Talk:Paul Krugman/Archive 2

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Archive 5

He isn't dead, you fools

The NRO article "Krugman's posthumous medal" is saying that he is intellectually dead, not that he passed away today. I watched him on TV this afternoon and he updated his blog as of 5 PM.

Comments during financial crisis.

Joseph Stiglitz writes in his book that Krugman wrote an open letter urging Malaysia to impose capital controls during the Asian financial crisis and Malaysia did so. Is there any info?

http://www.slate.com/id/35534 Auros (talk) 21:11, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Minor content edit

It's a good article, concise and well-written.

I deleted the phrase "which has since been refuted" in reference to Krugman's collection of columns, The Great Unravelling, as non-neutral and unverifiable. The book (in keeping with Krugman's economic theory in general) does indeed argue that ballooning deficit spending under the Bush administration is pushing the United States toward fiscal crisis; but the assertion that his thesis has been "refuted" (with no citation to any authority, no less) doesn't make any sense. Three years after the book's publication, still within the Bush administration itself, there is not a consensus among economists about the long-term effects of extreme deficit spending on economic growth. If anything, people in similar positions, like Robert Samuelson, are closer to agreement with his prediction than refutation.

In any event, claiming that Krugman was wrong (or right) at this early date, without attribution, is POV, not verifiable fact.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Durindana (talk • contribs) 06:34, 30 April 2006

Extant (sic)

This quote that "Krugman has almost never come out against extant government interventions, even ones that expert economists seem to agree are bad, and especially so for the poor" should either be marked out as (sic) - extant is primarily used as "still in existence; not extinct or destroyed or lost" (e.g. the extant works of Maimonedes), which is clearly bizarre ("not destroyeed or lost"?) or simply wrong and hence impeaching the reliability of the source. In other words, charitably, the author is misusing the word (and presumably means excessive or something else) and this is not much more than a typo and fully deserving of the (sic) label; less charitably, it's just plain wrong and nonsense. I thought I was being charitable by applying the sic label...

Krugman has a long record of criticizing both existing and mooted government policy interventions, and in some camps is considered to be (if anything) broadly opposed to many forms of government intervention - particularly protectionism.

Does anyone really think sources need to be found showing Krugman opposing existing forms of intervention? For example, opposing the sugar quotas system in the United States (and specifically the effect on the poor)? Let alone most of the columns he has written for the NYTimes...--Gregalton (talk) 13:00, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

The critic is a radical deregulationist. I think he means "existing", but he coud equally well mean "still in existence", since he advocates elimination of regulations. Obviously he's very wrong in asserting that Krugman rarely opposes regulation, but that's a different issue. Perhaps he could have found a better word than "extant", but I don't see how it's grammatically incorrect. I think it's factually incorrect, but criticisms of Krugman, correct or incorrect, are what the "Criticisms" section is for. --Rinconsoleao (talk) 13:32, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Having read more in detail his paper, he does indeed appear to mean "existing", but (by his own text) clearly factually incorrect. I'll edit to detail.--Gregalton (talk) 13:37, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

The missing word

Why does the word "Obama" appear nowhere in the article? There is no real guidance or hint as to Krugman's views on Obama's approach to the financial crisis. This has been Krugman's main focus for some time now, and readers would benefit from a concise, clearly written paragraph on Krugman's critique of Obama's economic policies with respect to the recession. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Isoruku (talk • contribs) 06:05, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It is missing no longer. I just put in a brief discussion of the Krugman/Ferguson dust-up, and in that context the issue of Krugman's attitude toward Obama administration policy. --Christofurio (talk) 16:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Nobel "Memorial" Prize

It seems that other winners of this award use the full name of the award in their bio, but I haven't looked at them all, just clicked on a few to check. Also, the article on the award says is is commonly referred to as Nobel prize, but then it points out that it isn't one of the 5 "Nobel" prizes. Also, the "longer" name of the award changes over the years? Anyways, why not go with the linked to name of the award? I don't think it is derogatory or implies that he didn't win an award associated with Nobel. Was this brought up by some "talking head" to slam him? I saw this was brought up in the archive in passing but not discussed fully, just mentioned the correct name of the award. Anyways, Tom (talk) 15:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Further reading. --Tom (talk) 15:47, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Centenary Professor

Is Krugman centenary professor at the London School of Economics? According to the LSE, and according to his own website, he is. What evidence is there to show that 'no such position exists'? --LK (talk) 12:02, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

This article from Reuters, a reliable source, also names him as a centenary professor at the London School of Economics. LK (talk) 04:40, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Niall Ferguson

Nothing yet about his very public, and I would say quite notable, public dispute with Niall Ferguson over inflation. --Christofurio (talk) 13:16, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't know anything about this dispute, but I don't see why it's notable enough to be in Krugman's biography page. He gets into arguments all the time, why is this one special? Gruntler (talk) 04:12, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Not very notable dispute. Since it's also unreferenced, I'm going to delete it. LK (talk) 11:55, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

It is quite notable. Ferguson is a high-profile historian and the exchange has made a splash. I've restored it here.

See for example:

(Slate)

(Seeking Alpha)

(Cafe Hayek) and

(The Financial Times)--Christofurio (talk) 19:38, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

This section is yet another conservative smear attempt, it's smarmy original research, that's poorly cited and written. Leave it out of the article. Scribner (talk) 16:36, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Supposed 'support' for housing bubble

Visionthing, about your revert. Since there is not enough space in edit comment, so I will explain in full here. The recent addition by IP is vandalism, as:

1. The supposed quote is actually Krugman quoting someone else.
2. The word "[So]" was inserted into the quote to imply something that Krugman did not actually say.
3. The 'quote' is taken out of context to support a thesis that the cited source does not support. Krugman has been worried that the Fed would create a housing bubble since 2002, he was not advocating for one.

LK (talk) 04:58, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

1. Krugman wasn't quoting anybody, he was agreeing with McCulley.
2. That can be easily fixed.
3. Context of the article in question [1] is that in 2002 Krugman was fearing that 2001 recession would be followed by another one. In his view, 2001 recession wasn't a typical post-WWII recession that could be fixed by typical measures. If I might add, that is much like his view today when it comes to fiscal deficit (current crisis needs to be solved first, and we will worry about deficits later), so that kind of thinking is not out of his character. -- Vision Thing -- 09:36, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

You're being unreasonably obtuse. Vandalism can always be fixed so that it's not vandalism anymore. However, as added, the edit was purposefully misleading, hence vandalism. Hence your revert to the original addition was unjustified. Also, read the article, Krugman was quoting Paul McCulley. LK (talk) 10:47, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Did you read policy on vandalism? It says: Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Even harmful edits that are not explicitly made in bad faith are not vandalism. -- Vision Thing -- 14:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I'ld also like to remind you of policy concerning biographies of living persons, any arguments critical of the subject must be impeccably sourced and neutrally presented. Attacks on living persons that are poorly sourced, and misleading, are not attempts to improve the encyclopedia. LK (talk) 14:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Of course, and the same standard applies for praise. -- Vision Thing -- 14:36, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Keep following that Anarcho-capitalist Hayekian agenda Vision Thing. You're really good at it. And accuracy and impartiality are overrated anyway. Wikidea 14:41, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Do you have something against me? -- Vision Thing -- 14:46, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

VT, you have twice reintroduced misleading, improperly sourced, critical comments into a biography of a living person, once after I have warned you to be careful about doing so. You are breaking Wikipedia policy. Please stop. I have added a sourced statement about Krugman's actual position on the housing bubble in 2002. In the future, please research your subject before adding critical comments into biographies of living persons. LK (talk) 14:57, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I doubt it that V.T. is breaking any kind of policy. He seems to be making good faith edits, and there will be different aspects to the things in question here. Some ideologists do not like Krugman, others think he is the cats meow. Both groups are source-able, no doubt. The article should be well rounded as to critiques on him, pro and con. Also it appears that both editors here arguing with V.T. are making things rather personal. That is not a good idea. Making statements like you are breaking Wikipedia policy is pretty confronting. If you believe that to be the case L.K. then through requests for comment or similar means), could be used. skip sievert (talk) 15:40, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Skip, read WP:BLP, introducing improperly sourced criticisms into a biography of a living person is breaking policy. Criticism of living persons are held to a much higher standard. This is a serious policy, on controversial pages like the one on President Obama, the introduction of even one improperly sourced criticism will get the editor blocked. LK (talk) 15:48, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

LK, in my view, if anybody is breaking BLP it is you because you are misrepresenting Krugman's argument and trying to make it look like he got everything right. WP:BLP deals with contensious material no matter whether it is negative or positive. -- Vision Thing -- 15:52, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Krugman's view of the housing bubble in 2002

I propose that we try to find proper wording here and once we achieve that to reintroduce the section in the article. -- Vision Thing -- 15:59, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable... and it makes some points that are arguable and can be gotten at. Comments about can get an editor banned are not helpful. Note the statement about V.T.'s supposed politics above as to someones real or imagined beliefs by W.I. - Who really cares what he believes?

If these things are confirmed

• Neutral point of view (NPOV)
• Verifiability
• No original research

Then information can be added. The sources should be being shown and discussed and debated here, not the people involved in editing, or the truth aspect of information. skip sievert (talk) 16:06, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

LK, please revert your last edit. Reason why the quote was introduced is because section was thought to be unbalanced in its original form. -- Vision Thing -- 16:07, 17 June 2009 (UTC) Also, with your last edit you broke WP:3RR. -- Vision Thing -- 16:13, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I see no reason to delete long standing material because an edit dispute has occurred over what Krugman might have said 3 years earlier. As for 2002, I stand by my version. I believe it is a fair assesment of what Krugman said and meant in 2002. Please read through both articles (written back to back), I believe you will reach the same conclusion. LK (talk) 16:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

As early as 2002, Krugman was fearful that a developing housing bubble could eventually lead to a US version of the Japanese lost decade, the decade of stagnant growth that followed the bursting of the Japanese housing bubble in 1990. He argued that, "If we do have a housing bubble, and it bursts, we'll be looking a lot too Japanese for comfort."Mind the Gap Krugman had also noted that, after the Bush tax cuts of 2001, the US Federal Reserve would need to create a housing bubble to pull the economy out of the early 2000s recession, "To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble." Dubya's Double Dip

Let's agree not to touch the old version of the article until we get this dispute sorted out. LK (talk) 16:21, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

As for 2002, I stand by my version. I believe it is a fair assesment of what Krugman said and meant in 2002. end quote LK - Thats your opinion then and debatable, but this is not about you and your fair assesment or what Krugman meant. Sourcing and literal meaning is more important and getting a real time-line of events that is sourced and objective makes for a better article.

This probably is not a real dispute if V.T. has provided sourced, reliable, and Npov information. It should be in the article then. Or if there is a problem a request for comment... can be made... but the information could be put in the article that V.T. is attempting to have in if that criteria is met as it looks to be. skip sievert (talk) 16:25, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, here are some verifiable statements from Krugman's NYT columns. In August 2002, Krugman wrote:

• "To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble."
• "Judging by Mr. Greenspan's remarkably cheerful recent testimony, he still thinks he can pull that off."
• "More and more people are using the B-word about the housing market. A recent analysis by Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic Policy Research, makes a particularly compelling case for a housing bubble."
• "If we do have a housing bubble, and it bursts, we'll be looking a lot too Japanese for comfort."

In 2005, he wrote, on Greenspan and the housing bubble,

• "[he's] like a man who suggests leaving the barn door ajar, and then - after the horse is gone - delivers a lecture on the importance of keeping your animals properly locked up."
• "As recently as last October Mr. Greenspan dismissed talk of a housing bubble"
• "If Mr. Greenspan had said two years ago what he's saying now, people might have borrowed less and bought more wisely. But he didn't, and now it's too late."

On hearing of the controversy over his 2002 article, Krugman wrote in 2009:

• "Guys, read it again. It wasn’t a piece of policy advocacy, it was just economic analysis. What I said was that the only way the Fed could get traction would be if it could inflate a housing bubble. And that’s just what happened."[2]

Feel free to craft your own version of how these statements should be represented. Since I've gotten too involved in this dispute, I'm going to not edit the article for a while. LK (talk) 16:49, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Since my forthright reply to Vision Thing has been deleted, I should restate what I actually meant: Vision Thing, I think you're an admirable contributor. I think you set a brilliant example for all of us who work on Wikipedia in the pursuit of truth, clarity, even handed academic enquiry and a thirst for a deeper understanding of the human condition. I also think you have the highest standards of personal cleanliness, a demure disposition of mind, and that I am keen to continue cooperate with you on building a better encyclopedia for this reason: I respect your obvious intelligence, and anyone who thinks otherwise just hasn't seen enough of your excellent contributions. Well done, mate, keep it up. Wikidea 23:49, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

After rereading BLP, I'm not sure if there should be a section on Krugman's views on a subprime mortgage crisis if there are no reliable secondary sources that discuss and explain his views. Krugman himself says that he is now being called for the creation of a housing bubble [3]. BLP states that: Criticism and praise of the subject should be represented if it is relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary source. In my opinion, that means that we should not write about his (un)successful predictions or calls if they are not covered by secondary sources. -- Vision Thing -- 07:51, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Off-topic discussion collapsed

Do they have to be secondary sources all the time? What if someone provided a balanced summation of all PK's writings in this area, including these gems: German Interview, undated http://www.pkarchive.org/global/welt.html "During phases of weak growth there are always those who say that lower interest rates will not help. They overlook the fact that low interest rates act through several channels. For instance, more housing is built, which expands the building sector. You must ask the opposite question: why in the world shouldn't you lower interest rates?" May 2, 2001 http://www.pkarchive.org/column/5201.html I've always favored the let-bygones-be-bygones view over the crime-and-punishment view. That is, I've always believed that a speculative bubble need not lead to a recession, as long as interest rates are cut quickly enough to stimulate alternative investments. But I had to face the fact that speculative bubbles usually are followed by recessions. My excuse has been that this was because the policy makers moved too slowly -- that central banks were typically too slow to cut interest rates in the face of a burst bubble, giving the downturn time to build up a lot of momentum. That was why I, like many others, was frustrated at the smallish cut at the last Federal Open Market Committee meeting: I was pretty sure that Alan Greenspan had the tools to prevent a disastrous recession, but worried that he might be getting behind the curve. However, let's give credit where credit is due: Mr. Greenspan has cut rates since then. And while some of us may have been urging him to move even faster, the Fed's four interest-rate cuts since the slowdown became apparent represent an unusually aggressive response by historical standards. It's still not clear that Mr. Greenspan has caught up with the curve -- let's have at least one more rate cut, please -- but the interest-rate cuts do, cross your fingers, seem to be having an effect. If we succeed in avoiding recession, this will mark a big win for let- bygones-be-bygones, and a big loss for crime-and-punishment. And that will be very good news not just for this business cycle, but for business cycles to come. July 18, 2001 http://www.pkarchive.org/economy/ML071801.html "KRUGMAN: I think frankly it's got to be -- business investment is not going to be the driving force in this recovery. It has to come from things like housing, things that have not been (UNINTELLIGIBLE). DOBBS: We see, Paul, housing at near record levels, we see automobile purchases near record levels. The consumer is still very much in this economy. Can he or she -- or I should say he and she, can they bring back this economy? KRUGMAN: Well, as far as the arithmetic goes, yes, it is possible. Will the Fed cut interest rates enough? Will long-term rates fall enough to get the consumer, get the housing sector there in time? We don't know" August 8^th 2001 http://www.pkarchive.org/economy/ML082201.html "KRUGMAN: I'm a little depressed. You know, inventories, probably that's over, the inventory slump. But you look at the things that could drive a recovery, business investment, nothing happening. Housing, long-term rates haven't fallen enough to produce a boom there. The trade balance is going to get worst before it gets better because the dollar is still very strong. It's not a happy picture." August 14, 2001 http://www.pkarchive.org/column/81401.html "Consumers, who already have low savings and high debt, probably can't contribute much. But housing, which is highly sensitive to interest rates, could help lead a recovery.... But there has been a peculiar disconnect between Fed policy and the financial variables that affect housing and trade. Housing demand depends on long-term rather than short-term interest rates -- and though the Fed has cut short rates from 6.5 to 3.75 percent since the beginning of the year, the 10-year rate is slightly higher than it was on Jan. 1.... Sooner or later, of course, investors will realize that 2001 isn't 1998. When they do, mortgage rates and the dollar will come way down, and the conditions for a recovery led by housing and exports will be in place. October 7, 2001 http://www.pkarchive.org/economy/ML071801.html "Post-terror nerves aside, what mainly ails the U.S. economy is too much of a good thing. During the bubble years businesses overspent on capital equipment; the resulting overhang of excess capacity is a drag on investment, and hence a drag on the economy as a whole. In time this overhang will be worked off. Meanwhile, economic policy should encourage other spending to offset the temporary slump in business investment. Low interest rates, which promote spending on housing and other durable goods, are the main answer. But it seems inevitable that there will also be a fiscal stimulus package" Dec 28, 2001 http://www.pkarchive.org/column/122801.html "The good news about the U.S. economy is that it fell into recession, but it didn't fall off a cliff. Most of the credit probably goes to the dogged optimism of American consumers, but the Fed's dramatic interest rate cuts helped keep housing strong even as business investment plunged." Surely given his extensive commentary on this important issue (the blowing up of the biggest bubble in world history), there should be some attempt at a summation of his views. - WhyMeLord? (talk) 08:57, 18 June 2009 (UTC) Hi Karmaisking! All your quotes are pulled from 2001. Remember the dot com crash? Remember 9/11? Things would have been much worse if the Fed had not pumped money into the economy then. Suggesting quick response to a crash is not the same as suggesting the financial deregulation, lack of oversight and the failure to pull back on the housing markets in 2003-2005 that eventually lead to the housing problem in 2007-2008. For economists, driving an economy is like driving a car, timing matters. LK (talk) 09:50, 18 June 2009 (UTC) And in May 2008 Krugman argued that oil at 125$ is supported by fundamentals and that it is not a bubble. [4] This is how the chart looks like. Even now, when oil jumped 100% from a bottom, it is still at 70$, 44% bellow price of 125$. It is difficult to present such information in a neutral way without secondary source. -- Vision Thing -- 10:26, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems that some editors may be deriving info from irony-challenged blog sources. The current fuss appears to have been caused by a post from Arnold Kling, who assumed that Krugman's ironic reference to the need for a housing bubble would be understood by his (Kling's) readers. Of course, this turned out to be incorrect, and he was subsequently forced to issue a correction [5].—Preceding unsigned comment added by John Quiggin (talk • contribs)

I have found a reliable secondary source on this and other Krugman's columns. It is an article by Daniel B. Klein published in Econ Journal Watch. [6] In the appendix of the article he gave a brief overview of Dubya's Double Dip? column. Klein notes that Krugman: Claims the recession of 2001 wasn't brought on when an inflation-fighting Fed raised interest rates and so could easily be ended by a snapback in housing and consumer spending when the Fed brings rates back down again; but Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble. -- Vision Thing -- 09:00, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Daniel Klein is a long time frequent critic of Krugman's, not really an unbiased nor reliable source. LK (talk) 09:35, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Here's an article from the heritage foundation writing about what Krugman said about the cause of the housing bubble in 2005: How Smart Growth Exacerbated the International Financial Crisis by Wendell Cox

And another from Calculated Risk Krugman says Housing Bubble will Burst

LK (talk) 10:40, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

As much as I appreciate Calculated Risk, by Wikipedia standards it is not a reliable source for BLP article by any stretch of imagination. On the other hand, article published in Econ Journal Watch satisfies all criteria laid out in WP:RS and WP:BLP. I think it can be best summarized like this: "According to Daniel B. Klein, in 2002 Krugman argued that in order to end 2001 recession Fed needs to create a housing bubble because typical measures would not work." -- Vision Thing -- 14:19, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

If this information is sourced and accurately presented by sources that are reliable then it can be included. It is in the area of the critique aspects of the article [7] - skip sievert (talk) 15:02, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The essential ambiguity in the original article is still there in Klein's summary. Does "Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble" mean:

a) For the good of the country I really want Alan Greenspan to create a housing bubble. Or,

b) The economy is in a bad shape, if Greenspan wants to pull it up, he'll have to do something silly like creating a housing bubble.

Therefore, the Klein summary cannot be used to support a criticism of Krugman, since it is as ambiguous as the original article.

