Paul Krugman Fails to Make a Mistake
Paul Krugman is a target for conservatives everywhere, and for that reason he’s careful with his facts.¹ But National Review’s Kevin Williamson thinks he’s finally caught Krugman in an error:
Professor Krugman argues, for the obvious reason that basing government decisions on falsehoods is bound to lead to bad results: “Listening to a garrulous old guy spout nonsense is annoying in the best of circumstances. But when this particular old guy controls the world’s largest military, nukes included, it’s downright scary.”
I wouldn’t call Professor Krugman a garrulous old guy who spouts nonsense — he is only 65 years old — but, for the record, with 1,347,300 active-duty troops, the United States does not have the world’s largest military. It is No. 3. I point that out only because Professor Krugman as a columnist cannot lean very hard on wit or charm and must therefore attend carefully to the details.
Conservatives really, really want to catch Krugman in an error, don’t they? I think it’s obvious that Krugman is talking here about military spending, in which the US is indeed the world leader. How else could you do it? Sure, China has more troops, but we have ten times more carrier groups. India has more troops than us too, but we have ten times more aircraft. Without bothering to check, I’m going to say that we also have more submarines, more cruise missiles, more stealth bombers, and more ICBMs than both countries put together.
I dunno. How would you define “largest” military? Troops alone seems like a bad metric, doesn’t it?
¹I assume he would be regardless, but this is just extra motivation.
Rule n° 1: Krugman is right.
Rule n° 2: If you think you have found a case where Krugman is wrong, remember Rule 1.
That’s funny!
I don't think he is wrong. Trump is clearly not a stable minded person, by Trump's own admission he loves chaos and conflict.
If we all care about our troops then clearly our troops deserve someone in charge as commander in chief that would not use them as toys in creating chaos and conflict.
Loving chaos and conflict is not Christian, it is not normal, and America deserves better, our troops deserve better.
Nitpicking over pundits is a waste of time, looking at the man at the top who shouldn't be there if his love of conflict and chaos is creating a mess at home and abroad is a serious matter.
So...as I write this, Trump is president. He will be president for the foreseeable future. He will probably be reelected. What is the solution to your present anger, unhappiness, and misery?
He is "president" until 2020. His approval ratings are absolute shit and he is becoming more erratic as time goes on. Odds are the GOP loses one house in congress in a few months, and both by 2020. These things are cyclical.
Paul Krugman is a pundit. He's not only a pundit, he's the Ann Coulter of the left wing he's so reliably partisan. All he does is spout left wing talking points.
As for mistakes, there are (or at least were, from when he was considered interesting) whole websites dedicated to cataloging his mistakes. I don't think anyone really pays that much attention to him anymore, since he's just a partisan hack.
I really seeded this to point out the silly "logic" of Kevin Williamson of National Review.
What difference does it make if India has more soldiers than we do if they have no effective air force to protect those ground troops?
Williamson just wanted to dog Krugman and he comes out of it looking foolish.
Maybe you should review what type of weapons the enemy has been using in Iraq and Afghanistan and the failure of the US military to beat them. When Obama retreated in defeat from Iraq he did so under enemy fire.
OMG...... that evaluation is... painful (to put it kindly). And as far as the Obama "retreat" goes, well he was just honoring a GWB agreement.
Yet he claimed he ended the war in Iraq on multiple occasions. From the horses mouth.
But it was already over....
Yep .The mission was accomplished ... for that ship and crew. The banner was put up by ships company on their return to home port.
Yeah Obama kept taking the credit for ending the war and his minions were happy as hell to give e him the credit until things went to hell over there. Then it was everybody else but Obama that was responsible for pulling out.
That was what they said, but only after criticism about the claim without the war being concluded. Before the criticism, Bush had a complete different take on the banner.
The following is an unedited transcript of President Bush's historic speech from the flight deck of the USS Lincoln, during which he declared an end to major combat in Iraq
Yup, trying to change history...AGAIN!
I'd like to see those sites. Since I follow Krugman fairly closely, I know the cases where he has been wrong... and the way he has managed his errors. I'd like to see how complete or incomplete these sites' coverage was.
Would you have a link or two?