Murray Sabrin Schools a Paul Krugman Fan

Murray Sabrin, professor of finance in the Anisfield School of Business, Ramapo College of New Jersey, recently received an email from "a former colleagues, an old time liberal who is supportive of civil liberties and a noninterventionist foreign policy":

By referring to the great comments written by Paul Krugman in his wonderful columns in the New York Times; we can easily combat the Republican clown car full of amazingly stupid people who believe they should be president of the United States. Krugman is the single nationally recognized economist who has consistently been accurate in his predictions regarding the economy. Krugman's astute analysis of politics and politicians especially those from the psycho right wing is brilliant and refreshing. Read him and quote him when discussing the up coming presidential election, which must be won by Hillary to save our nation from sliding into a swamp filled by lunatic Republications, religious nuts, gun freaks and delusional Libertarians.

"Forget the Alamo"

Dr Sabrin replied:

 Ron:

Good to hear from you Ron. Hope you are enjoying retirement.   

Regarding your comments about Krugman and the 2016 presidential race, I must part company with your characterization of Krugman’s columns as “great” and “astute.” I had my encounter with Paul when he spoke at Ramapo nearly five years ago.  You can find my essay (My Encounter with Paul Krugman, October 2010) and other critical essays about Krugman at https://mises.org/search/site/krugman.   In fact, I tell my students they should read his NYT columns, not for their insight but for all the economic fallacies he makes. 

See these essays about Krugman as well. http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/02/paul-krugmans-great-forecasting-failure.html

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2015/02/what-paul-krugmam-thinks-secret-to.html

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2015/05/lets-put-paul-krugman-on-one-dollar-bill.htm.

One word I would never use to describe Krugman is brilliant.  Smart, yes.  Contemptuous of others he disagrees with, yes.  Arrogant, yes.   Ignorant of money, capital, prices and interest rates, a very big yes.  However, he is generally good on foreign policy.  In short, Krugman is a polemicist and defender of the failed statist policies of the past 100 years. 

The people who I met over the past 45 years I would describe as brilliant include, Henry Hazlitt, Murray Rothbard, Lew Rockwell, Joe Salerno, Hans Hermann Hoppe, Robert Higgs, Andrew Napolitano, Robert Wenzel, David Stockman and Tom DiLorenzo.  The full list is much too long for this email.  Their writings can be found on the Internet as we have discussed over the years.

Krugman supports STS—screw the savers.  His defense of the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rate policy and quantitative easing, a policy I have criticized for many years as you well know, is nothing less than an attack on seniors and others who want to obtain a real return on their savings accounts and CDs.  In short, Krugman supports the Fed’s crony capitalist agenda of many on Wall Street—pump up asset prices at the expense of Main Street.   With another bubble in the making, I wonder what the insightful Krugman will write when TSHTF?

As you know I have been more critical of Republicans than Democrats over the years.  We know where the Democrats stand.  They love big government and sell their economic snake oil wrapped in in the most pleased sounding trite nostrums—its for the children, the seniors, the underprivileged, etc.  In the final analysis, because of the growth of the welfare state, the US is in worse shape than Greece, according to Prof. Kotlikoff who made that remark at the Medicare and Medicaid symposium last month.

Republicans talk a good game about limited government and free enterprise but virtually all of them support the welfare-warfare state as much as the Democrats.  We have one party in DC, the big government party, comprised of two wings, Democrats and Republicans.  

Yesterday would have been my father’s 101^st birthday.  He lived to 87 because he survived the Holocaust with the means to defend himself.  His bravery is well acknowledged, a leader of more than 200 partisans in his native Poland that helped defeat the Nazi juggernaut.

As I have said over and over in public and private, the right to self-defense is a basic human right--and not negotiable.  Thus, in order to defend oneself, your family and property, free individuals have the right to own firearms; otherwise the right to self-defense is meaningless.  

Given our history in Europe, Czarist Russia, and yes, America, Jews should be the greatest defenders of the Second Amendment. Why they are not is a mystery.

Hillary Clinton is no different than any of the Republican candidates on the big picture issues.  See this takedown of Hillary by Laurence Vance, https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/03/laurence-m-vance/no-wonder-neocons-like-hillary/

A Hillary presidency would be a disaster for civil liberties; she would invade more countries and make sure crony capitalism thrives under another Clinton administration. 

Why have the Clintons earned $25 million in speaking fees since 2014 (see today’s Record)?  Because the financial and political elites around the world will want Hillary do their bidding if she is president.  Given all the speeches Hillary has made, what insightful, astute remarks has she made that reveals a keen analytical mind?  All Hillary is doing is "listening" to people around the America, keeping her mouth shut about the issues facing the country and raising oodles of cash from the country’s billionaires.  In other words, she wants to run out the clock until election day November 2016.  A woman of the people? Hardly.  Saving us from a swamp?  We are already in the swamp, and it is going to get larger and deeper thanks to the neoconservatives who are behind her candidacy. 

I hope we can get together for lunch soon.  There is obviously much to talk about.  Best to Kathy and Jonathan.