Paul Krugman Deliberately Misleads, Again and Again

I already have a blog post entitled "Paul Krugman Deliberately Misleads, Again".  So this post must be named "Again and Again"

In a recent blog, Krugman argues that there was no growth miracle under Reagan, and there was one under Clinton.  But he cherry picks the dates over which growth is measured.  It's trivial to debunk with a one minute Google search.

To see some real data, go to the excellent Trading Economics web site and look for US GDP growth.  Select 1973 in the Date Selection gizmo.  You should see this:



Judge for yourself the GDP growth during the Reagan and Clinton growth periods.  Looks pretty equal to me.  But Krugman includes the years of recession in the average.  There was a long and deep recession included in the Reagan totals, and a short and shallow recession in the Clinton total.  So of course the averaged growth rate over the entire period would be higher under Clinton.

In addition, for two of these years of the long recession, 1979 and 1980, which are included in the Reagan totals, Reagan wasn't even in office.  This is obvious BS.  (And kudos to Greg Mankiw for pointing it out)

Jon Carroll messes up

Jon Carroll, in a June 8 column, blasts Sarah Palin's comments on Paul Revere as embarrassing and garbled.  Others have been even less charitable.  When I first heard her comments, I thought the same thing.  But it turns out that she had the facts more or less correct.

BLOCK (the interviewer): So you think basically, on the whole, Sarah Palin got her history right.
Prof. ALLISON (the guest): Well, yeah, she did.

And this was a couple of days before Jon Carroll's column.  Now, maybe there is a lead time, and he wasn't aware of the NPR interview when the article was written.  However, it is now nearly a week later and he should apologize.

BTW, for an interesting take on Paul Revere as "not much of a hero", read The Fort by Bernard Cornwell.