While waiting at JFK International Airport last Sunday to catch a plane to Riga, Latvia, I saw Paul Krugman on the tube (along with Harvard’s Ken Rogoff). While the words were provided, nonetheless I could not get myself to watch it, as I just was not in the mood for ridiculous. Apparently, I missed a doozy. For that matter, I didn’t even know that space aliens were upon us, although I would say that in economic terms, space aliens will attack us before Keynesian “solutions” set the economy on a correct and sustainable path.

According to Krugman, war (be it with Germans and Japanese or space aliens) is a great thing (even though he admits it gives us “negative product social spending”) because it both gives us more employment AND inflation! I mean, what’s not to like? You can have prices rise and have empty store shelves — but you have a job, even if you can’t buy anything, as was the case in WWII.

As for Krugman’s “alien threat” comments, Bob Higgs has it right. On a recent Facebook post, Robert Higgs has written:

Professor Krugman, I can be even more Keynesian than thou. My plan: invite aliens to bring to earth the blueprints for a global debt-financed public-works program in which every nation would construct thousands of pyramids (constrained only by the condition that public debt not exceed infinity and policy makers’ IQ not exceed 63.)

Higgs makes more sense. Really. Mary Theroux of the Independent Institute agrees, and has this to say:

As Dr. Robert Higgs has more than ably shown, the Great Depression continued, and deepened, throughout the New Deal and throughout World War II. The World War II years were a time of shared privation, with virtually every item that we take for granted today either rationed: e.g., meat, gasoline, sugar, clothing; or not available at any cost: e.g., new cars, appliances, etc. The American standard of living throughout World War II remained at an excruciatingly low level that no 21st century American would accept. Meanwhile, unemployment disappeared simply because 16 million able-bodied people were sent to war, paid below-market rates and subject to danger, death, and maiming they may not have preferred to unemployment.

To be honest, I think that we will be better with space aliens running things than the Keynesians.

William L. Anderson is an author and an associate professor of economics at Frostburg State University in Maryland. He is also an adjunct scholar with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy as well as for the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Alabama.

Read more at “Krugman-in-Wonderland”

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Keynes was and always will be wrongYes, Krugman, maybe we should have Singapore's tax ratesIcelandic Airhead Economics - Krugman in WonderlandA couple of Krugman howlers - Krugman in WonderlandConsidering the source - War good for economy?It was only 5.9. Blame the Bond Vigilantes!! Too Small!Who is to blame for the coming downturn?Massive federal spending, face it, is “ludicrous and cruel”