"Krugman should shut up because the media will use him against Obama" is not good logic

[ArchieStone1]

If Paul Krugman analyzes an issue and comes to a conclusion that is at odds with our President's, he should not hide it from America simply out of fear that the media will use any anti-Obama arguments against the President.

If, on the other hand, Paul Krugman comes up with a flawed analyses that can be debunked by say, a majority of other economists, then he should shut up because the media will use that flawed argument against Obama.

But we should first state the reasons why his ideas are wrong.

An argument is wrong if it's wrong, not just because the mainstream media or even Rush Limbaugh is touting it.

[Scooterliberal]

1. has he ever been wrong?

if not, i'm worried

[JTFrog]

20. Yea... when used Enron as an example of all that was great in the deregulated markets.

:shrug:

The Ascent of E-Man

...snip

The retreat of business bureaucracy in the face of the market was brought home to me recently when I joined the advisory board at Enron--a company formed in the '80s by the merger of two pipeline operators. In the old days energy companies tried to be as vertically integrated as possible: to own the hydrocarbons in the ground, the gas pump, and everything in between. And Enron does own gas fields, pipelines, and utilities. But it is not, and does not try to be, vertically integrated: It buys and sells gas both at the wellhead and the destination, leases pipeline (and electrical-transmission) capacity both to and from other companies, buys and sells electricity, and in general acts more like a broker and market maker than a traditional corporation. It's sort of like the difference between your father's bank, which took money from its regular depositors and lent it out to its regular customers, and Goldman Sachs. Sure enough, the company's pride and joy is a room filled with hundreds of casually dressed men and women staring at computer screens and barking into telephones, where cubic feet and megawatts are traded and packaged as if they were financial derivatives. (Instead of CNBC, though, the television screens on the floor show the Weather Channel.) The whole scene looks as if it had been constructed to illustrate the end of the corporation as we knew it.

What happened to the man in the gray flannel suit? No doubt he was partly a victim of sex (er, I mean gender) and drugs and rock & roll- -that is, of social change. He was also a victim of information technology, which ended up deconstructing instead of reinforcing the corporation. But probably the biggest force has been a change in ideology, the shift to pro-market policies. It's not that government has vanished from the marketplace. It's still a good guess that in a completely unregulated phone market, long-distance companies would buy up local-access companies and deny their customers the right to connect to rivals, and that the evil
empire--or at least monopoly capitalism--would rise again. However, what we have instead in a growing number of markets--phones, gas,
electricity today, probably computer operating systems and high-speed Net access tomorrow--is a combination of deregulation that lets new competitors enter and "common carrier" regulation that prevents middlemen from playing favorites, making freewheeling markets
possible.

Who would have thunk it? The millennial economy turns out to look more like Adam Smith's vision--or better yet, that of the Victorian
economist Alfred Marshall--than the corporatist future predicted by generations of corporate pundits. Get those old textbooks out of the attic: they're more relevant than ever.

*edit to add link: http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/eman.html

[MarjorieG]

2. Krugman ignores incremetal, tempered views, and media likes sensational more than fair discussion.

Krugman needs to see bigger picture than vanity, of his academic specialness, if truly interested in advancing improvements.

Crippling our prez is not a good strategy.

[paulk]

24. character assassination

is not a good strategy, either

[girl gone mad]

26. Krugman is hardly alone in his criticisms of Obama's economic agenda.

Here's a few more "vain academics" for you to tear down:

Joseph Eugene Stiglitz is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the John Bates Clark Medal (1979) and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001). He is also the former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. He is known for his critical view of the management of globalization, free-market economists (whom he calls "free market fundamentalists") and some international institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In 2000, Stiglitz founded the Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD), a think tank on international development based at Columbia University. Since 2001, he has been a member of the Columbia faculty, and has held the rank of University Professor since 2003. He also chairs the University of Manchester's Brooks World Poverty Institute and is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

James K. Galbraith earned his BA, magna cum laude, from Harvard in 1974 and Ph.D from Yale in 1981, both in economics. From 1974 to 1975, Galbraith studied as a Marshall Scholar at King's College, Cambridge. From 1981 to 1982, Galbraith served on the staff of the Congress of the United States, eventually as Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee. In 1985, he was a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. He is currently a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and at the Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin. He is the Chair of Economists for Peace and Security, formerly known as Economists Against the Arms Race and later Economists Allied for Arms Reduction (ECAAR), an international association of professional economists concerned with peace and security issues. He is also a Senior Scholar with the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College and Director of the University of Texas Inequality Project.

Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor emeritus and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<5> Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community as one of the fathers of modern linguistics. Since the 1960s, he has become known more widely as a political dissident, an anarchist,<9> and a libertarian socialist intellectual.

Nouriel Roubini is a professor of economics at the Stern School of Business, New York University and chairman of RGE Monitor, an economic consultancy firm. After receiving his doctorate in international economics from Harvard University, he began academic research and policy-making by teaching at Yale while also spending time at the International Monetary Fund, the Federal Reserve, World Bank and Bank of Israel. Much of his early studies were focused on emerging-market countries. During President Bill Clinton’s administration he was a senior economist for the Council of Economic Advisers later moving to the Treasury Department as a senior adviser to Timothy Geithner who is now Treasury Secretary.

Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He is a co-founder of The Baseline Scenario.

Yves Smith has spent more than 25 years in the financial services industry and currently heads Aurora Advisors, a New York-based management consulting firm specializing in corporate finance advisory and financial services. Prior experience includes Goldman Sachs (in corporate finance), McKinsey & Co., and Sumitomo Bank (as head of mergers and acquisitions). Yves has written for publications in the United States and Australia, including The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Slate, The Conference Board Review, Institutional Investor, The Daily Deal and the Australian Financial Review.

Have at it.

[Cha]

3. No, krugman should not shutup..

he's a useful tool..let him piss all over everything with his "big megaphone" and his "doesn't like to be fucked with" attitude.

I got news for him..not many people do like to be fucked with, kruggles.

[Kdillard]

4. Who said Krugman should shut up? I do find it interesting that

with as big a megaphone as he seems to think he has there has been little out of him in regards to the President's budget or his regulatory proposals. However he will find time to appear on the cover of Newsweek next to Obama is wrong while the President is trying to get a Progressive budget passed that Paul Krugman wrote that he approved of while under fire from Republicans who care nothing about the American people and with various factions of his own party declaring mutiny. So Paul Krugman gets to go on Newsweek and various places owning nothing since he wouldn't take a job in the administration if offered but Obama gets to own everything and deal with this nonesense while he is trying to get something constructive done with the least amount of watering down as possible. If someone can explain to me how Paul Krugman is being helpful at all I would be very happy. Please explain to me slowly how he is furthering any sort of progressive agenda or how this doesn't make Republicans very, very happy. Republicans who have been doing everything in their power to try to smear and sabotage this President from day one. Explain to me why Krugman was not on their cover when he was calling out Bush or when he was saying the stimulus needs to be bigger.

[ArchieStone1]

5. He didn't ask to be put in the cover of Newsweek

In fact he laments that he's in the cover today in a blog post where he cites empirical evidence showing that the performance of an economist may decline after being made a celebrity in the cover of a magazine:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/the-magazine-cover-effect/

[FrenchieCat]

6. So nothing about the budget fight and how he approves of Obama's buget......

just yet....meanwhile that is mainly what Obama has been focusing on all week.

Thanks Mr. Krugman! Glad what concerns you at the moment is how the cover affects you. Why am I not suprised? :shrug:

[Kdillard]

7. So are you saying he allowed himself to be manipulated and used then

without his consent.

[cali]

8. waltzing with the strawman. no one is suggesting that Krugman should shut up

[ArchieStone1]

10. I think it's been implicitly suggested that he shut up

By often observing that fact that this or that media outlet just ran an article noting that Krugman is at odds in Obama in several instances, without analyzing Krugman's argument first.

[cali]

14. lol. how McCarthian of you.

[BlooInBloo]

21. "Implicitly suggested" does NOT mean anything like "I'm completely making shit up"...

Just fyi.

[chill_wind]

29. Nah, nah...no Duers ever suggest a large glass of STFU for Krugman

Not even today. Not even explicitly.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8299120

[ecstatic]

9. has he tried to set up a meeting with the President? Or is he

just running his mouth to get attention? President Obama said many times that he is open to actual solutions that might work.

