Asymmetrical Information

Actually, he does. He links to this post of Sully's:

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2002_11_17_dish_archive.html#85705878

"Still makes him ..." To you, dear, to you. Your response to having it pointed out that you were wrong about Krugman's linking statement makes the addition of MHD to the web site all the more welcome. Whether admitting error or apoligizing, wholeheartedness is all.

So you're saying that it didn't make him sound petty and unable to take criticism. . . as if linking to Andrew Sullivan automatically invalidated a well-thought out critique?

Krugman's point, it seems, is that if Drezner accuses Krugman of being shrill and thinks Sullivan is worth citing as a critic, then Drezner's shrill-o-meter might need a little calibration.

Krugman responded to a long, thoughtful post in which Drezner was careful to say how much he admires Krugman's writing, with a snippy retort. As part of a longer piece, that might be a fair call. As the only comment, it's petty and juvenile -- "So's your mother!"

Krugman's post is not a "response to Drezner," it is primarily a response to a smear from Mickey Kaus. The remark to Drezner is an aside, and the point Krugman makes is valid.

When you address something "Memo to Drezner" I think it's fair to qualify that as a response to Drezner. And if that little retort is all the response you have, I think it's better left unsaid.

If Drezner's essay had been a hack job, or primarily based on Sullivan, that would be legit. But neither was the case. Having read Drezner's piece, and then Krugman's rejoinder, it sounded exactly the way my friends sound who can't take criticism -- they attack the person giving it, rather than responding to the substance. Juvenile. It should be beneath an academic of Krugman's stature.

They're both shrill, at least on certain subjects (e.g., Bush, Krugman). Drezner, however, is not shrill, and he's right about where a formerly great economics popularizer went wrong.

Virginia Postrel

Having just read both pieces, I'll take the Jane Galt explanation. Drezner wrote nearly 700 words on the topic and kept an even tone the entire time. The link to Sullivan -- linked from a single word in a parenthetical clause -- is hardly a strain to Drezner's credibility.

Krugman got sniped with a slow-moving Nerf ball and responded with a real stick. Not cool.

I personally agree that Krugman is too shrill, especially when attacking Bush's motives. I also don't disagree with a lot of what Drezner says. Krugman ought to stick to patiently explaining the flaws in Bush's policies. God knows there's enough material there.

However Krugman's aside about Sullivan brings up an important point. It seems to me that there's a double standard: liberal commentators are expected to scrupulously fair minded, while conservative pundits and talk show hosts regularly get away with all manner of attacks and dishonesties. Is Krugman more shrill or does he shade the facts more than say, Sullivan? Michael Kelly? The WSJ editorial page? To me he's about as shrill, but generally more honest, and more thought provoking too.

I guess bias is in the eyes of the beholder...

My problem with Krugman isn't that he puts his argument's best foot forward; it's that every single goddamn column is about how evil Bush is. It's boring. Krugman is a gifted writer about economics, but he sidlines the economics in order to grind his political axe. We don't have enough great popularizers of economic issues that we can afford to waste them making uninteresting and unoriginal attacks on the Bush administration.

He also shades the truth and makes the corrections to his misstatements as unobtrusive as possible, two academic no-nos. Then he uses his status as a professor to lend the imprimatur of academia to what are essentially partisan arguments.

Krugman prints things that are untrue to damage people who have politics that Krugman disagrees with, and consistently puts forth ludicrous arguments of an alarmist nature regarding political realities. This doesn't make him any different from the other hacks who grace the editorial pages, from all parts of the political spectrum, but Krugman does so under cover of a deserved reputation for academic brilliance in an area in which he IS an authority, economics. When Milton Friedman was writing popular journalism, I don't recall him using the techniques favored by Rush Limbaugh and Maureen Dowd.

Well said Will. Lately I have found Krugman almost impossible to stomach. When Krugman wrote for Slate he was much better. I can't add much to what Jane and Will have already said so eloquently.

Hmm...when Krugman wrote for Slate (and his political attacks were limited to Clinton & anti-globalists) he was much better. Now (when he writes against Bush) he's almost impossible to stomach.

Well, at least Steve is consistent.

I think the above point about the double standard for R v. L punditry is spot-on - is there anyone on the left as shrill, irrational and dishonest as Michael Kelly?

