Battle of the beards: Bernanke vs. Krugman

Krugman took Bernanke to task in a Sunday NYT magazine piece, criticizing Bernanke for not doing enough to tackle the problem of high unemployment. Krugman argued that a temporarily higher level of inflation might be necessary (and not problematic) to help bring down the unemployment rate.

In one of the more damning (and most widely picked-up) comments, Krugman geeked out (in a sci-fi, as opposed to econowonk, sort of way) and compared Bernanke to the infamous Borg of "Star Trek" fame, writing that Bernanke's refusal to consider higher inflation targets as an option show he had been "converted into a half-robot servant of a hive-mind."

Bernanke responded to questions about Krugman in his press conference Wednesday, saying that seeking a higher inflation rate would be "reckless" and only lead to a slightly faster pick-up in the drop in unemployment. He added that it risked damaging the Fed's reputation as an inflation-fighter. Krugman gleefully retorted that this was further evidence that Bernanke had been assimilated by the Borg.
Economists are having a field day with this battle of the beards. I received the best response to this little feud in my e-mail Thursday in the form of a research note by CitiFX currency analyst Steven Englander. Titled "What would Fed Chairman Krugman do for the USD?" Englander took Krugman's sci-fi analogies to an even more preposterously nerdy level.

Awesome -- one moron telling another moron he's a moron.

Parents, don't send your kids to Princeton.

Economy: The first estimate for early 2012 is in, and it's not pretty. GDP grew just 2.2% — way below expectations. The "Obama recovery" the media keep touting is looking more and more like a fraud.

Since entering office, President Obama has presided over the worst recovery since the Great Depression. While the recovery began just four months after Obama took office, since then GDP growth has averaged just 2.4% at a yearly rate. Pathetic.

At a less-than-3% growth rate, the economy won't even create enough jobs to sop up the 130,000 or so people who enter the workforce each month, much less the 14 million or so who are officially unemployed.

Since the recession ended in June of 2009, the average number of jobs created each month has been 70,000. That's why the jobless rate has stayed above 8% since the early months of Obama's time in the White House.

And that's also why we have 1.6 million fewer jobs today than when Obama first stepped into office. Obama's policies have created a massive growth deficit.

In recent weeks, jobless claims have started to edge up again toward recessionary levels, with the four-week moving average last week rising 6,000 to 389,000.

Even so, the media have sold Americans on the idea that we're in a recovery, thanks to Obama's economic policies — which include $862 billion of "stimulus," soaring debt and annual deficits of $1 trillion-plus, green energy subsidies to bankrupt firms, a looming half-trillion-dollar tax hike, and a regulatory onslaught....

The idea that the government can fix everything, tweak a few knobs and spur things on economically, in light of the extreme measures already taken, seems rather unrealistic.

The idea that the government can fix everything, tweak a few knobs and spur things on economically, in light of the extreme measures already taken, seems rather unrealistic.

The recent bad news about our economy from Investors Business Daily

If you want to make money, you read IBD for the stock list/rating system.

If you want to lose money, you read the articles.

Awesome -- one moron telling another moron he's a moron.

Parents, don't send your kids to Princeton.

Care to tell us your credentials which lend any credibility to your judgement about the Chairman of the Fed and a Nobel Prize winner?

well put



Considering recent winners including Al Gore and BHO, not much credibility is needed to rip a nobel laureate as it has devolved into a prize-awarding euro-leftist lovefest

Even if what you said is true, it lends no credibility to critics of Bernanke and Krugman.

How about the possibility that Krugman appears at best, foolish, and at worst, just plain wrong? His answer to every failure of keynesian tactics, including the recent near-trillion stimulus in 2009 was that "it wasn't big enough"

lol