Is Don Luskin full of crap? (Help me out)

[Composed Thinker]

Is he full of crap? Look below and help me find out.


Don Luskin of the National Review has a little "Krugman Truth Squad" where he denounces the "lies and distortions" of Princeton professor and columnist for The New York Times, Paul Krugman. There have been responses on other sites, sometimes by economists, that imply or prove Luskin is a clown.

Here is his latest piece:

Economic Uranium
Krugman has finally found a topic he is truly qualified to write about.

Paul Krugman and I took very different vacations over the July 4 holiday, and our choices might tell you something about how different we are. I played cowboy at a ranch in Colorado. Rumor has it that Krugman went bicycling in France. Different fantasies for different folks.

...

Krugman claimed that Bush lied about burgeoning federal budget deficits in order to ram through his tax cuts, just as he supposedly lied about weapons of mass destruction to push through the war against Iraq. The very first line of Krugman's column confidently took it as a given — beyond any need for discussion or proof — that Bush lied about Iraq.


Here's another sentence in George Bush's State of the Union address that wasn't true: "We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents and other generations."
If this is another untrue sentence, what was the first one? If it's the famous 16 words about African uranium — "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" — then Krugman has started his very own column with a sentence that is untrue (perhaps I should say another sentence that is untrue). Regardless of what criticisms one may have about the intelligence concerning African uranium, Bush's statement itself was indisputably true.

But for Krugman, Bush is a liar even if what he says is true. And having thus falsely impugned the president's character in the column's first paragraph, Krugman went on to make a very serious accusation: He charged that Bush's budget projections were the result of a conspiracy of deliberate fraud. Krugman repeated this four times in the column:


• ... the administration's claims to fiscal responsibility have rested on thoroughly cooked books.

• ... budget analysts were pressured to high-ball estimates of future revenues and low-ball estimates of future expenditures.

• ... the administration got us here with cooked numbers.

• ... his administration continues to fudge the numbers ...

Yet for the apparent gravity of this accusation, as I pointed out on my blog, The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid, Krugman did not offer even the slightest shred of evidence. No details on how numbers were "cooked" or "fudged," no testimony from analysts who were "pressured." No smoking-gun e-mail. Nothing. Just baseless accusations by a Princeton economics professor writing in the pages of the "newspaper of record." By the time a week is out, these charges will be repeated elsewhere, as facts, with the New York Times cited as their authoritative source.

...


http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_luskin/truthsquad072103.asp

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Is he full of crap?

[foxglove1]

1. I'm really trying to figure you out

This isn't the first time you've posted something about Krugman, and the rest of your posts seem a little .... odd. You seem ok on one level, but on another level, alarm bells go off in my head every time I read one of your posts.

Oh, and you need to shorten that article dramatically. You are in copyright violation with the amount of text you cut and pasted

Sue

[Composed Thinker]

2. Okay, but let me explain

I'll shorten it, but let me explain something. I know a little bit about economics, but I'm not an expert. Luskin seems to be a clown to me, but like I said, I'm not an expert. And while people here aren't likely to be experts either, they probably know more than me and can help me out. That's why I ask.

[foxglove1]

3. Fair enough

it just seems to me that your posts aren't designed to clarify matters for you, but are rather to make those on this group develop doubts about their beliefs. Maybe I'm just too paranoid ... if so, please accept my apology

Sue

[Composed Thinker]

4. I think you are too paranoid, at least about this, but that's okay

I can often be paranoid about stuff.

[jfxgillis]

5. I'm thinking ...

... you were right the first time.

[Composed Thinker]

7. No, I'm not trying to influence anyone

I just want some clarification on some things. I like Paul Krugman so much, he's made me want to become an economist just like him.

[jfxgillis]

10. Laugh

Being as I have a long-time account at freerepublic.com, I certainly don't begrudge you your fun (except I'm open about my views there and you aren't here), and I certainly can't complain about your civility, but please

Ix-nay on the arcasm-say

okay?

[Composed Thinker]

11. I'm not kidding

I'm about to enter college in the fall. I'm studying history and ecomomics. Krugman always strikes me as an incredibly intelligent, confident guy. That's not such a bad thing, you know?

[jfxgillis]

13. Fine.

Then let me give you a couple of little bits of sage advice before you embark on your career.

1. NROnline is a terrible place to learn about political economy. In fact, of all the Journals of Opinions out there, center, left, or right, it may be the WORST. The Libertarian rags are at least internally consistent even if they're wrong.

2. Your little games might be fun with your peers and maybe one or two of the 30 or so professors you'll have in the next four years, but the rest of the professors will chew you up and spit you out like a hyena with a dead fawn.

[Composed Thinker]

14. What the hell?

"2. Your little games might be fun with your peers and maybe one or two of the 30 or so professors you'll have in the next four years, but the rest of the professors will chew you up and spit you out like a hyena with a dead fawn."

Why would you say that?

[jfxgillis]

16. Because ...

... you're pretending you need "help" figuring out if Luskin is full of crap, when what you're REALLY doing is ensuring that Luskin gets posted on a DU thread.

That's the "little game" you're playing.

[Composed Thinker]

17. I won't be able to convice you otherwise, but let me say that you're wrong

[jfxgillis]

20. Oh. I see.

Every so often you read Luskin, decide to post a long excerpt here, asking the same sort of question and garnering the same sort of answer, just because you're honestly confused?

Okay. Flat out: Luskin is SHIT. Don't bother reading him.

Now, the next time you post a Luskin excerpt, not only will you not have convinced me otherwise, you will have convinced me I was correct the first time.

[Composed Thinker]

21. Fair enough

[jfxgillis]

6. You don't need to know economics ...

... to see how full of shit Luskin is.

Krugman probably has THIRTY to FIFTY columns in which he meticulously demonstrates the fraud embedded in the Bush plans, going all the way back to the campaign. As Bob Somerby (DailyHowler.com) has pointed out, Krugman was the only pundit who refused to pretend that Bush's obvious lies were just "differences of opinion."

So, Luskin's "criticism," as you posted it here, is that Krugman didn't pack a book's worth of econometrics into an 800-word column written for a general audience.

[Composed Thinker]

8. It's actually funny to see Luskin respond sometimes

pkarchive.org, run by a young guy and not Krugman, though linked on Krugman's Princeton site, has responses by Luskin, at least for some things. In one particular instance, after going back and forth at least eight times, with Krugman giving many graphs and terms, all Luskin could say was that Krugman tried to use "academic economic jargon."

[jfxgillis]

12. So, the question is ...

.... Why do you, on more than one occasion, post Luskin's articles here while adopting a rather baffled and confused tone if you already know Luskin is full of shit?

At least you should be subtle and post from kausfiles.com

[Composed Thinker]

15. I want to know if he's full of shit on all matters,

not just certain areas.

[jfxgillis]

18. Actually--

--he probably isn't.

Krugman isn't God and Luskin isn't brain-damaged. There probably is a fact or two or a logical fallacy somewhere in four years of Krugman's columns that a careful, well-trained and honest conservative intellectual could probably espy. And Luskin might well have got a zinger in on Krugman somewhere.

But when the score is on the order of

Krugman: 487

Luskin: 2

You can pretty-well presume as a working hypothesis that Luskin is full of shit.

[Composed Thinker]

19. That seems fair, and also...

Krugman is a probable Nobel Prize winner and Princeton professor, while Luskin is a college dropout. It's somewhat stupid to throw that around, but it's oh so enjoyable.

[jfxgillis]

22. Actually, Krugman probably isn't "Nobel" material.

The Committee has shown a very marked bias towards technical/academic candidates, and when they go for economists with popular followings, then tend to the "Liberal" rather than "Social Democratic" side.

John Kenneth Galbraith is twice the economist Milton Friedman ever was.

[Composed Thinker]

23. I was using information from what I've read that's been written about him

They seem to indicate that his work is at the Nobel level.

[KC21304]

9. I won't beat around the Bush. Yes , Don Luskin is full of crap.

Paul Krugman has always backed up everyone of his economic statements with facts.

And if you really want to find out who knows what they are talking about, look up Paul's columns from before the 2000 election. I'm sure you will have no problem finding them.

[SyracuseDemocrat]

24. Can't you figure it out for yourself?

How can you debate anyone if you have to ask us for help?