Paul Krugman Effect

[netrin]

The poster said the bloggers actions was childish, not that he is a child. But perhaps it would be interpreted that way anyway.

This blogger is a Nobel prize winning professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton specializing in international trade and finance. He has numerous detractors, but we shouldn't expect him to suffer fools nor undue criticism. Opening with "You're being..." leads to a personal remark. Some humility is in order. Nor is Michael Suede making friends by rebuking with "Krugman is a Keynesian...also a complete lunatic"

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[Elwar]

The poster said the bloggers actions was childish, not that he is a child. But perhaps it would be interpreted that way anyway.

This blogger is a Nobel prize winning professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton specializing in international trade and finance. He has numerous detractors, but we shouldn't expect him to suffer fools nor undue criticism. Opening with "You're being..." leads to a personal remark. Some humility is in order. Nor is Michael Suede making friends by rebuking with "Krugman is a Keynesian...also a complete lunatic"

Jimmy Carter also won the Nobel Peace prize...they are not all that selective.

[netrin]

As well as Obama before he did anything. And Kissinger for the Vietnam war and Le Duc Tho who refused. My point was not to glorify and perhaps I should have left out all the titles. But I think we in general need some humility. Bitcoin is not exactly a happy household name. And though we claim bitcoin is an experiment in progress we tend to be quite assertive with our economic conclusions.

[osmosis]

We are being quoted.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2011/09/paul-krugman-incites-bitcoin-cyber-geek-infighting/42188/

I liked the "Finally, others took on Krugman's arguments on the merits." 

[hugolp]

We are being quoted.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2011/09/paul-krugman-incites-bitcoin-cyber-geek-infighting/42188/

I liked the "Finally, others took on Krugman's arguments on the merits." 

We are news!

Thats quite amazing. Probably talking about Bitcoin gives them a lot of hit, otherwise they would not create an article out of a forum quotes.

[Grinder]

Lots of comments on the article now. I didn't see molecular's, but there are some others saying similar things.

[molecular]

Thats quite amazing. Probably talking about Bitcoin gives them a lot of hit, otherwise they would not create an article out of a forum quotes.

Actually I think it does make sense. After all, we have no centralized voice that could answer to anything, so if a journalists wants to establish the communities reaction to something, there's not much else to do than to scan the forum, right? If he'd call a single one of us or two he'd likely get a different or at least partial picture. We're quite a diverse crowd nowadays.

[Herodes]

The poster said the bloggers actions was childish, not that he is a child. But perhaps it would be interpreted that way anyway.

This blogger is a Nobel prize winning professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton specializing in international trade and finance. He has numerous detractors, but we shouldn't expect him to suffer fools nor undue criticism. Opening with "You're being..." leads to a personal remark. Some humility is in order. Nor is Michael Suede making friends by rebuking with "Krugman is a Keynesian...also a complete lunatic"

I agree some humility is in order. I didn't know the blogger was such a big shot, usually I listen carefully to people with that kind of credientials, as they posess a lot more knowledge in the field than any of their students. But this is the internet, would be strange if everyone showed humility..

[Elwar]

LOOK AT ME! I AM ON TV!!!

[hashman]

The actual value of transactions in Bitcoins has fallen rather than rising.

Wow! What a claim. Fallen since Jan 09? Since Jun 09? Since Jan 10? Jun 10? Jan 11?

Not likely!

Good point.  Looks to me like he didn't spend 20 seconds to even read the wikipedia article about bitcoins.  The most directly false statement was:

"Bitcoin has [...], in which the money supply is fixed rather than subject to increase via the printing press."

Maybe he saw that it would be fixed at 21 million bitcoins, but mistook the tense for present and stopped reading there?  Even a casual read through any documentation of "what is mining" would make it clear that the money supply is indeed increasing via the printing press, in direct contradiction to his statement.

