| Username |
Post |
| ashu |
Posted
on 30-Nov-03 09:00 AM
What follows has nothing to do with Nepal. But it shows how an economist can -- through his columns -- influence public debaes, even when one disagrees with that economist's arguments.
Paul Krugman -- one of the clearest writers in English on the planet -- is a professor of economics at Princeton. Krugman also doubles up as a columnist for The New York
Times. His latest book "The Great Unravelling" has been a best-seller.
What follows is taken from The Economist magazine.
Enjoy,
oohi
ashu
*****************
The one-handed economist
Paul Krugman and the controversial art of popularising economics
“GIVE me a one-handed economist,” demanded a frustrated American president. “All my economists say, ‘on the one hand...on the other'”. From a mono-manual perspective, at least, Harry Truman would have loved Paul Krugman, an economist who rarely hesitates to take a bold position—even when the subject is himself.
In recounting the transformation of his twice-weekly New York Times column from a genial discussion of the “New Economy” into a widely read broadside against the Bush administration, the Princeton professor recently described himself as “a lonely voice of truth in a sea of corruption.”
What is beyond dispute is that Mr Krugman is the finest economist to become a media superstar—at least since Milton Friedman or, earlier, John Maynard Keynes turned to journalism. Mr Krugman's work on currency crises and international trade is widely admired by other economists. He holds the John Bates Clark medal in economics, which is slightly harder to get than a Nobel prize. As for popularity, his new book, “The Great Unravelling”—his eighth aimed at a broad, non-academic readership—has spent eight weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
The Economist, which itself has been known on occasion to clamber off the economic fence, can hardly criticise anybody for writing hard-hitting (yet engaging and accessible!) economic analyses. But, increasingly, people are asking whether Mr Krugman's success as a journalist is now coming at the expense of, rather than as the result of, his economics.
For while he has had some journalistic coups during his time as a columnist—most notably in recognising, long before most other commentators, that market manipulation played a role in the California energy crisis—perhaps the most striking thing about his writing these days is not its economic rigour but its political partisanship.
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| Bhunte |
Posted
on 30-Nov-03 04:01 PM
Ashu, reminds me you also playing the role of PK in Nepal via Nepali Times if not NYT. But, Alok Bohora not writing in Nepali Times these days?
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| U_2 |
Posted
on 30-Nov-03 04:22 PM
More on Krugman from the New Yourk review of Books
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16730
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| lonely1 |
Posted
on 30-Nov-03 09:00 PM
Ashujee,
I also admire Krugman (and by extension you!), but if the voice that controls Krugman's discourse is one for social and economic justice, yours, I am afraid, is usually that of a free market advocate, occasionally even that of a neoliberalist. Correct me if that was an unintended affect of your writings and speeches or my misreading--although all readings are constructed out of the textual cues.
Cheers,
lonely1
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| ashu |
Posted
on 01-Dec-03 12:11 AM
U_2, thank you for that excellent link.
BTW, I was not able to post the full version of The Economist article above.
Here's the link:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2208841
*******
Bhunte, thank you for your kind words.
But let's be honest: I am no PK, though he remains a role model for me (both in terms of
doing serious research and in writing hard-hitting pieces). As a mere beginner, I still have a lot, lot MORE to do -- in BOTH areas, and will do so, step by step, in coming years. At the very least, I know that people like you will keep me on my toes.
***********************
Lonely1,
Your point is well taken.
But let me put that in a context.
As a columnist, I have to start from some sort of an intellectual base, be secure in that, before being flexible enough to branch out to talk about the LIMITS and the PROBLEMS of free markets as they pertain to Nepal . . . and do that in about mere 700 words, every other week.
In Nepali public debates, where even committed Marxists, communists and socialists send their sons and daughters to be educated and to work in America, the phrase "free market" has become a much abused one. Even the Maoists said that they were for free markets, and the phrase means many things to many people.
If you don't like someone's particular market-friendly orientation, you can dismiss it, among others, by saying, "Oh, hers is a neoliberal view". Such a statement also conveniently does away with any need to engage in real debates and discussions.
So, yes, coming back to your point, let me start from a decidedly neoliberal position. But I will be more than happy to revise my stance and change my opinions provided critics and well-wishers like yourself are there to set me straight with counter-examples and verifiably true counter-evidence.
At the end of the day, what good is economics -- of any kind -- if we cannot use it to understand Nepal as it is a little better?
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| failedstate |
Posted
on 09-Dec-03 04:02 PM
Bhunte:
Alok Bohara's latest article in Nepali Times:
http://www.nepalnews.com/ntimes/issue173/opinion.htm
Interesting analysis.
FS
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| ujol sherchan |
Posted
on 10-Dec-03 12:21 AM
Been a regular reader of Paul Krugman's opinion pieces in NYT. PK gives syphilis to all them genitalia who now control the White House - the Bush administration: Bush, Dick, Condo and Rum(p), etc. It seems a bit strange that the Economist that more often than not propounds politically- biased (and sometimes even neo-con) views in its pages would say PK's writing increasingly suffers from political partisanship or something to that effect. On the contrary. I think he is enriched by his political convictions - which are decidedly leftist. He's at his best when going after the genitalia.