And I think Jane's noncorrection correction doesn't suit her well. PK was primarily addressing one of his more vociferous critics who made an idiotic factual error. He took the opportunity to level a little shot at another (admittedly reasonable) critic who made a silly error of judgement/reasoning.

If I were in PK's shoes, reading Drezner's piece, I would have spit out my coffee at seeing Sullivan cited in a generally staid piece that derided my shrill tone. I'm sorry, but (esp. on the topic of PK) Sullivan is down to zero credibility. Drezner may as well have cited Rush. And if I were PK, forced to clarify MK's mistake, I could hardly resist zinging Drezner. That's all it is - a zinger, in a forum that, when it suits PK's critics, is often described as out-of-the-way and invisible.

PS - To anyone already thinking of Michael Kelly equivalents, I should clarify - "published in the WaPo or equal." Good luck.

Come on, Kelly is nowhere near as "shrill, irrational and dishonest" as Krugman. Krugman's competition on the right consists of Ann Coulter...

"idiotic factual error"? what are you smoking?
Everybody who works outside academia who knows what the difference between "advisor" and "outside chair" is, please raise your hand.

If he wanted to point out the difference, fine. But no, he had to act like some slanderous charge had been leveled.(gee, sort of like phony claims of corruption and bribery with regard to a professional baseball team, huh?) Seeing that ridiculous response from Krugman only lowered my opinion of him even further.(and it was plenty low before)

For the record (also posted on my blog):

I'll admit that Sullivan was not the most objective link to select for evidence of Krugman's decline, but I stand by my assertion of increasing shrillness. In the Editor & Publisher piece, one newspaper editor says that Krugman "sometimes beat up too much on Bush."; The Confessore story observes, "To read through his (Krugman's) columns about Bush is to watch disdain pass through frustration into rage." If you want more proof, click on http://www.lyinginponds.com/pkrugman.nyt.html. Beyond that there's nothing to rebut -- Krugman did not respond to the substance of the post.

Jane, thanks for the support.

Dan Drezner accuses Krugman of being increasingly more shrill. Krugman responds by saying that the accusation is hardly supported by a link to Andrew Sullivan.

Was Krugman a bit snippy? Yes. Was Drezner a bit snippy, particularly given his announced academic relationship to Krugman, which would make his remarks seem more of a dig? Yes.

Snippy begets snippy. Both a surprise and an outrage -- if you're Jane Galt.

Fascinating debate. If I ever get my blog up and running I will have to address this more.

It seems to me that discussing the ‘shrillness’ factor is useless. It’s all in the eye of the beholder. I clearly see a double standard as RC says. But those with a different political view will disagree. Just look at this thread. As for Drezner calling PK shrill and linking to AS….Oh well.

A little aside for all you Krugman watchers. PK’s first book, “The Age of Diminished Expectations”, was reviewed by The Economist back in 1992 I believe. I remember the review as very favorable but they said that PK needed to be more angry in his writing. Well, we got that now.

The problem I have with practically all the Krugman watchers or snipers is that they are, to a great extent, either dishonest or unable to address the substantive issues. For example, Andrew Sullivan spent a great deal of time back when PK’s Enron fees were made public talking about how $50k was too much and how PK should have realized that. And he gave as an example Cornel West’s speaking fees. This shows a profound ignorance of the market and of who PK’s peers are in this context. Businesses do not normally pay humanities professors for advice but economic specialists in international trade and finance are a different matter. Now AS was quite happy to link to V. Postrel’s prediction that PK was a goner but never mentioned VP’s later post explaining PK’s fees were perfectly in tune with market standards. I emailed him on that but never heard back.

On the substantive issues, as Confessore’s piece says “On the topics he writes about most often and most angrily--tax cuts, Social Security, and the budget--his record is nearly perfect.” When Mickey Kaus tried to address a substantive issue, saying that Reischauer contradicted PK on the budget, Kaus only succeeded in making a fool of himself, showing he did not understand the issues at hand. Reischauer publicly contradicted what Kaus said but, as with A. Sullivan, Kaus failed to note that in his blog even after I alerted him of that fact and he acknowledged it (by email).

