more on ANY OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS djf Krugman: Economic Crisis a Question of When, Not If

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Aaron Dickey <ald () frantic org>
Date: November 24, 2004 10:31:42 AM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] ANY OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS djf Krugman: Economic Crisis  
a Question of When, Not If

Economist Don Luskin posted this response to Krugman's interview on his  
blog:

<http://www.poorandstupid.com/ 
2004_11_21_chronArchive.asp#110121857947789499>

KRUGMAN SPIDERHOLE WATCH:    Paul Krugman has stopped writing his Times  
column through the end of the year, in shock and awe after the  
election. But reporters manage to find him in his secure and  
undisclosed location, and he keeps taking their calls. And he's up to  
all his old tricks. From an interview with Reuters yesterday:

[snip]
The most immediate worry for Krugman is that Bush will simultaneously  
push through more tax cuts and try to privatize social security,  
ignoring a chorus of economic thinkers who caution against such  
measures.

"If you go back and you look at the sources of the blow-up of Argentine  
debt during the 1990s, one little-appreciated thing is that social  
security privatization was a important source of that expansion of  
debt," said Krugman.
[snip]

What Krugman never mentions is that in all his own writings on  
Argentina's crisis, he himself was one of a chorus of economic thinkers  
who never even so much as mentioned the matter of social security. For  
that matter, he never particularly emphasized that Argentina's debt was  
an issue. For Krugman, a currency specialist, it was all about  
Argentina's rigid "currency board" mechanism (well, if all you have is  
a hammer, the world is a nail). But now Krugman doesn't care about  
currencies so much any more. Social Security reform is on the docket --  
so now that's what Argentina's problems were all about.

Thanks to reader Jill Olson for the link.

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