The
other night my friend and I attended economist Paul Krugman’s presentation on “Are
We Getting the Change We Need?” at Baruch College. I felt fortunate for having the opportunity to ask Mr.
Krugman’s opinion on Congressman Paul’s legislation to audit the Federal
Reserve.
Krugman’s
speech centered on public policies, such as bailouts, universal health care,
government expansion and increased spending - all of which have been moderate
proposals for his taste. Krugman believes that Nancy Pelosi’s
health care package is an incremental step toward driving out private insurance
companies and ensuring a public option down the road. Given his reputation as a Nobel Laureate
economist, I waited for his explanation on how government sources of revenue –
taxes, foreign borrowing and monetary expansion – would affect middle-and-lower
class Americans, the demographic the health care plan ultimately aims to cover.
Krugman
failed to explain how an overextended government and recessed economy would finance
increased expansions without hurting small businesses, which employ more than
half of all U.S. private sector jobs. His
vagueness made it strikingly evident that Krugman is an economic pitchman for
the progressive agenda, rather than a neutral voice of economic reason. One would think that the Noble Commission would assure
economic sanity in its economic laureates, but alas, expanding military troops and
denouncing peace as overly idealistic is deserving of a Peace Prize.
Following
Krugman’s speech, people rushed to the microphones to ask questions but were
turned away to allow for rhetorician, Dr. Donald Smith, past president of the
National Alliance of Black School Educators to take to the podium. Smith and Krugman share an intimate
connection not just in rhetoric; Paul is married to Smith’s first cousin Robin
Wells and supposed Federal Reserve economist. How do I know that?
Mr. Smith for an extended period unconscionably introduced members of
his extended family, professional and personal acquaintances as well as his real
estate agent to the 300+ members in the audience waiting to question Krugman.
Most
entertaining was Smith’s criticism of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke,
who attributes the unprecedented wealth and employment gap faced by African-Americans
to their financial illiteracy. Smith,
on the other hand, attributed it to confiscation of property rights, wealth
robbed from generations of African-Americans and slavery. If only he realized how much Austrians
and Paulistas agree with him on property rights, entitlement to earned wealth
and civil liberties, I’m positive we could collaborate on a project or two!
A
Q&A session was finally opened and most were directed to Krugman about
universal health care, how to educate tea baggers and the effects of increasing
taxes on small businesses to provide revenue for government spending. His answers were neutral and indirect,
understandable due to his status as a leading economist for a failing school of
economic thought - Keynesianism. I
directed my question first to Donald Smith and then to Krugman:
“Donald Smith I support your words
on the need for atonement, instead of destroying and rebuilding Iraq. To Mr. Krugman, I particularly enjoyed
your comment that government spends tons of money to keep people from having
health care insurance, but what I’m most interested in is the spending (to
which I was interrupted and prompted for a question). We run trillions and trillions of dollars in deficits,
whether it is spent on welfare, warfare or corporatism, it is financed by the
Federal Reserve. What is your
opinion on Ron Paul’s H.R. 1207 to audit the Federal Reserve considering the
most recent amendment specifically keeps Congress out of monetary policy?
Mr.
Krugman’s immediate response was that Fed actions are already largely
audited. I quickly emphasized that
Federal Reserve Bank transactions with foreign central banks are not
audited. From that point Krugman
shut down and derided that Ron Paul inevitably wants a return to the gold
standard, which drew some chatter from the audience. I returned the favor and asked that he focus on the subject
of my question, the legislation, and not his personal opinion of Dr. Ron Paul
but I was dismissed by the moderator and no further answer to my question was
given.
My
fellow Campaign for Liberty colleague did a marvelous job pressing for a debate
between Mr. Krugman and an Austrian economist.
She noted
the current economic collapse, which was predicted by the Austrian School, is
due to the failure of Keynesian economics, not free market capitalism. She asked if he would be willing to
engage in an academic debate with Austrian economists in order to have a more
genuine debate on public policy. He
dismissed the Austrian school as passé and incapable of explaining unemployment
and preventing the Great Depression. She again asked politely if he would
debate one of the Austrians since they correctly predicted the housing bubble,
subsequent collapse and is growing in popularity. His answer was basically, "it sounds like intellectual
snootiness...and it is...I have better things to do with my resources." The following morning he spent his
resources writing this on
his NYT blog.
My
response can be found in the comments section #150. It is unfortuate that leading academics of Dr. Krugman’s
stature defame young aspiring intellectuals as disrespectful or loony for representing
a legitimate school of thought that challenges his political ideology.
Given
that Krugman chooses to invest his limited resources in spreading slander
rather than debating, is this the kind of decision maker we want driving public
policy for millions of Americans? It
should be no wonder why millions of Americans are protesting policies advocated
by leading intellectuals like Krugman.
I
propose we represent the need for honest intellectual debate between the
Keynesian and Austrian School of Economic Thought. The first step is to mobilize and join the following
facebook group to represent this demand.
Coverage and updates on this exchange and the push for a debate will be
listed here.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=217592968856&ref=ts