The Krugmeister asserts on his blog that “some problems are inherently public in nature, and require public solutions” and correctly points out that “most conservatives are not libertarians”. He says “there are some real libertarians out there”, but there are “telltale giveaways” that some who claim to be are not. He names Ron Paul and asserts that he is not a libertarian because he has “a remarkable tendency to cater to and/or employ white supremacists.” So, you see, Ron Paul is a racist, and no racist could be libertarian.
Of course, this is just a nonsense libel against Dr. Paul. Anyone who has followed him and actually listened to him over the years knows that there isn’t an ounce of racism in the man. As Michael S. Rozeff points out at LewRockwell.com, Libertarianism is a philosophy that “champions rights and equal rights”, and that is what Dr. Paul has consistently done. Krugman can never provide a racist quote from Dr. Paul because he has never said anything racist, so he just tries to use a guilt by association tactic that he would also be incapable of substantiating if challenged. He is presumably alluding to a newsletter put out in Ron Paul’s name decades ago that contained offensive remarks about black people, which Dr. Paul has denounced and explained he did not personally edit/review the newsletters before they went out, while also maturely accepting that he had a responsibility for their content since they went out under his name.
Krugman then continues,
And even the hatred for Keynesian economics has less, I think, to do with the notion that unemployment isn’t a proper subject of policy than about the notion of shifting power over the economy’s destiny away from big business and toward elected officials.
See, Krugman believes that we should have a centrally-planned economy. That is what John Maynard Keynes was all about. We need a government-legislated monopoly over the supply of currency and credit, Krugman believes, which engages in perpetual monetary inflation and prints money as needed to “stimulate” the economy, boost things like stocks and housing, create employment, and so on.
The problem is that the policy prescription Krugman’s economic ideology led him to provide was for the Federal Reserve to inflate to lower interest rates to create a housing bubble to replace the dot-com bubble. If you don’t believe me, read my book Ron Paul vs. Paul Krugman: Austrian vs. Keynesian economics in the financial crisis. Which brings me back to Ron Paul, who correctly predicted what the consequence of the policy Krugman was advocating would be, that it would lead to a major financial crisis, and was constantly warning against trying to boost the economy by printing money out of thin air.
Krugman can’t argue with students of Austrian economics (he refuses to debate Bob Murphy, for example, despite Murphy obtaining monetary pledges of support for the debate that would all go to charity if Krugman accepted), so he just tries to libel them, call them names, belittle them, etc., in the hopes his readers will conclude that Austrian economists are a bunch of idiots and not come to realize that the Austrians were right about the housing bubble while he and his fellow Keynesians advocating money printing as a solution were completely wrong, with devastating consequences.
