The following are in response to our article, Can Krugman Fix Our Economy?, which appeared on May 29. Additional responses are available here.
In addition, we received several emails like the following: “Please take me off your list. Any firm that get's their info from Paul Krugman has some serious issues. His leftist policies are destroying Europe and are not good for the United States. Capitalism does work! Try it sometime Dr. Krugman.”
Dear Editor,
Well said.
Let me offer one thought and one correction.
Thought: While I agree one should follow Krugman as he is influential, what I find incredible is few take him to task for allowing his strongly held political views to taint his scholarship. And one has to wonder: if he were a columnist for the Memphis Commercial Appeal, for example, would he have anywhere near the influence that emanates from it being the New York Times, much less from a Noble Prize recipient?
The correction: A magneto is not analogous to an alternator, but to your car's distributor (if it has one; most today do not). A magneto delivers the electrical charge to the spark plugs, but instead of being powered by the car's electrical system (battery, plus alternator plus capacitors, etc), it is powered by its own built-in electric generator. Thus, a racing car like my 1932 Bugatti, which has no battery or electrical "system" as such, uses a magneto to only power the plugs. An alternator, on the other hand, basically keeps your car battery charged when the engine is running.
Best regards,
Richard Collier
Noela Holdings, LLC,
Hobe Sound, FL.
Dear Editor,
Some feedback and observations for you, to be taken in the spirit intended:
Rhetoric matters. And your readers notice. Apparently we cannot have an objective reviewer for Paul Krugman. Instead we get a sidelong-snarky stealth hatchet job with which doesn't even function properly, since Huebscher agrees with all of Krugman's facts.
"But Krugman’s diagnosis of the cause of unemployment is flawed and his solutions are misguided," Huebscher wrote. But the he fails to back this up. After agreeing with him, he trashes him because he doesn't think Krugman was specific enough with his spending suggestions, even though Krugman says "Spending creates demand, whatever it’s for.” I believe "whatever it’s for" is the operative phrase here.
"Only on page 215 is there a brief discussion of how that money should be spent, and Krugman does not offer any framework or criteria for deciding which projects should be funded"
So how does this undermine Krugman's point? It doesn't. It completely sidesteps the issue that Krugman is correct. Is Huebscher afraid to say so?
The reviewer has also apparently completely given up on reviving manufacturing jobs in the U.S., but Krugman hasn't.
The whole review seems very unfocused, peppered with belittling comments that have no place in a constructive review. There is a pontificating little sideshow about how much Huebscher thinks he knows better than FDR did, in which he vastly simplifies the recovery from the Great Depression, and completely ignores American off-shoring of manufacturing for past decades. Perhaps Huebscher thinks it isn't relevant.
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