The real reason, IMHO, of Kaus’ and specially Sullivan’s attacks is professional jealousy. What is a blogger after all if not an unpaid columnist? Here’s Sullivan and Krugman, both writing for the NYT Magazine and years later one has been promoted to the most important opinion page in the world and the other is kicked out and ends up begging for donations at his website. Of course this wouldn’t be so bad if at least Sullivan could point to ANY analytical accomplishments in his blog. There too he is but a pale reflection of Krugman. AS has produced nothing comparable to PK’s analysis of the CA electricity crisis. With no inside reporting, using only his deductive reasoning and economics training, PK laid out the basics of the problem months before ANYONE did. Meanwhile Sullivan and Kaus are limited to playing gotcha with Howell Raines.

Come on, RC - "liberal commentators are expected to scrupulously fair minded, while conservative pundits and talk show hosts regularly get away with all manner of attacks and dishonesties." - give me a break. If anything, liberal commentators have gotten away for years with cheap accusations of racism, homophobia, etc. I don't know anyone who thinks liberal commentators can be expected to be scrupulously fairminded - we have all learned better by now.

It has been observed that liberal commentators seem more interested in maintaining moral purity (leading them to make personal attacks), while conservatives commentators seem more interested in making converts (leading them to avoid such attacks). I find some value in this observation, but that may reflect where I come from. I don't think there is any doubt that the preponderance of name-calling comes from the left these days, though.

Sorry to double post, but if GT thinks that our Jane has not tackled Krugman on the merits, he has obviously not been following her blog for awhile.

I believe the point is that, on the merits of economics, Krugman can be quite good, but when he heads off into the tall grass of politics, he routinely sucks, and consequently is squandering his intellectual capital as an economist.

I never had heard of Jane before today so no, I haven’t followed her criticisms of Krugman on the substance. Anything you can point out? Just saying he sucks at politics doesn’t mean much. How do you define ‘sucks’? As not agreeing with you?

I have read Kaus, and Sullivan (and that’s why I refer to them) and neither, despite the nearly endless virtual ink they spent on the subject were ever able to point to any major mistake on the issues by Krugman. As Confessore says his record on the main issues he talks about is nearly perfect.

I decided to look at little at this website and lo and behold look at what I found:
http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/001047.html#001047. Just focus on one point (no time for all) where Jane says that PK’s assertion on the CA electricity crisis is wrong and that it wasn’t caused (as PK says) by market manipulation by the electric companies.

Ooops

A month later the GAO came out with this: http://www.house.gov/defazio/071602EGRelease.shtml

BTW here’s Krugman on June 27,01: “Many economists now accept the uncomfortable answer: Generators deliberately withheld electricity from the market in order to drive high prices even higher.”

Here’s Jane a year later with her explanation(June 7, 02): “including the main causes of the crisis, WHICH WERE A DROUGHT THAT DREW DOWN HYDRO RESERVOIRS AND A BOTTLENECK IN THE NATURAL GAS PIPELINE, COMBINED WITH CALIFORNIA'S DRACONIAN AIR-QUALITY LAWS. AND AN INSISTENCE ON USING THE SPOT MARKET,”

And here’s the GAO month after Jane (July 16, 02): “electricity suppliers exercised market power by raising prices above competitive levels during some periods after the restructured market opened... electricity prices did not follow the usual pattern of rising during the high-demand hours and falling during the low-demand hours - rather, the highest prices were not found in the hours of highest demand.

“Other factors - including fuel costs and levels of imported electricity, total demand and in-state generation - did not explain the different pattern...Price pattern was consistent with market power being exercised in off-peak hours.”

And that neatly summarizes the problem I have with the Krugman bashers. It’s not that they may not have some valid points. Of course Krugman is and will be wrong. The only way not to make mistakes is to never have an opinion. It’s that the quality of the Krugman attackers is, shall we say, lacking? Here we have an unemployed MBA who took some econ courses vs a guy who won the Clark medal, was named the ‘preeminent economist of his generation’ by the MIT Economics dept, and is a future Nobel Prize winner. I would be a bit more humble in my criticisms. When I read journalists or journalist wanna-bes with little or no formal training in graduate level economics taking potshots at professors like Krugman or Delong I feel like I’m watching a high school basketball player making fun of Jordan.