Note also that the use of the negative term 'bubble' instead of the more positive term 'housing boom', Krugman's article 2 weeks later (in August 2002) where he worries that the bursting of a housing bubble would create a lost decade for the US, and Krugman's statement in 2009, that he meant the later, all support the second interpretation. LK (talk) 15:19, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

In case the point I'm making is unclear, let me point out that if I say, "Republicans need to blow up a building and blame it on terrorists to have any chance of wining the next elections", I am not advocating the blowing up of buildings. I am just making an observation about how hard it would be for Republicans to win the next elections. LK (talk) 15:37, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, but if you are a Republican talking to Republicans in a Republican-oriented rag, it would be impossible not to treat that statement as advocacy. And if you're an East Coast Keynesian talking to U.S. central bankers through the NYTimes... - —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.104.55.140 (talk) 04:28, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi again KiK. Firstly, Krugman = Democrat, Greenspan = Republican, Bubbles = No one likes. Secondly, are you telling me that if a respected Republican lamented the state of his party, and said that "Republicans need to blow up a building and blame it on terrorists to have any chance of wining the next elections",he is seriously telling people, please go blow up buildings? I think not. Duh. LK (talk) 10:03, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm adding back the section on Krugman's views of the housing bubble, per the Wendell Cox paper. How Smart Growth Exacerbated the International Financial Crisis by Wendell Cox I'm also including some of Krugman's more pertinent writing from his NYT writings. Per WP:SOURCE a person's writings is a good source about themselves. LK (talk) 11:58, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

This section isn't just wrong it's a damn lie. Krugman is ridiculing Greenspan for his creating the nasdaq bubble in the Op Ed that is cited and taken out of context. Krugman is NOT advocating a housing bubble. Stop attempting to push the bogus POV. Scribner (talk) 02:27, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Scribner, you are terribly incorrect. Please see here: http://blog.mises.org/archives/010153.asp and http://mises.org/story/3530 and http://mises.org/story/3539. Of course, then there is Paul Krugman STRAIGHT UP LITERALLY SAYING he likes bubbles to get us out of busts: "To be honest, a new bubble now would help us out a lot even if we paid for it later. This is a really good time for a bubble… There was a headline in a satirical newspaper in the US last summer that said: "The nation demands a new bubble to invest in" And that’s pretty much right." - February 2009, foreign interview: http://www.rtve.es/mediateca/videos/20090502/innovar-para-salir-crisis-informe-semanal/495712.shtml EconExpert (talk) 15:56, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Controversies section is very misleadingly named

Most of those are not "controversies", it's just a list of people who disagree with him. Well, whaddayaknow, a conservative columnist disagrees with Paul Krugman? Gee, isn't that weird? How is some guy from the National Review disagreeing with Krugman a "controversy"? Answer: It's not. It's a disagreement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.151.45.242 (talk) 22:26, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Is it better if the section is called 'Criticisms'? LK (talk) 05:52, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I renamed the section "Conservative criticism". However, it seems there are one or two critics in the section that aren't conservatives. Scribner (talk) 06:12, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

'Criticisms' is usual name for such sections. -- Vision Thing -- 16:36, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I may divide the section, splitting off "Conservative criticism" because it is misleading and there is only one, maybe two, mentions of criticism that aren't politically motivated. Scribner (talk) 17:42, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I suggest as a subsection within the criticisms section. LK (talk) 03:11, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Criticism of Greenspan's policies

I reworked this section today to reflect Krugman's true intent of ridiculing Greenspan for creating the NASDAQ bubble. Krugman was not advocating a housing bubble, as is previously indicated in this section. The Op-Ed piece he wrote and used to cite the section prove my point. Don't revert to the previous section, it's not just wrong it's a damn lie. It's so bad, anyone pushing that section probably needs to banned from contributing to this article. Scribner (talk) 02:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

There is a controversy on what Krugman meant to say at the time. For any interpretation of that column you need a reliable secondary source. -- Vision Thing -- 16:23, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Then this particular quote should be omitted altogether. What your pushing doesn't even make sense. Why would Krugman advocate a housing bubble, ridicule Greenspan for creating bubbles and then warn of a housing bubble? Get real. Take the POV pushing elsewhere. Scribner (talk) 16:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

The material you keep calling lies agree with the material you put in yourself. The "lies" are silent as to Krugman's true intentions, but simply give the quotes, while yours attributes motivation. So, at the very least, the material you're trying to remove is not "lies". Take part in the discussion on this talk page in how the material should be presented. CRETOG8(t/c) 16:46, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

---

Here's my version of the quote under dispute:

In August 2002, Krugman said, in ridiculing Greenspan for his part in creating the Nasdaq bubble, "To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble." Krugman further warned of a housing bubble in stating, "If we do have a housing bubble, and it bursts, we'll be looking a lot too Japanese for comfort" (referring to the Japanese 'lost decade' of slow growth in the 1990s).

Here's the other version:

In August 2002, he wrote that, "To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble." Krugman also argued that, "If we do have a housing bubble, and it bursts, we'll be looking a lot too Japanese for comfort" (referring to the Japanese 'lost decade' of slow growth in the 1990s).

Scribner (talk) 16:49, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

---

Krugman himself has clarified what he meant to say, which should be considered reliable, since sources are in general reliable sources about themselves. Also, libertarian economist Arnold Kling (not exactly an ally of Krugman's) has defended Krugman and commented on it here. So these sources should be taken as a definitive version of what he actually meant to say. But I think Scribner may be right, the quote should be omitted as it is misleading. Perhaps a suitable paraphrase should be introduced instead? Also, we've got to stop reverting each other. It's starting to look like an edit war. LK (talk) 16:48, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Krugman is a reliable sources about himself as long as material is not self-serving [8]. In this case Krugman's clarification is self-serving. Arnold Kling's blog comment is not a reliable source. If quote is to be permanently removed, other material on housing crisis sourced only to Krugman's columns should also be removed. -- Vision Thing -- 17:23, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with this article and it should be removed. -- Vision Thing -- 17:13, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Greenspan's Congressional testimony does have something to do with the section. This is an encyclopedia. The mention is in every major subprime article on wiki. The SEC also testified, but we're talking about Greenspan in this section. As far as clarification...your objection proves your POV pushing. This article is a BLP, yet you're claiming rights to something the subject said over a clarification. Unreal. Scribner (talk) 17:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I think VT is right that we can't give very strong weight to Krugman's retrospective self-analysis, just as we can't give too much weight to Friedman's retrospective explanations of his activities with regard to Chile. The Kling source looks just OK to me, unless it's clear that the hullaballoo over the quote springs from Kling's use of it, in which case his opinion is more important. I'm agnostic about whether the quote belongs in the article at all. CRETOG8(t/c) 17:58, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

"retrospective self-analysis", you mean clarification. You don't have a choice in a BLP article, it's not even debatable. On Wiki, you err on the side of the subject of the article in BLP, always. Krugman spells it out pretty clearly, in that Greenspan's optimism IS FLAWED and that it would take more than "soaring household spending" to turn the economy around. He's pointing out that it'll take as much as a bubble to replace the last bubble that Greenspan had a large part in creating. It's not policy advocacy as is being pushed here. Scribner (talk) 18:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Self published sources are reliable sources about themselves unless unduly self-serving WP:SELFPUB, in this case his clarification is not undue. Kling is a tenured economics professor, and his blog was the original source of the current furor, and so his clarification should also carry some weight. LK (talk) 01:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Use of any blog as a source except that of the subject of the article (and then only in certain cases) is expressly forbidden by BLP. -- Vision Thing -- 09:48, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the offending material can be removed without much damage to the article? If these quotations have contentious interpretations, then it may be better to leave them out of the article until reliable secondary sources can be settled upon. Out-of-context quotations or unclear quotations can often give misleading impressions. In fact, secondary sources are typically desirable over primary sources like blog entries often for precisely this reason. Anyway, Krugman has written reams of unambiguous criticism of Greenspan's policies, and I see no particular reason that this one line of text is more notable for the purposes of an encyclopedia article than any other. It shouldn't be too much trouble to find a clearer critique. Sławomir Biały (talk) 05:14, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The section is tagged POV and will remain tagged until this is resolved. The quote should be removed because it's taken out of context and represents a false claim that Paul Krugman and Kling have both denied. For those who are unaware there is an current debate outside of wiki as to whether Krugman claimed we needed a housing bubble. Wiki should remain neutral or err on the side of the article subject on this issue until it's resolved, particularly when the BLP subject denies the claim. Scribner (talk) 17:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm changing the title of this section and removing the quote in a day or two. As further evidence of conservative POV pushing ChildofMidnight was just banned and restricted on working on BLP articles. Scribner (talk) 20:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Quote should be removed only if the other material on housing is also going to be removed. Without it presentation of Krugman's views on housing would be unbalanced. Also, we have a secondary source on that column. Before recent controversy economist Daniel B. Klein summarized Krugman's opinion like this: "Claims the recession of 2001 wasn't brought on when an inflation-fighting Fed raised interest rates and so could easily be ended by a snapback in housing and consumer spending when the Fed brings rates back down again; but Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble." -- Vision Thing -- 08:14, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Let's consider leaving the quote as is, a title section change, which is needed and the following, "Krugman has since stated his reference to a housing bubble was one of economic analysis not policy advocacy." The NYT Opinion section "blog" isn't WP:SELFPUB neither one of us could start a blog there. Scribner (talk) 13:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I added, "Krugman stated this as economic analysis not policy advocacy." which puts it all to rest. He's responded to that the quote, we really can't leave the quote in and leave this out, not in a BLP. The title change is correct. Appears to be a excellent compromise. Please tag and discuss rather than revert. Scribner (talk) 14:00, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I attributed that. It must be clear that Krugman said that. I also changed the section title to 'Comments on Clinton and Bush economic policies' because 'comments' is more neutral than 'criticisms' (especially when controversy over housing bubble is taken into account) and because Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was signed by Clinton and not Bush. -- Vision Thing -- 18:01, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your point on Clinton more or less because Clinton did want the Glass-Steagall act repealed, going from memory and Greenspan was arguing for keeping derivatives unregulated at least as early as 1997. But, I don't know that Krugman would agree with you - we should check if he had stated an opinion on Clinton's policies. The "seven years later" should be worded differently because in truth he didn't clarify himself until he was charged as advocating a housing bubble. Scribner (talk) 19:39, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

On Krugman and Clinton, "Though critical of some Clinton advisors, Krugman recently assessed administration economic policy as pretty sensible overall." From this article. Scribner (talk) 19:48, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Currently section title is misleading. It is then better not to mention anyone by name in it. Also, Bush was not responsible for Greenspan's actions because Fed is independent. "Seven years later" can be rephrased. Maybe to just say "later" would be acceptable to you? -- Vision Thing -- 09:13, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

"Later" is fine. Every paragraph in the section is "Criticism of Greenspan's policies". That's why I titled it that way..."Comments on economic policies" is wrong because Krugman comments on other country's policies, these are specific to Greenspan. Scribner (talk) 16:09, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Section opens with: "A major theme of Krugman's writings has been Alan Greenspan's and the Bush administration's economic policies" and finishes with: "Krugman points to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed depression era safeguards that among other prevented commercial banks, investment banks and insurance companies from merging." So section covers criticisms of government polices under Clinton, Bush and Greenspan. So maybe the best title would be "Comments on US government policies". -- Vision Thing -- 08:34, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

It's titled correctly, the last sentence is in his finding Gramm complicit in that regard, both Gramm and Greenspan are guilty of keeping derivatives unregulated. Too much time is being wasted on petty POV. The section is titled correctly. Scribner (talk) 15:54, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Zakaria's criticism of Krugman

I will reintroduce following paragraph into article: Krugman advocated for radical currency controls as a response to the 1997 Asian financial crisis saying "never in the course of economic events- note even in the early years of the (Great) Depression- has so large a part of the world economy experienced so decastating a fall from grace. The economies rebounded within two years, but only one country adopted currency controls. LK's objections to this paragraph were "This is inaccurate, and is not about US economic policies or his columns, it should not be here." However, that is what Krugman advocated in one of his Fortune columns and source is Newsweek article [9]. There is no reason to limit coverage in this article to just Krugman's views on US economic policies, so I will either change section title or add new section (maybe something like 'Views on other economic issues'?). -- Vision Thing -- 09:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't inclusion be undue? It's not proper to jump on the few inaccurate predictions a person has made and emphasize them on the page. That would be giving them undue weight. Also, if you read Krugman's original column it's not clear at all that he was wrong. He didn't say what Zakaria claims that he said, the criticism in Zakaria's article is unfair. LK (talk) 10:16, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Same can be said for accurate predictions and for cherry picking quotes from Krugman's columns that present him in a positive light. At least this can be sourced to a reliable secondary source. It is not for us to determine whether Zakaria's criticism is fair or not. However, I checked the quotes Zakaria gave and they are from Krugman's column. -- Vision Thing -- 10:37, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Zakaria phrases it misleadingly, Krugman's version is more nuanced. The original article is here Anyway, as worded it shouldn't be in a section describing Krugman's journalism career. Maybe in the criticisms section, but it's not even a notable criticism. Zakaria is making an off-hand criticism thrown in as an introduction to his main point. Krugman's criticisms of Greenspan and Bush OTOH are numerous and well thought out. We don't have to cherry pick quotes. There's no need for quotes, just say that he has criticized and blamed them for the housing bubble and the poor performance of the economy since 2001. LK (talk) 13:50, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. This as well as the Greenspan housing quote are nothing more than an attempt by conservatives to smear Krugman rather than an attempt to present the facts. It's an active campaign and is happening in other articles. What's surprising is that Wikipedia is tolerating this. Scribner (talk) 19:18, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Scribner, remember to be civil and to assume good faith. -- Vision Thing -- 08:17, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Why it shouldn't be in journalism section? As I see it, that section should be an overview of Krugman's notable columns. And the best way to determine notability is to see which columns have received coverage by other journalists, authors and economists. -- Vision Thing -- 08:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

You are pushing what is essentially a throwaway criticism from Zakaria, it's inclusion will make readers suspect that the reason the edit is there is specifically so that there is something negative about Krugman in that section. If you are serious about trying to improve the article, I suggest making a list of the times Krugman's writings have been mentioned by other journalists, I suspect there will be a large number. We can then judge from that which are notable. LK (talk) 12:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't have time to do that. However, even when we take another approach Zakaria's overview of Krugman's views on Asian crisis is notable. In the last fifteen years Asian crisis was one of the major economic events so Krugman's views on it are naturally notable for this section. -- Vision Thing -- 18:06, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Krugman's ethnicity

If it is sourced that Paul Krugman is Jewish, than should there be any problem categorizing him as such? Please discuss.

Krugman was born into a Jewish family and no one disputes that and it is a non issue in the article. Judaism is a religion, so being Jewish is a personal choice. Is he a participant in that religion now.. would be the issue? skip sievert (talk) 15:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I believe the issue is whether it is permissible under WP:OCAT to categorize Krugman as a Category:American Jews. For which the answer is unequivocally no under existing Wikipedia guidelines. Since Krugman's Jewish heritage has played no apparent role in his career, it is inappropriate to put him in the ethnic-related categories. To quote WP:OCAT:

"people should only be categorized by ethnicity or religion if this has significant bearing on their career."

As for whether it is appropriate to mention that he was born to a Jewish family in the article, I don't see a problem with that. Sławomir Biały (talk) 04:13, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Seems pretty clear from WP:OCAT that Krugman shouldn't be categorized as such, since his notability is unrelated to his ethnicity or religion. LK (talk) 10:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

No, you are wrong, being Jewish is not only about religion, but also about ethnicity, since Judaism is a religion and Jewish is an ethnicity. I could give you plenty of examples of people that are categorized by their religion or ethnicity in cases that it had no effect on their notability.Such an example is Henry Ford who is categorized both as a Irish-American and as a Belgian-American. Should it be any different with Paul Krugman?

Indeed it shouldn't. But the fact that Henry Ford is inappropriately categorized really has nothing to do with Paul Krugman, does it? You should raise the issue of the incorrect categories on Talk:Henry Ford instead of here. Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

If ethnicity is covered in the bio, ie, German/Jewish/Cuban/whatever, then including the category is fine. Notabilty of ethnicity relates more to including it in the lead sentence. I would keep the category here as long as it is mentioned in the body of the bio. This seems to be the "standard" for bios, but what do I know :) Cheers, --Tom (talk) 15:23, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, no. The apparently long-standing guideline applies to categorization, not mentioning it in the lead. See WP:OCAT. Sławomir Biały (talk) 15:38, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually yes. Maybe get others to comment as well. Categorizing by ethnicity is fine and is not overcatorizing by any stretch as long as it is sourced(I agree with adding the fact tag as you have done). Try to remove ethnicity categories of say Puretoricans(sp) and see what happens :) Anyways, --Tom (talk) 15:51, 25 June 2009 (UTC)ps, this has been covered extensively over the years, I will have to dig up the numerous pages unless someone wants to beat me to it and has them handy. --Tom (talk) 15:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

In that case, I defer to your judgement and greater experience. However, the issue remains that WP:OCAT is seemingly at odds with the prevailing consensus on this issue. Methinks it's time for someone to update it. Best, Sławomir Biały (talk) 16:01, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Hey, I am just one editor, so like I said, maybe others will chime in. I think overcat actually makes sense, it more has to do with maybe how you/I are interpretting it. My take is that trivial categories are unneeded, which is the rub. What exactly is trivial can very well be in the eye of the beholder. Ethnicity, imho, is not trivial and lots of folks take great pride, to the point of fault in it. I am a mutt, personally, so I don't get to caught up in that stuff, but trust me when I say, ethnicity is a very, very, very touchy subject around here :) Cheers! --Tom (talk) 16:10, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The issue is not that he was born into a Jewish family, he was, but maybe whether he may or may not consider himself a Jew as to religion? Others may or may not consider him Jewish also. Identifying him as Jewish as to category may be a mistake or not notable to him being an economist. List of Jewish economists Does he himself self identify as a Jewish economist? Not that I can see. So maybe putting him in that categorize is not appropriate. Does he himself make a statement about that anywhere? skip sievert (talk) 16:37, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I actually agree with alot of what you are saying. I personally dislike these categories since they "label" individuals in a way that actually might not be entirely "accurate" as you have pointed out. As I mentioned above, a person ethnicity and how it is "handled" has been a contensious issue for this project for some time. Anyways, --Tom (talk) 16:48, 25 June 2009 (UTC)ps, I really need to find the links to past discussions about this. I usually catch heat from "both sides" on this "issue" which usually tells me I am doing the "right" thing :) Cheers! --Tom (talk) 16:50, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The issue is that he was born to Jewish parents, so that he is Jewish(if not by religion that by ethnicity)and there isn't any way to deny your roots, whatever they are.

That is not really so. Traditionally fathers do not count in this regard either. Mothers do... so it depends on how far you want to take all the odds and ends of all those debates. People that were born into Catholic families routinely say that they are not Catholic, or Christian, or may call themselves atheists... or that they are recovering Catholics. There is no issue connected, that he was born into a Jewish family, but there are many people that do not consider ethnicity a good marker for anything as that relates to the larger world or employment. skip sievert (talk) 17:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Pro-Keynesian Censorship? PK did advocate "insane" low interest rates which caused the housing bubble

Comments please?

Article written for Mises.org by unknown author won't be accepted as a reliable source for WP:BLP article. Also, be aware of WP:CIV policy. -- Vision Thing -- 10:01, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

There does seem to be pro-Keynesian bias at work among some editors here, which may be why the Ferguson material keeps getting deleted. When I first raised the question, one response was that it should be deleted because it is unreferenced. Well ... I've provided some references, lots more are available.

See for example:

(Slate) (Seeking Alpha) (Cafe Hayek) and (The Financial Times)

This has made a rather large splash within the commentariat, enough to overcome any reasonable notabiltiy hurdle, since we "aren't paper."

--Christofurio (talk) 19:07, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree to a definite pro Krugman slant in POV regarding his advocacy of bubbles. Other editors trying to claim that Krugman is in fact a secret Austrian economist fearful of inflating economic bubbles is laughable. Krugman is a Keynesian. Keynesians believe (and teach) inflationary policy is the panacea to economic disasters. Several sources in 2001 - 2002 period cite him as personally advocating for inflationary policy, not merely repeating someone else's advocacy. He is now again advocating inflationary policies. Objectively his stance regarding bubbles (which he invariably denies ex post facto) should be included in the article. --A is A (talk) 05:16, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Cafe Hayek is a blog, Seeking Alpha is a blog aggregator, the one from FT is a blog, the Slate commentary is an editorial, but is reasonably ok. However, Krugman often makes it into the newspapers, let's try to be balanced and present an overview of only the most notable instances. For example, the furor he raised when he publicized Alywn Young's work on the the Asian 'tigers' made it into several international newspapers and magazines. As have his criticisms of a) Bush, b) Greenspan, and c) Obama. LK (talk) 05:52, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

An economist with a PhD, Mark Thornton, has compiled [a list] of quotes showing Krugman called for a housing bubble. This should be included in the interests of objectivity. I should add that there's no problem with lack of authority because the post is simply a collection of pro-bubble quotes by Krugman himself. Krugman is obviously an authoritative source on Krugman. Mookrit (talk) 00:23, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Young's work on the the Asian 'tigers' is already mentioned here. -- Vision Thing -- 18:18, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Banned user Karmaisking

Heads up guys, the banned user karmaisking is apparently targeting this page, carrying out his threat to vandalize mainstream economics pages, if we didn't let him have his way on the Austrian school pages. Policy is that edits made by banned users can be reverted by anyone on sight. Unfortunately, KiK keeps on coming back, even though everything he writes is eventually reverted. Apparently, he finds some sort of mean satisfaction in annoying people here. The best thing to do is probably to follow WP:RBI, Revert, Ignore, Block. LK (talk) 16:06, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

intellectual

If there's an objection to the description of Krugman as an intellectual, please discuss here. CRETOG8(t/c) 18:19, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't consider him an intellectual. Economists are sometimes described as subjective moral philosophers... ala Smith. The term is also open ended. He is an economist and rubs elbows with politicians and journalists, and maybe even special interest groups. That is not an intellectual occupation unless considered so by someones opinion, that maybe trying to endorse Krugman for what ever reason as to making him sound important or better. Leading intellectual? Would it be alright to call him an anti-intellectual? No. Neither is appropriate. skip sievert (talk) 23:32, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, he certainly fits the general idea of what qualifies as an intellectual, as evidenced by his inclusion in the list of the ref. There are many people on that list who vigorously disagree with each other, and some I wouldn't consider particularly smart, but they fill the social role of intellectual. It's possible that the currently popular term "public intellectual" would be better, and is more directly supported by the reference. CRETOG8(t/c) 23:50, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

This looks like a junk ref to me. Public intellectual? This is the source of the information The Foreign Policy/Prospect 2008 World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals poll is now closed. To view the complete list of intellectuals, please click here. It is a poll on a very junky mostly book selling and college course selling website [10] It probably is not a good ref for the article at all. It appears as kind of a blog poll on the site as the determinate of who is an intellectual or not. Maybe get rid of the ref citation and the reference to Krugman as an intellectual. Unfounded and ballyhoo. skip sievert (talk) 01:41, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Skip, you need to research your claims Foreign Policy.com appears to be respectable by any standard. They're "a division of Washingtonpost.Newsweek". For future reference, check the "about" section of a periodical if you're unfamiliar with its work. Yes, Paul Krugman is an intellectual. Here's mention of his published work at Portfolio.com. Scribner (talk) 02:55, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I disagree. Also the site in question was using a blog like forum like poll to make their list of public intellectuals. Appears to be respectable by any standard...? I wouldn't read it if someone paid me too... because it is an obvious commercial ... for pay advertising enterprise, and the poll they conducted is just that ... a poll that was conducted among their most likely very limited readership... so big deal as to what they think. Not worth using as a link and not a good source as to who is or who is not an intellectual public or other. skip sievert (talk) 03:23, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Krugman is also, and more importantly, mentioned as a public intellectual in the book, "The American Intellectual Elite" on page xvi. here. Scribner (talk) 05:02, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Foreign Policy is an old and well established journal, article on them here: Foreign Policy (magazine). They are undoubtedly a reliable source. LK (talk) 05:53, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Another mention here at www.econjournalwatch.org "His eminence as a public-intellectual economist in the United States today is unsurpassed." pg. 109 Scribner (talk) 06:48, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Funny how the internet feeds on itself as to looping itself with pov. The question is do you want to make a claim for this idea in the beginning of the article..?. and why is that an issue, since it is also so arguable, and could be sourced probably the other way also, that he was not an intellectual? Obviously this is an opinion idea. Opinions vary. Like this Jackson was an 'intellectual'

Jacko's lawyer Bob Sanger revealed yesterday (July 2) that Jackson had more than 10,000 books in his library, numbering in everything from literature classics for Freud, Socrates and Jung. "He was very intellectual but didn’t flaunt it," Sanger said. (The Sun) [11] Anyway almost anything can be sourced if the desire is strong enough on the internet... but why present Krugman in that way?

