William "Bill" Anderson in Forbes:

Today's announcement that Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in economics, although not earth shattering, indicates that outright political partisanship is not a deterrent to winning. This is not as tragic a moment in western civilization as the sacking of Constantinople in 1453 or the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, but it suffices as one of those sad moments we will regret over time.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/13/krugman-nobel-economics-oped-cx_wla_1013anderson.html

[Matt G.]

My regularly stressed brain requires not a headache (nor an aneurysm), so I'll refrain from wading through all the vitriol helpfully suggested above, but I'm curious, how many wingnuts have managed to link the Nobel Prize and Sweden into an incoherent rambling on Socialism and its evils? (or is that merely a prerequisite for all of them?)

[Dr X]

"This episode will play out over generations, and it will end with tens of millions dead...." (Dr. X)"

That's not me, Dr. X. That's an excerpt from my nominee, Sovereign Speculator.

[Dave]

PAUL KRUGMAN:
Actually, can I just — I wanted to ask a question. And—

JOHN DONVAN:
Please—please do—

PAUL KRUGMAN:
—and I wanted to ask, actually two questions, to the audience. First, how many Canadians, would Canadians in the room please raise your hands. [ONE PERSON APPLAUDS, LAUGHTER]

JOHN DONVAN:
We have about seven hands going up—

PAUL KRUGMAN:
Okay, not as many as I thought. Okay, of those of you who are not on the panel who are Canadians, how many of you think you have a terrible health care system. [PAUSE] One, two—

JOHN DONVAN:
We see—almost all of the same hands going up. [LAUGHTER]

PAUL KRUGMAN:
Bad move on my part. [APPLAUSE]

[Dissertation Introduction]

Blogs are so informative where we get lots of information on any topic. Nice job keep it up!!