He is also a stark reminder that 'pro-business' doesn't necessarily mean 'pro-free market', and rightly takes the Bush administration to task on tariffs on steel and the Farm Bill....and many other things. People of his calibre could teach Nepal the difference between these two cliches in the world that increasingly think they are synonymous.
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| bhunte |
Posted
on 10-Dec-03 01:50 AM
Ashu, count on my support anytime...
Failedstate, I spared reading Alok's work yesterday despite bz schedule. It is interesting. I am going to ask him for a detailed version of the article.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 10-Dec-03 06:04 AM
Ujol,
Economists, by temperament and training, tend to be 'pro-market'.
Businesspeople, representing the SUPPLY side of the market, tend to be 'pro-business' through Chambers of Commerce and other similarly-inclined interest-groups. They are pro-business in the sense that as long as their companies and/or industries benefit, even at the expense of the competition and the customers, that's fine with them.
The Bush administration -- the bugaboo as far as Krugman is concerned -- has
more businesspeople (whose experiences include running government-protected
companies as opposed to running entrepreneurial ones) making policies than
first-rate (academic) economists.
On matters related to farm subsidies and steel tariffs, Krugman has hammered Bush
for letting narrow electoral concerns ride roughshod over even the obligatory
'pro-free trade' stance that would, one assumes, be dear to the heart of any
Republican administration.
ASIDE: As Krugman memorably wrote in one of his books . . . citing an Indian economist: If you are a good economist, then, after you die, you'll be reborn as
a physicist. If you are a bad economist, then, after you die, you'll be reborn as a sociologist. :-)
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| pandu |
Posted
on 10-Dec-03 11:06 AM
Hey Ashu,
I really like your work and I admire your thoughtful discussions. If you have time and energy, I'd love to hear your thoughts on IF's analysis of Indian foreign policy in the "is india villian to nepal" thread. I don't want to instigate any fights though, just thought it would be cool to hear from you.
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 10-Dec-03 11:33 AM
pandu,
Rest assured, you won't be able to instigate a fight between ashu and me. We have known each other in the cyberworld since 1997, and in the real world since 2001. If you have the time and energy, you can look at the sajha acrhives and you'll find many many mnay threads in which ashu and I held totally different and opposing views but that didn't barr us in any way from meeting over coffee and beer in Kathmandu.
I don't fear a nice, healthy discussion. I am always for it because I believe reading opposing views actually helps you in strengthening your own views. When somebody opposes your views, you do more reseacrh, think more, read more and come up with claims and evidence that support your views. So, in a way, opposing views are blessings in disguise- they make you work hard and that hard work has its own rewards. That's why for the most part, I end my posts with a "feel free to disagree" or a "feel free to correct me" note. I do appreciate people reading what I wrote and offering their sugegstions, but there are instances in which people, just for the sake of criticism, come up with nothing new and persuassive and still hope that I agree with their half baked logics!
But again, like you said, if ashu has time and willingness, he will be the most welcome visitor to comment on what i said in the other thread.
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| bhunte |
Posted
on 10-Dec-03 02:44 PM
>>>If you are a bad economist, then, after you die, you'll be reborn as a sociologist<<<
matches my observation....
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| ashu |
Posted
on 10-Dec-03 08:26 PM
Krugman's ideological adversary (see the book "Peddling Prosperity") passed away.
May Mr. Bartley's soul rest in peace.
I love the way obituaries (in detail and with quotes from other people) get written up about in the mainstream British and American media.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
***************
December 11, 2003
Robert L. Bartley, 66, Dies; Led Journal Editorial Page
By JACQUES STEINBERG
obert L. Bartley, who led the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal for three decades, championing the supply-side economics of the Reagan era and fashioning a showcase of conservative thought that became required reading for liberals and conservatives alike, died yesterday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. He was 66 and lived in Brooklyn.
Writing both unsigned editorials and occasional bylined columns, Mr. Bartley argued repeatedly for tax cuts and a range of other economic incentives, as well as for a powerful national defense, a well-protected Israel and the Supreme Court nominations of such conservatives as Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. In 1980, Mr. Bartley was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.
In a sign of the esteem with which he and his page were held in conservative circles, Mr. Bartley was lauded at a retirement party at the St. Regis Hotel in Manhattan in November 2002 by three keynote speakers drawn from the loftiest ranks of the Republican Party: Henry A. Kissinger, the former secretary of state; Jack Kemp, the former vice-presidential nominee, and Theodore B. Olson, the United States solicitor general, who had argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of George W. Bush in the dispute over the 2000 presidential election.
On Dec. 2, as it became clear that his death was near, Mr. Bartley received a phone call at his Brooklyn home from President Bush informing him that he was being given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The citation said that as "a champion of free markets, individual liberty and the values necessary for a free society," Mr. Bartley had "helped shape the times in which we live."
Mr. Bartley, who held the title editor emeritus at his death and until recently wrote an occasional column, "Thinking Things Over," would most likely not have received such an honor from Mr. Bush's predecessor.
