Paul Krugman

If you are of the establishment persuasion (and I am), reading Krugman makes you uneasy. You hope he's wrong, and you sense he's being a little harsh (especially about Geithner), but you have a creeping feeling that he knows something that others cannot, or will not, see. By definition, establishments believe in propping up the existing order. Members of the ruling class have a vested interest in keeping things pretty much the way they are.... Krugman may be exaggerating the decay of the financial system or the devotion of Obama's team to preserving it. But what if he's right, or part right? What if President Obama is squandering his only chance to step in and nationalize—well, maybe not nationalize, that loaded word—but restructure the banks before they collapse altogether?

... But, says Krugman, "the White House has done very little by way of serious outreach. I've never met Obama. He pronounced my name wrong"—when, at a press conference, the president, with a slight note of irritation in his voice, invited Krugman (pronounced with an "oo," not an "uh" sound) to offer a better plan for fixing the banking system.

It's possible that Krugman is a little wounded by this high-level disregard, and he said he felt sorry about criticizing officials whom he regards as friends, like White House Council of Economic Advisers chair Christina Romer. But he didn't seem all that sorry....

Krugman has a bit of a reputation for settling scores. "He doesn't suffer fools. He doesn't like hauteur in any shape or form. He doesn't like to be f––ked with," says his friend and colleague Princeton history professor Sean Wilentz. "He's not a Jim Baker; he's not that kind of Princeton," says Wilentz... Krugman's fellow geniuses sometimes tease him or intentionally provoke his wrath. At an economic conference in Tokyo in 1994, Krugman spent so much time berating others that his friends purposely started telling him things that they knew weren't true, just to see him get riled up. "He fell for it every time," said a journalist who was there but asked not to be identified so she could speak candidly. "You'd think that eventually, he would say, 'Oh, come on, you're just jerking my chain'." Krugman says he doesn't recall the incident, but says it's "possible."

---"Obama's Nobel Headache," by Evan Thomas, Newsweek (3/28/09)

I find Paul Krugman very interesting, and often very provocative. He's is both fun and useful that way. But he seems to me too cavalier in advocating for more extensive or complete government take over of the private banking system, even if it's just until things turn around. It's a difficult balance, and it's messy to be sure, but I think Bernanke's approach of being wary of too much government control and adjusting the government role one step at a time is more prudent.

Also, Krugman leaves the impression that his disrespect toward Obama's economic team may, in part, be just the latest engagement in a career-long competitive relationship with Lawrence Summers--a competition in which Summers has previously, clearly emerged as more publicly and academically successful (even if often very controversial). But now the newly minted Nobel laureate has found his public voice, his forum, and his cause: undermining establish figures and establishment thinking. First the Bush administration, now Obama's. Sometimes, it seems, I can almost hear the axe grinding.

And I don't know why he is also so outspoken and uncollegial toward Bernanke, his colleague and department head at Princeton. Perhaps there are issues there, too. But like Bernanke, he is said to have always been a shy-ish person, and a careful researcher and commentator. But with his column in the NYT and now the Nobel prize, he appears to be letting it all out--publicly, brashly, with professional abandon--as if on a mid-career spring break where all the bridled emotions and constrained personal expression can be let out to play. His Nobel, his NYT column, the public demand, have given him permission for his cathartic season. And he really seems to be enjoying it.

But his could be a much more useful and influential voice--if he could only approach issues, institutions and people in a more tempered, constructive way. Too often his temperament, his chosen platform, and his style undermine his credibility. Publicly and in print, he is too often the impish mid-life intellectual entertainer cavorting in the limelight, enjoying his season of demand as an anti-establishment economic and political provocateur. He could and should be more.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/191393