Krugman: I Will Never Respond to Niall Ferguson

Paul Krugman posts:

Don’t Feed the Trolls

Some readers have been asking when I’m going to reply to certain rants aimed my way. The answer is, never.

Here's a taste of Ferguson:

First Bob Murphy singled this out from Ferguson:

For too long, Paul Krugman has exploited his authority as an award-winning economist and his power as a New York Times columnist to heap opprobrium on anyone who ventures to disagree with him. Along the way, he has acquired a claque of like-minded bloggers who play a sinister game of tag with him, endorsing his attacks and adding vitriol of their own. I would like to name and shame in this context Dean Baker, Josh Barro, Brad DeLong, Matthew O’Brien, Noah Smith, Matthew Yglesias and Justin Wolfers. Krugman and his acolytes evidently relish the viciousness of their attacks, priding themselves on the crassness of their language. But I should like to know what qualifies a figure like Matt O’Brien to call anyone a “disingenuous idiot”? What exactly are his credentials? 35,550 tweets? How does he essentially differ from the cranks who, before the Internet, had to vent their spleen by writing letters in green ink?

 Here's the full three part Ferguson series on Krugman:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

As Murph notes some is correct but there are problems in the critique, including somes awkward Keynesian type criticism of Krugman, but it sure is entertaining. Here is another snippet:

One might have expected a little more humility from an economist who so clearly failed to understand the nature of the biggest financial crisis of his lifetime until after it had happened. Or at least a little less egomania: "Yes," he wrote in January, "I've heard about the notion that I should be Treasury Secretary. I'm flattered, but it really is a bad idea."