Gyroscopic Investing

How did I miss this?!!  Someone Important finally had enough and shot Paul Krugman down last year.  He has since left Princeton in "quiet disgrace".

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/niall-fer ... 60733.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/niall-fer ... 67580.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/niall-fer ... 73956.html

Schadenfreude!

And yes, welcome back!

TennPaGa wrote: Bah.  Niall Ferguson is himself a first class jerk, blowhard, and bully.  A couple of years back, he famously misinterpreted Keynes's "in the long run..." statement as indicative that Keynes didn't give a rip about the future because he was gay and childless.  Yes, he apologized, but only after getting publicly called on it.

He and Krugman have been feuding for a number of years.

I was just about to say the same.

That said... Welcome back, MG!

Yes, good to see you around!

I don't care why he is gone, just that he is. Good riddance!

Bah.  Niall Ferguson is himself a first class jerk, blowhard, and bully.  A couple of years back, he famously misinterpreted Keynes's "in the long run..." statement as indicative that Keynes didn't give a rip about the future because he was gay and childless. 

what's the proper interpretation?

I'm not sure I have the same reading, Tenn. My reading is that the long run is boring; all the action takes place in the present and near future where economists can actually make an impact.

I think what Keynes is saying is that it's obvious that a sort of equilibrium will eventually re-establish itself when times are tough, but that this is so totally obvious that the discipline of economics should concern itself with the more volatile short term in order not only to retain its academic legitimacy, but also because, in his opinion, is is possible to rationally understand and manipulate things in the short term.

TennPaGa wrote: However, this is a far cry from the implication that Keynes didn't care about future generations because he had no children (because he was gay), which is what Ferguson said.

Motives aside, I think the implication is there, perhaps very subtly. In taking the long-run equilibrium as a given, I believe Keynes can minimize the danger of destabilizing that desirable long-run equilibrium by making foolish mistakes in the present. If we destroy or waste our productive capacity (the real economy, after all) trying to fix the money economy, I think there is definitely a danger of at the very minimum causing that future equilibrium to equilibrate at a lower level than it might otherwise have.

It's certainly debatable, though.

Elevenn.

(That means +1 to Tenn's comment)

Ferguson has gotten some of his history wrong over the years, too. Not just this.