Harvard economics Professor Greg Mankiw thinks that Mr. Obama’s growth forecasts are overly optimistic and that the federal deficit will be a lot larger than Mr. Obama thinks. He was chastised by Princeton’s Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, who on his New York Times blog claims that Mankiw can only make the predictions that he does because of “more than a bit of deliberate obtuseness.” He titled his post on Mankiw, “Roots of Evil.”Last Wednesday, Mankiw responded to Krugman’s attacks by suggesting: “Well, Paul, if you are so confident in this forecast, would you like to place a wager on it and take advantage of my wickedness?” Krugman has still not responded. It seems even a Nobel Prize winner isn’t willing to lay money on Mr. Obama’s rosy projections.
A Macro Simonian Bet
Mar 11th, 2009 by wintercow20
It maybe unrelated, but the other day I concluded that reading Krugman is a lot like reading Marx; they can both be very brilliant at times and make some profound statements, but then they continue and contradict themselves and end up making bad economics. Maybe I can toss Veblen into this group, too.
The header of your site should be sent to Paul Krugman daily to remind him of, to use a big word, of his epistemeological vanity.
Though I am not a degreed economist, I do make my living telling other people what to do with their money, and right now I’m not making any bets that inflation will decline and business conditions will improve, given the money being wasted and the burden that we are about to endure. I’m not sure anybody can measure what damage will be done by interfering with contracts, taxing everybody who uses energy, or making future decisions about what to do uncertain. I am sure it will not be good, and my own money is not going with Mr. Krugman, not that I ever paid any attention to him.
Oops, I did not proof the comment: “of…of” is unintentional. One letter grade penalty.