A Freshwater and Saltwater Economist Walk into a Bar...

      I was just reading a speech Krugman gave recently that was on his blog. Very good piece. But I can't resist quoting some very good jokes of a commentator there named Peter from Peham NY:

      "3 sophomoric comments. 1) "rigor envy." lol. Also the contrast of Keynesian economist & Freshwater economist demonstrates two great jokes about economists"

      2) "An (keynesian) economist, an engineer, and a physicist are stranded on an island with nothing to eat but a can of beans. Unable to open the can, the engineer suggests they build a method to open it. The physicist suggests they heat the can until it explodes open. The economist suggests, "assume we have a can opener..."

    3) "a freshwater economist looks at his colleague's model and replies, "sure it works in practice, but does it work in theory?"

     Mr. Pelham you're a funny guy. If you're out there please stop by to claim your prize.

     In other news: Krugman the political scientist Henry Farrell who gives a pretty good thumbnail of the performance of Macro during the crisis:

     "The political scientist Henry Farrell has carefully studied policy responses in the crisis, and has found that the near-consensus of economists that the banks must be rescued, and the semi-consensus in favor of stimulus in the initial months (mainly because the freshwater economists were caught by surprise, and took time to mobilize) was crucial in driving initial policy. The profession’s descent into uninformed quarreling undid all that, and left us where we are today."

     http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/economics-in-the-crisis/?pagewanted=all

      In other news Morgan Warsterl for Scott Sumner again-he's always doing this:

      "This is the gorgeous beauty of NGDPLT, and Scott will not deny it.
ASK HIM, if you don’t believe me."

   "Under NGDPLT, we can make the cuts that matter, things that rhyme with, “ending welfare as we know it.”

   "And what happens? GREATNESS".

    1." NGDPLT assures there will be no slow down, nothing the left can point to and say SEE??? Austerity is bad"!

   2. "The business community sees you are serious about cutting back on entitlements, and focusing on private sector growth."

  "I speak for Scott, if you don’t believe what I’m saying is true, ASK HIM, make him answer!"

    Morgan I often do just that with him and as often as not he clams up on the witness stand. However Scott did not clam up to Morgan's claims:

   
    "Morgan, You said;

   “1. NGDPLT assures there will be no slow down, nothing the left can point to and say SEE??? Austerity is bad!”

    "Yup."

     There you have it: yup. NGDPLT is all about keeping the world safe for austerity. Perhaps we've just given you what you don't get out of a freshwater economist-an empirical example of what freshwater mobilization sounds like.