It’s not that Jane (or anybody else) can’t spot mistakes made by Krugman. But it’s telling that there is such a huge difference in intellectual standing on the two sides and when you look a little deeper you notice the difference (as in the example of the CA electricity crisis).

Krugman’s made many mistakes. And his opinions are not shared by all. But on his core issues, of the impact and cost of the Bush tax cut, of the fiscal situation, of the cost of ‘privatizing’ Social Security, he is completely right. And that’s what drives his critics insane.

But his record isn't nearly perfect on any of those things, unless you are a liberal Democrat looking for a policy salesman.

Krugman correctly called many of the budget issues that the Bush budget faced. The problem was that during the campaign, he strongly implied that the Gore numbers balanced, which they didn't; Gore was using very bad static-line numbers, double counting surpluses, and otherwise doing pretty much what Bush was, only for spending instead of tax cuts. Gore was also pushing deficit reduction as if it were a permanent solution, rather than a way to allow a bankrupt program to borrow a little more money to stave off the inevitable; and claiming extremely unrealistic effects from paying down the debt. Krugman intimated that Gore's numbers were legit, when they were the same kind of political puffery.

That's what a partisan advocate does. But Krugman's schtick is not that he's a partisan; it's that he's a professional economist who is drawn to make the statements he does by the numbers, which if you read the numbers he's trying to get you to adopt, is obviously false. Of course, most of the people who read his columns don't understand even basic economic numbers or reasoning, so they take his word for it because he agrees with what they already want to believe.

Paul Krugman is a very good popularizer of international economics. He is possibly a good economist, although he seems not to have fulfilled his early promise, and his non-academic work (I hear) is beginning to make serious inroads into his academic achievements. Nonetheless, he has correctly made some big calls, although his tin ear for human relations and politics seems to have made him ineffective at driving policy directly; for example, he invested a great deal in advocating certain policy solutions for Japan even though they were politically impossible. Nonetheless, he is listened to by others who are more intimately involved with actually constructing policy.

But his public writing is not serious. You will note that he almost never writes on his specialty, which is international economics, because he can't make the kinds of sweeping statements he makes in other fields without endangering his career. For example, he has directly contradicted the findings of at least two studies which he nonetheless claimed supported his assertions: a Card and Krueger study on income inequality (see the inimitable John Weidner's site for details), and a government study on social security that he claimed showed there was no ongoing crisis, when in fact the study said exactly the opposite (you can see my take on that here and here. Why did he claim there was no crisis? Because while the privatisation plan pushed by the Bush Administration is at best a partial solution, the Democrats have no plan at all; hard to rail against privatisation and defend your party unless you can claim that there's really no problem, and all the Bush administration is doing is trying to give taxpayer money to their buddies. Moreover, Social Security is one of the primary vehicles of income redistribution in the country, and Krugman favors redistribution. Not in itself necessarily wrong; but if it's such a great idea, why does he have to misrepresent the data to support it?

He's also spent a lot of time blaming projected tax cuts for current deficits, which is ridiculous; blaming tax cuts, while exempting SS and Medicare, for projected deficits; screaming about Bush tax cuts while remaining silent about equally stupid Democratic ones (at least, by the standards he's using), and otherwise grinding his partisan axe. Now, that's what he gets paid for. But it bothers me first, because he's really good at popularizing economics, and his current gig strikes me as a waste of talent; and second because some of the things he's saying are really dangerous, most notably reassuring people that everything's really fine and we don't have to worry about Social Security or Medicare. He's enabling us to put off dealing with the crisis, which will just make it worse when the bill is presented for payment.

And third, of course, because liberals present him as some sort of grand disinterested figure dropping nuggets of impartial wisdom from the Olympian detachment of academia, which is ridiculous, and then get sniffy when I say it isn't so.

Finally, he's burned any credibility he might have, which is irritating. Now, when there's a real danger that some of the nuttier breed of supply siders might come into ascendance, what can Krugman do? He shot his political capital shouting that George Bush is Hitler II. He's not even an irritation to them any more; he's just one more voice screaming from the increasingly one-note Times Op-Ed page.

