Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Lars P. Syll — Oh dear, oh dear, Krugman gets it so wrong, so wrong


Krugman again. 

Keynes quote, too.

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
Oh dear, oh dear, Krugman gets it so wrong, so wrong
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

4 comments:

Konrad said...

Most economics discourse is like abstract “art" in a museum. If you see a plain white canvas with a smear of canine feces, you cannot candidly say, “It looks like dog shit.” Such honesty would be uncouth. Therefore everybody pretends that the dog shit is brilliant.

Here we are not in an art museum, and I say that Krugman’s blather is dog shit.

And I’m sorry to say that Lars P. Syll is not much better in this particular post.

Fortunately I borrowed a universal translator from the “Star Trek” TV series that lets us understand 762,000 alien languages, including economics.

Just now I ran Lar P. Syll’s blog post through the translator, and this is what came out…

[1] Orthodox Keynesianism assumes that markets are rational and predictable, and that when the business cycle is in a downward trend, the government can and should prevent recessions via central government fiscal policy and / or by central bank monetary policy (i.e. interest rates).

[2] New Keynesianism says that in the real world, markets are not rational and predictable, since the real world involves graft, fraud, corruption, and uncertainties about the future. These factors cause phenomena like “sticky prices,” in which prices and employment do not rise and fall in proportion to economic conditions such as inflation. Uncertainty also causes “sticky information” (i.e. lies, delusions, and bullshit).

[3] Paul Krugman calls himself a “new Keynesian.” However Krugman does not believe in Keynesian-style stimulus spending unless it is pushed by establishment Democrats like Obama. (Krugman also rejects MMT.) Therefore Krugman is not a “new Keynesian.”

[4] In short, Krugman’s blather is dog shit.

The plain white canvas with a smear of canine feces is nothing but a plain white canvas with a smear of canine feces.

Konrad said...

By the way, I object to Lars P. Syll’s “name dropping.”

EXAMPLE 1: “People like Hyman Minsky, Michal Kalecki, Sidney Weintraub, Johan Åkerman, Gunnar Myrdal, Paul Davidson, Axel Leijonhufvud — and yours truly — do not share any theory or models with Real Business Cycle theorists and “sort of New Keynesians” like Greg Mankiw or Paul Krugman.”

EXAMPLE 2 “The macroeconomic modelling strategy of people like Greg Mankiw and Paul Krugman has a lot to do with Robert Lucas and Thomas Sargent.”

Huh? Who are all these clowns, and why should we care?

Please make your argument clearly, and if you must cite a name, include a quote from that person, plus a link to substantiate your claim. Otherwise I reject your claim.

The practice of casually dropping names with no justification is a variant of the “everybody agrees with me, therefore I am right” nonsense.

André said...

"The practice of casually dropping names with no justification is a variant of the “everybody agrees with me, therefore I am right” nonsense."

Although the practice of casually dropping names without context is poor communication (and should not be used by any one trying to communicate with a wider piblic), the fact is that those names are well known "influencers" somehow.

For example, Mankiw is the neoliberal introductory books writer that influences not only students but a lot of other economists too. Krugman is the "rockstar" "nobel" winner that writes things in famous newspapers, and so on.

You should get acquainted with them and their messages - mostly to understand how you should NOT think (with a few exceptions)... and to understand how a lot of other people think about economics today

Konrad said...

@Andre: With respect, you have no idea whose writings I am familiar with.

Moreover you contradict yourself.

You agree with me that (as you put it) "casually dropping names without context is poor communication," but then you turn imply that the fault is mine because I am (supposedly) not "familiar" with the casually dropped names.

I stand by what I wrote above. Throwing out names without quotes and citations to justify throwing out the names is bad form, regardless of which names are used.

One or two names without citations is tolerable, but not strings of names.