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Paul Krugman Slams New York Times Colleague, CNBC: ‘One Zombie Idea After Another’

July 12, 2012   ·   2 Comments

Source: Huffington Post

Above: Paul Krugman slammed CNBC just after appearing on it for regurgitating “zombie ideas.”

By Bonnie Kavoussi:

Whatever you do, don’t watch the zombie forum that is CNBC, says Paul Krugman.

“Wow. I just did Squawk Box — allegedly about my book, but we never got there,”Krugman, the New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning Princeton economics professor, wrote on his NYT blog after appearing on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Wednesday morning. “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 added: “People getting their news from sources like that are probably getting terrible advice about any kind of investment that depends on macroeconomics.”

Notably, one of the pundits interviewing Krugman was New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, editor-at-large of the paper’s DealBook blog.

The interview started off on a bad note when Sorkin asked Krugman whether receiving the “Squawk Box” Blue Chip Book Award compared to winning the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2008.

“I think this compares with a Nobel. I don’t know how you think about this,” Sorkin said, teasing Krugman. “How does this compare?”

“They paid me some actual money,” Krugman said. “Can you do a Swedish accent? I think it would be a little bit more impressive.”

Then “Squawk Box” host Joe Kernen compared Krugman to a unicorn.

“I was excited when you were coming in because I view you almost like a unicorn, almost, that you really exist in real life,” Kernen said. “I’m confounded when I read your pieces.”

Kernen then tried to engage Krugman in a conversation about how much government spending is too much, but Krugman did not directly answer. Instead, he pushed back by praising Sweden’s economic record, noting the country’s generous safety net.

The most striking flub probably came toward the end of the interview when Kernen, who was pushing the idea that the private sector is better equipped to help people, asked Krugman whether we need a strong safety net. “It goes back to our forefathers, who said limited government, low taxes,” he said.

“I don’t remember actually hearing about that,” Krugman said. “I don’t think that’s in there.”

Check out some more Krugman zingers below:

Ireland is Romney economics in practice, I think Ireland is America’s future if Romney is president.
– Paul Krugman On The Colbert Report

We are not a household. We are an economy. Your spending is my income, and my spending is your income.
– Paul Krugman On Newsnight

It’s hard for me to believe there were no crimes. Given the scale of [the financial crisis], given how many corners were being cut, some people must have violated laws. I think people should be in jail.
– Paul Krugman In February Playboy Interview

You can’t leave the government out of monetary policy. If you think that you can avoid that you’re living in the world that was 150 years ago.
– Paul Krugman Debating Ron Paul On Bloomberg TV

By this point in Obama’s presidency if we had normal public sector job growth, we’d have 800,000 more people — firefighters, schoolteachers, police officers. Instead, we’ve got 600,000 fewer. So right there it’s like 1.4 million jobs we should have had in the public sector and of course those would translate into more private sector jobs too — so that’s what he was trying to get at. And of course, he screwed up the line.
– Paul Krugman On CBS This Morning

What we need is actually the financial equivalent of war. What actually brought the Great Depression to an end was the enormous public spending program otherwise known as World War II.
– Paul Krugman Speaking At The 92nd Street Y

If we discovered that, you know, space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space alien threat and really inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months.
– Paul Krugman During An Appearance On CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS

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Readers Comments (2)

1. john_wright says:

   When I watched this piece I was surprised at the rude treatment of Krugman by the “host” Joe Kernen.

   Kernen kept interrupting, tried to get Krugman to commit to a specific government spending percentage of GDP for what purpose?

   Wikipedia has that Kernen has a master’s degree in molecular biology from MIT, so he is probably not an obtuse person, but he sure played one in this interview.

   Sorkin’s behavior was also poor as he could have reined Kernen in, but chose not to.

   If every liberal author appearing on this show to promote their book is treated this way, they will stop appearing.

   Maybe Kernen has a severe case of author rivalry as Krugman has written many well received books and Kernen has one book, co-written with his 5th grade daughter, “Your Teacher Said What?! Defending Our Kids from the Liberal Assault on Capitalism”

   It is available used, in hardcover, on abebooks for $1.00 with FREE USA shipping.

   Looks like the Kernen’s free market hasn’t placed a high monetary value on Kernen’s literary efforts.

   10:09 am on July 13, 2012

    Reply
2. Mike Wagner says:

   It reminded me of a show trial or the inquisition of a heretic.

   Microsoft and NBC should be ashamed and Kernan should be fired.

   10:09 pm on July 14, 2012

    Reply

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