He was paid by it before he was against it

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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:31 am

In the wake of Enron founder Ken Lay’s death, Mark Steyn reminds us that NYT columnist Paul Krugman received $50,000 for serving on Enron’s advisory board:

Fifty-thousand dollars is a high price to pay even for prestigious nothing. It’s 10,000 more than the median household income of the United States, never mind all those little folks the Prof feels so badly for. The man who sneers at the malign influence of Enron money on Republican politicians – or, as he calls them “the people Enron put in the White House”- has received more money from Enron than any member of the House of Representatives. If he were in the Senate, where 71 of 100 members have been endowed with Enron moolah, he would rank in that crowded field as the third biggest beneficiary of the company’s generosity.

The above was written in 2002. Krugman is still on staff at the NYT.

Posted by Tim B. on 07/06/2006 at 11:19 AM
    1. Are we really sure that Krugman did “nothing” for Enron? Considering the company’s ultimate fate, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that some bad economic advice was part of the mix.

      Posted by paco on 2006 07 06 at 12:13 PM • permalink

 

    1. Was Krugman not part of the group of economists that went to Russia to assist its transition from Communism into a peaceful, law-abiding capitalist society? How’d that work out, Paulie Boy?

      Posted by SoberHT on 2006 07 06 at 12:18 PM • permalink

 

    1. #1 paco

      Are we really sure that Krugman did “nothing” for Enron? Considering the company’s ultimate fate, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that some bad economic advice was part of the mix.

      No kidding. The connection ought to be obvious. Why he wasn’t named as an unindicted co-conspirator is a mystery.

      Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 07 06 at 12:26 PM • permalink

 

    1. Well, isn’t that special.  It’s just another example of the principles and integrity that lefty blowhards like Krugman continually pontificate about, but do not actually possess.

      Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 07 06 at 01:19 PM • permalink

 

    1. Krugman is supposed to have a reputation for something or other economic, which I assume he puts aside when doing columns.

      Posted by rhhardin on 2006 07 06 at 01:46 PM • permalink

 

    1. Isn’t he behind the Times “wall”?  So we don’t have to worry about anyone’s taking his advice any longer.

      Posted by ushie on 2006 07 06 at 02:02 PM • permalink

 

    1. ushie,

      Did they before he was hidden behind the Wall? I mainly know of him from seeing many of his howlers exposed by bloggers.

      Posted by Major John on 2006 07 06 at 02:21 PM • permalink

 

    1. It is no surprise whatsoever that people whose reality is free of all fact are not embarrassed when facts like this bubble up.

      Posted by Nightfly on 2006 07 06 at 02:30 PM • permalink

 

    1. He wrote this for Fortune Magazing for $50k

      “”The retreat of business bureaucracy in the face of the market was brought home to me recently when I joined the advisory board at Enron–a company formed in the ‘80s by the merger of two pipeline operators. In the old days energy companies tried to be as vertically integrated as possible: to own the hydrocarbons in the ground, the gas pump, and everything in between. And Enron does own gas fields, pipelines, and utilities. But it is not, and does not try to be, vertically integrated: It buys and sells gas both at the wellhead and the destination, leases pipeline (and electrical-transmission) capacity both to and from other companies, buys and sells electricity, and in general acts more like a broker and market maker than a traditional corporation. It’s sort of like the difference between your father’s bank, which took money from its regular depositors and lent it out to its regular customers, and Goldman Sachs. Sure enough, the company’s pride and joy is a room filled with hundreds of casually dressed men and women staring at computer screens and barking into telephones, where cubic feet and ”The retreat of business bureaucracy in the face of the market was brought home to me recently when I joined the advisory board at Enron–a company formed in the ‘80s by the merger of two pipeline operators. In the old days energy companies tried to be as vertically integrated as possible: to own the hydrocarbons in the ground, the gas pump, and everything in between. And Enron does own gas fields, pipelines, and utilities. But it is not, and does not try to be, vertically integrated: It buys and sells gas both at the wellhead and the destination, leases pipeline (and electrical-transmission) capacity both to and from other companies, buys and sells electricity, and in general acts more like a broker and market maker than a traditional corporation. It’s sort of like the difference between your father’s bank, which took money from its regular depositors and lent it out to its regular customers, and Goldman Sachs. Sure enough, the company’s pride and joy is a room filled with hundreds of casually dressed men and women staring at computer screens and barking into telephones, where cubic feet and megawatts are traded and packaged as if they were financial derivatives. (Instead of CNBC, though, the television screens on the floor show the Weather Channel.) The whole scene looks as if it had been constructed to illustrate the end of the corporation as we knew it.”.
      (Instead of CNBC, though, the television screens on the floor show the Weather Channel.) The whole scene looks as if it had been constructed to illustrate the end of the corporation as we knew it.””

      I got this from Andrew Sullivan’s archives.  It used to be on a web site at MIT. But it has somehow been deleted.

      Posted by moptop on 2006 07 06 at 03:53 PM • permalink

 

    1. Major John, I wouldn’t, but I kept hearing about how clever he was…

      Posted by ushie on 2006 07 06 at 03:53 PM • permalink

 

    1. thanks for the quote moptop. I remember reading that article in one of Krugman’s books.

      PK’s economics background is in international trade rather than energy markets. Its difficult to imagine what “expert” advice he could have given to a company like enron.

