Paul Krugman wins Econ Nobel

[Francesca R]

Since the Nobel has become politicized in recent years

Prove it.

it's a little hard to tell if it's really because of his scholarly work or because he is a critic of the Bush administration.

It's a little hard to tell if people who claim it is "politicised" are simply sulking because their guy or gal didn't win it.

 

[geni]

No. I believe ones that make serious contributions to the field of economics, and know the difference between a regulated market and a free one do.

Err that would pretty much require that all the prizes went to anachists (government enforced property rights interfere with the free market see?).

 

[Francesca R]

Skeptigirl: I didn't ask you to provide a source. All you need to do is summarize the basic points of his actual contribution. What I have seen is the claim that he used the ideas of others to analyze patterns of trade. What were his conclusions? If he had something significant to add, it shouldn't be hard to explain, or at least name, what his new contribution is.

No, she has already linked that. What you need to do is show who else came up with it if it wasn't Krugman and is being denied the prize, or that it is worthless and does not advance the field because it is wrong. You will need to reference original papers.

 

[Francesca R]

Err that would pretty much require that all the prizes went to anachists (government enforced property rights interfere with the free market see?).

No, the libertarian god created property rights

 

[SaulOhio]

You (SaulOhio) seem to think that because the prize was awarded this year, the contribution from Krugman to the field of economics arrived this year too. And when you say "it's nothing new", that's because Krugman wrote about it decades ago, and you're assuming that someone else did.

No. Everything in the summary I read was discovered and developed many decades ago. Most of it can be traced back as far as Adam Smith.

Err that would pretty much require that all the prizes went to anachists (government enforced property rights interfere with the free market see?).

Free market capitalism is based on government protection of property rights. The equasion of free markets with anarchy is a strawman. Of all the economists who argue for free markets, I only know of one, Roy Childs, who argues for anarchy. Among all the others, any debate is about the actual means government should use to protect property rights, and the exact nature of those rights. And most economists even leave that to the legal philosophers.

One of the best, showing the practical results of government protection of property rights is Hernando de Soto.
"Until you have universal, well-protected, clear, and transferable private property rights, you cannot have a market economy in Peru, in the ghetto, or anywhere else. And you are going to have all the problems those places have."--Hernando de Soto

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I get a feeling that Saul Ohio thinks that only Libertarian economists are deserving of the Nobel prize.

And those who recognize the International Jewish Conspiracy(tm) behind the Federal Reserve.

 

[Magtor]

First of all. There is no "Nobel Price in Economics", there is a "Sveriges Riksbanks prize in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel" or something similar, but that price was not instituted by the will from Alfred Nobel.

It's a little hard to tell if people who claim it is "politicised" are simply sulking because their guy or gal didn't win it.

Perhaps he is thinking of the Nobel peace price? I mean, the selection of the winners are done by a committee selected from/by the Norwegian parliament after all.

 

[SaulOhio]

Central Scrutinizer: Please cite ONE SINGLE POST where I even suggested a conspiracy theory.

Otherwise, you are just flatulating because you have no actual argument agianst the claims I am making.

I think there may have been one post I made where I said "In my more paranoid moments...", and maybe said something about a conspiracy, but that is clearly in jest. Name me one time I promoted an actual conspiracy theory, and I will leave this forum forever. Present one bit of actual evidence that I believe these conspiracy theoryies, and I will leave.

Otherwise, ---- off.

 

[Francesca R]

Central Scrutinizer: Please cite ONE SINGLE POST where I even suggested a conspiracy theory.

Why do you think fractional reserve ratio banking and fiat money are promoted and adopted in your country?

 

[geni]

Free market capitalism is based on government protection of property rights. The equasion of free markets with anarchy is a strawman. Of all the economists who argue for free markets, I only know of one, Roy Childs, who argues for anarchy. Among all the others, any debate is about the actual means government should use to protect property rights, and the exact nature of those rights. And most economists even leave that to the legal philosophers.

So what? That few economists are prepared to accept truely free markets does not mean that they cannot exist at least as theoritical constructs. There is after all no fundimental difference between a gold bar produced by digging stuff out of the ground and one produced by deplying superiour combat ability.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Central Scrutinizer: Please cite ONE SINGLE POST where I even suggested a conspiracy theory.

Otherwise, you are just flatulating because you have no actual argument agianst the claims I am making.

I think there may have been one post I made where I said "In my more paranoid moments...", and maybe said something about a conspiracy, but that is clearly in jest. Name me one time I promoted an actual conspiracy theory, and I will leave this forum forever. Present one bit of actual evidence that I believe these conspiracy theoryies, and I will leave.

Otherwise, ---- off.

You know, a conspiracy believer never believes his theories are a conspiracy. He sees them as truth.

So...goodbye!

 

[Puppycow]

Prove it.

It's a little hard to tell if people who claim it is "politicised" are simply sulking because their guy or gal didn't win it.

Here

 

[SaulOhio]

Why do you think fractional reserve ratio banking and fiat money are promoted and adopted in your country?

Because it allows government to maintain deficit spending. Because some people believe it is necessary. Some people sincerely believe that the economy would become unmanageably unstable under a gold standard. But it is possible that they are wrong, don't you think?

The economists who have argued for a gold standard have speculated a lot about motives.

