Paul Krugman's New Intra-Times Feud: Andrew Ross Sorkin's 'Zombie Ideas'
Paul Krugman didn't call out colleague Andrew Ross Sorkin by name, but when the Nobel prize winning economist and New York Times columnist dismissed a group of CNBC interviewers as having "zombie ideas" in his blog Wednesday, that group included Sorkin. Maybe Krugman is getting bored of fighting with fellow Times columnist David Brooks, and has found someone else at his paper to swipe at.
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"Wow. I just did Squawk Box" Krugman wrote about his apperance on CNBC's show which Sorkin, editor-at-large of The Times' DealBook blog, co-hosts with Becky Quick and Joe Kernan. "[The interview was] allegedly about my book, but we never got there. Instead it was one zombie idea after another — Europe is collapsing because of big government, health care is terribly rationed in France, we can save lots of money by denying Medicare to billionaires, on and on," he complained. (This comes via As The Huffington Post's Bonnie Kavoussi.)
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Krugman even accused his interviewers of doing actual harm: "Among other things, people getting their news from sources like that are probably getting terrible advice about any kind of investment that depends on macroeconomics." Damn. So far, Sorkin hasn't responded on Twitter or in The Times, and if he doesn't, it could stop short a potentially entertaining sequel to the Krugman - Brooks battle, which appears to be winding down.
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But if you just can't get enough of the pugilistic Krugman fighting, you may want to check out the video of him at an economic debate in Spain over the weekend, at which he accused Pedro Schwartz, a Spanish economics professor, of "pulling credentials" in their debate about Keynesian economics, then fully gave him the "talk to the hand" gesture when Schwartz denied it. That happens around 49 minutes into the video.
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Update (5:05 p.m. EDT): It was an omission not to post the clip earlier from Squawk Box so you can judge Krugman, Sorkin, Quick and Kernan's conversation for yourself. Here you go:
