PK
An idol of mine, Paul Krugman, won the Nobel for economics today. As I’ve written before, he was one of the first people to point out the obvious but important mistakes Bush was making, and he also introduced me to alternative news sources that were picking up the slack for a truly pitiful mainstream media. Of course, he was awarded the Nobel for his theories on international trade, not his influence on Devin Castles.
I had a lot of other things I wanted to say, but I don’t have time to say them as well as I’d like. So you can read this by Krugman himself, or check out what others had to say about him. Too many public intellectuals became public intellectuals for the wrong reasons, so it’s nice to see that Krugman has gotten so much acclaim in recent years for branching out of his comfort zone in academia for the right reasons.
Politicians are often smart people, but that doesn’t mean they understand all aspects of policy, especially something as complicated as economic policy. You see a lot of dumb conventional wisdom floating around both at high levels in Washington, and in the rare instances where the punditry actually discusses the issues. We need more smart folks like Krugman, who attempt to spread knowledge to those outside of academia, and also refuse to mold their message to reinforce the things politicians and pundits want to hear.
Add comment October 13th, 2008