Also, looking around I see that Krugman is constantly throwing around the idea that his opponents are anti-intellectual, so stressing that he is an intellectual smacks of pov also. Yesterday, Paul Krugman wrote an editorial about the high proportion of liberals in academia. His major point was that the anti-intellectualism of the Republican Party has waged an incessant cultural war against academics to gain its 'populist' bona fides. Consequently, they have driven academics into the Democratic Party. This is mostly right: in fact, many faculty, even if they are ideologically liberal, are tempermentally conservative (science, for example, is a conservative enterprise-paradigm shifts aren't very common). end from [12] I am not saying this is good sourcing, but no doubt good sources could be found. Is it worth it though to make that point? skip sievert (talk) 14:47, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

In this article a "Princeton colleague and friend" claims Krugman views himself as a public intellectual. So, since others view him as a public intellectual as well it's not just a casual mention. This issue is resolved as far as I'm concerned. Scribner (talk) 17:08, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

It's irrelevant what Krugman calls others. He clearly fits the social role as intellectual, as do many of those he argues with. CRETOG8(t/c) 18:01, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Not really and this is a controversial edit in the article. Krugman constantly refers to his enemies... if that is the word... as anti intellectual.. he does this over and over... in publication after publication, and it is repeated in the press over and over..., and to have editors here reinforce that he is an intellectual, and they are anti-intellectual would be bad editing because of that point. Would it be right to say all economists are intellectuals? Bad distinction. Bad descriptor. This is a bad way to refer to him then because it is a political economic pov in this case because of his constant mention of anti-intellectuals... in other words... people other than himself involved in politics and economics. skip sievert (talk) 20:31, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I think Krugman is an intellectual. Only possible issue is whether that should be mentioned or not. What are contributions he made as an intellectual that can't be encompassed by "economist", "columnist", and "author"? -- Vision Thing -- 21:06, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

It should not be mentioned, because it is a value judgment more or less. What are contributions he made as an intellectual that can't be encompassed by "economist", "columnist", and "author"? Probably zilch. Another issue is subtle but important here. Krugman constantly refers to his intellectual enemies, as anti intellectual.. he does this over and over... in publication after publication, and it is repeated in the press, and to have that reinforced here, that he is an intellectual, which like you say he may be a so called intellectual within the context of writer, economist, or columnist, but that is different, and declaring him one in the lead is distorting the context of information. skip sievert (talk) 00:05, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

VT, you make a decent point. I'm not sure how much "intellectual" adds. Of late there seems to be a habit of recognizing people as "public intellectuals" (I first really noticed when William F. Buckley died), and if this is something worth recognizing, then it's worth recognizing for Krugman. I'm really indifferent to it, and would have left it out if I'd written the sentence. However, if someone else feels it belongs, then I can't think of an adequate reason to exclude it. My participation in this is just that I'm afraid that the appellation "intellectual" is being removed by people who dislike or disagree with Krugman, which isn't adequate. CRETOG8(t/c) 05:17, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

From econjournalwatch.org "The accomplishments of Paul Krugman are prodigious. He has written

or edited more than 25 books, 40 scholarly articles, and 750 columns at the

New York Times, where he continues to write a twice-weekly column. Krugman

received the John Bates Clark Medal in 1991 for his research in international trade.

He taught at Yale, MIT, and Stanford prior to joining the faculty of Princeton.

His eminence as a public-intellectual economist in the United States today is unsurpassed." This doesn't include his winning the Nobel Prize. I'm adding a cite to this to the reference in the lead.Scribner (talk) 00:57, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Done. Scribner (talk) 01:05, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

His eminence as a public-intellectual economist in the United States today is unsurpassed. Sorry, but doesn't that sound kind of ridiculous? Is that kind of pov opinion sourcing really called for? I do not like or dislike the guy... but calling someone an intellectual, who uses the term anti-intellectual frequently to point the finger at his economic/political enemies in thought, seems very inappropriate and leading and steering as truth giving instead of informing. skip sievert (talk) 15:28, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

No. It doesn't sound ridiculous. It sounds like accolades from his peers, which is what it is, an acknowledgment of Krugman's accomplishments. Your complaint (which does sound ridiculous) belongs in the criticism section, if anywhere. Moving on, this is too much time on petty BS. Scribner (talk) 16:34, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

skip sievert, there are certainly many intellectuals who disagree with Krugman. However, it is possible that majority of intellectuals agree with him on most issues. Robert Nozick wrote an essay Why Do Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism? that explains a lot. Anyway, I don't perceive "intellectual" as inherently positive (or negative) term. -- Vision Thing -- 19:51, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Normally it may not be, but because Krugman wields the term in a negative way against people as anti-intellectual, and that is well known, it comes across as a Fan site commentary and pov in the beginning of the article. skip sievert (talk) 20:09, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Milton Freedman's BLP mentions public intellectual in the lead, so should this BLP. Scribner (talk) 13:52, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

POV tag over liberal mention in lead

Krugman is clearly, and proudly, a liberal. His blog is called "Conscience of a Liberal", as was a book of his. It's perfectly reasonable to include that in his introductory description. I don't think it matters much where in the sentence it goes, but "liberal intellectual" makes sense if you consider his books and blog to be part of what identifies him as an intellectual. CRETOG8(t/c) 17:00, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Whether he is proud or not does not matter. No it does not make sense, because then he is presented that way as to leading in a telling manner. Liberal intellectual becomes a factual statement stitched together then in presentation. The latest V.T. edit breaks it apart as two separate things [13] - That is better. skip sievert (talk) 17:54, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

It's "public-intellectual", if you feel a need to qualify "intellectual" we've already covered this once. "...is a prominent liberal American economist," is wrong. He's a prominent American economist, period. Just as Alan Greenspan is is an American economist, even though he's clearly, and proudly a conservative. If you're identifying a politician, yes liberal would be fine, even liberal columnist is fine, once again, if you're hellbent to have liberal in the lead. Scribner (talk) 18:01, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree it would be better not to have it in there at all. Calling him an intellectual or liberal in the lead seems like a bad idea. Public intellectual also sounds like a neologism designed on some blog or forum somewhere as a pov promotional tool. skip sievert (talk) 18:24, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Skip, the reason I don't agree with your argument about removing "intellectual" because of Krugman's use of anti-intellectual is not just that it's absurd but that it's original research. Scribner (talk) 18:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Tagged POV until resolved with talk. Scribner (talk) 22:55, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not hellbent, but "liberal" is at least as appropriate as "intellectual", so if someone wants it there, I think they should be able to put it there. I'm OK with applying the "liberal" adjective anywhere in there, although I'm a little uncomfortable applying it to "economist". Applying it to "intellectual" makes the most sense to me, but to "columnist" might be the easiest to support. CRETOG8(t/c) 23:00, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

"columnist" makes the most sense but really Krugman is really specific as to his political ideology and it isn't just liberal. Defining Krugman as a liberal, first, above all diminishes his accomplishments and an economist and intellectual. Take note of who put the liberal mention there...pretty obvious sock account. Scribner (talk) 23:25, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

NM, I'm fed up with this page and will leave the POV warring to those who are more invested than me. CRETOG8(t/c) 23:31, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. Scribner (talk) 00:35, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

argument

None of the other economists or authors mentioned in this article have a political affiliation mentioned in their lead, neither should Krugman. It is covered sufficiently in the article.

• John Maynard Keynes
• Daniel Okrent
• Robert Barro
• Daniel B. Klein
• Donald Luskin
• Alan Greenspan
• Wendy Lee Gramm

Scribner (talk) 02:35, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

As I said earlier, what's good for the Bill Kristol page is good here. The funny thing is I wasn't even saying it pejoratively, although it appears by your flurry of activity that you took it that way! Notice I said the word "prominent" before it. That was my word. One of the key differences between Krugman and the people you list above is that they don't refer to themselves as liberals (Krugman does) and they are not as outpsoken on liberal causes as Krugman is. I conclude my argument with this fact: Krugman's own blog is called "The Conscience of a Liberal." His own blog!

JohnnyLH (talk) 22:43, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Bill Kristol is a political analyst, Krugman is an economist. Name some economists who have their political affiliation mentioned first in their lead, there are none. None in this article that I found. Writing a blog isn't his notoriety, being a Nobel Prize winning economist is, however. There's a section in this article already devoted to his politics. Scribner (talk) 02:59, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

OK see that is where you are mistaken. Krugman is an economist, sure, but he is also a politcal analyst. He is more famous for being a political analyst than he is for being an economist, and secondly he is a more famous political analyst than Bill Kristol! Krugman has a twice-weekly op-ed spot on the NYT. He is also a regular guest on "This Week with George Stephanopolous," "The Charlie Rose Show," and other shows such as shows on PBS and MSNBC. In these appearances, as well as his regular column in the NYT (and occasional columns elsewhere) he speaks of general political issues more than he does of economic issues. When he does speak of economic issues, he does not do so objectively--he does so as a liberal--and even proudly admits as much. Bottom line, none of the people you listed above are regular political commentators. Paul Krugman is a regular political commentator who happens to also be an economist. Again, through his writing and his own words, he is a liberal first and foremost, and far from being unapologetic he is proud of it. JohnnyLH (talk) 23:08, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Wrong. Nowhere in this article is Krugman mentioned as a political analyst. Not once. He is a public-intellectual. You're getting the two confused. Even the political analyst David Gergen doesn't have his political affiliation mentioned in his lead. Krugman's taught at Yale, MIT, Stanford and Princeton as an economist, not a political analyst. Again there is a section devoted to his politics already. Scribner (talk) 03:39, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

nowhere in this article? And that means what, exactly? Why don't you call the producers of "This Week" (a sunday political show) and let them know that the man they have had on every 3-4 weeks for the past several years to analyze political matters is not actually qualified to do so. Let me know what they say. Also please call the editor of the NYT and tell him that from now on Paul can only write 2 economics columns per week in his op-ed slot. The regular columns he has written analyzing political matters unrelated to economics have got to stop because Wikipedia does not mention his analyst credentials in the article. Again, the man's own blog has liberal right in the title, not "economist." Plus, stepping back a bit, I disagree with your assertion that just because something is in the opening paragraph it somehow trumps everything else. I don't think anyone would read it that way. Again, the average person in the world who has even had exposure to Mr. Krugman has seen or heard him talk about non-economic issues more so than economic ones. His specialty is being an economist but his public face is that of a liberal commentator. This is essentially all I have to say about this. I really can't believe I am arguing over this. I might just re-write the whole first paragraph and we'll go from there, i don't know. I do know that liberal should appear int he first paragraph, however. Anyway, do what you feel is right and I will re-write the paragraph later if I feel it needs to be. In the meantime, I really do wish you would try to stay within the spirit of this site and not just act as a goalie for arbitrarily decided upon pet pages. I really will do everything I can to stop behavior like that on this site. There is no excuse for it. I said it before and I'll say it again: no one person owns these pages. We all do. At least that's what I was led to believe when I signed up. JohnnyLH (talk) 00:06, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Krugman first and foremost is an economist. Economists may be described as being in certain 'schools', but his main contribution is in Trade theory and is broadly mainstream, and so not restricted to a certain school. His persona as a public intellectual, on the other hand, can be described as liberal. He is best known for his critique of Bush and Greenspan, and hence describing him as a liberal public intellectual is, in my opinion, fair. However, do not describe his as a liberal economist, his economics is apolitical. LK (talk) 05:48, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

We're contradicting parts of the political section of the article if we label him as a liberal in the lead. Scribner (talk) 06:17, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Krugman is called liberal economists by many sources. For example, in "The Oxford history of the United States" on page 293 he is described as "the liberal economist and columnist". He is also called liberal economist by Gregory Mankiw in both "Principles of microeconomics" and "Principles of economics". Even his own NYT calls him liberal economist [14]. -- Vision Thing -- 08:07, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

If he were only an economist, his political affiliation would not be relevant for the introduction. But he is also a political commentator, and in that context it may be sufficiently relevant for the introduction. Debates about what his point of view really is or is not belong deep in the article. But there is no POV at all if we report, as a factual statement, that he describes himself as a liberal. --Rinconsoleao (talk) 17:27, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Your edit is fine with me, seems to be a reasonable compromise (if 'liberal' has to be in the lead). I believe it was placed at the beginning not so much as a statement of fact but for its negative connotations. Some of the criticisms were petty, personal and over the top as well. Krugman gets tons of hate mail, not surprising to me that his BLP has problems. Scribner (talk) 19:39, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

There is nothing POV in calling him a liberal, he calls himself a liberal and others call him a liberal. -- Vision Thing -- 20:18, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Tagged POV

-- Vision--, you removed the Conservative criticism section, added back unscourced personal attacks in the Criticism section and removed Greenspan's mention in the comments about congressional testimony. Let's hear why. Scribner (talk) 15:25, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

It's wrong to call Krugman a liberal economist but conservatives are hellbent to attack this BLP, Wiki seems to be allowing it so have at it since you have a cite, but you do need to cite your claim. I've already discussed creating a Conservative criticism section here. Some of this old criticism was more along the lines of personal attacks and isn't supported in the cites. The Greenspan testimony is relevant, it's exactly what Krugman is referring to in the his statement. Scribner (talk) 17:30, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

There is no need for segregation of some criticisms under conservative heading. Also, all criticisms are sourced. As for Greenspan's testimony, your source doesn't talk about Krugman so bringing testimony to relation with something that Krugman said is OR. -- Vision Thing -- 20:21, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Wrong. And there's consensus for a conservative criticism section already been discussed. Do your homework. Greenspan's testimony is about Krugman's complaint that financial markets weren't regulated. The edit doesn't need to mention Krugman, ridiculous to claim so on your part. Scribner (talk) 21:11, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

1. There is no consensus for conservatism section.
2. "In May 2008 Krugman argued that crude oil at 125$ is supported by fundamentals and that it is not a bubble.[15] By the December of 2008 price of the crude oil plunged to 44$. [16]" Is this text ok to you? -- Vision Thing -- 21:34, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Add whatever you think is appropriate to the BLP of Paul Krugman, don't threaten my edits with retaliatory edits. Also, the criticism section should be integrated into the article, exactly like is done on Alan Greenspan's BLP, Phil Gramm's, BLP, Rush Limbaugh's BLP, etc. Scribner (talk) 22:18, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Done. Integrated criticisms into the article. The section had become a catch all and contained some ridiculous criticisms that likely violated WP:BLP. Removing POV tag. Scribner (talk) 02:39, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Removed 'public intellectual' and 'liberal'.. Inappropriate leading information and hectoring in context without context. Neologism term... public intellectual means 'mind of the beholder' meaning grinder aspect of some pov. skip sievert (talk) 04:56, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I gather you're not familiar with the long history of the term -- only lack of knowledge could lead to the claim that it is a neologism. Anyway the reference provided (Barsky) doesn't use the qualifier, so I have simply restored intellectual without the public -- that's what the reference says. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 12:06, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Scribner, by "Integrated criticisms into the article" you probably meant to say "Deleted criticisms from the article." For Greenspan issue see WP:SYNTH and the UN example. -- Vision Thing -- 13:58, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, why call him an intellectual at all? It's potentially a loaded term. Calling him a Nobel-prize-winning economic theorist, the author of a long list of books, and a regular columnist at a top US newspaper suffices, doesn't it? --Rinconsoleao (talk) 15:50, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Beyond that it gets sketchy as to leading or pointing which is uncalled for. skip sievert (talk) 16:12, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Vast improvement! Thanks to all who helped. Looks great to me. Scribner (talk) 16:32, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

What's the "load" re intellectual? If it's "loaded", that is? Is there something wrong with being an intellectual? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:18, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Loaded pov term. Not really appropriate. Not needed as a label. Is there something wrong with being an intellectual - end question Nomo... - No, but what does that question have to do with loading up these descriptor terms that are not needed for any particular reason? These terms are way to vague and so open to interpretation that they are clutter. skip sievert (talk) 00:42, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

"Clutter" and "vague" aren't the sort of arguments that carry much weight around here, in my experience. Better to argue with reference to wikipedia policies/guidelines. The only issue raised in those terms so far is pov. But I don't get it -- what is pov about "intellectual"? It's the opposite of pov, in my view -- one can be an intellectual and hold any/every point of view. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 10:43, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

There's no doubt that Krugman is classified as a public intellectual. I vote inclusion. Scribner (talk) 16:55, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Is there a classification of that on Wikipedia? Was Greenspan one also? Are you sure that is not just an unneeded appellation? Obviously it is a controversial edit or it would not be a matter of contention. Why turn the article into a fan site? It is not needed. It is a bit over the top.

Put it somewhere in the body and source it if you must, but that does not seem like a good idea either at least to me. Turn that into part of the article. Is that in the body of the article? Does it make sense to hit people over the head with such an abstracted relative description, when maybe they were expecting to learn something less obscure. Would you be willing Scribner to go through all the economics articles and write that economists in general are public intellectuals... intellectuals at all? Would you volunteer to change all the other articles as well... or does this just apply to Krugman for you? No doubt someone could source that Greenspan is an intellectual possibly even a public one, but why bother, and what point is trying to be made beyond leading people or telling people information rather than just providing information and letting people think for themselves? skip sievert (talk) 23:57, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I didn't realize the poll is on wiki. Probably a mention in the awards section would be suitable. That's how one other intellectual is mentioned. Scribner (talk) 01:39, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

The Top 100 Public Intellectuals Poll was conducted in November 2005 and June 2008 by Prospect Magazine (UK) and Foreign Policy (US) on the basis of a readers' ballot. I wonder how qualified a blog Forum poll really is for anything especially that appeals to a very limited or select group of readers. I suppose anyone with a proxy server could vote 100 times. Looks very irrelevant. Maybe Noam Chomsky fans got excited about this though since he came numero uno. Would that number one spot indicate anything?.. as to overt readership of said site? By the way Wikipedia is not a good source, as a source. skip sievert (talk) 01:54, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

You need to re-read the intellectual section on this talk page. Other cites exist, we've been other this. I'll add the edit to the awards section in a day or so, with cites of course. The end. Scribner (talk) 02:17, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

None of the top ten people in Top 100 Public Intellectuals Poll is described as an intellectual in the lead of their article. I agree with skip sievert that "intellectual" also shouldn't be included in the lead of this article. -- Vision Thing -- 21:43, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Awards section. Scribner (talk) 22:36, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I find that viewing the label intellectual as POV makes no sense intellectually, since an intellectual can hold any viewpoint; political, economic, philosophical, or otherwise. Unless maybe one thinks intellectuals tend to be more liberal or elitist (and think that's bad). I may be wrong, but I think even conservatives and anti-intellectuals use intelligence and analytical thinking.... occasionally. But if "intellectual" is loaded, vague, POV, and open to interpretation, then the terms "liberal" and "conservative" (among many possibilities) are unusable and objectively undefinable, since they have very different meanings depending on where one is positioned in the political matrix (see: Political compass), as well as one's culture, religion, education, country, emotional intelligence, ethnicity, time period, biases, life experiences, and including ways of learning, processing information, and conceptualizing. As an example, using very POV, polar, and mostly undefinable terms: "One man freedom fighter is another man's terrorist." Even terms like black and white include infinite shades of grey between them, and what we call white depends on how one perceives the light spectrum. It's all relativistic, but to object to "intellectual" boggles my mind. Hell, I think some believe the label economist is pejorative (in the sense that they have no idea what really works in economics), and yet we use that term. — Becksguy (talk) 23:56, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Krugman is an authoritative source on Krugman

To all the pro-Keynesian/Big Government editors who keep reverting any reference to the dozen quotes showing Paul Krugman called for a housing bubble, you should realize that Krugman IS an authoritative source on himself. There is no wikipedia policy that prevents someone from quoting an individual to shed light on that individual, even if the quotes reflect badly on the said person. Mookrit (talk) 07:55, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Apologies, it seems as if the quotes have indeed been included at footnote 53. Mookrit (talk) 08:01, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Blocked Article Thoroughly Discusses Krugman Quotes

I am the author of the Mises.org articles that are not being allowed to be mentioned on this article. ([17], [18])

I use a pen name. I prefer a one-word pen name. But I am a living, breathing person with ideas. Those ideas were selected for publication by the editor of a web site that almost daily publishes work by scholars with PhDs. The second article contains a complete exegesis of the most controversial of Krugman's quotes, and makes a full, rigorous argument that Krugman was indeed making pro-bubble policy recommendations. So it is completely unfair that my work is getting blocked.

