Earlier: MSM Bigfoots Krugman And Rampell Use Toilet Paper Fallacy To Mask Great Replacement Enthusiasm
I’ve unmasked myself several times in my podcasts and bloggings as a math snob.
The Canadian economist John Kenneth Galbraith once observed that “If one is born on a working farm, nothing thereafter ever seems like work.“ We math geeks have a similar blind spot: If you’ve once tackled math at the higher levels, nothing else ever seems like a serious academic discipline.
With absolutely no disrespect to the shade of the late Professor Galbraith, I am particularly skeptical of Economics.
Back when I was a college student in London the voters of Britain in their collective wisdom elected as Prime Minister a fellow named Harold Wilson. Wilson’s first career had been in academia, lecturing in Economics at Oxford University at age 21. He was much advertised by his supporters as having been the youngest Oxford don of the century.
That, it seemed to me at age 19, was just what the country needed—a real high-ranking economist to set the country straight. I would have voted for Wilson in the 1964 election if I’d been old enough.
Things didn’t turn out too well. I wouldn’t say Wilson’s government was an economic disaster, but no one thought it was an economic triumph. “Lackluster“ pretty well describes it, with the devaluation of the pound sterling against the dollar in 1967 as a low point.
Ever since then Economics has been down there with Psychiatry in my esteem as not worth taking very seriously.
I was therefore not astounded by this Michael Lind article in Monday’s edition of Tablet about New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who is a Nobel Prize–winning economist.
Krugman vs. Krugman
— Mark Krikorian (@MarkSKrikorian) February 20, 2024
New York Times columnist tries to memory-hole his prior views on immigration https://t.co/Z5AASbLMox
The inspiration for Michael Lind’s article is Krugman’s February 5th column in the Times. Title of Krugman’s column: “Immigrants Make America Stronger and Richer.“
Krugman’s column is hot immigration boosterism. Quote: “Negative views of the economics of immigration are all wrong.“ He goes on to argue his case in detail.
Michael Lind contrasts this 2024 column with one that Krugman published, also in the New York Times, back in 2006.
That column from eighteen years ago starts with the compulsory Emma Lazarus quote to virtue-signal that Krugman, who has always been on the political Left, is not one of those hate-filled, knuckle-dragging xenophobic types like us here at VDARE.com.
It then proceeds into careful negativity. Quote: “A review of serious, nonpartisan research reveals some uncomfortable facts about the economics of modern immigration, and immigration from Mexico in particular.“ (Steve Sailer commented on this in 2006, when Krugman wrote it.)
It’s downhill from there, 2006 Krugman contradicting everything in the column by 2024 Krugman.
Michael Lind does a brilliant, detailed deconstruction job on 2024 Krugman. I’ll just leave you with his penultimate paragraph. Quote:
If Krugman was completely wrong about the economics of immigration in 2006, this raises the question of whether he has been similarly wrong about other major economic issues throughout his career. Conversely, if he changes his economic views periodically in consonance with the rise and fall of interest groups in the Democratic Party hierarchy, he is a Nobel Prize-winning economist who believes that the truths his discipline has to offer are less significant than the work of being a partisan Democratic opinion columnist.