I'm not an expert on Krugman, but a quick googling turned this up:

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/stockbub.html

In the essay, Krugman's main argument is that the Fed probably shouldn't try to "prick" the stock market bubble for a variety of reasons. The one given that's indefensible is this:

"The thing to understand is that a stock market boom is not like a boom in physical investment--say, a boom in condominium construction. That kind of boom depresses future spending because it leaves behind a landscape littered with unsellable condos. But that isn't quite what happens when stocks surge: When the market value of Croesus.com doubles, that doesn't mean there will be an overhang of vacant dot-coms weighing down rental rates two years from now. It's paper gains today, paper losses tomorrow; who cares?"

There's at least two reasons the paragraph above is completely wrong. The first is that stock market booms almost by definition are accompanied by booms in IPO and secondary stock offerings. During the stock market and internet boom of the late 1990s that lasted until March 2000, American companies raised billions of dollars with stock market offerings (at inflated prices), and much of the money raised was used to invest in excess production equipment, purchases of unneeded assets, etc. And one reason the technology and communications sectors were hurt so badly on the downside of the boom was the existence of a lot of extra "nearly-new" equipment floating around the gray market. Why buy a new Cisco router when a nearly-new Cisco router can be had for 70% off?

The second reason the analysis is wrong is related to equity offerings but a bit more technical: managers in corporate America make investment decisions in part by comparing the estimated return on investment to their estimated cost of capital. When equity market valuations are high, the equity component of the cost of capital is lower than it is when equity valuations are depressed. As a result, many companies go ahead with capital projects during stock market booms that would be deferred if equity valuations were at more rational, lower levels. In this fashion, stock market booms lead many companies to take on extra capital projects that would not be considered viable otherwise.

What I've just written is plain vanilla, basic economic finance, and I seriously doubt that Krugman would disagree with any part of it. But what was written in the stockbub.html essay is incompatible with standard economic finance. I don't know why Krugman would write something he knew was completely in error - maybe he was trying to simplify the issue and went so far that he oversimplified far beyond the point of no return.

None of this is directed at whether or not the Greenspan Fed should have tried to "prick" the stock market bubble. Economists could (and perhaps will) debate that question for a long, long time and never reach a conclusion. I would note that whichever side of that issue one is on, I do think Greenspan should be severely criticized for putting far too much monetary liquidity out in the system in the late Fall of 1999 in providing for a potential liquidity problem revolving around the Y2K crisis which never transpired.

We're saying two different things. Krugman was right that traders gamed regulations, but he was wrong in claiming (as far as I know) that they constrained supply.

As it turns out, there was (probably) more market manipulation than it initially seemed. But there was also less than Krugman claimed. There were a lot of plants that had been running at peak for eighteen months or more; they had to come off-line for maintenance. Now, for example, Krugman claimed that the fact they went off line at usage lows was evidence of manipulation. But the alternative would have been to take them off-line at peak times, triggering blackouts. There were also record lows in the hydro plants, most of which are in Canada, most of which also refused to sell when it became clear that there was market manipulation. There was also a very, very bad regulation plan that required the ISO to use the spot market instead of forward contracts. There was, finally, a lot of untapped capacity on the market, because plants that had been running flat out all year had to shut down or find themselves in violation of California's air quality laws. Krugman ignored all this, as if the energy companies had singlehandedly manipulated the system. The government put about a zillion regulations into place that bottlenecked supply and made prices highly volatile, and then was surprised to find out that prices spiked. Moreover, as far as I know the traders did not artificially constrain supply (in other words, they didn't cause the blackouts); rather, they gamed the regulations that attempted to artificially lower the price of energy. It was the factors I cited that constrained the actual supply.

As for my credentials, either I'm right or I'm wrong. The caliber of my ideas is unrelated to the caliber of my degree -- although I'm under the impression that the degree I received is pretty good. As for his -- "Future nobel prize winner", GT? For what? I can't think of a single piece of nobel caliber work he's done. But perhaps you're better informed than I.

Whoa, a lot to answer!

First, yes the credentials don’t matter if your ideas are correct. But on somewhat technical issues, like the ones we are discussing here, and when one doesn’t have the time or capacity to research them on their own you have to rely on the ‘quality’ of the speakers. I repeat, it is telling that you have people like Delong and Krugman on one hand and Sullivan and Kaus on the other. That should tell you something.