[netrin]

People seem upset by a generally fair article. Krugman has now gotten a taste for bitcoin, perhaps he'll look into it further. Chill out. It's not like people read Krugman without a grain of salt. It's economics after all.

[osmosis]

http://twitter.com/#!/bitcoinmedia/status/111617120395214849

@bitcoinmedia
huff.to/oGcULX You get your economic advice from this guy ? #krugman #epicfail #bitcoin

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/15/paul-krugman-fake-alien-invasion_n_926995.html

Paul Krugman: Fake Alien Invasion Would End Economic Slump (VIDEO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1Fzzs7oVaA

"If we discovered that, you know, space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space alien threat and really inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months," he said. "And then if we discovered, oops, we made a mistake, there aren't any aliens, we'd be better--" "We need Orson Welles, is what you're saying," Rogoff cut in.

[MoonShadow]

The poster said the bloggers actions was childish, not that he is a child. But perhaps it would be interpreted that way anyway.

This blogger is a Nobel prize winning professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton specializing in international trade and finance. He has numerous detractors, but we shouldn't expect him to suffer fools nor undue criticism. Opening with "You're being..." leads to a personal remark. Some humility is in order. Nor is Michael Suede making friends by rebuking with "Krugman is a Keynesian...also a complete lunatic"

Jimmy Carter also won the Nobel Peace prize...they are not all that selective.

They are not the same prize.  The Nobel Prize for Economics is an award granted by a bank in honor of Nobel, not by his own foundation.  The Nobel Prize for Economics is a reflection of the kind of economics that central banks respect and wish to promote.  It's not an award commonly given to real economists.  Think of it this way, if you are a scientist whose job is to study economics, and present predictions; yet a significant portion of your income is directly or indirectly the result of government and/or central bank funding, are you still impartial?

Roughly half of all Economists in America fit the above description.  It is very difficult for even the most intelligent professionals to see the truth when their paycheck depends upon their not seeing it.  Krugman is an example of cognative dissonance in academia and media.  Real economists don't teach economics, nor advise governments as a profession.  Real economists make investments and fund startups.  Peter Thiel is a real economist.  Paul Krugman is a political talking head, who happens to focus on economic issues.  Even mentioning his Nobel Prize in Economics as support for his economic theories, rather than their fundamental logic, is an 'appeal to authority' fallacy.  Krugman is a master at bullsh*tting his readership, most of whom are not thoughtful enough nor well read enough to see through the bs without outside help.  This includes many very otherwise intelligent and educated people.  I would like to see what his own investment portfolio looks like, because I'd wager that his own choices would stand to benefit grandly whenever governments follow his advice.

[hugolp]

People seem upset by a generally fair article. Krugman has now gotten a taste for bitcoin, perhaps he'll look into it further. Chill out. It's not like people read Krugman without a grain of salt. It's economics after all.

You dont know Krugman and thats why you are being naive. But hey, youll discover sooner or later.

Btw, at first read I also though the post was not that bad, but giving it more though the problem of the post is that its very wrong. Kruggy says that there is little trade because there is no inflation. Well, we are in the inflationary phase of Bitcoin so, according to him, there should be a lot of trade. But specially the part saying that a currency should be for trade not ofr making a profit. Thats exactly what Bitcoin is, the Federal Reserve notes are the ones that help a few to profit.

[zby]

The article itself is not that important.  There are many people that don't agree with Krugman - he is one of the leaders of one world view in the very polarized political debate.  But what he posts will be discussed in many places.

[molecular]

Good point.  Looks to me like he didn't spend 20 seconds to even read the wikipedia article about bitcoins.  The most directly false statement was:

"Bitcoin has [...], in which the money supply is fixed rather than subject to increase via the printing press."

Maybe he saw that it would be fixed at 21 million bitcoins, but mistook the tense for present and stopped reading there?

I think he saw bitcoin, looked at it and thought: This is awesome support for my thesis that a new gold standard is BS.

Bitcoin is used as an argument here, wrongly, as I think, because our little experiment is in no way over and it's not used as currency for an established economy.