Lilburne2 (talk) 14:52, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Lilburne. These should be included somewhere. These articles prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Krugman advocated a bubble in 2002 and advocates a bubble right now (see Lilburne's "Krugman's Rearguard Apologists" for the money quote!").

More troubling is this: I just edited the article, painstakingly detailing the entire episode in a NON-POV way, and it was just deleted. Not only were my edits to the article deleted, but my edits to the TALK PAGE WERE DELETED!. I received a message on my talk page from one "LK", saying my edits were not constructive, which is easily seen to be incorrect, and indeed, this LK does not even list any reasons.

What follows was my previous rationale for my talk page edits:

-----------------------

"The sequence of events relating to the 2002 "housing bubble" controversy was misrepresented. The correct sequence is:

1- people accused Krugman of recommending a housing bubble in 2002.

2- Krugman responded by saying it was not policy advocacy. He says he was describing, not prescribing.

3- A series of Krugman quotes turn up that show that Krugman advocated low interest rate policy to boost spending on housing.

4- Tangentially related is Krugman's recommendation in 2009 that a new bubble be formed to deal with the recession.

Before I edited it, the story featured 2 --> 1. Now it is in the correct order 1--> 2 --> 3 --> 4. And I sourced everything."

--------------------------

And here is how I edited it:

-------------------------------

"When accused in 2009 of having advocated for a housing bubble,[53] Krugman clarified that his earlier statement was economic analysis and not policy advocacy.[54] Economist Mark Thornton responded by listing a series of Krugman quotes [55] that show that Krugman recommended low interest rate policy in order to boost spending on housing and durable goods. [56]

In 2009, Krugman argued in an interview that another bubble should be formed in order to deal with the recession, saying "A new bubble now would help us out a lot even if we paid for it later. This is a really good time for a bubble. There was a headline in a satirical newspaper in the US last summer that said: 'The nation demands a new bubble to invest in' and that’s pretty much right." [58]"

-------------------------------

Without my contributions, the article is missing important information!!! Currently, the article is NOT EVEN CHRONOLOGICALLY CORRECT, as I detailed above.

The most shocking thing is that it seems that some Krugman Nazis are attempting to scrub any information off of the article that shows, WITH SOURCES, what Krugman has said regarding the 2002, IN HIS OWN WORDS! Plus, my edits to the talk pages are being deleted, so how can I even join in the discussion and show everybody why the article is flawed?? Please don't delete this talk page edit!! EconExpert (talk) 15:56, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I just learned that a user named LK identified my detailed journalism as "vandalism" and got rid of it. This user did not list any explanations. By reading my edits above, you will see that LK is horribly mistaken. His article change should be looked upon as vandalism, as he did not list any reasons, and obviously reverted to an incomplete, incorrect version of the article, as I have detailed above.

In short order, I will eliminate user LK's vandalism to my important edits. If there are objections, list them below after reading all of my comments. My proposed change is above and details EXACTLY what happened in the episode in perfect chronological order.

By the way, I read above that this is the second time that LK has gotten involved in an episode labeling somebody else's good-faith efforts as vandalism. "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Even harmful edits that are not explicitly made in bad faith are not vandalism." Because LK has done this multiple times, I can also assume that his change of my edits is vandalism. LK's change was definitely done in bad faith, because no reason was given, and he incorrectly listed it as vandalism.

Again, it most concerns me that some members here are obviously extremely biased. After all the journalism that has been produced, if they cannot acknowledge that Krugman advocated a bubble back in 2001-2002 and advocates a bubble now (as he himself admits to), then they should not be allowed to change this article. EconExpert (talk) 16:26, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I now see that user LK has made 4 edits to the main page, and has not discussed them on the talk page first. By his own standards, he is committing vandalism. This person is entirely out of control. He is only allowing his edits, and is guarding the page from even listing Krugman's own sources quotes! I will include my detailed writeup posted above shortly. EconExpert (talk) 16:35, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Kindly explain how this edit, "Hair of the Dog" [19], is not vandalism, and does not violate WP:BLP. LK (talk) 16:46, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you have read my previous comments. The citation that was previously there referred to a post that was made AFTER Krugman's clarification. It was not the original post that accused Krugman of advocating for a housing bubble. As such, it is a good faith correction. And it is correct. Please see my above comments on the chronology of the situation. I was fixing the chronology. Now the Mises blog post that it replaces was cited later in the correct spot in the chronology. If you had asked, I could have given you this answer before you reverted.

By the way, the only part of my edit that conflicted with previous writing was that citation, which was incorrect, and I corrected. Everything else I did was new. So why was everything deleted? Even if you were confused about my correction of the citation, surely you could have just edited or inquired about that one part and left everything else in place. I mean, I understand that you have a history of contributions to this and other articles, but I don't think anyone should be able to own a page.

Since I believe there were many websites that wrote about Krugman's 2002 quote, we could easily substitute a different source, if you have anything against Mises. However, the source that was originally there was plainly incorrect. EconExpert (talk) 17:39, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me for being too brusque before, I should explain better. You should read the policy on biographies of living persons (WP:BLP) as you seem unfamiliar with the policy. Wikipedia takes this policy seriously, poorly cited or uncited statements on BLPs are anathema. Undue weight given to praise and criticisms are also to be avoided. (WP:UNDUE)

I object to your edit, firstly because, this paragraph is sourced to a video documentary, which is not a reliable source WP:RS.

In 2009, Krugman argued in an interview that another bubble should be formed in order to deal with the recession, saying "A new bubble now would help us out a lot even if we paid for it later. This is a really good time for a bubble. There was a headline in a satirical newspaper in the US last summer that said: 'The nation demands a new bubble to invest in' and that’s pretty much right." is

Secondly, the edit gives undue weight to criticisms of Krugman from a single source, the Mises Institute blog, again not a reliable source. Given that their criticism was already mentioned in the same paragraph, and an article was already sourced from them, the inclusion of so much critical content from one, not particularly notable, source gives it undue weight, per WP:UNDUE.

Thirdly, the article that you changed the citation to, was also written after Krugman's clarification, the main difference is that it had a more insulting title. I have now replaced with an entry written before Krugman's clarification.

LK (talk) 18:13, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation.

1. It's a video of Krugman. How is Krugman talking not a good source of Krugman? According to WP:RS, "However, audio, video, and multimedia materials that have been recorded then broadcast, distributed, or archived by a reputable third-party may also meet the necessary criteria to be considered reliable source. Like text sources, media sources must be produced by a reliable third-party and be properly cited. Additionally, an archived copy of the media must exist. It is useful but by no means necessary for the archived copy to be accessible via the internet." Hence, a video of Krugman talking is okay. You cannot make the argument that Krugman writing is a good source, but Krugman talking is a bad source.

This MUST be included because of the incredible value it adds to the reader. It adds important information to the article, and it tells the reader what Krugman thinks US policy should be in the current downturn. Any reader will be much more knowledgable regarding Krugman's mindset and strategy for dealing with recessions after they read the quote. Isn't this the goal of the article?

2. There were only two links sourced to Mises Institute. One was the accusation of Krugman, which is currently on the page, but refers to the wrong article. Second is the list of quotes that Thornton collected, which is the primary source for a topic of discussion that rocketed around the internet. Also, this quote page is currently the citation for the accusation, and it's in Krugman's own words - they are his quotes. So in summary, I merely (mis)corrected the citation in one place, and reused the current incorrect citation in the proper place. In both the articles in question the bulk of the content is just Krugman's own quotes.

3. You are correct in that the one I switched it to was also written after Krugman's explanation. Good catch. We can switch the accusation citation over to Kling, or a different source, and then that would leave Thornton's quote list as the only Mises post.

Regarding Lilburne's articles on Mises, I think it can be put in the "critical" section at the bottom. That section even has random youtubes under "media". Lilburne's articles are official publications by a popular academic economic institution.

By the way, The Mises Institute is the number 8 economics website according to Alexa (http://www.alexa.com/topsites/category;0/Top/Science/Social_Sciences/Economics), and is the leading Austrian institution, and publishes Journals of Austrian Economics. In what way isn't the Mises Institute a "reliable source"? I mean, yes, they push Austrian Economics. But no institution is without its biases. I mean mainstream economics is biased against Austrian economics, does that mean publications by the institutions that publish those mainstream journals cannot be used? Heck, any mainstream newspaper has incredible bias. EconExpert (talk) 19:06, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Video is from RTVE, and it is a reliable source. -- Vision Thing -- 19:30, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

It seems that LK vandalized this section, as he usually does. It is reliable source, and is relevant because of all the controversies about whether he recommends new bubbles during busts. EconExpert (talk) 23:30, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that LK's edit can be described as vandalism, but I do think that Krugman's views on possible solutions to current crisis are relevant for the section. -- Vision Thing -- 09:00, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Joke about bubble from the Onion

Krugman makes thousands of TV appearences, says and writes hundreds of thousands of sentences. We should present from these, his representative, notable, views. His repeating a joke from the onion during an interview on a foreign TV station, is not representative and notable. As such it does not merit inclusion. The only reason I can see for people wanting to include it, is that they think it is somehow derogatory. FYI, mainstream economists do think that small bubbles, as long as they don't get out of control, do help pull economies out of recession. LK (talk) 05:07, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I have now just watched the entire video. I did not see this supposed quote from Krugman. In any case it is not representative, and not notable. It should not be in the article. LK (talk) 11:16, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

How can it be derogatory when it is representative of mainstream economics? So that addresses your 'representative' concern. As for notability, I think people will want to know about his recommended approach to the current recession. His comments appear in the video at 2:50, though a bit of Spanish may be necessary. EconExpert (talk) 17:50, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

You are being unnecessarily obtuse. Something is representative of Krugman's views if he repeats it several times in many places. If this is his only ever proposal for ending the crisis they would be notable, but his views on how to end the crisis can be better referenced from his extensive writings on the issue found in his blog, columns and other writings. I suggest that if you really want to improve Wikipedia, to read his extensive writings, and the many articles written about him in the mainstream press, and then craft a suitable summary, rather than cherry picking dud criticisms from attack sites, and trying to shoehorn them into this article. Trying to turn a BLP into an attack article is neither productive nor appropriate behavior. LK (talk) 18:12, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

LK, please remember to be civil towards other editors, and specially civil towards newcomers. -- Vision Thing -- 19:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah VT, good advice. I really must be more careful in the future. It is indeed my aspiration, and I hope that my edit histories show that I have always tried to be polite. I hope that in the future, you will also be as careful when dealing with editors on the other side. LK (talk) 06:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Krugman did repeat this several times. He repeated it in at least two of his articles and two blog entries. [20] [21] [22] [23] -- Vision Thing -- 19:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

What you say is indeed true, Krugman did repeat the joke several times. However, we should summurize and frame it as such. The way it was presented implied that he was advocating for the creation of a new bubble as his serious and sole recommendation for how to deal with the crisis. Also, we really should not reintroduce it until a reliable secondary source is found. Don't you think so? LK (talk) 06:42, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Like you said earlier, some economists do propose creation of bubbles as a solution for recessions. "The Onion" presented it as a joke but Krugman doesn't treat it as a joke which is evident from his writings and RTVE interview. -- Vision Thing -- 13:51, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe you are misrepresenting me there. When have I have suggested that a notable economist has seriously proposed creating a bubble as the primary response to a recession? I must be loosing my memory, point me at the relevant statement please. LK (talk) 14:14, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Because of this comment [24] I was under impression that you hold such position. -- Vision Thing -- 19:06, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, a lot of caveats there. Let me explain. It is true that a bubble at the right time can be helpful in a recession. However, it can lead to problems in the future, so, it will only be welfare improving if it pops right after the economy gets going. Additionally, government fiscal and monetary policy can also bring an economy out of a recession, so, the bubble will only be helpful if the government is otherwise not doing the right thing. Last caveat, we as economists, don't well understand how bubbles form, so we don't think that we can controllably create bubbles. So, to summarize, no economist would advocate creating bubbles in response to a recession since, i) you need them to pop at the right time or else it's worse, ii) expansionary fiscal and monetary policies do the same thing and are less dangerous, iii) policy makers cannot easily or controllably create one. LK (talk) 08:31, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

No offense, but to me it seems like you are backpedaling. Even so, Krugman in 2002 said: "To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of PIMCO put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble." [25] If we leave aside the question of whether Krugman supported such a prescription, he saw it as a viable solution to recession, and not a joke (in his own words it was a economic analysis). -- Vision Thing -- 11:42, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Use of Mises website articles in BLPs

See also WP:BLP/N#Paul Krugman

LK, my articles are not part of the Mises blog. They are "Daily Articles" which are part of the main Mises Institute web site. These articles are not posted by individual bloggers. Each article is edited and discussed between the author and the editors before being posted. Each article is planned several days in advance of posting.

Again, my second article[26] includes a detailed exegesis of Krugman's quote. It is highly relevant to a matter that is has been intensely discussed regarding Krugman. The quotes are a two-sided issue: "did he call for a bubble or not?" The article now presents one side's argument regarding the issue (Krugman's own explanation). In all fairness it ought to include the other side's argument as well. My article is currently the most complete statement of that side. By not including it, the Krugman article is currently very biased on the issue. I ardently hope you reconsider this matter. --Lilburne2 (talk) 21:19, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Since you are essentially accusing Krugman of causing the US financial crisis, let's not be too hasty. I suggest bringing it up at the BLP noticeboard and see what the people there think. What is there now is a simple statement that he was accused and a short summury of his response. We need to clarify if this is too little or too much. I'll post at the BLP noticeboard, and put a link back here. LK (talk) 21:28, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Lilburne2, Please refer to Wikipedia:Primary_sources#Primary,secondary and tertiary sources.

Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.

Our policy: Primary sources that have been reliably published (for example, by a university press or mainstream newspaper) may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge.

The articles at the Mises site do not unfortunately qualify as reliable secondary sources, because they are opinion pieces, they are not peer reviewed and the authors are not identified.

The Four Deuces (talk) 21:35, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

---

LK,

Good sir, regarding the statement, "Since you are essentially accusing Krugman of causing the US financial crisis", I must ask if you have read the articles in question, since the first one includes the following (emphasis added): "And what about his strawman protests that he didn't cause the housing bubble, much less the Enron scandal or Kennedy's assassination? The man is willfully missing the point. What is damning about these quotes is not that he necessarily caused anything. What is devastating about them is that they expose the intellectual bankruptcy of his economic principles."

Again, the quotes are an issue, not an argument in themselves. If the article only includes the quotes and Krugman's side of the argument regarding them, then it would not be balanced on the issue. Thank you, --Lilburne2 (talk) 21:42, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

---

The Four Deuces,

The textual exegesis and conclusion I reach through it in my article are no more "opinion" than any other such analysis is. What Krugman promoted in 2001-2002 is a question of fact. I carefully analyzed his words in order to come to a conclusion regarding that question of fact.

The author is identified. He is me. Lilburne is my name in regards to my writing career. I have written four articles under that name, and I will continue to write under that name. The only "identity" that is relevant to my writing is my other writing, and perhaps my profession which I disclose in my author bio. I don't see why any more information would be needed, when other authors who use the name that also happens to be on their driver's license aren't required to disclose personal information. Does Wikipedia have a policy against pen names? Would Cato's Letters or Mark Twain not have been cited by Wikipedia?

--Lilburne2 (talk) 22:02, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Lilburne2, please see Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Statements_of_opinion:

Some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements of fact. A prime example of this are Op-ed columns that are published in mainstream newspapers. When discussing what is said in such sources, it is important to directly attribute the material to its author, and to do so in the main text of the Wikipedia article so readers know that we are discussing someone's opinion.

There is, however, an important exception to sourcing statements of opinion: Never use self-published books, zines, websites, webforums, blogs and tweets as a source for material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the biographical material. "Self-published blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs (see: WP:BLP#Sources and WP:BLP#Using the subject as a self-published source).

I do not think that the policies/guidelines would allow inclusion of your text and have seen many disputes like this. That is no reflection on the Mises Institute or on your writing. (BTW I do not know what the policy on pen names would be.)

The Four Deuces (talk) 22:28, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

---

The Four Deuces,

I'm confused, which part of that policy quotation would preclude my articles?

Thanks, --Lilburne2 (talk) 22:34, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

It precludes Op-ed columns as reliable for statements of fact. It also says "Never use...websites as a source for material about a living person".

Here's a summary of the problem: Krugman's statements cannot be included without a secondary source to explain the context. An opinion editorial is only a reliable source for its author's views not as a secondary source to explain context. Because the editorial was published on a website and is about a person, it would not be allowed under BLP rules anyway.

If this issue is discussed at a BLP or RS forum, or if there is an RfC, I do not see how those objections could be overcome. You may disagree but I am just saying that those are the objections that would be made.

The Four Deuces (talk) 23:17, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

---

The Four Deuces,

Thank you for your response. Mises Institute articles are not billed as op-ed articles. They include, among other things, whole chapters of economics treatises. So the form cannot be construed as "op-ed". Neither can the content be construed so, since my textual analysis was not a mere expression of opinion; it was an exegesis, which argued from the words of a text toward a rational conclusion, just as any exegesis of Adam Smith's writings which tried to discover through textual analysis what he meant when he wrote something would.

And when you cite, "Never use...websites", that is a very pregnant ellipsis. The policy doesn't preclude all website articles, only self-published ones (for example, if the article was from my own personal blog). My articles were not self-published. Quite a purge would be called for, if every reference of any kind of web site regarding a living person on Wikipedia was not allowed.

Lilburne2 (talk) 23:57, 1 August 2009 (UTC) 23:42, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

So you think that an article on the Mises site is more reliable than an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (which is also not considered a WP:RS). I am merely saying that I think discussion will not support that view. Incidentally for another view of reliable sources, check out Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#NPOV dispute on Ron Paul article. What do you think of that? The Four Deuces (talk) 04:30, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

After reading the columns I concur with TFD's analysis and support the exclusion of those op-ed pieces (yes they are op-ed). --Cameron Scott (talk) 18:58, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

The Mises Institute is the leading Austrian institution, and publishes Journals of Austrian Economics. In what way isn't the Mises Institute a "reliable source"? I mean, yes, they push Austrian Economics. But no institution is without its biases. I mean mainstream economics is biased against Austrian economics, does that mean publications by the institutions that publish those mainstream journals cannot be used? EconExpert (talk) 23:32, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

In some instances refing the Mises Institute as a representative of a particular strain of opinion, as long as it is properly attributed ("According to the Mises Institute...") to illustrate that strain of opinion is ok. However, generally, they are regarded as Fringe for the purposes of general statements and hence, not a reliable source.radek (talk) 23:38, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

"Organizations and individuals that express views that are widely acknowledged by reliable sources as fringe, pseudo-academic,[3] or extremist may only be used as sources of information about those organisations or individuals."

Even the liberal New York Times' "Week in Review" considers the Austrians a non-fringe group: "While considered outside the mainstream, the Austrian School is far more respectable, counting in its ranks two Nobel Prize winners, Friedrich Hayek and James Buchanan. Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital — an adviser to the libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul and one of the most prominent doomsayers in the current collapse — also subscribes to its theories. Hayek is said to have successfully predicted the Great Depression and some Austrian School devotees are taking credit for calling this one. “The financial meltdown the economists of the Austrian School predicted has arrived,” Mr. Paul wrote in September, 11 days after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. In the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes displaced Hayek and the Austrian School in intellectual popularity, establishing his “general theory” as the economic bible of the postwar decades. The Austrian line of thought made something of a comeback in the Reagan years, but never quite gained acceptance in the economic fraternity, Mr. Colander says." - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/weekinreview/15crichton.html

Moreover, the list of notable Austrians is too long to count. Gene Epstein, economics editor of Barrons, James Grant of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, Jim Rogers and Marc Faber are complementary, Ron Paul, and the NY Times article listed the Nobel Prize Winners. Plus, the Austrians predicted the current downturn while the Keynesians and Monetarists were (mostly) left flat-footed. So, while they aren't considered mainstream, they aren't pseudo-academic. (In fact, Keynesians, who believe that wealth comes from a printing press and violate the parable of the broken window should, through the use of reason, be declared pseudo-scientific).

