Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Krugman Develops a Template to Respond to His Flip Flops

Paul Krugman flip-flops so much that he has come out with a generic template to explain his flip-flops. He writes:
A quick generic note: I’m constantly facing critiques along the lines of “Now you say A, but back in 1996, or 2003, or something, you said B. You’re not consistent!” Since I’ve written so much over the years, there’s plenty of opportunity for this sort of trawling, and I don’t have time to answer each case. 
So what’s going on? One of three things: 
1. The situations are different. 
2. I’ve changed my views based on events. 
3. I’ve changed my view because I’ve learned something.
This is probably his most creative work.

7 comments:

  1. Translation:

    "I haven't been able to keep my research assistants and ghost-writers who actually write the nonsense atributed to me straight over the years."

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  2. "When the 'facts' (read: political opportunities) change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

    Krugman is just like Keynes. Bunch of lying scumbags, the both of them.

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  3. He should just said "I changed my view because I was stupid then, despite being a Noble Prize winner. Now I am wiser, and that may also mean I am less stupid now than before."

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  4. It's not lying if what you're saying could be true if the facts were different.

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  5. All three situations are just variations on a theme, that is his thinking is not rooted in principles.

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  6. I'm somewhat surprised that he didn't simply paraphrase Emerson:

    "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds".

    Whereas (self-defined) "great-minds" need not bother about trivial things like "consistency" (what a barbaric, provincial, bourgeois concept!)

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  7. Its one thing to change your views, but quite another to have provided bad or misleading information, especially as a PROFESSIONAL! A PROFESSIONAL corrects his/her mistakes and explains where they went wrong.

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