Krugman on Market Monetarism

     Really this short piece by Krugman was not about Market Monetarism but more about one Market Monetarist-or at least he's a sympathizer-Josh Barro, to make a case for the GOP to become less, well, derpy. 

    Erick Erickson doesn't think much about this plan of Barro's:

     "RedState.com editor-in-chief Erick Erickson and Business Insider politics editor Josh Barro went toe-to-toe in columns published Tuesday over their competing visions for the Republican Party and the conservative movement."

      "Erickson began his column with a pointed description of Barro, a moderate conservative who has frequently called for reform of the GOP."

      "Josh Barro is a late twenty-something gay male who hates conservatives, champions Obamacare, attacks Republicans for wanting to oppose it, supports the tax hikes that come with Obamacare, wants to rid the GOP of social conservatives, and gets fawning pieces of prattle composed by liberals who want everyone to know that their friend Josh Barro is a conservative reformer who wants less conservatism," Erickson wrote.

     http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/conservative-writers-josh-barro-erick-erickson-trade-barbs

      Erikcson has had quite a week: going from saying that woman belong in the house which put him at loggerheads with Fox News' Megyn Kelly to now going after Barro's sexual orientation. 

     http://thinkprogress.org/media/2013/05/31/2086611/megyn-kelly-erick-erickson/

     Krugman argues that Barro's goal is much more of a long shot than he wants to believe:

      "Like Bruce Bartlett, Josh Barro’s laudable attempt to be a reasonable conservative is having the unintended effect of demonstrating just how unreasonable modern conservatism has become — as he himself now notes:

Basically, Erickson is derpy. And Erickson has big appeal to conservatives because lots of them are derpy. But the country is getting less derpy, and in time the Republican party will have to get less derpy, too. That’s my project, and I don’t expect Erickson to like it.

     "But things are actually a lot worse than Barro is yet willing to acknowledge; for the GOP’s derpitude doesn’t just involve the Ericksons and the Limbaughs, it extends to the party’s supposed intellectuals."

     http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/moral-derpitude/

     Here's the part though that makes me stand up and take notice. Krugman voices skepticism that Market Monetarism is an achievement of conservative reformers. 

     "Barro likes to claim that market monetarism, which he insists has been a big winner, is an achievement of conservative reformers. I’d dispute just about all of that, but never mind right now. The point here is that the virulent opposition to any kind of monetary expansion isn’t just coming from the talk radio types, or the rank and file politicians. We have a modern GOP in which Paul Ryan is considered a policy wonk, the leading intellectual among elected officials — and he gets his ideas about monetary policy by quoting from Atlas Shrugged."

      I've been calling for Krugman to take on Sumner for awhile-doesn't necessarily have to be adversarial but he needs to at least speak to some of the claims Sumner has made. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/05/is-sumner-krugmans-real-enemy.html

    I'm not exactly what Krugman has in mind here but what's important is this part:  I’d dispute just about all of that, but never mind right now. So he may elaborate more on this in the future?

     As usual, he doesn't mention Sumner by name. Sumner of course has no such restraint. I'll be interested to see if he has an answer to this claim that MM is not an achievement of conservative reformer.