Follow-Up On Krugman the Anti-Economist
In the previous post I was rendered without speech by Krugman’s analysis. However, I tried to deal with several problems that I perceived, and thus may have given readers the wrong impression. His last confusion of the post had nothing to do with politics. In this post, I want to isolate that particular absurdity to make sure everyone here sees just how bad it was.
Recall that Krugman said:
Plus, who is “the government”? It’s basically us, you know — the government spends money providing services to the public. Demanding that the government tighten its belt means demanding that we, the taxpayers, get less of those services. Why is this a good thing, even aside from the state of the economy?
His mistake here is so bad and so basic that we shouldn’t even worry about the political naivete. Suppose someone had said that there were too many houses built during the boom years, and so that sector needs to shrink. Now Krugman might say, “I disagree with that analysis”–and in fact he has. But suppose the way he disagreed was to write:
[Satirical Krugman quote:] Plus, who are these “homebuilders”? It’s basically us, you know — the homebuilders spend money on lumber, nails, and workers providing houses to the public. Demanding that the homebuilders scale back their operations means demanding that we, the consumers, get fewer houses. Why is this a good thing, even aside from the state of the economy?
Do you folks see it now? Back when I was teaching, if a business major had put this down on a short-answer for an Intro to Macro exam I would have read it to my wife so she could chuckle. (“Laugh” is a strong word; my wife is not the geek I am.)
And this guy won the Nobel (Memorial) Prize in economics. Oh my gosh.
