Paul Krugman is definitely getting to the Hounds of Austerity. Niall Ferguson, someone who apparently wants desperately to be a colonial officer in the British Raj, is deeply upset that the Nobel winner has pointed out how disastrously wrong Ferguson has been about everything economic.
Like all right wing faux bullies, Ferguson can dish it out, but can't take it.
Whines the unaccountably deemed "public intellectual" Fergie:
In my view Paul Krugman has done fundamental damage to the quality of public discourse on economics. He can be forgiven for being wrong, as he frequently is--though he never admits it. He can be forgiven for relentlessly and monotonously politicizing every issue. What is unforgivable is the total absence of civility that characterizes his writing. His inability to debate a question without insulting his opponent suggests some kind of deep insecurity perhaps the result of a childhood trauma. It is a pity that a once talented scholar should demean himself in this way.
The Shrill One
Responds:
What a pathetic response. Notice that he is doing precisely what I never do, and making it about the person as opposed to his ideas. All I have ever done to him is point out that he seems to not know what he is talking about, and that he has been repeatedly wrong. I would never stoop to speculating about his childhood! If he can't handle professional criticism -- which is all that I have ever offered -- he should go find another profession.
The idea that Krugman's evidence-based, colorful writing compares in any way to the fusillade of invective from the right over the last five years is simply insane.