During the Clinton administration, Mr. Bartley turned The Journal's editorial page toward Mr. Clinton with the constant intensity of a white-hot spotlight, criticizing the Whitewater land deal, the president's dalliance with an intern and the ethical pedigree of the White House aides Mr. Clinton had taken with him from Arkansas, including Webster L. Hubbell (an associate attorney general) and Vincent W. Foster (a deputy White House counsel).
A month after The Journal published an editorial in June 1993, under the headline, "Who is Vince Foster?", which criticized Mr. Foster and other administration lawyers from the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Mr. Foster's body was found in a northern Virginia park in an apparent suicide. A note found in his briefcase after his death said, among other things, that "the WSJ editors lie without consequence."
Mr. Bartley later wrote: "For my part, I can testify that getting tagged with blame for the Foster suicide powerfully focused my own attention on Whitewater."
For all the issues on which he held forth, Mr. Bartley was perhaps most influential in the area of economics. From the mid-1970's to the early 1980's, Mr. Bartley used his page to give voice to a small cadre of economists and writers, including Arthur B. Laffer, Jude Wanniski and Robert Mundell, who believed that tax cuts could stimulate the economy.
Those ideas, which were partly hashed out in a series of late-night dinners in Lower Manhattan among a small group of economists that also included Mr. Bartley, later became grouped under the heading of supply-side economics, and formed a cornerstone of the economic policy of the Reagan administration.
"We all stand on the shoulders of someone else," said Dr. Laffer, who taught economics at the University of Chicago and advised both the Nixon and Reagan administrations. "He was a major contributor to the whole process, the whole thinking."
Mr. Bartley wrote a book about that period, "The Seven Fat Years: And How To Do It Again," first published in 1992 by Free Press.
In a new introduction several years later, Mr. Bartley, who had no formal training as an economist, wrote of the 1980's: "We entered the decade in a mood of malaise, engendered chiefly by a combination of inflation and stagflation that could not be cured or even explained by prevailing economic wisdom. That economic issue was resolved with surprising success and speed by a mix of tight monetary policy and incentive-directed tax cuts."
But as with so many positions that Mr. Bartley took, his detractors were many and vocal, with a legion of economists arguing that the effects of supply-side policy on the economy, as executed by the Reagan administration, were greatly exaggerated. The boom of the 1990's, which followed a tax increase by President Clinton that had been opposed by Mr. Bartley's page, provided additional ammunition to supply-side critics.
"I thought that what was written in The Wall Street Journal about supply-side economics was the triumph of faith over observation," said Robert M. Solow, a retired professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
But Professor Solow adds that it says something about Mr. Bartley's desire for intellectual engagement that, at one point in the 1990's, Mr. Bartley offered him the opportunity to be an occasional contributor on The Journal's editorial page.
Professor Solow turned Mr. Bartley down, he said, because he "didn't want to be a token liberal" in an "extremely right-wing club."
Robert LeRoy Bartley was born on Oct. 12, 1937, in Marshall, Minn., and raised in Ames, Iowa. His father, Theodore, of Humboldt, Iowa, who survives him, was a veterinarian. His mother, the former Iva Mae Radach, was a homemaker.
In addition to his father, Mr. Bartley is survived by his wife, Edith Lillie Bartley; three daughters: Elizabeth Bartley of Brooklyn, Susan Bartley of Los Angeles and Katherine Bartley of Princeton, N.J.; a brother, Dale Bartley of San Rafael, Calif.; and a sister, Phyllis Sutter of Portland, Oregon.
Mr. Bartley received a bachelor's degree in journalism from Iowa State University and a master's degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin.
He joined The Journal in 1962, serving initially as a staff reporter in the newspaper's bureaus in Chicago and Philadelphia before joining the editorial page staff in 1964. He became editor of the editorial page in 1972 and later was named editor of The Journal, a position in which he oversaw editorials, Op-Ed articles and arts and cultural criticism. He retired last year.
Dorothy Rabinowitz, who was hired by Mr. Bartley more than a decade ago as a media critic and editorial page writer, said yesterday that among the things she would miss most about him was his laugh, which she described as a "cackling, penetrating, roar."
Tension between the editorial and news-gathering sides of a newspaper is hardly unusual, given their contrasting missions. But it was particularly true at The Journal, where beat reporters would sometimes engage Mr. Bartley about how wrong they felt he was, or how hard his editorials were making it for them to be perceived by the outside world as writing objectively.
Ms. Rabinowitz said that a less apparent aspect of his work at The Journal was his advocacy for the advancement of a number of women as writers and editors, including not only herself but also Susan Lee, Amity Shlaes and Melanie Kirkpatrick.
Ms. Rabinowitz won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for a series of columns, including several that laid bare the damage done by false accusations of child abuse. It was a line of reporting, she said, that Mr. Bartley had embraced.
At his retirement party, Mr. Bartley gave what he called a valedictory:
"What I think I've learned over three decades," he wrote, "is that in this society, rationality wins out, progress happens, and problems do have solutions. This, I like to think, is what happens when a society incorporates the traditional editorial credo of my newspaper — free markets and free people.
"In that kind of a society, my three decades as an editor testify, optimism pays."
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