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Comment by dasil003 | Hacker News Reader

Uh, where are the BTC prices on that site? If you want to come across as anything other than a froth-mouthed crackpot hurling ad-hominems at a respected economist, you need to offer up some actual data. Granted, Krugman didn't either, but he's got a reputation to fall back on, you've got nothing.

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The title is a reference to the book "Golden Fetters" by Barry Eichengreen which discusses the role the gold standard played in transmitting deflation during the Great Depression. Krugman isn't citing statistics because Eichengreen does the heavy lifting here. He's just reminding people that libertarians who attack the Fed because they want a new gold standard are basically crazy.

I agree with his assessment (bitcoin would be a disaster as a national currency), but don't think this is a problem since it is valuable as an asset store and transfer mechanism, and seems to be holding value.

Wait, the Fed is formed to finance WW1, goes on a massive inflationary binge through the 20s and causes the Great Depression, and the takeaway is that the gold is the problem?

Genius.

Exactly. You pass reading comprehension.

For bonus points, read the actual book. Informed discussions are always more interesting.

I'm not sure Krugman's reputation is as reputable as you suggest. Some might even call him a "froth-mouthed crackpot hurling ad-hominems". Not me of course, I wouldn't want to hurl ad-hominems in place of a real argument. Better to appeal to authority.

> I'm not sure Krugman's reputation is as reputable as you suggest

I know that winning the Nobel Prize is not the end of the world and that there are often political motives behind these prizes (Obama anyone?), but between believing a guy who won a Nobel Prize in economics vs. believing a random guy on HN with no real argument, the choice is easy (to me at least).

To the best of my knowledge, Krugman rarely (if ever) hurls ad-hominems: he always tries to explain why he strongly disagrees with conservatives, tea party, or Obama. The adjective he uses for them almost always fit his explanations.

In economics people win for their work, not their winning personality. Krugman won for "his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity" - http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2...

Hayek also won the Nobel Prize and would undoubtedly disagree with almost everything Krugman believes.

He won for "pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena" - http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1...

I don't believe the gold standard is a good for our mandated monetary system, but I also don't believe forced currency monopolies and gold confiscation should exist in a "free" country - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

The executive order you link to has not been in effect since the 70s.

That's not the point. The point is that the government can make it illegal to own gold by executive order anytime it wants.

I think David Frum put it best [1]:

> Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Wall Street Journal editorial page between 2000 and 2011, and someone in the same period who read only the collected columns of Paul Krugman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of the current economic crisis?

[1] http://www.frumforum.com/were-our-enemies-right

Using that hypothetical, you'd either think George W. Bush was the next coming of Jesus or Hitler. There was very little unbiased economic information in either opinion section. On his blog, Krugman is much less biased and inflammatory (perhaps because he doesn't feel the need to help sell newspapers there) and in this case, he brings up some valid points about the intentionally deflationary currency.

You're missing the point of the frumforum post. It was: if you were planning for the future, which source of predictions (the WSJ editorial page or Krugman's column) would have been a more accurate guide? It's about whether the horse would win, place, show, or be in the money at all - not whether the horse was pretty.

Biased or unbiased doesn't matter. The truth is biased. If the WSJ or Krugman says the passage of X bill will destroy Thailand's exports, and Thailand's exports rise, that's a failure. If the WSJ or Krugman say that Thailand is a beautiful country, that's irrelevant to the question.

And my point was that there was more opinion than useful information or predictions on those op-ed pages.

Can you or Frum point out specific examples that might make one conclude that one op-ed page was more reliable than the other?

BTW, truth is not biased. 2 + 2 = 4 is not biased. Only people can be biased. Using throw away cliches like that doesn't get us anywhere.

I'm not going to do your research for you, I'm just saying that whether either demonised or praised Bush is irrelevant to the claim that was being made - unless you're making specific claims that Bush will verifiably exhibit the ability to possess a little girl, or to drive the demons out of a little girl into a herd of pigs.

Truth is biased; it will ignore every argument you make that contradicts what it knows to be true. 2 + 2 = 4 is irredeemably biased against 2 + 2 = 5. Disturbingly partisan.

The only claim made in the hypothetical question was that either op-ed page could be used to become "informed about the realities of the current economic crisis". I was criticizing that assumption, not whether one was a better source of information than the other.

Bias has to do with how we perceive the world. To say that data has a bias comes from a unique perception of fairness, not the data itself. To exclude relevant data to make a point, which these op-ed pages are notorious for, is a form of bias. More definitions here: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bias

I'm not sure what the difference is between something that would make one better informed and something being a better source of information.

Better than new HN account with negative karma? Yeah, I'm really sticking my neck out.

An appeal to authority is only fallacious if the authority is not a legitimate expert on the subject or if the conclusion is said to be true, and not just probable.

In this case, an appeal to authority is a perfectly valid way of asserting that a certain conclusion is more probable than the other.

Lots of people don't view Krugman as a legitimate expert. His opinions are not universally accepted and so I don't think his authority should be assumed.

In any case, if the underlying argument is valid it really doesn't matter who is making it, right? An appeal to authority is really just a shortcut to avoid the full argument but it only works if the full argument (with no appeal to authority) can be made.

Sigh. Voted down because of a little humor and the fact that I'm not persuaded that Krugman is a accepted authority on economic matters.

Certain circles of people do view him as an authority, but many others do not. There is no consensus as to Krugman's expertise and so relying on his authority (as opposed to his particular argument on a particular issue) is dubious.

Economics is a difficult field in which to find concensus on many issues and so an appeal to authority in this area should automatically raise eyebrows.

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