This is delicious about Professor Paul Krugman.
The president of Estonia chewed out Paul Krugman on Wednesday, using Twitter to call the Nobel Prize-winning economist “smug, overbearing & patronizing,” in response to a short post on Estonia’s economic recovery. Krugman’s 67-word entry, entitled “Estonian Rhapsody,” questioned the merits of using Estonia as a “poster child for austerity defenders.” He included a chart that, in his words, showed “significant but still incomplete recovery” after a deep economic slump.
This paragraph packs its own, statistically-deadly punch in the direction of the New York Times columnist:
Estonia, which in 2011 became the latest country to join the eurozone, has been heralded by some as an austerity success story. That year, it clocked a faster economic growth pace than any other country in the European Union, at 7.6 percent. Estonia is also the only EU member with a budget surplus, and had the lowest public debt in 2011 — 6 percent of GDP. Fitch affirmed its A+ credit rating last week.
Update: Dan Mitchell weighs in with some damning data of his own against Krugman.
Ahh Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning smug, overbearing and patronising economist of choice for the smug overbearing and patronising leftist troupe.
I do enjoy the blatant credentialism the left always displays with Paul Krugman. I am not sure I have ever seen him mentioned without the obligatory Homeric epithet of “the Nobel Prize-winning”.
A smug, overbearing and patronising epithet for a smug, overbearing patronising group. Its use betokens nothing so much as an unspoken: ‘you shall be quiet and agree with whatever senseless thing that is written, regardless of whether it blatantly contradicts reality or not because YOU aren’t Nobel prize winning are you’.
This horrid little man has seemed never to be off my tv screen in the past few weeks, and I don’t watch much tv. Newsnight, Hard Talk etc, and in the leftie prints like the Guardian of course. He has a book to push it seems.
He thinks he’s Cassandra, I think he’s Pandora.
Good to see this story on most of my favorite blogs.
However only one of them
(a) debunked Krugman’s “factual” claims;
(b) pointed out that the President of Estonia is (or was, before becoming the leader of all Estonians) a social democrat, not some sort of crazed social darwinist.
Here it is:
http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/estonia-and-austerity-another-exploding-cigar-for-paul-krugman/
It’s just a shame for Estonia that they were foolish enough to join the Euro precisely at the time it began to implode. I hope it won’t take them down with it.
I think Estonia is still rather thrilled at being free from the Soviet boot to worry much about Euro.
Paul Krugman is a LIAR.
He says things he knows (because has been sent the data – many times) are not true.
The way to deal with a LIAR is to call them out.
To denounce them for being a LIAR, to their face.
As long as he is treated with respect he does not deserve (as the “great Nobel”) he will carry on like he is.
And the BBC/Guardian entity will carry on trotting him out.