As for the CA crisis you repeat your mistake. You say that there was market manipulation but that Krugman was “wrong in claiming (as far as I know) that they constrained supply”. Er, how do you think the market manipulation was effected? By constraining supply, as the GAO report makes clear. Here’s what GAO said: “electricity suppliers could withhold electricity from the market until it was critically needed, and at that time, could raise prices above competitive levels”. That’s how it worked.

The analysis of the CA electricity crisis was one of Krugman’s finest moments as an Op Ed columnist. He not only explained what was going on long before anyone else did, he also proposed the right solution (price caps) which was resisted by the Bush administration but , after a long wait and billions lost, finally implemented.

As for Krugman’s academic achievements I’m afraid you really have no idea. (I’m sorry if I’m coming out a bit shrill, it’s really not my intention and it’s one of the unfortunate by products of holding this conversation in an Internet forum, and not face to face. I apologize in advance.) Krugman has ALREADY won the Clark medal which, although less known, is more difficult to win than the Econ Nobel Prize. Why will he win the Nobel? Probably for his work on balance of payments crises and strategic trade theory. Do you know what they are and what they mean?

When you write something like “He is possibly a good economist, although he seems not to have fulfilled his early promise, and his non-academic work (I hear) is beginning to make serious inroads into his academic achievements. “ you show such a lack of knowledge of what Krugman has done and his standing in the economic community that I have to put into doubt everything else you post. Krugman is now in his late 40s. His best academic years are behind him. That is how academia works, most of the big stuff is done in your 20s and 30s. Krugman has already done that. I suggest you read this (http://www.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/w3/w3collie/krugman/laudatio.html) before you continue posting opinions on Krugman’s academic credentials. As I wrote in a previous post the MIT Econ dept, arguably the best in the world, has acknowledged Krugman as the preeminent economist of his generation.

Let’s see, what else?

You write: “The problem was that during the campaign, he strongly implied that the Gore numbers balanced, which they didn't; Gore was using very bad static-line numbers, double counting surpluses, and otherwise doing pretty much what Bush was, only for spending instead of tax cuts. Gore was also pushing deficit reduction as if it were a permanent solution, rather than a way to allow a bankrupt program to borrow a little more money to stave off the inevitable; and claiming extremely unrealistic effects from paying down the debt. Krugman intimated that Gore's numbers were legit, when they were the same kind of political puffery.”

Do you have proof for any of this? A quick look at Krugman’s columns in 2000 shows nothing of the sort. But I could have missed it.

As for the Card and Krueger study I’ll look into that. After your comments on the CA crisis and Krugman’s achievements forgive me if I think you may have misunderstood it.

And one last one. You say that : “He's also spent a lot of time blaming projected tax cuts for current deficits, which is ridiculous”. Hmmm. He did? When? Where? I don’t recall having seen that.

Jane Galt wants to show how biased and inaccurate Krugman's thinking has become, even on economic issues, when it comes to evaluating politically charged proposals.

So what site does she link to? John Weidner's.

Oh, NOW were convinced, Jane.

There is a pattern in many of these forums of making things up and mixing that with some grains of truth. For example, Jane’s contention that Krugman has “spent a lot of time blaming projected tax cuts for current deficits” sounds made up to me. Or, more precisely, it is probably a projection of Jane’s views on Krugman. She thinks that’s what he would say and therefore ends up believing he actually did.

If he did post something like that I will recognize I am wrong. I have been reading Krugman’s work for a long time and don’t recall him ever saying that.

One last thing. I read your piece on Social Security. You make some good and valid points but you seem to miss the big picture. If you are going to comment on somebody like Krugman, who has written extensively but mostly on 700-word columns, and you have no time or word limits then the intellectually honest thing to do is to take the totality of his writings into consideration.

On SS Krugman has made clear in the past that he thinks we should preserve it. I happen to disagree and think we should move from the current system to a defined contribution plan. But I understand, and accept, that there is a huge cost involved in this. And that has always been Krugman’s pet peeve with the Bush ‘privatization’ plan, that it has no mention of the costs involved. (Why? Because Bush knows that talking about the SS transition costs requires answering how you will pay for it.)

Krugman’s column on the new estimates of SS is correct. The fact is, as Krugman points out, that with just some changes SS could continue indefinitely. Some estimates I’ve read say that an increase of 50 basis points in the SS tax rates would be sufficient. We can debate whether that is desirable. But it makes no sense to talk about impending doom on SS when none exists.