I propose that a single Lilburne article be introduced with a "According to the Mises Institute..." clarifier. Currently, only one side of the debate is represented - Krugmans.

EconExpert (talk) 00:02, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

This issue has been resolved WP:BLP/N#Paul Krugman on the BLP page. Scribner (talk) 01:28, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, please read the discussion. We cannot make the call that the Austrian economists present the correct view of economics (or any other school for that matter). The Four Deuces (talk) 02:41, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Welfare state in lead

This mention is too contentious for the lead of a BLP. Scribner (talk) 01:37, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd love to hear this argument, considering that George Will, Walter Williams, Jeffrey Miron, and Milton Friedman have conservative in their leads. More wiki bias. Keep in mind that it was placed in the lead by a Krugman supporter. EconExpert (talk) 03:07, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

We are discussing this article and leads should not contain ideological jargon. The Four Deuces (talk) 03:22, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I assume, then, it is your opinion that the aforementioned people's pages should have "conservative" removed? I am just curious as to the consistency of your position. EconExpert (talk) 03:28, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

My main objection is with the mention of Krugman "being a supporter of a welfare State" in the lead. There's a more neutral way to stating that Krugman is a liberal in the lead. Milton Friedman's also mentions "public intellectual" in the lead, which was removed from this BLP. Scribner (talk) 03:35, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Scribner, you have already agreed that Krugman shouldn't be described as an intellectual in the lead. [27] If you want to revisit that discussion please do, but in the meantime please don't reinsert it again. -- Vision Thing -- 08:55, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Milton Freedman's BLP mentions public intellectual in the lead, so should this BLP. Scribner (talk) 13:22, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Milton Friedman is not a LP. Also, is he for you measure of all things? -- Vision Thing -- 15:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

(out)Why is this in the lead:

Krugman has described himself as a liberal in the context to mean "more or less what social democratic means in Europe". Although he has on several occasions advocated free market solutions in contexts where they are unpopular, he has also declared himself an unabashed defender of the welfare state, which he regards as the most decent social arrangement yet devised. Would it not be simpler to say he is a modern American liberal?

The Four Deuces (talk) 14:49, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

2009 comments regarding recommendation for current recession

Vision Thing and myself believe that these comments should be in the article. They are important because they show Krugman's recommended approach to the current recession. This is something the reader will want to know. LK had an objection above regarding the source, but it appears that it is a reliable organization. EconExpert (talk) 17:42, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Please read the discussion at the BLP and RS noticeboards. It is definitely not a reliable source, especially for a BLP. The Four Deuces (talk) 17:56, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that you are referring to discussions about Mises.org, while EconExpert is referring to Krugman's interview with RTVE, which is definitely a reliable source. -- Vision Thing -- 19:13, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Both of these issues were discussed. RTVE provides a primary source, but a reliable secondary source is required to provide context in order to include it in the article. The Four Deuces (talk) 19:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Then the same standard should be applied to all Krugman's op-eds. Almost nothing in 'US economic policies' section is sourced to a reliable secondary source that provides context. -- Vision Thing -- 19:26, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, unless a reliable secondary source has mentioned it (eg. as was true for his Asian growth is a myth meme, his anti-Bush writings, his Greespan was resposible for the bubble musings, his Obama economic policy criticisms, his advocacy for a more equitable income distribution), the topic should not be raised in this article. If, and only if, the topic is deemed notable by secondary sources, should we then go back to Krugman's writings to carefully select representative statements about these issues. These should be representative and notable sentiments, ie. he should have repeated the same views a number of times. LK (talk) 19:59, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's what it says at Wikipedia:Primary_sources#Primary,secondary and tertiary sources:

Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.

Our policy: Primary sources that have been reliably published (for example, by a university press or mainstream newspaper) may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge.

So we can source his opinions directly to his writings if they need no interpretation. However they can be challenged if they need interpretation and then we need secondary sources to explain his views. (So it is much better to begin with reliable secondary sources in the first place.)

The Four Deuces (talk) 20:10, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, unless reliable secondary sources write about an issue, it should probably not be in the article (unless its totally uncontentious). In fact, we should probably go through the article, try to find secondary sources for all contentious issues, and if none are found, remove them from the article. Mining his writings for support can lead to bias and cherry picking. Since this is a BLP, we have to be especially careful about WP:UNDUE. LK (talk) 06:26, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Disagreement over how to describe his policy prescriptions for ending the 2001-2003 recession

Since VT and I cannot agree on the wording used to describe Krugman's policy prescriptions on how to end the 2001-2003 recession, I have removed the section. Do NOT add back until consensus is reached, that is edit warring. Note also that so far, no reliable secondary sources have been presented that talk about this issue. As such, I am inclined to wait for the secondary sources before reintroducing it. Note also, that reliable secondary sources have been cited about his argument with the Bush tax cuts. He has also written extensively on it (many more than the selection of his writings are already cited). Therefore, that section should stay in. LK (talk) 06:04, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and fixed it up. The only thing I didn't include was his preference for those stimulus mechanisms as being short term v. tax cuts as more long term. If someone can clarify this properly go for it. ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:48, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

You merely reverted to VTs version, and removed Krugman's justification for his policy prescription. Please don't reintroduce until there is a reliable secondary source showing that this topic is notable. LK (talk) 14:03, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Krugman's editorial in the New York Times is a reliable source and his prescriptions for dealing with the financial crisis are notable. Your refusal to collaborate by modifying and improving the content is troubling. It doesn't make any sense to exclude it completely as you've now suggested. ChildofMidnight (talk) 16:11, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

If it were notable then there would be reliable secondary sources that discussed it. Until those are found, it remains unnoteworthy and should be excluded. The Four Deuces (talk) 16:31, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay. Can we collaborate on removing other content that relies on primary sources? ChildofMidnight (talk) 16:38, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I think we can all agree with Jimbo here:

I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons

–Jimmy Wales

I think that this section from BLP establishes that it is fine to use his op-eds as sources. I think last sentence is particularly relevant. It says: "These provisions do not apply to subjects' autobiographies that have been published by reliable third-party publishing houses; these are treated as reliable sources, because they are not self-published." Since his op-eds are published by the New York Times I think the same logic applies to them also. Btw, note that even without last sentence we could still use his op-eds as long as the whole article is not based primarily on them. -- Vision Thing -- 19:02, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Child of Midnight that we should rely less on primary sources. Looking at the article the section "US economic policies" is based almost entirely on his own writings. That entire section should be re-written based on secondary sources. While I am not questioning the accuracy of the section, there is no way of determining if proper weight is given to his various opinions or whether any of them have changed. The Four Deuces (talk) 19:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Can someone restore the edits? Vision Thing seems to be the only one wanting to base large sections of the article on the author's own op-eds. I think secondary sources should be adequate for most of it, and that if there is particular content that requires an exception we should discuss it. There were also formatting improvements and streamlining that is now lost. ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I also prefer to use secondary sources, but as the BLP notes, his own writings are reliable sources for his views in his own article. -- Vision Thing -- 20:01, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, all his opinions in the section are currently attributed to a certain period so whether any of them have changed is not an issue. -- Vision Thing -- 20:05, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

One of the problems with writing an article based on an author's own writings is the difficulty in deciding which are notable. He's written lots of stuff, so we're best served leaving it up to authoritative sources to establish which ones are notable. If they are discussed elsewhere I think the primary source can be included, but otherwise it's difficult to establish that a particular part of a particular op-ed, or article, or book is worth including. If there is something you think is critical that isn't covered elsewhere, by all means propose it for consideration. ChildofMidnight (talk) 20:15, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I reversed VT's edits. VT has now written to me on my talk page why I reversed his insertion of: "According to The Economist, in 2003 Krugman was ranked as the second most partisan American political columnist, behind only Ann Coulter. The Economist concluded that Krugman gives lay readers the illusion that his personal political beliefs can somehow be derived empirically from economic theory."The Economist, Face Value: Paul Krugman, one-handed economist I followed the link and it says "What is beyond dispute is that Mr Krugman is the finest economist to become a media superstar—at least since Milton Friedman or, earlier, John Maynard Keynes turned to journalism. Mr Krugman's work on currency crises and international trade is widely admired by other economists". So obviously VT's reference lacks context. The Four Deuces (talk) 20:31, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

That section is followed with: "But, increasingly, people are asking whether Mr Krugman's success as a journalist is now coming at the expense of, rather than as the result of, his economics. For while he has had some journalistic coups during his time as a columnist—most notably in recognising, long before most other commentators, that market manipulation played a role in the California energy crisis—perhaps the most striking thing about his writing these days is not its economic rigour but its political partisanship." -- Vision Thing -- 08:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

American liberal economist vs American economist

Please state your views on qualifying American economist, for or against adding "liberal" to America economist

• Against Other economists, like Greenspan, Freedman, Keynes are not qualified in this manner on wiki. Qualifying these economists has been done more for the sake of brevity than accuracy. We contradict Krugman's "...advocated free market solutions..." when we pigeonhole him from the beginning to satisfy one editor's POV pushing. Scribner (talk) 23:54, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• Weakly For. Krugman has self described himself as "liberal" in his books. He is also known publicly for his political columns (Friedman was too to a certain extent). Maybe something like "American economist and liberal columnist" - but that's a bit awkward. Anyway, I don't think Paul would mind being called "liberal" at all.radek (talk) 02:05, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

(Hello Radeksz, The vote is for "American liberal economist" or "American economist".Scribner (talk) 02:09, 4 August 2009 (UTC))

I know. I was weakly voting for "American liberal economist" if that wasn't clear but I also took an opportunity to make an different suggestion.radek (talk) 02:22, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Radeksz, I hope you will reconsider per my argument below. LK (talk) 06:44, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• Clearly he's on the political left and discussed in many reliable sources as being liberal. What is the issue here? I'm confident that the persons mentioned above are described as free market advocates in their biographies, and if they aren't they should be. If there's a better descriptor than liberal, or a better way to phrase it, let's use it. Otherwise quit playing politics and let's try to be accurate. ChildofMidnight (talk) 02:12, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
• For. Economics is not like physics; there is a significant philosophical component. The American Liberal descriptor is accurate and noteworthy. The philosophies of other economists should be likewise described, if they are not already. AmateurEditor (talk) 02:49, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
• For. It is clearly relevant to economical theory, and Krugman has been quite clear on the matter. I don't see the big deal here--let us not pretend that economics is a hard science. Drmies (talk) 03:00, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
• Applying WP:BOLD, I just separated liberal and economist because of possible confusion with liberal economics, which could be libertarianism. (This is similar to Marxist historians not being the same as Marxist + historian.) Might this solve the problem? Mathsci (talk) 03:03, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I appreciate the gesture, but I can't say I like it--it makes it sound like 'liberal' is a profession of sorts. A very American edit, if I may say so. 75.76.162.50 (talk) 03:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Greenspan, Friedman and Keynes were also liberals. Can anyone name an economist who was not a liberal? The Four Deuces (talk) 03:27, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Not in the American sense. We use the term liberal to mean socialist which can be quite confusing for Aussies and Brits. I think the opening paragraphs could use a good reworking. A sentence explaining his economic philosophies and approaches would be a good place to include his political stance and would fit in well in the opening paragraph. As it is the article starts off with not much more than a whole lot of job descriptors and note of an award (and Al Gore got an even bigger one mind you!). ChildofMidnight (talk) 04:17, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• Strongly Against Economics is supposed to be divorced from politics. Saying he is a 'liberal' economist is essentially accusing him of violating professional ethics. Unjustified in a BLP. He can be described as a liberal, but not a liberal economist. LK (talk) 05:52, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying which is why I suggested "American economist and liberal columnist". The "weakly for" is mostly due to the fact that Krugman himself doesn't mind being described as "liberal economist".radek (talk) 11:05, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

There really isn't anything unethical about being a "Liberal Economist". He believes a set of political policies will have a certain economic impact, others disagree with him, and he tries to prove them wrong. I find the controversy here hard to understand. AmateurEditor (talk) 20:44, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• For. Why is everyone so precious about the term when Krugman himself doesn't appear to be. He is OK with the term liberal. There is no comment I've been able identify in my extensive research that indicates he ISN'T happy to be called a liberal economist. Perhaps he considers that his liberal views arise from his "objective" analysis of the "science" of economics? We don't know, but there is no evidence we can't call him that. - TimothyDon-HughMak (talk) 10:34, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment - TimothyDon-HughMak is an alias of banned User:Karmaisking, see his entry in Long Term Abuse. LK (talk) 08:18, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
• For. Krugman wrote a book on an economic issue called The Conscience of a Liberal and he writes a blog of the same name. He is called "liberal economist" by other economists and by the New York Times. -- Vision Thing -- 13:33, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
• Strongly against There are various schools of economics and I wonder if Krugman is identified with one of them? The term liberal is confusing because modern economists that have any influence with government are all liberals. (BTW Child of Midnight Krugman's economic theory is liberal, even though it departs from classical liberal theory.) The Four Deuces (talk) 14:16, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• For. Some may think that economics is supposed to be divorced from politics, but it is not obviously and never has been. Is saying he is a 'liberal' economist, essentially accusing him of violating professional ethics? No, because obviously the political/economic system walk down the road together, hand in hand, and always have historically. He can be described as a liberal, and a liberal economist, because obviously this is what he is. It more than passes the Duck test for that, and just adds more descriptive accurate information to the article. Really to suggest there is that much difference between a Greenspan or a Krugman as to the big picture of liberals or conservatives I think miss's the mark anyway. Both are stick in the mud mainstream, as in uncreative (my opinon). skip sievert (talk) 19:31, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

• Against. Krugman is most notable as an economist for his contributions in New Trade Theory. These are not "liberal" or "conservative" theories in any sense of the terms. Most of his other work as an economist (ie his academic publication record) is essentially non-ideological as well. I don't have a problem with "economist and liberal columnist" or words to that effect. Gruntler (talk) 20:53, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

• Against per Grunter and previous against commentators. Gamaliel (talk) 21:01, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Bias in Lead Section

There is no reason to bloat the lead with all kinds of statements attributed to Krugman that would be upsetting to American conservatives. User:Mathsci added Although he has on several occasions advocated free market solutions in contexts where they are unpopular, he has also declared himself an unabashed defender of the welfare state, which he regards as the most decent social arrangement yet devised.Incidents From My Career The statement of course is taken out of context. It is contained in a paragraph that says, among other things It was, in a way, strange for me to be part of the Reagan Administration....But the summer of 1982 was a moment of near-panic among the Reaganauts, as the recession and the debt crisis seemed to threaten catastrophe. They not only hired Feldstein, they gave him the freedom to bring in a politically incorrect team of whiz-kids (which included Larry Summers and Greg Mankiw) in the hope that he could turn things around.

Incidentally the sentence also violates WP:SYN by implying that there is an anomaly in supporting both free markets and the welfare state.

The irony is that there are criticisms of the policies that Krugman advocates, both from the Left and from neoliberals. But turning this article into an attack page will not help readers understand the issues.

The Four Deuces (talk) 22:32, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the sentence which I reinstated is better split in two. Were the two parts not in fact fairly precise summaries of what appears in the section "Political views"? Mathsci (talk) 23:30, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

It's weakly sourced and unclear. It's best left out all together. If someone wants to expand the lead with clear summaries of what's in the article I think there's room for a couple of well written sentences on his basic principles and world view. ChildofMidnight (talk) 01:44, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The lead should describe his position on economics. I do not know how they are best described. LK should be able to answer that. But the phrasing is important. It should not imply that his main concern is that people get welfare. It also implies that his views are somehow different from neoliberal economists, but they also support the welfare state. The only people who oppose the welfare state are libertarians in the United States. So basically the entry underscores the fact that Krugman is not an American libertarian. But American libertarianism is not the goalpost by which economists or anyone else should be evaluated. Readers should be able to pick up on the fact that Krugman is not an American libertarian without his comments on welfare. The Four Deuces (talk) 03:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

As he writes for major newspapers and other publications on political issues his views on those subjects are also relevant. There are many schools of thought beside libertarians that oppose a welfare state. ChildofMidnight (talk) 04:36, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Can you name any mainstream economists other than libertarians who advocate abolishing the welfare state? The Four Deuces (talk) 09:09, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Can we source from his own website? That will give what he himself thinks is important. Also, we can check what other tertiary sources say about him. Also, don't forgot the rule, that the lead should summarize the article. First we should make sure that the article is well sourced and balanced, then we should craft a suitable summury from the article, and put in the lead material from the article, according to the weight therein. LK (talk) 07:14, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I agree with LK. At the moement Krugman's statements from his Princeton website are used in the article. The use of good secondary academic sources (eg reviews of his books from economics journals) in the Political Views section could be improved and then the material summarised in the lede (if deemed appropriate). The sentence removed (not written by me), like the statement about being a liberal, was just a summary of two paragraphs in the section on Political views. The lede is always intended to be a summary of an article. Arguing about sentences like this in the lede without reference to the original material in the main body which they summarise seems unhelpful. This is a BLP about an academic economist, not a political think tank.

BTW I wonder whether an economist could help improve James Meade, another article about a Nobel laureate in economics, little more than a stub at the moment. I added two sources containing quite a lot of material (eg about his involvement with the Eugenics Society, his refusal of a knighthood, etc). The only other economist bio that I'm experienced with is Robert Hall, Baron Roberthall, which I created. Mathsci (talk) 07:59, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

<outdent>Yes, summarizing existing content sounds good. My own opinion is that primary sources are best avoided unless there's something we need to source that way. The sections of the article are:

Biography

Academic career

.1 International trade theory

.2 Economic geography

.3 International finance

.4 Nobel Memorial Prize

Author and journalist

.1 Income distribution

.2 East Asian growth

.3 US economic policies

Political views

Awards

Published works

.1 Academic books (authored or coauthored)

.2 Academic books (edited or coedited)

.3 Economics textbooks

.4 Books for a general audience

.5 Selected academic articles

if that helps indicate topics that need covering in the opening paragraphs. ChildofMidnight (talk) 07:42, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Bush and Greespan criticism vs Obama criticism

Visionthing has removed all mention of Krugman's extensive criticisms of Bush and Greenspan, while leaving in mention of the criticisms of Obama.[28] The Bush and Greenspan criticism was externally sourced from secondary sources. I believe this excision makes the article unbalanced – something to be avoided for BLPs – as it makes it seem that Krugman has made no criticisms of Republicans, only of Democrats. I look forward to VT's explanation for why he did this. LK (talk) 09:21, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Vision Thing should familiarize himself with WP:NPOV and WP:BLP. The purpose of these articles is not to be a forum for expressing ones own views about a subject but to provide information in an unbiased way. These edits are tendentious and clearly against WP policy. Could VT kindly explain these edits. The Four Deuces (talk) 09:47, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

In my edit I followed reasoning proposed by you, LK and ChildofMidnight in this section. In particular you said: "If it [Krugman's editorials in the New York Times] were notable then there would be reliable secondary sources that discussed it. Until those are found, it remains unnoteworthy and should be excluded." The Bush and Greenspan criticism were sourced only to Krugman's own writings and to "The Daily of the University of Washington", which is no more RS for BLP than Mises.org. On the other hand, criticism of Obama is sourced to a reliable secondary source (Newsweek). -- Vision Thing -- 11:27, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe you inpunge the reputation of a fine newspaper there. On the main point, your contention that the criticisms of Bush and Greenspan were only sourced to Krugman is incorrect. Apart from The Daily,

• Lehrke, Dylan Lee (2003-10-9). "Krugman blasts Bush". The Daily of the University of Washington (dailyuw.com). http://dailyuw.com/2003/10/9/krugman-blasts-bush/. Retrieved on 2009-08-01.

These other external citations were also there:

• Dana, Will (2003-03-23). "Voodoo Economics". Rolling Stone (rollingstone.com).
• Lerer, Lisa (2008-03-28). "McCain guru linked to subprime crisis". Politico. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9246.html. Retrieved on 2009-06-24.

LK (talk) 11:48, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

First source is a Krugman interview, so it is no different than his op-eds, and second source doesn't mention Krugman. -- Vision Thing -- 11:50, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, a Krugman interview (actually an article on Krugman, check it out here) doesn't count as a secondary source? Interesting argument. However, a simple cursory search on Google News for 'krugman criticism greenspan'[29] and 'krugman criticism bush tax'[30] or even 'krugman greenspan bush tax cut'[31] brings up a pleathora of news articles. Or don't you think you should make any effort before seriously unbalancing a BLP? LK (talk) 11:57, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I balanced this article after you and The Four Deuces unbalanced it with selective deletions. [32] [33] [34] For example, a simple search on Google News for 'Krugman enron' [35] brings more than enough sources for section which you deleted without a second thought because it "has no secondary sources at all". -- Vision Thing -- 12:18, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, the 'And you are lynching Negroes' ad hominem defense. However, I hope you can see the difference between:

i) The removal of only criticisms about one political party, leaving criticisms of the the other side in, unbalancing the article, especially when the removed criticisms had 3 secondary sources, and more than 10 citations in total, and

ii) the removal of a minor issue given too much weight, with no secondary sources and 3 primary citations all to Krugman's own writings.

