Defending Cato from Paul Krugman's Inaccurate Assertions | Cato @ Liberty

Paul Krugman, at what is now his usual best (worst) as a columnist, managed to make so many false statements in one column that I lost count. And his loyal readers will never appreciate the facts, much less accept the reality that most libertarian-leaning (which is not "right-wing") economists did foresee the housing bubble and other financial failures on the horizon.

Defending Cato from Paul Krugman's Inaccurate Assertions | Cato @ LibertyDANIEL J. MITCHELL
If Krugman had bothered to spend even five minutes perusing the Cato website, he would have found hundreds of items by scholars such as Steve Hanke, Gerald O’Driscoll, Bert Ely, and others about misguided government regulatory and monetary policy. He could have perused the remarks of speakers at Cato’s annual monetary conferences. He could have looked at issues of the Cato Journal. Or our biennial Handbooks on Policy.

The tiniest bit of due diligence would have revealed that Cato was not a fan of Federal Reserve policy and we did not think that financial markets were deregulated. Indeed, Cato scholars last decade were relentlessly critical of monetary policy, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Community Reinvestment Act, and other forms of government intervention.

Heck, I imagine that Krugman would have accused Cato of relentless and foolish pessimism had he reviewed our work in 2006 or 2007.

I suppose Mr. Mitchell can hope for better from Krugman. I certainly do not... not anymore. Krugman simply sees the U.S. economic debates as Keynes/Krugman vs. Right-Wing extremists. That libertarians are not all in the Chicago School, much less loyal to the Republican Party, doesn't matter. It's easier to have an "Us vs. Them" debate without any facts.