"Imagine yourself as a regular commentator on public affairs — maybe a paid pundit, maybe an supposed expert in some area, maybe just an opinionated billionaire. You weigh in on a major policy initiative that’s about to happen, making strong predictions of disaster. The Obama stimulus, you declare, will cause soaring interest rates; the Fed’s bond purchases will “debase the dollar” and cause high inflation; the Affordable Care Act will collapse in a vicious circle of declining enrollment and surging costs.
But nothing you predicted actually comes to pass. What do you do?
You might admit that you were wrong, and try to figure out why. But almost nobody does that; we live in an age of unacknowledged error."
Krugman's conclusion:
"And there’s also a moral issue involved. Refusing to accept responsibility for past errors is a serious character flaw in one’s private life. It rises to the level of real wrongdoing when policies that affect millions of lives are at stake."
Fascinating. Now consider the following prediction from Krugman in his October 6, 2011 New York Times op-ed entitled "Confronting the Malefactors":
"Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point.
. . . .
It’s clear what kinds of things the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators want, and it’s really the job of policy intellectuals and politicians to fill in the details."
So where is there any mention of Krugman's prediction concerning Occupy Wall Street in his opinion piece of today's date? For whatever reason, I couldn't find it.
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