[ArchieStone1]

12. A journalist should always try to get attention

Otherwise, his/her voice wouldn't make a difference, don't you think?

The question is: Is he getting attention with good or bad arguments?

[ecstatic]

15. Krugman doesn't care about us

If he truly did, he would be doing everything in his power to work with the President and Geithner. A truly smart person knows how to get his/her point across without being an asshole.

[ArchieStone1]

18. Do you think Glen Greenwald doesn't care about us either?

He is one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest, advocate of progressive causes in the nation, yet he often criticizes Obama, including today in a post congratulating Jim Webb and lamenting Obama's position on marihuana legalization.

That is an issue most politicians are petrified to get anywhere near, as evidenced just this week by Barack Obama's adolescent, condescending snickering when asked about marijuana legalization

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/28/webb/index.html

[Political Tiger]

11. The problem is he's been downright hostile to Obama

way back since the primaries began. He's never had anything positive to say about Obama, ever. He's even viciously attacked those who supported Obama during the elections.

He is biased and has an agenda. Nobody can be wrong 100% of the time but according to Krumman, Obama is always wrong about everything.

So although Krugman may have some valid criticisms he shoots himself in the foot by his bellicose attitude towards Obama. It's hard to take someone seriously when all they do is bitch, bitch, bitch!

I don't think he should "shut up" but it would be nice if he just tried to say something positive once in a while instead of being disputatious all the time. Let him speak, but as long as he shows his bias and is constantly belligerent towards everything Obama does, I for one will dismiss Krugman's total negativity.

[ArchieStone1]

13. Krugman: Obama's budget looks "very, very good" (Feb. 27, 2009)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/opinion/27krugman.html?_r=2

That contradicts your claim that "He's never had anything positive to say about Obama, ever"

Plus during Obama's confrontation with McCain Krugman rarely if ever criticized Obama. He shredded the Republican ideas to pieces.

[FrenchieCat]

19. Gee, I wish he was as repetitive on the issue of Obama's budget

as he has been on calling out Obama on his bank rescue strategy.

February 27th on the political clock is like ages ago. But of course, you knew that.

[Political Tiger]

22. Ok, then, once he said something positive about Obama

But that seems to be an abnormality. A very unscientific guess by me would be that 99 out of a 100 times Krugman criticizes President Obama.

[ArchieStone1]

25. Krugman on Obama: "He has the political mandate; he has good economics on his side."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/opinion/07krugman.html

And that is "at least twice", not twice.

Just because I won't dig into his archives for 1 hour straight doesn't mean he has not said more good things.

[FrenchieCat]

27. Gee, three days after the election.....How generous of him!

Now Americans we get to look at this cover,
while there is loud pondering on teevee
as to whether the proposed budget is a good idea.

How neato! :woohoo:

[ArchieStone1]

33. you fail to mentiont that Krugman defended Obama from Joe the Plumber

When it counted: Practically every single column before the general elections, Krugman reminded us how bad Republican policies are, compared to Obama's:

What about the claim, based on Joe the Plumber’s complaint, that ordinary working Americans would face higher taxes under Mr. Obama? Well, Mr. Obama proposes raising rates on only the top two income tax brackets — and the second-highest bracket for a head of household starts at an income, after deductions, of $182,400 a year.

Remember when someone said Krugman had "never, ever" said anything positive about Obama? Bias clouds judgment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/opinion/20krugman.html

[amborin]

16. stifle the media, not Krugman....your logic is scary

[HopeOverFear]

17. Where was the media's eagerness to promote Krugman during the Bush administration?

Go ahead, I'll wait (c) Katt Williams.

[JeffR]

28. Good point!

Krugman was one of the most eloquent anti-Bush commentators over the past 8 years, regularly skewering all things GOP and doing so with surgical precision. Why wasn't Newsweek making him a cover boy back then? Hmm.

[FrenchieCat]

30. Didn't suit their agenda, perhaps. Just taking a wild guess.

[JeffR]

31. Sounds feasible. Now I wonder what their agenda might be...

Hmm.

[FrenchieCat]

32. I suspect it ain't the same as ours?

[emilyg]

23. Nobody needs to shut up.