This guy seems to have an agenda and bitcoin is being instrumentalized.

[EhVedadoOAnonimato]

All right, just posted the comment below, let's see if it gets approved.

"I feel Mr. Krugman has failed to see the essential point in the Bitcoin experiment. Its main strength isn't that it is naturally deflationary (or neutrally inflationary in the long term), but that it is decentralised. There is no government, federal reserve or central bank that determines how Bitcoins are to be "minted", this happens organically through a peer to peer network.

I beg to differ here. The main point of bitcoin, to me, is precisely the fact that it is sound money, ie, that it will stop inflating at a certain point.
Being decentralized is the necessary means to achieve such goal, since centralized solutions can be shut down or strictly controlled.
But, well, I guess that's a matter of opinion. The greatest change brought by bitcoin is for sure decentralized digital money. Sound money existed before.

Mr. Krugman is possibly correct in the assumption that if all there was was Bitcoin, it would lead to a stagnant economy due to hoarding.

He's blatantly wrong on that, as usual.

[Grinder]

Good point.  Looks to me like he didn't spend 20 seconds to even read the wikipedia article about bitcoins.  The most directly false statement was:

It's more correct to call it fixed than variable, even though the total number of bitcoins hasn't been trickled out yet. Yes, it's possible to nitpick on this, but only if you're desperatly looking for something so you can write him off as a moron you don't need to listen to.

[flix]

Good point.  Looks to me like he didn't spend 20 seconds to even read the wikipedia article about bitcoins.  The most directly false statement was:

Actually Krugman usually does his homework and then plays dumb when he wants to mislead. did you see the metadescription for the article?  "Digital, but still a barbarous relic."

He hates the idea of bitcoin, just as he hates gold and all and any currency competition. Without money monopoly he and his keynesian buddies are nothing.

[Hawker]

The poster said the bloggers actions was childish, not that he is a child. But perhaps it would be interpreted that way anyway.

This blogger is a Nobel prize winning professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton specializing in international trade and finance. He has numerous detractors, but we shouldn't expect him to suffer fools nor undue criticism. Opening with "You're being..." leads to a personal remark. Some humility is in order. Nor is Michael Suede making friends by rebuking with "Krugman is a Keynesian...also a complete lunatic"

Jimmy Carter also won the Nobel Peace prize...they are not all that selective.

They are not the same prize.  The Nobel Prize for Economics is an award granted by a bank in honor of Nobel, not by his own foundation.  The Nobel Prize for Economics is a reflection of the kind of economics that central banks respect and wish to promote.  It's not an award commonly given to real economists.  Think of it this way, if you are a scientist whose job is to study economics, and present predictions; yet a significant portion of your income is directly or indirectly the result of government and/or central bank funding, are you still impartial?

Roughly half of all Economists in America fit the above description.  It is very difficult for even the most intelligent professionals to see the truth when their paycheck depends upon their not seeing it.  Krugman is an example of cognative dissonance in academia and media.  Real economists don't teach economics, nor advise governments as a profession.  Real economists make investments and fund startups.  Peter Thiel is a real economist.  Paul Krugman is a political talking head, who happens to focus on economic issues.  Even mentioning his Nobel Prize in Economics as support for his economic theories, rather than their fundamental logic, is an 'appeal to authority' fallacy.  Krugman is a master at bullsh*tting his readership, most of whom are not thoughtful enough nor well read enough to see through the bs without outside help.  This includes many very otherwise intelligent and educated people.  I would like to see what his own investment portfolio looks like, because I'd wager that his own choices would stand to benefit grandly whenever governments follow his advice.

There is an ongoing dispute between him and Gross of PIMCO about who is calling the market correctly.  So far, Krugman is winning. 

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/who-you-gonna-bet-on-yet-again-somewhat-wonkish/

He's been very good at forecasting the effects of QE, the prospect for bond rates and I think he is on the money about the Euro.