Stephen Williamson is a Big Baby About Krugman

      Maybe it's Williamson's birthday. If so naybe we should give him a pass. Like the old song says, "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to." However, Willamson is at it again, whining about Krugman. More breast beating:

    "I wish I didn't have to do it, but it's time - once again - to stick up for economic science. Krugman has crossed the line (I know it when I see it) here. If it offends you that he offends me, then stop reading. You're not allowed to whine about Krugman-bashing. The guy deserves it, after all."

      http://newmonetarism.blogspot.com/2012/03/lazy-macroeconomics.html#comment-form

     Willaimson is going to stick up for "economic science." Here is Krugman's offending passage:

      "...my sense is that a lot of younger economists are aware, even if they don’t dare say so, that freshwater macro has been a great embarrassment these past four years, and that liquidity-trap Keynesianism has done very well. This will affect future research; it will, over time, break the stranglehold of decadent Lucasian doctrine on the journals."

     Willaimson comes back with:

      "What is "decadent Lucasian doctrine," and why the heck is it so decadent? Good questions. You'll have to grill Krugman on that. As far as I can tell, we are all "Lucasians" now, and that includes Krugman, who uses many "Lucasian" principles. Complaining about Lucas is something like complaining about the other Bob - Bob Dylan. The revolution happened long ago, and now everyone loves Bob and his influences are everywhere. Krugman might like it if the Bob "stranglehold" somehow let go of the profession. Too bad, Krugman, that's not happening."

     Willaimson sounds like nothing so much as a Mitt Romney-he thinks Lucas is "inevitable." Everyone agrees with Lucas, even if they don't.

     "In the better world I'm thinking about, we would not have to put up with arrogant loud-mouths like Paul, Brad, and their "fellow-travelers." The world these people envision is one where lazy macroeconomics has free-rein. We would forget everything we have learned in the last 40 years or so. Better still, we could set the way-back machine to 1937. Why fuss with all those bothersome details? IS-LM is so easy - and so right. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you."

    This better world of Williamson sounds like totalitarianism. It's sort of like what the Church Fathers once dreamed of. A world where orthodoxy doesn't have to "put up" with contradiction. Thankfully it's not our world and the young economists Krugman speaks of will be nothing like the flat-earther Stephen Williamson.

    Something is believed for a whole 40 years? Why that proves it's absolute truth.