Item — HN Reader

That's disagreement, not dishonesty.

Dishonesty is easy to show - and a link avalanche is rhetorically a good way to make it seem like you've shown it, at least to people who don't follow the links. People like me, who are curious and do, will end up resentful of the waste of time.

I have no opinion on whether Krugman is dishonest or not, but if know you can't make a case, please don't respond with a link avalanche. If you can: quote a statement, reference it, quote the evidence that it is factually incorrect, reference it. Argument made.

Sorry for being snarky, but this technique irritates me when I fall for it.

1 comments

Since you want quotes, I'll just pick them from the most torrid example:

Krugman: "But in that case, why not ask CBO to score the revenue, to see if it agrees? The answer given is that CBO refused to do an analysis beyond 10 years; OK, but why not at least have the 10-year analysis?" http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/ryan-predictions...

Krugman: "I look at how he [Ryan] has gone about selling his ideas, and I see an unscrupulous flimflammer. Think about that CBO report: getting the CBO to score only the spending cuts, not the tax proposals, then taking credit for being a big deficit reducer, is simply sleazy." http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/how-to-spot-a-fl...

Paul Ryan's website: "In fact, Congressman Ryan’s staff did ask CBO to analyze both the tax and spending provisions in the Roadmap. However, CBO declined to do a revenue analysis of the tax plan, citing that it did not want to infringe on the traditional jurisdiction of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT). The JCT is responsible for providing the official revenue score of legislation before Congress. JCT, however, does not have the capability at this time to provide longer-term revenue estimates (i.e. beyond 10 years)." http://www.roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/News/Documen...

After Megan McArdle pointed this out (see my previous links), Krugman made this response (entitled "Doubletalk express"): "I also see that Ryan is perpetuating the runaround on revenue estimates. If you read either this article or his original response to the Tax Policy Center, you could easily get the impression that nobody would do a revenue estimate, that CBO said it was JCT’s job, and JCT balked. Even Nate Silver has fallen for this.... In other words, Ryan could have gotten JCT to do a 10-year estimate; it just wouldn’t go beyond that. And he chose not to get that 10-year estimate. So it was Ryan’s choice not to have any independent estimate of the 10-year revenue effects." http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/doubletalk-expre...

Megan McArdle: "To be honest, I too found that passage ambiguous. Which is why I contacted Ryan's staff, who were happy to clarify that yes, they asked the JCT to do a forecast, and JCT said no." http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/paul-kru...

The factually incorrect claim is that Ryan a) didn't ask the CBO to score the revenue side of his plan, b) didn't ask the JCT to give a long term score and c) didn't ask the JCT for a short term (10 year) estimate.

My second example is misdirection, not an outright lie. He opens by discussing the claim of "shifting workers out of construction", presents a graph which doesn't directly relate to the issue, and then declares victory. A careless reader will easily be led to believe he debunked the claim of a structural shift.

This is Krugman's usual mode of deception - discuss an issue, show a peripherally related graph while ignoring a much more useful one, and declare victory.

He reserves outright lies and character assassination for people he is threatened by (it's really easy to dismiss Palin or Huckabee as dumb hicks, but Ryan is smart and honest enough to admit that we need to make painful spending cuts).

I'm sorry but you haven't made a case that Krugman is "well known for being dishonest" by citing one gotcha. You seem to be using character assassination to "prove" that he engages in character assassination.

I followed your links and read this stuff in the first post. On the Ryan thing, he never claimed to have any inside knowledge, he just read Ryan's statement.

"JCT, however, does not have the capability at this time to provide longer-term revenue estimates (i.e. beyond 10 years). Given these functional constraints for an official analysis, staff relied on its original work with the Treasury Department and other tax experts to formulate a reasonable expected path for long-term revenues given the tax policies in the Roadmap combined with the economic growth projections available at the time."

How I read this (and how Krugman read it):

Our staff relied on its original work because of the functional constraint of JCT not having the capability at this time to provide longer-term revenue estimates (i.e. beyond 10 years).

A pretty reasonable read, if you ask me. Or McArdle, as you have pointed out: "To be honest, I too found that passage ambiguous."

I'm not sure if that screams deceptive liar who assassinates people's characters in order to protect himself from the "smart and honest," and if it's the most "torrid" claim, you're pretty easily aroused.