Alan Greenspan in Gold and Economic Freedom:

An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense-perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire -- that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.

Ludwig vonMises in In Defense of the "Barbarous Relic": Why The Enemies of Capitalism Smear The Gold Standard

The nationalists are fighting the gold standard because they want to sever their countries from the world market and to establish national autarky as far as possible. Interventionist governments and pressure groups are fighting the gold standard because they consider it the most serious obstacle to their endeavors to manipulate prices and wage rates. But the most fanatical attacks against gold are made by those intent upon credit expansion. With them credit expansion is the panacea for all economic ills. It could lower or even entirely abolish interest rates, raise wages and prices for the benefit of all except the parasitic capitalists and the exploiting employers, free the state from the necessity of balancing its budget—in short, make all decent people prosperous and happy. Only the gold standard, that devilish contrivance of the wicked and stupid "orthodox" economists, prevents mankind from attaining everlasting prosperity.

The main objection raised against the gold standard is that it makes operative in the determination of prices a factor which no government can control—the vicissitudes of gold production. Thus an "external" or "automatic" force restrains a national government’s power to make its subjects as prosperous as it would like to make them. The international capitalists dictate and the nation’s sovereignty becomes a sham.

The significance of the fact that the gold standard makes the increase in the supply of gold depend upon the profitability of producing gold is, of course, that it limits the government’s power to resort to inflation. The gold standard makes the determination of money’s purchasing power independent of the changing ambitions and doctrines of political parties and pressure groups. This is not a defect of the gold standard; it is its main excellence. Every method of manipulating purchasing power is by necessity arbitrary. All methods recommended for the discovery of an allegedly objective and "scientific" yardstick for monetary manipulation are based on the illusion that changes in purchasing power can be "measured." The gold standard removes the determination of cash-induced changes in purchasing power from the political arena. Its general acceptance requires the acknowledgment of the truth that one cannot make all people richer by printing money. The abhorrence of the gold standard is inspired by the superstition that omnipotent governments can create wealth out of little scraps of paper.

What the expansionists call the defects of the gold standard are indeed its very eminence and usefulness. It checks large-scale inflationary ventures on the part of governments. The gold standard did not fail. The governments were eager to destroy it, because they were committed to the fallacies that credit expansion is an appropriate means of lowering the rate of interest and of "improving" the balance of trade.

The struggle against gold which is one of the main concerns of all contemporary governments must not be looked upon as an isolated phenomenon. It is but one item in the gigantic process of destruction which is the mark of our time. People fight the gold standard because they want to substitute national autarky for free trade, war for peace, totalitarian government omnipotence for liberty.

 

[GreyICE]

Central Scrutinizer: Please cite ONE SINGLE POST where I even suggested a conspiracy theory.

Ludwig vonMises in In Defense of the "Barbarous Relic": Why The Enemies of Capitalism Smear The Gold Standard

The nationalists are fighting the gold standard because they want to sever their countries from the world market and to establish national autarky as far as possible.

No cognitive dissonance here folks.

 

[paximperium]

No cognitive dissonance here folks.

He's begun quote dumping as a tactic.

Dumping huge dense text in an argument, often long meandering and sometimes irrelevant, is a form of the Gish Gallop. Its nothing more than a form laziness and a way to overwhelm opposition to your argument.

He's too lazy to actually have an argument, so he uses someone elses, often with some form of authority, to make it seem stronger.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Skeptigirl: I didn't ask you to provide a source. All you need to do is summarize the basic points of his actual contribution. What I have seen is the claim that he used the ideas of others to analyze patterns of trade. What were his conclusions? If he had something significant to add, it shouldn't be hard to explain, or at least name, what his new contribution is.

The source summarizes the basic points. Are you asking me to summarize the summary? For cripes sake, can't you read a couple pages?

My point is that paper supporting the decision to award Krugman the Nobel Prize is actual factual evidence that trumps the unsupported claim the Nobel Prize winners are those who present anti-American views. I am not an expert in economic theory. I do recognize, however, a BS claim when I see it. No one in this thread has submitted anything beyond personal political opinion that the Nobel Prize committee is a political organization which has traded integrity for some radical anti-Americanism as is suggested by the OP and the next couple posts following it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Here

That doesn't support any political bias. It merely reflects a single member's personal opinion about American vs European literature. I can't imagine the people judging literature are even remotely connected to the people who judge economic theory and those people are unlikely to be remotely connected to the people who judge the prize in medicine and so on.

 

[Zelenius]

If Bush's term lasted another year or longer, I swear that Michael Moore would win the Nobel Prize easily next year, LOL. And the year after, Al Franken...

 

[Francesca R]

Here

Erm, . . . that's about the literature prize.

 

[Francesca R]

Because it allows government to maintain deficit spending.

You single out one purpose only. I wonder why? Blinkered lack of knowledge, or belief in a conspiracy? OK well, deficit spending could be used in the public interest or against it couldn't it, . . . mmm?

But wait--what do we find you quote mining:

Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth.

People fight the gold standard because they want to substitute national autarky for free trade, war for peace, totalitarian government omnipotence for liberty

I call conspiracy BS on your part.

Name me one time I promoted an actual conspiracy theory, and I will leave this forum forever. Present one bit of actual evidence that I believe these conspiracy theoryies, and I will leave.

One can hope about the sincerity of this promise