GT, he claimed that a study he quoted said something that it manifestly did not say. It was shoddy. There are decent arguments against privatization, but it is incumbent upon the opponents to make them, not pretend they're unnecessary.

He has a 700-word limit. He also has the New York Times; I just have this blog. I think a handicap is appropriate.

Besides which, I'm not playing a game. I think this is a little more important than high-school debate. Either social security is going to implode, or it isn't. Krugman knows it is (he's in favor of keeping it and raising taxes to pay for it), but he pretends there is no problem, presumably because if you explain to people the magnitude of the increases involved, they won't sign on. I think that's wrong, and I'll take as many words as I need to to say why.

I’m sorry but I fail to see where Krugman claimed something the report didn’t support. Can you back that up?

I noticed you couldn’t back up your assertion that PK was blaming the current deficit on future tax cuts. Do we have the same problem here?

As I looked a bit more in your website I noticed this: When I asked my b-school professors about the study, they told me that Card-Krueger, who like the minimum wage, are highly respected by op-ed columnists. Becker, and others who refuted their study, are highly respected by economists. You decide

Where DID you go to school? David Card and Alan Krueger not respected?

I’m sorry, but do you have ANY idea about economics? Why don’t you start here on Card. Alan Krueger is an NBER researcher! Jeez, I’m talking about very basic stuff. I’m sorry, but the more I read what you wrote the more out of your league you seem to be.

If you'd checked the information conventiently located on the right side of my blog, you'd know that I attended business school at the University of Chicago. Perhaps you've heard of it? The professors with whom I discussed the Card and Krueger study are folks I respect, and several of them are more likely to get the Nobel than Krugman by an order of magnitude; indeed, one already had it. (Although not the professor who made the remark I quoted). More than one was possessed of the Clark medal. Have I passed your credential test yet? And are you going to share yours with us?

Go read the article again. Krugman claims the report says that there is no social security crisis. Now you go, do your homework, read the entire report, and tell me where in the report he gathered data that would support that conclusion, which you would be willing to repeat in the presence of a professional gathering of economists. Or of anyone who can add.

I'd advise you to do a little data checking before you start the nastygrams. I don't need a PhD to read a government study on social security and see when someone's misrepresenting it. Nor to quote an economist whose position was, I guarantee, a lot harder to get than a slot at the NBER.

Nasty grams? LOL. I did apologize in advance…

As for your professors, not having been there I don’t know what they said or in what context. I do know that Card and Krueger are two of the top labor economists around. You can disagree with what they say but to dismiss them as in “favored by Op Ed columnists’ is simply a show of pure ignorance. Add to that what you said elsewhere about Krugman and, I repeat, I think you are a bit out of your league.

As for Krugman’s article he says that the report shows that SS can operate until 2041 without any changes and that with a “bit of extra resources” it can survive indefinitely. Increasing the SS tax rate 15%- not 15 percentage points mind you, just 15%- will, according to the SS report bring SS into actuarial balance for the next 75 years. So, again, what did Krugman say that isn’t supported by the report?

And I’m still waiting for any backup to your assertion that Krugman says that Bush’s future tax cuts explain today’s budget deficits.

GT -- are you listening to me? It was said by an economist at the University of Chicago. Not by me. If you want, you can go find a University of Chicago economist and argue with him about Card and Krueger. I'd be happy to provide you with a list of names. But I wouldn't go calling them ignorant if I were you; not unless you're longing to have your ears pinned back.

I'll find the Krugman quote for you later.

Yes, I understand that one of your professors said that to you. But if you knew something about Card (winner of the Clark Medal) and Krueger (Princeton professor, NBER researcher, and former Chief Economist of the Labor Dept) you’d know that to dismiss them as Op Ed economists is simply ridiculous. That’s my point. That comment and others like that show you really don’t know who these economists are and what they have done, academically. There’s no reason why you should. But given that lack of knowledge let me suggest you refrain from commenting on academic credentials.

As for Krugman you keep making assertions and when I ask you to back them up, you can’t. We’ll see but I expect you’ll never find any column by Krugman supporting what you claim he said about the tax cuts. You still haven’t recognized that the GAO report indicates you were wrong on the CA energy crisis and Krugman was right. You did not realize that the market manipulation was done by constraining supply, contrary to what you posted.