LK (talk) 13:31, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Interesting, VT has just again reverted to his preferred unbalanced version. Even though he knows it is contentious, it's unbalanced nature noted, and the external sources have been pointed out to him. This was done with the justification 'The Daily' is not a reliable source. BTW, VT, how do you know that it is not? Have you brought this up at WP:BLPN or WP:RSN, or is this you unilateral judgment? Please do explain. LK (talk) 13:37, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

(out)Vision Thing put the following in the lead: Ideologically, Krugman is a European Social Democrat. The sources for this are: Ideologically, Krugman is a European Social Democrat. in a Newsweek Op-ed.[36] and a speech where he says that he is a liberal and that liberalism in the US means more or less what social democratic means in Europe.[37]

The first source is an op-ed which is only reliable as a source of the authors' opinions. In fact even if were a reliable source (e.g., a learned paper) then it would have to be included as an opinion. The other source is unacceptable as a primary source and because it does not support the insertion except through synthesising statements made by Krugman (see WP:SYN). There is an element of nativism in the statement too.

We have discussed WP policy at length now in several forums. I note also that Vision Thing has been engaged in similar disputes in the articles Fascism, National socialism, Nazism, neofascism, and neonazism.

I suggest we set up a Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct: This process is for discussing specific users who may have violated Wikipedia policies and guidelines....This may be done if "at least two editors must have contacted the user on their talk page, or the talk pages involved in the dispute, and tried but failed to resolve the problem."

If another editor who has tried to resolve this dispute with Vision Thing agrees I will set up an RfC/U.

The Four Deuces (talk) 15:29, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

• Let's all slow down with the attacks. First of all there is still "Taken as a whole, it was a scathing attack on the Bush's administration's economic and foreign policies. His main argument was that the large deficits generated by the Bush administration—generated by decreasing taxes, increasing public spending, and fighting a war in Iraq — were in the long run unsustainable, and would eventually generate a major economic crisis. The book was a best-seller.[35][36][37]" If additional details are needed about his criticisms of Bush and Greenspan then all that is needed is a good source which I don't think should be hard to find. If one can't be found then perhaps a proposal to use some of his op-eds for a particular statement can be made. There is not much criticism of Obama either, one sentence. I think it could actually be clarified also, noting that Krugman's opposition is because he wants stronger government intervention including aggressive regulation of the banks. But I haven't looked at the source we're using or for other sources. ChildofMidnight (talk) 15:49, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

---

Please tag as dubious any content before cleansing. There's nothing in the article that's objectionable enough to remove. Scribner (talk) 16:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Addition of Op-Ed cited defamatory information

This edit is a strict violation of WP:BLP. If it wasn't defamatory, I'd leave it in and talk it over. Scribner (talk) 18:29, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Fine, I will do that as long as you do the same. I will restore all deleted content from last few days. Please don't delete it unless discussion at WP:BLPN or WP:RSN establishes that sources supporting it are not appropriate for BLP. -- Vision Thing -- 17:30, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

It violates WP:BLP to include that material. All of these issues were discussed with the housing bubble. The Four Deuces (talk) 18:48, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

If Krugman's op-eds are included why is it a violation to include an op-ed opinion from the Economist? ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:10, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

CoM, in answer to your question, a self-published source is RS about the person him/herself, but should not be used as sources for other issues, especially the BLP of other people. See WP:SELFPUB LK (talk) 05:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

The edit is defamatory. Violates WP:BLP and WP:Verify. Again, I'd leave it in and talk it over if this wasn't a BLP. Scribner (talk) 19:27, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons

–Jimmy Wales

Op-Ed material used to cite defamatory/negative material of BLP

There's confussion and disagreement over whether this edit from an Op-Ed violates WP:BLP and WP:Verify since the material is defamatory. Request comment. —Scribner (via posting script) 19:39, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see how this qualifies. Quoting the Economist is merely factually reporting a derogatory comment, and the Economist is pretty solidly RS. I have problems with where it is placed - it should be integrated with other criticism (where's the stuff on "shrill", for example?) - but I don't see any BLP reason to omit it. Gamaliel (talk) 19:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so Op-Ed material that defames is suitable for a BLP? BTW, the criticisms were integrated into the article, just like the vast majority of BLP's on Wiki. Scribner (talk) 19:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

BLP is about removing unsourced or poorly sourced material, not about removing unflattering facts taken from reliable sources. We do not make attacks, but we do report on attacks. I don't think the material is properly integrated, there's just a grabbag of stuff stuck at the end of the "author" section. I'll see what I can do about fixing it up later today. Gamaliel (talk) 20:03, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Please make clear that you realize this is an Opinion Editorial we are using to cite this claim. Thanks! Scribner (talk) 20:05, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Of course. And I think the opinion of a world-renowned publication the Economist is certainly notable and worth reporting, probably more worthy than a single paper by Daniel Klein, a single column by Daniel Okrent, or the rantings of a man Krugman characterizes as his stalker, Donald Luskin, all of which are opinions and editorials that are quoted in the article. Gamaliel (talk) 20:11, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Aside from BLP and RS problems the passage is unbalanced in presenting the story. VT leaves out '"What is beyond dispute is that Mr Krugman is the finest economist to become a media superstar—at least since Milton Friedman or, earlier, John Maynard Keynes turned to journalism. Mr Krugman's work on currency crises and international trade is widely admired by other economists". Instead he puts in "According to The Economist, in 2003 Krugman was ranked as the second most partisan American political columnist, behind only Ann Coulter. The Economist concluded that Krugman gives lay readers the illusion that his personal political beliefs can somehow be derived empirically from economic theory."The Economist, Face Value: Paul Krugman, one-handed economist

What was this "ranking" by the Economist? This article in the Economist was not an article about ranking political economists. What does it say in the article about the ranking of political columnists?

The Four Deuces (talk) 20:09, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I speak only of the Economist quote. Should the article include more praise? Certainly. Does it lean too much towards criticism? Certainly. Let's fix it. Gamaliel (talk) 20:11, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

What needs to be clarified is if Opinion Editorials may be used in BLP's to cite defamatory or negative material. The Economist quote is from an Op-Ed. Scribner (talk) 20:14, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

How is the Economist any different from Luskin, Klein, or Okrent? Gamaliel (talk) 21:11, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

This content was previously in 'Criticisms' section, but consensus was achieved that criticisms should be dispersed through out the article (on Scribner's suggestion) [38]. Also, same The Economist article is already used to support two claims in this article. -- Vision Thing -- 08:23, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

(out)They should not be used. But could VT please provide the exact quote that backs up the statement: According to The Economist, in 2003 Krugman was ranked as the second most partisan American political columnist, behind only Ann Coulter? The Four Deuces (talk) 20:31, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Although I do not have access to the complete Economist op-ed, it appears that it was quoting the Lying in Ponds ranking given by Mark Perry (economist) in his blog, Carpe Diem.[39] While the Economist may have quoted his blog there is no reason to conclude that the writers agreed with him, that their views represented that of the Economist or that the Economist had ranked them. The Four Deuces (talk) 20:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

If Op-Eds aren't suitable then we need to remove them across the board. The content is clearly not defamatory and the hysterical and false claims that criticisms isn't allowed in the article are not constructive and violate wp:npov. Whether the statement is suitable or needs tweaking is another issue. I think the point being made is that Krugman is highly partisan. That seems to be significant and worth including as it is also supported by the Newsweek article. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:19, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Using the Economist to declare Krugman partisan would be out of bounds. Reporting that the Economist said he was partisan seems reasonable. Gamaliel (talk) 21:24, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

(out) I have posted this issue to WP:BLP/N#Paul Krugman (again). The Four Deuces (talk) 22:34, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Don't include this. Think about the way that this should be properly attributed (if it weren't a BLP). Should it be cited to the Economist? No, they are reporting what a blog (one that I like actually) said. So should it be cited to the blog? Well, yes, but that runs into the BLP and the RS policy, blogs not being enough in this case.radek (talk) 23:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay I've read the piece and I feel that the citation is being abused in an inappropriate and non-neutral manner. For one, the edit ignored any praise from the Economist nor did it place the information it cherry picked in context. It also gives the misleading impression it was the Economist that did the ranking, and not the website Lyinginponds. Nor did the editor bother to check Lyinginponds to see that the rating had changed, which it had. To cherry pick a single year (Krugman was 7 in 2008, for example) is inappropriate. However, I do think, that used properly and placed in the proper context, material from the Economist or cited by the Economist (LIP rankings) is entirely appropriate, well within the bounds of WP rules, and is more suitable and appropriate than some of the material already in the article. Gamaliel (talk) 23:26, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The Economist's op-ed is a reliable source for the opinions of its writers. (I do not think that the op-ed necessarily represented the views of the magazine itself.) However, it is not a reliable source for factual information, including the Lying in Ponds rating. And it is wholly inappropriate to cherry pick negative reviews or negative comments in balanced reviews to present an overall unbalanced commentary. The Four Deuces (talk) 23:47, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Why is the Economist unreliable for factual information? It's one of the foremost publications of the English speaking world? If anything meets RS, it's this. Gamaliel (talk) 23:49, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

There seem to be quite a few sources talking about Krugman and his writings as being partisan. It seems reasonable to note his involvement in political issues as such. Ann Coulter's article, as an example, says she is "well-known for her conservative political opinions and the controversial ways in which she defends them." I think an accurate sentence describing Krugman as someone who is widely viewed as a an outspoken partisan who advocates liberal policies and us a fervent critic of conservative ideology would be a fair, helpful and accurate depiction capturing a significant aspect of his encyclopedic significance. He also seems to describe himself this way, so I don't see what the big deal is. ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:55, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Gamaliel, please see Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Statements_of_opinion:

Some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements of fact. A prime example of this are Op-ed columns that are published in mainstream newspapers. When discussing what is said in such sources, it is important to directly attribute the material to its author, and to do so in the main text of the Wikipedia article so readers know that we are discussing someone's opinion.

While The Economist is a reliable source, its op-eds are not reliable sources for facts. The Four Deuces (talk) 00:02, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but an Economist op-ed is a reliable source for stating what the Economist ran an in an op-ed. I think the point is that reliable neutral sources would be best. We're tripping up over op-eds as sources because they tend to be opinionated and so are best avoided. But for a partisan figure in a partisan country with a partisan media, finding good sources that are neutral is sometimes easier said than done. We give a lot a room to Krugman's views, so including those of his peers doesn't seem inappropriate to me. I also don't think it's controversial that he's partisan, and I'm flexible on how that's worded and treated in the body. I think the weight given his politics in the opening paragraphs is quite adequate at this point. ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:25, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

All of this originated from this website. The Economist entry isn't even current as to Krugman's partisanship rating. So, we're to trust a six year old Op-Ed's mention of an obscure website's methodology. Ridiculous conservative smear. Scribner (talk) 00:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

This is absolutely an abuse of policy. Take note of who's pushing this inclusion. Scribner (talk) 00:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Whether he is ranked first or fourth or seventh or whatever, he is consistently ranked as a leading partisan and not just in that source, but in many others as well. I'm not sure what you're getting so worked up over. We use the same source to cite information on how hard it is to win one of his prizes. Are you suggesting that Krugman is a non-partisan economist? This seems kind of ridiculous to me. We already discuss his criticisms of the Bush administration and his criticisms of the Obama administration (from the left!). And he himself talks about his partisanship and the need to go after conservatives. I suggest we keep focused on how to word things and on finding the best sources we can.ChildofMidnight (talk) 00:38, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Please remember WP:AGF and let's keep things cool and civil. Discuss content, not personalities. Gamaliel (talk) 01:03, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

The Economist is a reliable source, period. Opinions are only good for noting the opinion of the author, but facts are perfectly reliable. One of the world's most noted publications doesn't suddenly turn into a libel machine depending on what section a piece is placed in. Also note that the piece is in the business section, not op-ed. Gamaliel (talk) 01:03, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

• Quote that supports first sentence is: "But, increasingly, people are asking whether Mr Krugman's success as a journalist is now coming at the expense of, rather than as the result of, his economics. For while he has had some journalistic coups during his time as a columnist—most notably in recognising, long before most other commentators, that market manipulation played a role in the California energy crisis—perhaps the most striking thing about his writing these days is not its economic rigour but its political partisanship. Lyinginponds.com, a website that tracks partisanship among American political columnists, rates Mr Krugman second in the overall partisan slant of his columns, behind only Ann Coulter, a fiercely (and often incoherently) conservative polemicist. As the site documents exhaustively, the vast majority of Mr Krugman's columns feature attacks on Republicans; almost none criticise Democrats. Unsurprisingly, this has made him a sort of ivory-tower folk-hero of the American left—a thinking person's Michael Moore."
• Quote that supports second sentence is: "Even his economics is sometimes stretched. A recent piece accused conservatives of embracing the “lump of labour fallacy”, the mistaken claim that there is a fixed quantity of work which governments must strive to allocate equitably. In fact, the paper he cited did not commit the lump of labour fallacy. He used game theory to argue that, by criticising North Korea but not attacking it, and then going after Iraq instead, Mr Bush is “probably” encouraging North Korea to become a more dangerous nuclear power. This probably did not convince most game theorists. Overall, the effect is to give lay readers the illusion that Mr Krugman's perfectly respectable personal political beliefs can somehow be derived empirically from economic theory." -- Vision Thing -- 08:28, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Even though it is true that Lyinginponds.com publishes rankings for every year, as far as I know 2003 was only year that its Krugman rankings were reported by reliable source. While it would violate BLP to mention Lyinginponds.com ranking for any other year, to mention them for 2003 doesn't violates BLP since they were reported in an article on Krugman by The Economist. Also, The Economist itself labels Krugman as a "thinking person's Michael Moore". -- Vision Thing -- 08:47, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

It would violate NPOV to cherry pick a single year of rankings that make Krugman look a certain way. Gamaliel (talk) 14:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Krugman finished 1st in 2002, 2nd in 2004, 1st in 2005, 2nd in 2006, 3rd in 2007 and 1st in 2008 so this is not a case of cherry picking a certain year to make Krugman look bad. -- Vision Thing -- 16:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

And 7th in 2009, but you left that out. There is also cherry picking, certainly, in the way the Economist is/was being used in the article. Gamaliel (talk) 17:11, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Lyinginponds is a blog, and its methodology is suspect. Claims that Krugman is partisan can be sourced better than that I'm sure. Rd232 ^talk 17:18, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Instead of getting to a dispute about the significance and methodology of these rankings, we should probably do exactly what your second sentence suggests, drop the matter of these probably not very significant rankings and use some of the many, many other sources that criticize Krugman. Gamaliel (talk) 17:29, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Fine by me. Rd232 ^talk 18:08, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

2009 is not over, and even if was it wouldn't affect the overall average by much. As for "cherry picking" claims from The Economist, WP:NPOV "requires that where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic, each must be presented fairly." While perspective that Krugman is an excellent economists and columnist is already presented in the article, perspective that he is a partisan columnist is not. -- Vision Thing -- 19:26, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

And the 2008 numbers are clearly marked as "incomplete" on LiP, but you had no problem citing them. If you look at my other comments, you'll see I have clearly advocated including criticism of Krugman in the article, including specificly criticism from the Economist. So that's obviously a straw man. What I did clearly object to was the inappropriate use ("cherry picking") of the Economist as it was used in the article. If you genuinely want to craft an NPOV article, then you will work with other editors do to so instead of fighting to include a clearly inappropriate passage. Gamaliel (talk) 19:36, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

From discussion it seems that mention of Ann Coulter is most problematic for some. In the latest version I removed reference to her. -- Vision Thing -- 19:41, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

(out) Please note that The Economist article was about the column that he wrote. I am not commenting about whether he is a non-partisan economist. Partisan by the way refers to supporting a political party, not to supporting a political position. Is he a partisan Democratic economist or a non-partisan American liberal economist? In other words does he develop economic writings in order to justify Democratic Party policies, whatever they are, or is he guided by a belief system? Both cannot be true.

I still have trouble with the lead saying Krugman is politically liberal and describes himself as a European Social Democrat. It sounds like code for he is unamerican, and gives a nativist slant to the article. And of course he did not say he was a European Social Democrat, and there are no reliable sources that say he was. There is no European Social Democratic Party in the United States any more than there is an American Democratic or American Republican Party in Europe. So this should be removed and I will be happy to post it to the WP:BLP/Noticeboard.

The Four Deuces (talk) 00:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that phrasing is unjustified. No where does he say 'I am a European social democrat'. Instead he says, "liberal, meaning more or less what social democratic means in European". I suggest rephrasing as

Krugman describes himself as a 'liberal', meaning "more or less what social democratic means in Europe". LK (talk) 05:47, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

ChildofMidnight asks whether Paul Krugman is a "non-partisan economist". By trying to qualify the word "economist", Krugman's academic profession, there seems to be an attempt to refer to Krugman in a non-neutral, possibly disparaging, way. The word Keynesian or neo-Keynesian can be used in a standard way to qualify the word "economist", but not "non-partisan". Editors should be extremely careful not to blur the line between Krugman's considerable academic achievements and how his opinion columns are received in the popular press. The distinguished academic David Mumford has donated the money award of his Wolf prize to a university in Palestine. Yet the first sentence of the lede of his BLP could not be changed to "David Bryant Mumford (born 11 June 1937) is a pro-Palestinian mathematician known for distinguished work in algebraic geometry, and then for research into vision and pattern theory."

In the same way, I think that all mention of political stance could be removed from the lede. As written at the moment, quite out of context, it seems unduly prominent and possibly misleading. LK's phrasing is fine, but as a comment in the main body of the article. Mathsci (talk) 05:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Your opinion seems to derive from personal opinion. But the reliable sources, the body of Krugman's work, and his prominent role as an outspoken critic of the Bush administration and conservative ideas in general suggests that it cannot be equated to a donation by a mathematician. Krugman's fame, his writings, and his speeches are political. We need to be fair and accurate in describing that work. ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:46, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I am familiar with his academic work as an economist. It is not 'liberal' or 'partisan' or 'socialist', it is just good innovative economics. If you want to qualify him as a 'liberal economist', I would suggest finding multiple reliable neutral sources that qualify him in that particular way. I'm sure that many more reliable neutral sources describe him as a 'prominent economist' or a 'neo-keynsian economist' or a 'nobel prize winning economist'. Lets do a search in google scholar to see which epithet is most common. I very much doubt that Krugman himself would describe himself so, does anyone have a quote where he says "I am a liberal economist"? Reliable sources are needed before labeling someone as a 'liberal economist'. LK (talk) 09:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

The source is reliable, and the opinion, as such, is certainly well within WP guidelines, It makes no scurrilous charges or contentious charges suited for a tabloid, hence is proper. The use of "liberal" refers specifically to his political op-ed writing for the NYT, hence has little to do with any academic credentials at all. Were he to stick with writing on economics, the claim that it is not relevant might come into play, but he clearly has become well-known as a political columnist, hence his position as such is relevant indeed. Collect (talk) 10:40, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

His liberal writings are as a columnist and popular writer, as such it should read liberal columnist, not liberal economist. LK (talk) 10:46, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps that should be explained to the NYT then <g>? F'rinstance -- the title of his own NYT blog is "Conscience of a Liberal" which seems to suggest that Krugman wears the title proudly. [40] As he, himself, uses the term, it is not for us to claim that it is in any way improper for that fact to be noted in his BLP. The material in question is not contentious, and is RS, which is all that editors should be concerned with here. Collect (talk) 11:42, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

The title of his blog has nothing to do with his academic work. Gamaliel (talk) 14:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the Economist para which Vision Thing reinserted. As discussed above, the para cherrypicks a rating created by a blog for one year as if it had been created by the Economist. It also reports Economist editorial opinion without sufficient context to make sense of it; the selective reporting (quotation?) makes that sentence on its own merely defamatory, whereas properly contextualised (entire quote is somewhere above in this section) it becomes clear that this is valid opinion about two (2) columns. WP:UNDUE much? Rd232 ^talk 13:47, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

PS The "second most partisan" rating for 2003 seems to derive from the fact that Krugman that year primarily criticised Republicans. This is a ludicrous measure. Under a Republican President and a rudderless Democratic opposition, what exactly should he have been doing? Rd232 ^talk 13:51, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I am familiar with his academic work as an economist. It is not 'liberal' or 'partisan' or 'socialist', it is just good innovative economics. end quote L.K. - Really that is kind of funny. He only seems that way as a pov. and mostly only in a 'if you believe the premise the rest is easy' kind of way. I would view Krugman as a throwback to the ancient world and then Adam Smith pre technology thinking, and not worth the time of day for serious study in 2009 (my opinion). - Under a Republican President and a rudderless Democratic opposition, what exactly should he have been doing? end quote.. User:Rd232. Is that a rhetorical question ?? and does it have any meaning here as to the actual debate? There is no difference between repubs. and dems. Both are plugged into the identical same aspects of economic thought. Obviously Krugman is a so called liberal (Duck test) Majority of editors (two-thirds) already supported "American liberal economist". It beats me how this is controversial and looks settled a while back. The other controversial material is reliable and also is not just putting him down... it is also praising him. It makes the article more well rounded so could be included. Lets not turn the article into a Krugman fansite.. but just give information in a creative well rounded and over view way. skip sievert (talk) 15:40, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk pages are not a recognised medium for creating subdisciplines of economics. "liberal economics" does not exist. Rd232 ^talk 17:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

The content sourced to The Economist as one of the purposes had balancing of that section. It came right after claim sourced to op-ed from the leftist The Washington Monthly about how Krugman is "the most important political columnist in America" and how "he is almost alone in analyzing the most important story in politics in recent years". I find it interesting how editors objecting The Economist as a source find this perfectly objective and in line with BLP. -- Vision Thing -- 16:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Find something else to "balance" then. The disputed para is junk. Rd232 ^talk 17:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Its not junk and I find your edit summary to be very lacking in viable reasoning [41] Rd232 (talk | contribs)

(undo - for the love of God, this is not acceptable, and per WP:BLP at least don't reinsert whil eunder active discussion)... end quote. That fails any test for an edit summary. Your opinion is that you do not accept it. Do not present that as truth giver please. The edit seems fine and balances out the article information.

