Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Why of why can't we have a better Paul Krugman?

Marginal Revolution notes that with his China bashing, once liberal economist Paul Krugman has lost all semblance of liberal decency and economic literacy.
What really upset me about Krugman's column is not the bizarre economics but the illiberal politics. In the last twenty years China's economic growth has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and nearly unspeakable deprivation. China's abandonment of communism is one of the great humanitarian events of all time. And what does Krugman have to say about this improvement in well being? 'Watch out. Now is the time to panic. Their gain is your loss.'
I so eagerly await Brad's commentary on this that I've supplied him the title for his post.

Update So Brad finally writes about Paul, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what he's saying. If you can parse "Paul Krugman Says Control of Possibly Very Scarce Natural Resources Is More Important than Opulence Or does he? As I read Paul, he says that if we did not need Chinese help on North Korea and if we were not very vulnerable to a cut-off of capital inflows, then he would argue against allowing the Chinese bid for Unocal on the grounds that there are possible future states of the world in which control of oil flows will turn out to be very important indeed. But we do need Chinese help on North Korea, and we are very vulnerable to a cut-off of capital inflows" you are a better man than I.

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