You seem to read in his columns what you want and not what he said. Take the SS. You say that he claimed that a study he quoted said something that it manifestly did not say.

That’s a pretty bold statement, and pretty damning, if true. Alas, it is not true. Here’s what Krugman said:
The staff of the Social Security Administration, using conservative assumptions, now says that the system could operate without any changes at all — no cuts in benefits, no additional revenue — until 2041, three years longer than it projected last year.
I hope this satisfies readers who, when I criticize bogus arguments for privatizing Social Security, demand to hear my answer to the crisis. There isn't any crisis: the system looks good for 40 years, and with a bit of extra resources can survive indefinitely.
All factually correct. Here’s what the SS report says:
On the 2041 thing:
Social Security solvency is essentially unchanged compared to last year’s report, although this year the combined OASDI Trust Fund is projected to be financed three years longer than in last year’s report—until 2041.
and on the cost of making it fully funded:
Bringing Social Security into actuarial balance over the next 75 years could be achieved by either a permanent 13 percent reduction in benefits or a 15-percent increase in payroll tax income, or some combination of the two.

So, I ask again, what did Krugman say that is not supported by the report?

Come on, GT. You've been harassing Jane for her degree, so let's hear yours. Since you seem to think it's so important, and the opening bid is an MBA from Chicago, I'm going to need to hear at least a PhD from a lesser-known school before I take you seriously.

Aurora, GT was clerly concerned about Jane's capacity to accurately condemn certain economists.

As both have [correctly] accepted, the debate is not an auction of credentials, but of ideas. It's understandable that when one of the participants makes several highly questionable comments, one becomes curious about their ability to comment on that subject.

Not that I'd be opposed to GT's posting his credentials, of course, just that it ought to be noted that it is of no relevance to the issue at hand - the more immediate concern is Jane actually evidencing her [apparantly false] claims.

Not so fast. It was an issue right up to the time when GT found out she had better creds than he thought. Then, suddenly, it was irrelevent. Put up or shut up, GT. Who the hell are you to tell us what to think?

Well, at least this helped me start my own blog. Although for some reason it publishes my posts with errors.

1) It’s not a good idea to have strong opinions about that which you don’t understand. Jane, you clearly don’t know much about the economics world. That’s fine, you aren’t an economist after all. You haven’t been trained as one nor do you work as one. So why should you know? But then it’s probably not a good idea to post the kind of things you posted about Krugman’s academic credentials. Maybe you can go here? Check the introduction in the first few minutes.

2) You make claims you can’t substantiate. Probably because you wish things to be one way you end up believing that’s how they are. You post very damning things, such as saying that Krugman claims future tax cuts produced today’s deficits. When I ask for proof you have none.

3) One should recognize when one makes a mistake. A year after Krugman explained what happened in the CA crisis you still didn’t recognize your mistake. Same with the SS. You claim PK said things he never did and, in fact, all of his claims are backed by the SS report. I posted the relevant quotes.

It’s nice that you are interested in economics. But if you are going to criticize make sure you have your facts straight first. All I did was skim through your comments on Krugman and I found error after error, all easily proven. Do we really need another Andrew Sullivan?

On reading Drezner's comments and Krugman's response (to the extent that it was about Drezner at all), I give the prize to Krugman. Drezner's tone of criticism is gentle -- but at least two of his three criticisms are utterly asinine. He argues that Krugman "keeps repeating himself", and that he acts "excessively offended" at corrupt behavior by politicians -- with the politicins having the power at the moment being the Bush Administration. Well, my God, if you think an Administration (or any politician) is acting in a corrupt way that's leading the nation toward disaster, what the hell are you SUPPOSED to do but keep repeating the message in a loud, clear, urgent tone? Are you supposed to excuse them on the grounds that All Politicians Do It, and move on to other subjects? Personally, I wanted to hear more about the actual factual mistakes that Drezner thinks Krugman is making -- but he didn't describe those at all.

As for Krugman's reply, it was aimed overwhelmingly at Mickey Kaus -- who deserved it. All he did to Drezner was to point out that he has a very peculiar double standard about "shrillness" (which ties in with my criticism above).

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