Jan 28, 2014
Dem some fighting words!
Not even a week ago Krugman posted that anyone who says he advocated a housing bubble in 2002 to offset the internet bubble of the late '90's is both a fool and liar. So now in today's main editorial in the WSJ about the legacy of Ben Bernanke did they throw the gauntlet down with this line -- "Mr. Greenspan nonetheless followed the advice of Paul Krugman to promote a housing bubble to offset the dot-com crash." Precious.
Jan 22, 2014
Krugman vs WSJ & Stephens - it gets nasty!
Krugman and WSJ columnist Bret Stephens are in a slug fest. It should be noted that Stephens won the Pulitzer Prize in last year - so this is quite high profile.
It started when Stephens blasted Obama for a economic inequality speech. Not quite sure why Stephens was even writing about this since he focuses on foreign policy but evidently he made a big mistake - he used nominal figures to show higher incomes for poor folk instead of using inflation-adjusted numbers. When using inflation adjusted then there was no increase for the poor. Of course Krugman jumped all over this since he's been focusing on inequality lately. Stephens admitted his error but still said it was an innocent mistake that doesn't change his basic hypothesis that all Americans are enjoying rising incomes, using CBO data to back it up. Interestingly enough Krugman also uses this data to back his claim that the same data shows rising inequality.
Then for Krugman's regular weekly column his told the story again how Stephens used the wrong data to give proof that conservatives are purposely using confusing data and the WSJ didn't issue a correction. This, of course, send Stephens through the roof and he responded in his regular column that Krugman is bully and why hasn't Krugman issued corrections for saying in 2002 that Greenspan should start a housing bubble or that Europe is an economic success in 2010. Krugman then responded WTF... that was not a correction since it wasn't posted to the original article, just in an on-line post.
exciting stuff!
It started when Stephens blasted Obama for a economic inequality speech. Not quite sure why Stephens was even writing about this since he focuses on foreign policy but evidently he made a big mistake - he used nominal figures to show higher incomes for poor folk instead of using inflation-adjusted numbers. When using inflation adjusted then there was no increase for the poor. Of course Krugman jumped all over this since he's been focusing on inequality lately. Stephens admitted his error but still said it was an innocent mistake that doesn't change his basic hypothesis that all Americans are enjoying rising incomes, using CBO data to back it up. Interestingly enough Krugman also uses this data to back his claim that the same data shows rising inequality.
Then for Krugman's regular weekly column his told the story again how Stephens used the wrong data to give proof that conservatives are purposely using confusing data and the WSJ didn't issue a correction. This, of course, send Stephens through the roof and he responded in his regular column that Krugman is bully and why hasn't Krugman issued corrections for saying in 2002 that Greenspan should start a housing bubble or that Europe is an economic success in 2010. Krugman then responded WTF... that was not a correction since it wasn't posted to the original article, just in an on-line post.
exciting stuff!
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