Do you really want to bring the love of god into this? That is not really even funny.

Also... Wikipedia talk pages are not a recognised medium for creating subdisciplines of economics. "liberal economics" does not exist. Rd232 Are you referring to the edit in the article? If you are you are wrong. Those words are not connected they are going to different articles. You apparently are connecting them in a way not intended. Both words have meanings. Not connected except as to broader information... so your premise is incorrect. - skip sievert (talk) 17:27, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

The edit summary clearly referred to what was said previously in the ongoing discussion. The para is junk for the reasons discussed above. It is irrelevant that the links go to different places, and disengenuous to imply that the rules of English grammar are suspended by wikilinks. "liberal" is not an appropriate adjective for "economist". Rd232 ^talk 18:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

By comparison, there's considerable negative Op-ed material available on Greenspan and Phil Gramm. So one could easily abuse Wiki's policies allowing Op-ed content to smear those articles as well. I'd fight against it just as vigorously as I have here because it diminishes not enhances the value of the article as an encyclopedic entry. Scribner (talk) 17:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Your assuming the material is a smear which it is not..., so Loaded question or statement on your part Scribner,, and saying you are fighting is not really a good approach. The edit does not diminish things it makes things broader and more interesting hence more creative presentation. It is just information and information that gives a broader view. Fan site editing on the article makes the article less interesting. True believers maybe could take a break and allow a more well rounded approach. Conjuring up the love of god and I'd fight against it just as vigorously sentiment tells me that Wikipedia:Drama is in play here. You may want to take a look at this one Wikipedia:Don't-give-a-fuckism. Lot of danger of advocacy cross connecting with editing on this article it looks like. skip sievert (talk) 17:47, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

A six year old Op-ed mention of an obscure website's outdated partisanship rating based on word count methodology is not notable. The reason it's being pushed for inclusion is because it compares Krugman's partisanship to Ann Coulter's. That makes it an obvious smear. I'm embarrassed for those arguing for it's inclusion for a number of reasons. I personally believe it's an abuse of policy that needs to be changed. Scribner (talk) 18:55, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

As a comparison that is probably accurate. Both are extreme examples of negative right and left political/economics hacking for different special interest groups of belief and opinion. The reason it's being pushed for inclusion is because it compares Krugman's partisanship to Ann Coulter's.... in that sense it works well to get an idea across also. I am not sure that was why it was being included though. skip sievert (talk) 19:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Not a good enough reason to include it. Find other, better sources - please, and move on. Rd232 ^talk 19:15, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with it as a source. It fits well into the information. skip sievert (talk) 19:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposed wording

I propose the following wording, cited to The Economist's 2003 op-ed:

"In a 2003 editorial, The Economist noted that Krugman had been ranked as the second most partisan columnist, behind only Ann Coulter.^[1]"

Support

As proposer. UnitAnode 19:42, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

1. Support .. but the first one was fine also. skip sievert (talk) 20:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Cherry picks one piece of information from the article to push a particular POV (Krugman=partisan) and ignores all other praise and criticism from the article. Falsely implies that the ranking is from the prestigious Economist as opposed to the website Lying in Ponds. Only mentions a single year out of almost a decade of rankings. Gamaliel (talk) 19:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
2. Per Gamaliel. This is a terrible way to insinuate a false claim (Krugman is a Democratic partisan) from an unreliable source by linking to a reference that makes it sound authoritative.JQ (talk) 19:54, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
3. Per discussion above. Note the weaselly passive "ranked by" (avoiding saying who, when, how - which we know is a blog referring to just one year and using dubious methodology). It reflects extremely poorly on the editors still wanting to include this after substantial discussion that they fail to see how badly this violates WP policy. It's not like there aren't other sources on Krugman's partisanship - they just happen not to have a veneer of pseudoscience. Rd232 ^talk 20:26, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
4. Violation of WP policy and totally misleading and biased. The Four Deuces (talk) 20:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
5. Per Gamaliel and JQ. LK (talk) 02:01, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Abstain

1. Enables the continuation of abuses of vague policy with regard to use of Op-ed materials in biographies. I'm washing my hands of this petty and unproductive partisan waste of time. Best wishes to all with honest intent. Scribner (talk) 21:15, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

• In my view, this wording is neutral, in that it both deals with what was written in the piece, and attributes it to The Economist directly, while noting it was contained in an editorial of the magazine. UnitAnode 19:42, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
• I should also note that I have no personal opinion about Krugman, and was simply trying to find a middle ground. I intended no "insinuations" about the man, and I feel that stating that I am attempting to do so is patently unfair. UnitAnode 20:08, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
• I just did some click-through research, starting at this article, and I found this section in the Arthur Laffer article, sourced (in part) to ThinkProgress.com. I'm interested in understanding how this situation differs from that one, and if, perhaps, we should be trimming down the Laffer article as well. UnitAnode 20:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

  WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. If there are problems elsewhere - and there frequently are; BLPs on controversial figures tend to suffer from creeping WP:COATRACKism - then fix them, asking for help if necessary. Rd232 ^talk 20:28, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

  My previous post was not intended as an OTHERCRAPEXISTS-type argument, but rather to ask for assistance in REMOVING the "other crap" from the Laffer article if, in fact, we determine that such assertions are "crap." UnitAnode 20:40, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

  If that was your intention you shouldn't have mentioned it in this RFC. In fact it's not obvious why you'd mention it on this page at all if that was your intention. If you need help, that's what WP:BLPN is for (which is how I came here BTW). Rd232 ^talk 21:35, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

• Wow. Never have I seem my motives for editing questioned in such a way as the opposers are doing above. Consider the proposal withdrawn, and I'll not attempt to formulate any further solutions to this problem. 21:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
• For all who continue to attack my motives in making this proposal, please check my editing history. I'm no "partisan" in any way. I was simply trying to find a way forward, which I now regret. UnitAnode 21:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

  WP:NPOV is not served in this case by your proposal, for reasons discussed. That's OK. Learn and move on; don't get downhearted and don't give up on seeking compromise. Rd232 ^talk 21:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

  • I'll definitely take the "move on" advice. I'll leave my proposal here for historical purposes, but I'll leave you guys to your discussions of motivations of the various editors involved. I do hope that some sort of resolution is actually reached, but I won't dip the proverbial toe in these waters again. UnitAnode 22:10, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Apologies for what looked like an attack on you. I accept that you were acting in good faith to seek a compromise. The problem was with the original text, inserted by an editor, who, while also acting in good faith, was pushing beyond the boundaries in order to promote a well-established POV. There was, simply, no way to salvage this. JQ (talk) 03:17, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Better wording would be to just say that Krugman has been described as a partisan and compared with other political commentators and authors like Ann Coulter, Al Franken, Michael Moore etc. etc. This is documented in numerous sources and establishes his significance and peer group in popular political discourse. ChildofMidnight (talk) 21:52, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

There's no doubt that he's a partisan, but that wording seems to be an attack on Krugman rather than a neutral statement. CRGreathouse (t | c) 04:48, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Krugman: I am a European Social Democrat

Unless someone can dig up a reliable source that quotes Krugman as saying "I am a European Social Democrat", the line "Krugman ... describes himself as a European Social Democrat" should not have been introduced. If it is reintroduced, it should be removed immediately. It's a blatant attempt to paint him as unamerican. LK (talk) 17:40, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I removed the references. The Four Deuces (talk) 17:47, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

IMO, a statement like that should never have been introduced into a BLP. As far as I can tell from the page history, that phrase was introduced and then reverted to by User:Vision Thing, [42], [43]. LK (talk) 17:59, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I introduced the claim that Krugman is ideologically European Social Democrat which is a factual description of his beliefs (as described by him and others) and that is all. -- Vision Thing -- 19:31, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

It is not a factual description of his beliefs. In fact "European Social Democrat" is not even an ideology. Please remember to follow policies for reliable sources for biographies of living persons. The Four Deuces (talk) 20:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

By the by, with the removal of the phrase (by someone else), this source became irrelevant to the sentence about Krugman being "liberal", so I removed it. ChildofMidnight didn't like that, reckoning it to be a fabulous source even though it was only used once, so here's a diff if anyone wants to use if for something else. Rd232 ^talk 20:34, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I prefer proper citations when available over Youtube videos and primary sources. I think that is also Wikipedia's consensus on the matter. Please avoid damaging the article in future by restraining yourself from removing any more of the proper sources with an edit summary describing them as irrelevant. Cheers. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Citations are supposed to back up the text. That citation did not back up the text about Krugman being a liberal. OK, I shouldn't have just deleted it, it was a bit careless, I should have brought it to the talk page. (In my defence, I have the flu and a fever and I'm editing lying down in bed.) Rd232 ^talk 05:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually the ref ([44]) is still in the article, under Political views (Obama administration criticism sentence), currently ref 66. Rd232 ^talk 10:22, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Critics

Surely, it is possible to find critics of Krugman who are less WP:FRINGE and more notable than the representatives of the Austrian school we have at present (Barro?, Feldstein?). It's embarrassing to WP to include silly criticism of a Nobel prize winner coming from some guy at Frostburg State, or from a crank like Donald Luskin. Daniel Klein is at least marginally more notable, but one representative of this marginal viewpoint is more than enough.JQ (talk) 03:21, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Misleading lede

There are a large number of bios of winners of the Nobel memorial prize in economics on WP. The lede here gives the impression that Krugman is not primarily an academic because of the undue number of statements there connected with his side-career as columnist/commentator. That there is already a problem arises from the fact that in the first sentence a professor in economics and a Nobel laureate needs to be described additionally as an author. When is a distinguished academic not an author? The lede reads as if Krugman is in fact a politician. This probably stems from the fact that there are not so many experts in economics contributing, so that his career as a professor of economics is not given due priority. The lede of this BLP should be compared with that of Robert Aumann, whose controversial political views and involvement with bible codes are mentioned in the article but not in the lede. Things will be going the right way when words like microeconomics appear in the lede. Mathsci (talk) 04:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that's absolutely right - there should be a lede para summarising Krugman's contribution. Rd232 ^talk 07:14, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks Rd332. This version of the lede is completely acceptable [45]. Describing Krugman as a "Keynesian economist" and "liberal columnist" is accurate and sourced. Moving random media comments to the main body of the article is also good. Let's see how long the current lede lasts ... Mathsci (talk) 07:26, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

"Keynesian economist" seems like a pointless label in the lead, and it overloads the descriptive information. I doubt whether he is one anyway in any traditional sense, so it maybe is not accurate. The version in the article currently is fine minus the "Keynesian economist" label. skip sievert (talk) 16:28, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Liberal economics

Majority of editors (two-thirds) already supported "American liberal economist". That the same group of editors brings up same debates over and over again shows some disturbing tendencies. -- Vision Thing -- 12:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Even if that assessment is correct (is it?), it does not change the fact that "liberal" is a political adjective which cannot usefully be applied to "economist". There is no liberal economics (the WP entry redirects to economic liberalism, which I'm not sure makes sense, but is in any case obviously unrelated to the sense under discussion). There are no liberal economists. There are politically liberal people who are economists. Krugman declares himself liberal (Conscience of a liberal), though he clarifies what meaning he imputes to that incredibly stretchy label by referring to European social democracy. Rd232 ^talk 13:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't want to get too far into a debate about economics, I just wanted to say that I pretty much concur with the idea that we should make a distinction between his political and his economic work, especially when it comes to terms that may mean very different things to each field. Gamaliel (talk) 14:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

There are three sources in the lead for "liberal economist": The Oxford history of the United States. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195122169 p. 293; Gregory Mankiw. Principles of microeconomics. Elsevier. 1998. ISBN 9780030245022 p. 493 and David D. Kirkpatrick. One Book, Two Very Different Covers. All three are extremely reliable sources and they come from different areas – first is a general source, second is a well known economist and third is a Krugman's own New York Times. -- Vision Thing -- 16:28, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no "Liberal economics", those sources are just being sloppy, and there is no excuse for reproducing such sloppiness. Rd232 ^talk 18:50, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Then it will be shocking to you that Krugman in one of his essays uses that term to describe a fellow economist [46] -- Vision Thing -- 19:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

To be precise he writes "the mildly liberal economics professor". Linguistically this is completely different. (Let me know if you need me to explain.) PS No it wouldn't shock me, Krugman is as capable of being sloppy as anyone. Rd232 ^talk 21:44, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

"Liberal economics" does not exist. "liberal" is not a relevant descriptor for "economist"; in Krugman's case, "Keynesian" is. This has been discussed above, and this inaccuracy should not be re-inserted. (By the by, WP:LINK encourages us not to link neighbouring words to different topics if we can help it, which I've respected by piping "Keynesian economist" to "Keynesian economics.) Rd232 ^talk 07:14, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Your claims are totally unfounded. There are three sources in the lead for "liberal economist": The Oxford history of the United States. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195122169 p. 293; Gregory Mankiw. Principles of microeconomics. Elsevier. 1998. ISBN 9780030245022 p. 493 and David D. Kirkpatrick. One Book, Two Very Different Covers. All three are extremely reliable sources and they come from different areas – first is a general source, second is a well known economist and third is a Krugman's own New York Times. Also, Krugman himself used the term "liberal economics professor" to describe a fellow economist in one of his essays. [47] -- Vision Thing -- 09:09, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

My claims are totally unfounded?! ROTFLMAO. There is no liberal economics. As discussed above, it is extremely sloppy writing to apply the political adjective "liberal" to the noun "economist". People do it, but there is no justification for reproducing such sloppiness. And BTW, as noted above, Krugman actually wrote "the mildly liberal economics professor". Linguistically this is completely different. (Let me know if you need me to explain.) Now please stop edit warring to introduce your views when you are clearly in a minority (possibly of one). Rd232 ^talk 10:09, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Seven editors noted they support inclusion of "liberal economist". Three extremely reliable sources support it and Krugman himself uses the phrase. Your counterargument is basically "I don't like it". -- Vision Thing -- 10:22, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Also WP:NOTVOTE. Rd232 ^talk 11:25, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

This type of voting doesn't mean that "liberal economist" is a valid term, when unsupported by an academic source. Keynesian economist is a recognized term. This is a BLP about a distinguished academic not a populist newspaper article. Mathsci (talk) 10:30, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Can you point to me some Wikipedia policy or guideline which supports your claim? According to WP:RS all three sources that I listed are among most reliable sources that can be found. -- Vision Thing -- 10:34, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:RS policy, among other relevant ones (WP:NPOV, eg) doesn't work that way. If you insist, we can do an WP:RFC. Rd232 ^talk 11:22, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Your first argument was that I'm in minority - "Now please stop edit warring to introduce your views when you are clearly in a minority (possibly of one)". When I noted that seven editors supported "liberal economist" you referred to WP:NOTVOTE. Now you want RFC. Is this a Monty Python show? -- Vision Thing -- 13:40, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

You're currently in a minority (the last day or two) - and the reference to NOTVOTE is extremely apposite because the prior discussion was introduced as "are you for or against" the expression "liberal economist". That kind of thing is extremely discouraged, because conclusions are supposed to be reached by discussion, not voting. And a WP:RFC is not a vote, as you strongly imply - it's short for Request for Comment. Rd232 ^talk 14:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH, WP:V, WP:RS? What a populist newspaper chooses to write is not reliable if we're describing a professor of economics. Is he for example a professor of "liberal economics"? I'm not sure whether the tag on this BLP was put there by you with the intention of inserting negative criticism in the lede: is that not WP:UNDUE and contrary to WP:BLP policy in the absence of real-life controversy? All responses from academic economists indicate that he is considered a highly original and leading force in the discipline. Of course properly sourced criticisms can be included in the main body, as with the far more controversial Robert Aumann. Mathsci (talk) 10:51, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm well aware of those policies and in them you will not find anything that supports your argument. Btw, now is the New York Times a populist newspaper? There is more than enough negative criticisms of Krugman in the real world, but all that can be viewed as negative for him is systematically removed from the article. [48] -- Vision Thing -- 10:59, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The New York Times and The Independent are intended for the general public. As with articles on science, they are not at all as reliable as what is written in academic journals or books. Their treatment of economics or science is necessarily populist. The Times Higher Education Supplement or the New York Review of Books might possibly use the term Keynesian economist; this can also apply to obituaries, usually written by specialists - not yet available (fortunately!) for Paul Krugman. Mathsci (talk) 11:39, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

This article is also intended for the general public. Also, one source is Gregory Mankiw's economics textbook Principles of microeconomics. -- Vision Thing -- 13:41, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The issue is not how many people sloppily use the expression "liberal economist" to describe Krugman (usually fairly obviously driven by the context of his columns, not his work). The issue is whether there is such a thing as "liberal economics", and if not, is it better to use a sloppy expression or a precise one (Keynesian economist). For the record, I really don't understand why you so vociferously seek to defend this sloppy expression. The "liberal" term is still in the first sentence, applied correctly to the noun "columnist". Rd232 ^talk 14:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

"liberal economist" is not the point. It was never hooked together as one word in the lead, as is implied by a user. Is that not obvious? The contention it is a sub sector or what ever of terminology is not at issue. In the lead it is sourced as two different words, not as a compound word term. So how is it that one editor keeps going back and forth on this non issue of it being a category? Obviously he is a self described liberal and also an economist as the lead says, and that is a good descriptor. Adding 'Keynesian economist' seems pointless. That is going too far as to the lead. Whether he is or not, could be looked at somewhere in the body of the article. That is too fine a point in the lead. As a well known liberal and an economist... it makes sense to remark on that notability in the lead area. skip sievert (talk) 18:41, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow. "Adding 'Keynesian economist' seems pointless [and can be left to the body]". Ohkaaaaay then. Let's leave out that he won a Nobel too - the lede already doesn't mention the John Bates Clark. Why not just replace the entire article with "Paul Krugman - liberal columnist" (footnote - apparently he dabbled in economics once). Rd232 ^talk 19:36, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The term "liberal economist" is confusing because the term could equally apply to Milton Friedman. Keynsian is less ambiguous. The partisan claim should be phrased in more neutral terms. I take it to mean his columns were directed against the Republican Party and in favor of the Democratic Party. No such claim is made about his academic work. The Four Deuces (talk) 19:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

One issue that is not being understood here. Lets not get flame generating on this subject.

The lead sentence does not say that he is a "liberal economist". It says the he is a liberal economist. Is that not apparent? Trying to turn that into a compound word that has a separate meaning is not at issue and is confusing what is just information. skip sievert (talk) 19:39, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

English grammar is not known to be affected by wikilinks. "liberal economist" = "liberal economist", which brings us back to the problems Four Deuces raises, as well as others above. Apart from the semantic issue, BTW, there is the stylistic one: WP:Linking#General linking style points last point. And I forget where, but I think somewhere in WP Manual of Style it says meaning should not be changed by the removal of wikilinks. Rd232 ^talk 19:53, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

It is not "liberal economist" as you are claiming redundantly and wrongly. It is liberal economist, and if it such a sharp issue then put a comma between the two or phrase it differently. The point is that you are connecting the two words for what ever reason, wrongly as a compound word. Simply putting the cursor on either shows the distinction. That is not apparent? - skip sievert (talk) 20:00, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. I'm connecting an adjective qualifying a noun "for whatever reason". OK, whatever, let's phrase it differently... how about "Keynesian economist, liberal columnist and author"? What exactly is the problem with that? Rd232 ^talk 20:04, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

How is important to say Keynesian in this part of the lead? What does that accomplish? Keep it as is except drop Keynesian which seems like too much information in the lead... and he is not known generally in that way, so it seems overtly like extraneous information and thereby overly wordy and not important. skip sievert (talk) 20:10, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

(out)If you click on "liberal economics" it re-directs to Economic liberalism. The Four Deuces (talk) 20:17, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

That is not connected to an issue here is it? It says the he is a liberal economist in the article... not a liberal economics. Is this that thorny of an issue? skip sievert (talk) 20:50, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Would this work for all... as probably `Keynesian' can be gotten to in the body where it might be more fitting (assuming that is accurate). It may be a little over the top to hit people with so many descriptives in the lead?

