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Paul Krugman, Political Talking Head

August 5th, 2010
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I have to admit … Paul Krugman is a great poster boy for the “liberal” left.  Using his New York Times column as a sounding board, he has successfully built a strong following.  I don’t inherently take issue with his politics or his bloviation.  I do take issue with his duplicitous use of economics to advance a “duh this is the only right course you idiots” political agenda.

At one time, Krugman was an impressive economist with legitimate academic bona fides.  Krugman parlayed this into a leading college textbook and New York Times column.  Without this academic background, he’s just another political shrill to ignore.  What’s scary, though, is that he continues to masquerade as a legitimate economist.  This gives him the “legitimacy” to write as a qualified expert on macroeconomic politics.  The problem is that he no longer maintains any semblance of consistent economics – even with his own work.  Instead, his ego led him to use his column as a bully pulpit to attack those who think differently politically – on any issue.

My opinion is based on numerous pieces of evidence where Krugman has said one thing to promote his political agenda and then used the same exact argument to tear down those who disagree with him.  The latest example came to me via Stefan Karlsson in his post Krugman Misleads About Reagan.  You can read the whole article (it’s pretty short), but here is the gist.

It is interesting that he assigns to monetary policy such a great role in driving the housing sector. When discussing the 2001-06 housing boom, Krugman and other Keynesians have denied that interest rate policy played a significant role and instead claimed that “lax regulation” caused the bubble.

Here are a few other times Krugman has been called out for similar chicanery.

For an in-depth analysis of his column from 1997 to 2006, this report from Econ Journal Watch is quite illuminating.

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