Sumner just wrote another snarky, spotty post attacking Krugman.
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=12809&cpage=1#comment-128826
Here he goes again:
"Bob Murphy has a very amusing post showing a previous example of Paul Krugman throwing insults at a Chicago economist for saying something that was true. Only in this case a few months later Krugman himself made the same claim, seeming to forget his earlier comment that only the truly uninformed could believe such rubbish."
"The best way to do this is to abolish the highly complex personal and corporate income taxes, and replace them with a VAT, a progressive payroll tax, a subsidy for low wage workers, and some taxes on negative externalities. No more confusing 1040 forms to fill out. But Paul Krugman wants to increase tax rates on capital."
"Rather than the Keynesian cross, Paul Krugman should have argued that I was clueless about how research works in my own field."
Typical sniffing by Sumner. Note what he's suggesting: if something comes up for debate that he claims pertains to "research in his own field" that means that he must be treated like an infallible authority. Sure this is his own field so we must be stupid to even think about arguing with him-this is what this Scott Summer kvetching amounts to.
I have a game to watch-I do think the Giants will do it; they beat Green Bay they won't let anyone else beat them now-and as I said in yesterday's post I will get back to full time posting tomorrow hopefully. For now here is my answer to Sumner I submitted in the comment section. He needs to be slowly put in his place but this is a start. I will speak with you all again very soon, hopefully we will be discussing the Giants beating the Niners.
"Scott you’re being snarky about Krugman what else is new? Wow I bet you have him really worried.
I really don’t know what is so complicated about the 1040 per se. If you have the 1040 EZ-you wouldn’t know about this it’s for the dirty hippies with low income-it’s not at all complicated."
"Herman Cain proved that you can have a tax plan that is simple in principle yet anything but fair-it cut taxes on the rich and raised them for everybody else-not just the undeserving poor."
"Of course in reality once you got into the details Cain’s plan was not so simple either.
Some very simple ideas would be to cut consumption taxes-yes I believe that would be stimulative though I know you claim that fiscal multiplier is roughly 0(trick is you haven’t come close to convincing me)- as well as the payroll tax."
"How is it not surprising that you only support the payroll tax cut for employers? Maybe you’ve mentioned it before but what is it that you have against cutting employee payroll taxes? Does the idea of ever doing anything directly to help anyone not rich bother you that much? I suspect some on the Right get hives at the thought that someone who is not rich can be helped by a government policy."
"At this point Scott I think taxes on capital are already very low. Romney has an effective tax rate of 15%-or so he says. Probably after deductions it’s much lower even than that.The truth is that the wealthy have very low taxes already; most Americans-the nonrich-are the ones who are overtaxes."
"I know you guys have all this impressive sounding opposition research like that “50 percent of Americans pay no tax” but that’s only because the people who say that perversely ignore the fact that most Americans-the bottom 80%-pay most of their taxes via payroll and also stuff like consumption taxes."
It's a start. He has been on a mission of obfuscation quite impressive in it's ability to mislead. He wouldn't know the phrase good faith if you spotted him "goo faith."
Say what you like about Krugman's economics/politics (not that people need my permission, evidently), but reading him versus reading Sumner and even bloggers like Cowen and Glasner reminds me why he is the most famous economist in the world.
ReplyDeleteHe gives simple, concise explanations of where he's coming from and more oftenb than not buries the opposition in the process. On the contrary, I can't even begin to see where Scott Sumner is coming from half the time.
Unlearning you make a good point. What you get with Sumner is always the game of "you dummy! You don't even understand the subtlety of the argument I am making."
ReplyDeleteSumner doesn't simplify he makes it more complicated than it needs be. Why is this? Krugman could make it very coplicated too if he wanted-if you don't think so see his textbooks.
However he tries to make his arguments understanable to the lay man rather than Sumner who uses consusion to prove he's smart and your dumb.
I used to like him but I have come to the conclusion that he uses complicated jargon and math to overly awe and confuse.
His aim I think is to make reactionary economic arguments sound respectable.
Yes.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing about his overriding argument is that it's completely circular: the Fed controls NGDP so it should control NDGP. He has yet to prove the first statement to me.
That is a subject I would like to get into more. He uses a lot of circular reasoning as to why fiscal stimulus can't work-when you point out that he is trying to prove it doesn't work he comes back with "you are misquoting me; I never said it doesn't work just probably wont."
ReplyDeleteYet this argument seems very cricular-if fiscal policy works then the Fed will raise rates undoing it. If this is true it's not a ciricism of fiscal stimulus but the Fed as it has become to inlfation phobic.
Pleasae share any thoughts you have on NGDP and why it might not work. I am fine if it does, I would prefer that it does. But has he made more of it than it deserves?