Paul Robin Krugman (pronounced /ˈkruːɡmən/[1]) (born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, liberal columnist, and author. end... - Comments? skip sievert (talk) 02:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we could say that "Paul Krugman is a liberal economist who is opposed to liberal economics", so that it would not be confusing. The Four Deuces (talk) 03:32, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

..or "Paul Robin Krugman (pronounced /ˈkruːɡmən/[1]) (born February 28, 1953) is an American economist who was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2008". These seem to be the two most significant facts about Paul Krugman. Author is irrelevant (his books and articles in academic journals are mentioned later in the lede) and New York Times columnist already appears in the subsequent listing of his three positions. Mathsci (talk) 03:55, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Sampling other Nobel econ laureates, it seems to be about even whether it's mentioned in the first or second sentence. In this case, if we're thinking of a more radical rewrite, I think a first sentence on being an economist and a second sentence on also being widely known as a leading columnist, might be good. ("Author" might get dropped - it's referred to later in the lede by number of books.) Also it seems the other articles don't specify what kind of economist the subject is in the opening sentence. I'd rather keep Keynesian, but on that basis I won't object to plain "economist". Rd232 ^talk 06:04, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. "Keynesian economist" is good as is just plain "economist": the school of economics to which he belongs is already recorded in the economics info box. I see that a message about the article has already been posted on WT:WikiProject Economics. Mathsci (talk) 08:59, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

"Liberal" should appear right after the "American" because "liberal" has different meanings in the US and Europe. Only compromise that I can think of is to say that he is an "American liberal columnist, author and economist" or "American liberal author, columnist and economist". -- Vision Thing -- 10:35, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Vision Thing, please cease WP:IDONTHEARTHAT. If liberal has different meanings, it should be omitted, or as at present discussed later in its correct context. Your repeated lobbying to have it prominently but inappropriately in the lede appears to be an attempt to sully the reputation of one of the world's most distinguished academic economists. Mathsci (talk) 10:46, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I would advise you to remember to be civil and to assume good faith. -- Vision Thing -- 10:54, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) BTW your compromise suggestions indicate that you personally think that Krugman's notability is as much for being an author/newspaper columnist as an academic economist/Nobel laureate. This seems to be non-neutral POV-pushing. Mathsci (talk) 10:57, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

No, my compromise suggestion suggest that I'm willing to make an effort to try to find a solution that would satisfy both sides. And that is something that I can't say for either you or Rd232. -- Vision Thing -- 11:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Not at all, your compromises are extremely limited: they are confined to having liberal as early as possible in the first sentence, next to American. However, the article and sources make it clear that liberal has to be understood in a very special sense, not necessarily linked to American politics. Your reasons for the positioning of liberal seem to change every day. "Liberal" seems to be more important to you than academic economist/Nobel laureate. Is that indeed the case? Mathsci (talk) 11:08, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

If your objection is that "American liberal economist" is placed too early in the first sentence, would putting it at the end, or even in the second sentence be fine with you? -- Vision Thing -- 11:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Ahem, more WP:IDONTHEARTHAT. The single word "liberal" actually has no place in even the first paragraph of the lede. Where it appears, perhaps nowhere at all in the lede, it must as now be very carefully qualified. Since you added the tag "needs negative views on Krugman" to the article, which negative views would you like to see in the lede and how would you reconcile their inclusion with the core policies of WP:BLP? Mathsci (talk) 12:33, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

So we are finally getting to a bottom of this. If I heard you correctly, you are objecting mention of "liberal" anywhere in the first paragraph even tough Krugman prominently associates himself with that word and even though he is usually described by others with it.

I would like to see this returned to the article (with altered wording if needed) and possibly a brief summary of criticisms in the lead. -- Vision Thing -- 14:23, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I've just looked at Milton Friedman. Wanna guess how far you have to read before it mentions his political philosophy? Rd232 ^talk 11:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I've just looked at Alan Greenspan. Do you want to guess how long you have to read it before you encounter criticisms? -- Vision Thing -- 11:53, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

He was a key policymaker, unlike Krugman. There's no comparison on that front. By the by, are you one of those editors who ignores good points and tries to distract from them? Rd232 ^talk 12:01, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Greenspan and Krugman and arguably two most famous living economists today. But tell me, is there some policy or guideline that recommends that articles on different economists should have the same leads? If there is no such thing, I fail to see your good point. -- Vision Thing -- 12:22, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Well I guess your response answers my question. Rd232 ^talk 14:53, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Well this seems to have reached a conclusion, there are no serious arguments for preferring "liberal economist" over alternatives of plain "economist" or "Keynesian economist". Plain is more consistent with other economist articles, so let's go with that. "Liberal" remains in the first sentence as descriptor of "columnist and author". Good enough? Rd232 ^talk 15:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

It was never "liberal economist" it was liberal economist so that is a false dichotomy and not at issue and has not been at issue except in a misconstrued way. "Keynesian economist" seems like a pointless label in the lead, and it overloads the descriptive information. I doubt whether he is one anyway in any traditional sense, so it maybe is not accurate, and it sounds like a stumbling over of labels, as to too many in that area. The version in the article currently is fine minus the "Keynesian economist" label.

Your repeated lobbying to have it prominently but inappropriately in the lede appears to be an attempt to sully the reputation of one of the world's most distinguished academic economists. User:Mathsci end quote. Is that kind of commentary really a good idea on this talk page? No. I am noticing some extreme commenting here. Not really appropriate. Could we pull the plug on Wikipedia:Drama and though it appears that some people like and admire Mr. Krugman, and others maybe do not, that does not have to get in the way of neutral information presentation. Let me remind in general, that we are grunt workers here and not notable in that sense, and the purpose here is to get a well rounded creative presentation of Krugman, and not to be accusatory toward each other.

Paul Robin Krugman (pronounced /ˈkruːɡmən/[1]) (born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, liberal columnist, and author. < So... is this the compromise? skip sievert (talk) 16:59, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I just tagged the Greenspan article "unbalanced" for presenting negative, poorly sourced material in the lead. Scribner (talk) 22:12, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) @ Skipievert. The drama, if indeed there is any, has been created by editors who are insisting on additive "negative views on Krugman". I would like to see a neutral lede for this BLP which doesn't attempt to cast any doubt on or disguise in any way Krugman's brilliance, originality and influence as an academic economist. At present the article is sidetracked by the political repercussions of his NYT column. I don't have any objection to "liberal columnist", although his own description of what is meant by liberal seems the best so far. As I've said before, "author" is extraneous since he's an academic and Nobel laureate. I'd add 3 points:

• His column is read world wide, not just in the US. As far as I know, it's reprinted regularly in the International Herald Tribune. This might be worth mentioning somewhere if it isn't already.
• Other BLPs of media dons or telly-dons have similar problems. For example the BLP of the historian Simon Schama mentions his political views in the body of the article, but not in the lede.
• Paul Krugman is an academic economist; Alan Greenspan is not. However in their BLPs they are both at present described as American economists, which could be confusing.

I quite like the lede at the moment. It looks like what could be found in the NYT obituary of a top-notch economist. I hope this helps. Mathsci (talk) 00:45, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I am sick of this talk page. (unindent) @ Skipievert. The drama, if indeed there is any, has been created by editors who are insisting on additive "negative views on Krugman". I would like to see a neutral lede for this BLP which doesn't attempt to cast any doubt on or disguise in any way Krugman's brilliance, originality and influence as an academic economist. end quote Mathsci

I don't think you are acting appropriately then. There is no reason to put your two cents in here as to your pov. Or put another way Krugman is a somewhat unoriginal hack apologist for junk politicians in someones else's opinion. In other words... you can use the talk page like a blog. . but that is pointless... and also a misuse of the page. Fansite editing is not appreciated. If you are letting an infatuation with the subject make you think that people are editing against you... you better take a wiki break. skip sievert (talk) 04:00, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Seems like the phrase "Krugman's brilliance, originality and influence as an academic economist" upset you. Hate to break it to you, but he didn't win the John Bates Clark and Nobel or get to be a top-20 cites economist by scratching his arse. Can we please agree to avoid the inclination of political opponents of his columns to rubbish or sideline his academic reputation? And I thought we'd agreed to drop "liberal" as an adjective for economist, so let's not go back to arguing about what it means if it's included. Rd232 ^talk 08:29, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Please could Skipsievert (talk · contribs) make his edits here more temperate? The comments of mine that he cited were neutral - hardly POV - but his reply quite inflammatory, particularly since I agreed with him on "liberal columnist". Please could Skipsievert calm down? This is after all the BLP of a distingushed academic who already back in 1979 made highly influential contributions to economic theory. Skipsievert's edit seems to completely miss the fact that my statements are absolutely on-topic regarding this BLP. In fact appreciations in academic journals of Paul Krugman say almost exactly what I have written. I think it would be quite hard to find a similar journal using the libellous phrase "unoriginal hack apologist for junk politicians". Where did this come from? Why is Krugman's originality in question? Did the committee for the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics make a terrible mistake? Mathsci (talk) 09:51, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Mathsci, you say: "I quite like the lede at the moment. It looks like what could be found in the NYT obituary of a top-notch economist." In this same thread when we discussed appropriates of using NYT as a source for "liberal economist" you dismissed them as a valid source because their "treatment of economics or science is necessarily populist." Logical conclusion from these two statements is that you like current lead because its treatment of Krugman is populist. -- Vision Thing -- 12:53, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I mostly like the lead as it is. That said, I wish to note:

Krugman is described as a Keynesian economist in the lead, but he does not appear on the list of Keynesians at the bottom of the page. The discrepancy should be reconciled one way or the other.

Along those lines, do reputable secondary sources in the article actually describe him as a Keynesian? I know he quotes Keynes and believes that Keynes had important insights but that is not the same thing as being a Keynesian.

While I can certainly see the case for having "liberal" in the lead, I don't why a sizeable number of people think the current version, in which "liberal" modifies "columnist" as opposed to "economist," needs to be changed. The fact that some people refer to him as a "liberal economist" doesn't *require* that we describe him that way too. What's so bad about the current description? Gruntler (talk) 19:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Krugman is listed amongst the New Keynesian economists in this paper. There is a discussion of Krugman on the Keynesian template page. Mathsci (talk) 05:27, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I think we've kind of reached the position that Krugman is a Keynesian (see infobox) but that it's more usual not to mention that kind of thing in the lede sentence of WP economist articles, so it may be better to drop it. One factor is that a longer description of his academic work is now available later in the lede (it wasn't when I originally inserted "Keynesian"). Rd232 ^talk 08:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Too much back and forth

The edit warring that's been going on the last couple of days, and the back and forth on this article, a BLP, is not acceptable. I suggest either a 1RR regime or a voluntary restriction that all edits must be proposed and seconded on the talk page before introduction. LK (talk) 09:07, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

In principle I agree but we should first agree on what is a baseline version. -- Vision Thing -- 09:20, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

This version seems fine. [49]. All in favour say 'aye'. Rd232 ^talk 10:14, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Good on the whole, but the second paragraph could do with a little pruning: some sentences seem to be copy-and-pastes; nevertheless the material is well explained for non-specialists (like me). Mathsci (talk) 10:26, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, second para can be improved; and yes it started with a copy-paste from the body, adapted. Rd232 ^talk 11:16, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

That version, or the current version is fine. But I don't think we need a baseline for a 1RR policy. We just need everyone involved to agree to a 1RR regime. LK (talk) 11:00, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

That version, or the current version are not fine. If you want a neutral version, I suggest last stable version. -- Vision Thing -- 11:04, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

As I said, we don't need to agree to a version for 1RR. We just need to agree to 1RR. LK (talk) 11:15, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

This seems to be a moot point now that article is protected. -- Vision Thing -- 13:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

How do the people here feel about a 1RR regime for after August 12th, to ensure that pandemonium doesn't reoccur? LK (talk) 13:36, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

To be honest I don't think that'll work very well, because of the number of issues and the general heat; it'll either collapse or some will be at a disadvantage when others don't stick to it. Better, I think, would be a voluntary moratorium on anything controversial (i.e. which is known not to have consensus or can reasonably be expected to be controversial), and work on a subpage sandbox (Talk:Paul Krugman/draft) instead. We can then selectively move things from the draft to the live version after discussion on talk, without edit warring in article space (I'm assuming, because it's a non-live draft, there'll be much less incentive to "war"). How's that sound? Rd232 ^talk 14:44, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, a voluntary moratorium on anything that can be seen as controversial would only serve to those who want to keep the article clean from anything for which they think casts a negative light on Krugman. Editors who already deleted all "controversial" material from the article just before it was protected wouldn't have any incentive for achieving consensus.

Neutral solution would be to restore last stable version (11:14, 31 July 2009 - before edit war broke out) and to enhance it with a content that was added in the meantime. Establishment of a baseline version would be followed with a voluntary restriction that all edits must be proposed and seconded on the talk page before introduction (per LK's original suggestion). -- Vision Thing -- 18:36, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:BLP policy disagrees with you: negative material is included after consensus, not before. Plus a variety of uncontroversial changes have been made: the base version should be the current one, and changes to it based on consensus. At this point I think the only thing agreed is to drop "Keynesian" from economist in the first sentence, leaving it as "American economist". For the rest, consensus seems to be against the Economist bit (maybe another RFC if you won't accept that?) and there are other points to discuss if we can ever get beyond these issues (eg reintroducing the critical remarks mentioned in a section below; adding the sources mentioned in the Foundation section). Rd232 ^talk 19:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, your first sentence there is a massive violation of WP:AGF. Rd232 ^talk 19:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

1. All articles should be product of consensus. The current version of this article is not a consensus one.
2. Did you read "and to enhance it with a content that was added in the meantime" part? -- Vision Thing -- 19:47, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

1. WP:BLP overrides other concerns; and articles are made by consensus over time, not at a single point arbitrarily chosen by you (which was itself not consensus I'm fairly sure). Negative stuff is out by default if there is no consensus to include. There is no deadline either - we can reach consensus gradually, using appropriate dispute resolution if necessary.
2. Yes. I gather you want to return to the version that included what you want included, and then add manually (who's going to do that?) stuff you don't object to. I got that, yes. Rd232 ^talk 19:58, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

1. Reason given for deletion of almost all of what I want back wasn't violation of BLP.
2. Wow, do you follow WP:AGF or you just like to remind other users to follow it?
3. Solution that enables one side to exploit good faith of the other side is not a good one. In heated content disputes it is easy to forget that one should always assume good faith of other editors.[50] -- Vision Thing -- 20:10, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

1. Reason given for deletion is irrelevant (not least because material can be deleted for multiple reasons). It's a BLP and contentious material should not be reinserted against or prior to consensus.
2. Actually I wasn't explicitly reminding you of WP:AGF so much as commenting on your substantial violation of it above. And I have not failed to WP:AGF, but that does not mean I'm blind to how your proposals are in your interests.
3. I'm not sure what you mean, but certainly bringing up that diff is not obviously helpful. Rd232 ^talk 21:07, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

1. To clarify, this was also reinserted without consensus, so after article is unprotected you will support its deletion?
2. When I did the same thing (pointed out how your proposals are in your interests) you accused me of massive violation of AGF.
3. That diff shows how "your" side is good in AGF. -- Vision Thing -- 12:55, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

1. Yes, it can be removed if you really want, pending finding a better source, which will certainly be possible.
2. Can we draw a line under the WP:AGF issue? Let's just all try harder. And please don't think in terms of "sides" - that's the battleground mentality we want to avoid; we're trying to collaborate and per WP:AGF we all have the best interests of the encyclopedia at heart. Rd232 ^talk 13:38, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

2. Yes, I agree. We should all be on Wikipedia side. -- Vision Thing -- 14:16, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Partisanship

Krugman's columns are often seen as partisan. I think that following wording notes that properly:

"In 2003 The Economist reported that Paul Krugman was one of the most partisan American columnist. The Economist concluded that Krugman gives lay readers the illusion that his personal political beliefs can somehow be derived empirically from economic theory."

If you think otherwise, please propose your wording. -- Vision Thing -- 09:18, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Both "reported" and "concluded" are obviously unacceptable in quoting an opinion piece, which itself, as we know, relied on an blog post to support an analysis that can't be sustained. The final sentence is similarly inappropriate particularly in an anonymous leader. Your effort to include this stuff can't be sustained. Why don't you find some proper criticism from notable, named sources? JQ (talk) 09:51, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Why indeed? Unfathomable. Rd232 ^talk 10:15, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Only one paragraph in the article mentions blog. "Reported" and "concluded" are easily replaced with "argued" and "claims". Also, several admins noted that this article is a reliable source for BLP. -- Vision Thing -- 10:22, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't mean that it can be used as you propose. Rd232 ^talk 11:15, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I propose to use it as a source for claim that The Economist argued that Krugman writes partisan columns. If you are opposing to such use, please explain why. -- Vision Thing -- 13:45, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Well let's repeat the full Economist quote you supplied above:

• "But, increasingly, people are asking whether Mr Krugman's success as a journalist is now coming at the expense of, rather than as the result of, his economics. For while he has had some journalistic coups during his time as a columnist—most notably in recognising, long before most other commentators, that market manipulation played a role in the California energy crisis—perhaps the most striking thing about his writing these days is not its economic rigour but its political partisanship. Lyinginponds.com, a website that tracks partisanship among American political columnists, rates Mr Krugman second in the overall partisan slant of his columns, behind only Ann Coulter, a fiercely (and often incoherently) conservative polemicist. As the site documents exhaustively, the vast majority of Mr Krugman's columns feature attacks on Republicans; almost none criticise Democrats. Unsurprisingly, this has made him a sort of ivory-tower folk-hero of the American left—a thinking person's Michael Moore."
• "Even his economics is sometimes stretched. A recent piece accused conservatives of embracing the “lump of labour fallacy”, the mistaken claim that there is a fixed quantity of work which governments must strive to allocate equitably. In fact, the paper he cited did not commit the lump of labour fallacy. He used game theory to argue that, by criticising North Korea but not attacking it, and then going after Iraq instead, Mr Bush is “probably” encouraging North Korea to become a more dangerous nuclear power. This probably did not convince most game theorists. Overall, the effect is to give lay readers the illusion that Mr Krugman's perfectly respectable personal political beliefs can somehow be derived empirically from economic theory."

It is very clear from this that the Economist's remarks are drawn from the Lyinginponds ratings. Reporting them as if they were not is little better than reporting the ratings. And as stated before, the six-year-old "illusion" remark by the Economist (which by the way you quote enough of to require quotation marks) applies to an analysis of two (2) columns. Can we drop this yet? Rd232 ^talk 15:09, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Whether the 2003 Economist article can be used to support "political partisanship" etc - If it is a reliable source then yes. It also praises the guy. It makes the article more well rounded. Maybe the phrasing of that could improve though. Improve summary of his economics contribution in the lede. It seems fine as is, and that area is better smaller than larger. That can be done in the body. The main things are mentioned now in the lead. skip sievert (talk) 18:41, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Rd232, let us make something clear. Mention of a blog in a highly respectable source doesn't devalue reliability of that source, it does something else. It enables us mention of that blog here. That I agree not to mention its report is a result of my attempt to reach a compromise and avoid future edit wars. As for The Economist itself, I can't think of any more suitable source for an article about economist. -- Vision Thing -- 10:29, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, you said: "The partisan claim should be phrased in more neutral terms. I take it to mean his columns were directed against the Republican Party and in favor of the Democratic Party. No such claim is made about his academic work." I agree that no such claim is made about his academic work and that is why I placed it in 'Author and journalist' section instead in 'Academic career' section. I already suggested some changes in the wording. Do you have some additional suggestions? -- Vision Thing -- 10:31, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Is there a reason you removed the refactoring I did, placing this continuation of the previous discussion on the same source and same issue as a subsection of it? There is an ongoing WP:RFC for that section. Rd232 ^talk 11:57, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Robert Kuttner's opinion

Krugman's political views can and should stand on their own without inserting others' positive or negative opinions of his political views, regardless of their affiliation to the subject. No one needs Kuttner telling them what to think. Start a section titled "Others' opinions of Krugman's political views" if you have to have the edit. This is exactly the kind of edit that invites negative opinions to balance. Poor form in general and violates WP:NPOV. Scribner (talk) 00:33, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I gather from your remark "This is exactly the kind of edit that invites negative opinions to balance." that you think Kuttner's quote about Krugman is positive opinion. I think it says a lot about your point of view if you think this is so positive it needs "balancing": "The interesting thing about Krugman is that he was a mainstream neoclassical economist who was moderately liberal as a citizen, but tended to look at politics as an illegitimate distortion of the perfection of the market economy. He viewed the left and the right as symmetrical evils. Krugman has now discovered power." Also as a general point about secondary source interpretation: WP:PSTS. Rd232 ^talk 09:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

If anything, the sarcasm of "the perfection of the market economy" makes it slightly negative. Rd232 ^talk 19:26, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

The first paragraph of the "Political views" section contains quotes and sentences that repeat themselves. It's a ridiculous read but correcting it is a waste of time with all the reverts. Scribner (talk) 01:04, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

It's hardly elegant, but editing it would primarily reduce repetition of the word "liberal". Somehow I don't think that's what you had in mind though. Rd232 ^talk 09:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm referring to the duplicate mentions of of his being critical of the Bush and Obama administrations. There seems to be too much knee-jerk cleansing/reverting going on. Scribner (talk) 12:44, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Groan. What the hell use is this "shortened" version? Contextless, meaningless, pointless. Rd232 ^talk 10:42, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

For reference, the original version was "According to economic journalist Robert Kuttner, "The interesting thing about Krugman is that he was a mainstream neoclassical economist who was moderately liberal as a citizen, but tended to look at politics as an illegitimate distortion of the perfection of the market economy. He viewed the left and the right as symmetrical evils. Krugman has now discovered power."[51] Rd232 ^talk 10:46, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

If you think that the original version better reflects Kuttner's opinion, restore it. -- Vision Thing -- 11:19, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, I hate the current version too. I didn't think much of the original either, though. It's a nice quote, but it needs more context. It is emphatically not the case that Krugman *currently* views the right and left as symmetrical evils and there should be something about his evolution from the technocratic early Krugman into the passionate later one. The "has discovered power" line gestures in that direction, and is a nice piece of writing in its original context, but it's not really understandable outside the original article. Gruntler (talk) 07:47, 8 September 2009 (UTC)