Paul Krugman: a Cartoon, a Buffoon and a Poltroon

“When the facts change I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” – John Maynard Keynes

The people who have the least understanding of economics are Ph.D.s; those who don’t understand it at all are Ph.D.s out of Harvard, Yale and Princeton. One reason, among others, is that these inept economists are Keynesians, even though Keynes said his beliefs were only temporary measures to be given up when circumstances changed. Circumstances always change, and they changed not long after Keynes formulated his theories. That’s why he changed his mind when the facts changed.

Paul Krugman, who has a Ph.D. from Princeton, doesn’t understand economics. Worse, he does not know this. He is an example of what Aristotle called “double ignorance.” Some people are ignorant and know it; the doubly ignorant are those who are ignorant and don’t know it. Krugman is ignorant and doesn’t have a clue just how ignorant he is. He’s convinced himself he is the exact opposite of ignorant.

Krugman thinks he is so smart and moral, as compared to the unwashed masses, that he truly believes he can use his brain to run an economy of 300 million people. This is leftism (the political philosopher Michael Oakeshott called this delusion “rationalism,” a perversion of rationality). It’s a delusion of astonishing proportions. For all practical purposes it’s mental illness.

I do mean mental illness. Besides the double ignorance, Krugman also suffers from what the Greeks called hubris: believing you’re god-like. Anyone who thinks he has the ability to run an economy of some 300 million people, by the use of his own permanently limited and imperfect brain, thinks he’s a god, whether or not he admits it to himself.

The Greeks considered hubris to be a type of insanity, since Hubris was the god of arrogance, lack of restraint, insolence and wanton violence. “Ate” was the word the Greeks used to indicate the kind of insanity that invariably followed hubris. That is why Krugman can be considered insane. Not insane in the Stalin or Pol Pot sense, but still insane and deluded enough to be removed from his position and then completely ignored (he’s what the English call a “nutter”- the kind who stands on a soapbox in a park and rants and raves). I’m sure to be ignored – or ridiculed – would make him more demented that he already is.

Apparently Krugman’s looniness started at an early age. Perhaps he was born sick. Perhaps he’s just genetic garbage. A huge red flag illustrating his disturbed character is his belief he is Hari Seldon (Krugman said Hari Seldon was his hero and he decided to become an economist after reading Isaac Asimov’s The Foundation Trilogy).

Hari Seldon was one of the most important characters in The Foundation Trilogy, although he died in about the first chapter. I’ve read all three novels several times and enjoyed them immensely for two or three years. But then, when I first read them, I was 12, and after about 14, I stopped reading them.

Even at 12 I didn’t take the books seriously, no more than I took seriously Edgar Rice Burroughs’ wonderful but fantastically inaccurate Barsoom (Mars) novels. Apparently Krugman took Asimov’s trilogy very seriously. I suppose today there are people who think if they try hard enough they can be Harry Potter. At least we know such people are deluded. Some know Krugman is deluded, but not enough.

The Foundation Trilogy is set thousands of years in the future, when humanity has spread across the galaxy and is ruled by a galactic empire. For some reason unknown to me, Asimov didn’t see humanity being ruled by a galactic empire as a bad condition. In reality it would be a terrible thing. Only in fiction could it be good.

Asimov called Hari Seldon the first of the “psychohistorians.” Seldon is able to predict the future of the Galactic Empire, not just for a few years, but for 10,000 years. He uses a pocket calculator. See why I never took the novels seriously as much as I enjoyed them? Seldon could never exist, and neither could his discipline of “psychohistory.” It’d be psychobabble, not psychohistory, just the way mainstream economics is babble.

Seldon has figured out the Empire is going to collapse and will be followed by 10,000 years of barbarism. Though the application of the tenets of Psychohistory, Seldon claims, those 10,000 years of the Dark Ages can be reduced to a mere 1000 years. That’s pretty impressive to a 12-year-old, and doubly impressive to one who is permanently pre-adolescent.

In the trilogy all material, economic and moral advancement is because of the Empire. When it starts to collapse, all progress stops and civilization goes backward. In reality there wouldn’t be much advancement in everything, except perhaps weapons technology, with the Empire oppressing the entire galaxy and only when it collapsed would things progress. Progress is dependent on liberty, not on statism. And certainly not on the galaxy-wide statism of the Empire.

I can forgive Asimov his little gaff. He wrote the novels in the middle ‘50s and didn’t understand just how immensely destructive the State is. Today, there is no excuse not to know. Actually, there was no excuse in the ‘50s, not with the whole of history before Asimov, but I’ll still forgive him. He was a biochemist, not a historian.

For Krugman there can be no forgiveness. He has no excuses. He claims to be an economist and he should know history. He doesn’t. He is so deluded, and so corrupted with hubris, that he will never change his mind no matter how destructive are the applications of his Keynesian beliefs. When the facts change he doesn’t change his mind; he just double-downs on his blindness and arrogance. Like the Cowardly Lion of Oz he clamps his eyes shut and chants, “I believe, I believe.”

Krugman is part of the tsunami of amoral high-IQ idiots inundating the United States. They wouldn’t particularly matter except they have influence. They’re the blind leading the blind and heading the U.S. right into a ditch. As far as I’m concerned the Economics departments of all the major universities should be shut down, every Ph.D. fired, and banned for life from the field.

Krugman is one of those simple-minded nitwits who have One Big Idea they apply to everything, and they conveniently ignore facts that don’t fit. They’re like Procrustes, the Greek torturer who, when someone was too short, stretched them on a rack, and when they were too long, he chopped parts off. I’m sure Procrustes thought what he did was a good thing.

The purpose of science, whether hard or soft, is to push back the darkness by illuminating it with discoveries (Carl Sagan, in one of the few things he got right, called science “a candle in the dark”). It’s supposed to bring order out of chaos. Krugman thinks he is one of those candle-carriers but he’s not. He’s blowing out the candles and contributing to the chaos of a collapsed economy. He’s supporting the barbarians, but again, he doesn’t have a clue. And when that collapse happens, Krugman will blame it on everybody but himself.

Since the foolish and deluded don’t change their minds, what happens is that their generation dies off and a new generation takes over. That’s what will happen with Krugman and other the deluded Keynesian fools. Their generation will die off and a newer one will take over.

It’s too bad these doubly-ignorant “intellectuals” exist. They remind me of what Orwell said: “There are some ideas so absurd only an intellectual could believe them.” The inability of these people to change their minds means it will be a long time before the U.S. gets back on track.

I shouldn’t be, but am continually amazed how stupid, blind, arrogant and immoral the high-IQ idiots are. IQ doesn’t mean anything – and in fact is very dangerous – when there is a lack of character. That lack of character is what makes these people cartoons, buffoons and poltroons – and a danger to everything they touch.