      Posted by Mike.A. on 2006 07 06 at 04:01 PM • permalink

 

    1. Here is a link to the article in question. Sorry about quoting so much into the thread. Preview is there for a reason, I know.

      The Ascent of E-Man

      Posted by moptop on 2006 07 06 at 04:18 PM • permalink

 

    1. In his own small way, Paul Krugman help destroy the retirement nest eggs of the thousands and thousands of people by doing what he was paid to do – look the other way.

      Posted by perfectsense on 2006 07 06 at 04:29 PM • permalink

 

    1. What ever happened to Krugger’s ‘W’ shaped recession anyway?

      Posted by moptop on 2006 07 06 at 04:30 PM • permalink

 

    1. Well done, moptop—I raise my Coke Zero (named after the intelligence of the NYT) to you.

      Posted by SoberHT on 2006 07 06 at 04:50 PM • permalink

 

    1. The whole scene looks as if it had been constructed to illustrate the end of the corporation as we knew it” –Kroggers

      He should have trusted his gut there, but hey 50 grand is 50 grand.

      Posted by moptop on 2006 07 06 at 05:09 PM • permalink

 

    1. #7 Believe it or not, they did.  He was a well regarded international economist, I suppose he still is, and wrote various academic books on the subject.  This was before he went crazy and started writing for the NYT.  Perhaps when he realized that a Nobel in economics was out of his reach he decided to shoot for a Pulitzer?  And for this you have to shoot pretty far left.

      Posted by Not My Problem on 2006 07 06 at 06:34 PM • permalink

 

    1. Krugman actually had a couple brilliant articles in the late 1980s which correctly predicted the decline of the Japanese economy.

      Like Chomsky, he’s someone who has demonstrated perspicacity in a particular field, and mistaken his for acumen in general policymaking.

      Posted by TallDave on 2006 07 06 at 07:52 PM • permalink

 

    1. I resent the implication that Krugman is either a $50,000 con man or a $50,000 whore.

      Who says he can’t be both?

      Posted by iowahawk on 2006 07 06 at 08:04 PM • permalink

 

    1. iowahawk

      I have it on first hand (OK, OK 101st hand) knowledge that Krugman is THIS kind of person..

      If someone offered you a ‘49 Cadillac for 120 bucks, would you turn it down? If your answer is “yes,” please click your browser’s back button and leave in an orderly fashion because I really don’t want your type reading my blog.

      Posted by El Cid on 2006 07 06 at 08:16 PM • permalink

 

    1. Like Chomsky, he’s someone who has demonstrated perspicacity in a particular field, and mistaken his for acumen in general policymaking.

      I call that “Richard Dawkins syndrome”.

      Posted by Ross on 2006 07 06 at 09:04 PM • permalink

 

    1. The fact that PK is more a political commentator than economic is probably the result of his economic forecast track record.  Those who can do…those who can’t preach.

      Posted by M. Thomas on 2006 07 06 at 09:39 PM • permalink

 

    1. Ross, why is Dawkins relevant here? He is actually teaching in line with his field of specialist knowledge, and

      He is doing creationists a huge favour, by attempting to get them to ground beliefs.  If you believe, and the evidence is against your belief, you need to say ‘Hell, I believe whatever the evidence says’.  Not bamboozle the punters, or deceive yourself with clutched straws such as dislikeing the person’s manner who tells you the truth.

      Posted by ChrisPer on 2006 07 06 at 09:47 PM • permalink

 

    1. O/T – I can’t make sense of this report in today’s The Age about the retirement of the head of the Uniting Church (for the benefit of US readers the Uniting Church was cobbled together from the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches in the 1960s – a compromise that pandered to the lowest common denominator in each religion):

      “With dreadful irony, cereal ignorance shows what happens when serial ignorance takes the place of truth and justice.”

      Then —

      He also said Australia was “sucking dry” its Pacific and regional neighbours to maintain its own lifestyle.

      What a tool.  He must have forgotten the millions in aid we give the black fellas in the islands, and which they traditionally piss up against a wall.

      Here.

      Posted by walterplinge on 2006 07 06 at 10:05 PM • permalink

 

    1. Who knows, maybe Krugman will have a heart attack too.

      Posted by G Hamid USA on 2006 07 06 at 11:41 PM • permalink

 

    1. I thought of Dawkins as soon as I read TallDave’s Chomsky line.

      ChrisPer: It’s Dawkins’s other stuff that Ross was referring to. He’s quite the loony leftist when he’s not writing about selfish genes.

      Posted by Brian O’Connell on 2006 07 06 at 11:58 PM • permalink

 

    1. ChrisPer as Brian O’Connell says it’s when Dawkins moves away from evolution and starts pontificating about subjects like fox hunting or whatever that he starts talking crap.

      Posted by Ross on 2006 07 07 at 05:44 AM • permalink

 

    1. Richard Dawkins?  I immediately thought of the Hogan’s Heroes actor/game show host.

      Posted by ushie on 2006 07 07 at 05:57 AM • permalink

 

    1. #17: Maybe he’s shooting for a Coogler award.

      Posted by paco on 2006 07 07 at 08:28 AM • permalink

 

    1. #8—It is no surprise whatsoever that people whose reality is free of all fact are not embarrassed when facts like this bubble up.

      I know some people who fit this description to a T – If it’s yours, may I borrow the line, or do I need to pay you for it???

      Thank you for giving me the first smile of my day!

      Posted by KC on 2006 07 07 at 09:27 AM • permalink

 

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