So some jerk went and created a fake Google-plus account purporting to be that of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. The account, now defunct, appeared to have been around for quite some time, and it contained dozens of completely serious-looking Krugman-like posts. It was “in circles” with several people you’d expect to be in Paul Krugman’s circles (assuming that their accounts aren’t also made up) — Ezra Klein, Daily Kos, Jim Geraghty, etc.
So naturally, this fraudulent poster had a lot of people going on Twitter last night (including myself) with the post above.
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Let’s be clear: Krugman is a victim here. Most of us expressed skepticism about this Google-plus account even as we made fun. But the reason no one could tell for sure is that this fake post is completely in line with other things Krugman has actually written or said on camera. And if the page was still up, you’d be able to see that a lot of the commenters were apparent Krugman acolytes who took the whole thing as seriously as his detractors, agreeing with the idea or offering searching questions about the concept. Here’s a sample:
The suggestion that physical destruction of good assets can help economic growth sounds stupid, but it’s also something that Krugman has actually argued — about both the recent Japanese earthquake and even the 9-11 attacks. UPDATE: Since some people don’t seem familiar with them, here are two real Krugman quotes that I’m referring to:
Now, please don’t pile on Krugman because of the tragic element in these events — that would miss the point entirely. I lost my chimney in yesterday’s quake, but I am only offended by the idea that someone would make this argument because it insults my intelligence and that of every thinking person.
All fake Krugman posts aside, Krugman’s genuine arguments imply that we could make our economy stronger if we all threw things away after a single use, or got our hair cut by the barber twice as often. The truth is that when we destroy or dispose of assets, it is only because they no longer have value, or because they have less value than their constituent parts or the space they take up. No one throws away something that is perfectly good and useful. If you find stacks of $50 bills in the garbage, you can be certain that they were put there by mistake.
The notion that you can create wealth without constructive effort — or even enjoy new wealth by merely rebuilding after an event of wealth destruction — implies that you can get something for nothing.
For all the grief that liberals are giving Rick Perry for his apparent views on literal Biblical Creationism, this is an even stupider and more easily falsifiable idea — in fact, we just wasted half a trillion dollars in stimulus spending proving it wrong.
Unfortunately, this bad idea also has a much greater impact on our everyday lives. So even if you fell for that other Krugman hoax, don’t fall for this one.
