Comment by humanrebar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by humanrebar | Hacker News Reader

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I read the column (it's not factual enough to be an article). It has numbers, but it reads like the numbers follow the conclusion, not the other way around. Krugman ignores some very sophisticated discussions to be had on many issues.

For example, will the aging population in developed countries affect their medium-term ability to repay their debts? Krugman doesn't say anything on this topic other than to say the problem isn't unique to France. Graphs and numbers on how aging affects productivity is very germane but absent in his analysis.

I actually don't blame Krugman here. Let's be honest, in this article, Krugman is a political columnist. He basically admits that this is a political rant in his second paragraph. And the thesis of the column is that some people did something he disagrees with so they must be bad people with bad motives.

I just don't like that this was posted and upvoted here. I like when HackerNews has better content than this. I can read this sort of thing in /r/politics, The Huffington Post, or The New York Times. I come to HackerNews for tech, startup, futurism, science news, etc. Any political posts should at least have a tech or entrepreneurship bent and be based in rational argument, not political one-upsmanship.

Sorry to be pedantic, but your example doesn't support your claim (of not actual analysis, too little numbers and graphs, not rational).

The relevant point of bringing up ageing is that this is an area that is often brought up as a medium/long term financial sustainability problem, but one for which France has better stats (b/c of birthrate) than most countries of relevant comparison - however Krugman feels that this point is ignored by "fiscal scolds" (certainly true for the two articles he mentions).

To be even more pedantic, saying France is not as bad as other countries is hardly a point in favor of France's medium-term growth prospects.

I don't want to give a point-by-point rebuttal. I just find the whole column facile, argumentative, and not befitting HackerNews. I'd rather not be facile and argumentative in expressing that opinion.

The responses I've been getting here have been arguing or reiterating Krugman's points, not convincing me that it's good content for HackerNews.

Again, there are many other aggregators more suitable for this sort of column.

It is. It is a point in favor - relative to countries of relevant comparison. Which is relevant since credit ratings and investment advice is always relative.

And why do I think that the original post is relevant to HN - besides being interesting, well argued and factual? Because of this: http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/28232.html

Aging will affect France less than most other EU countries, since it has relatively high birthrates. In particular, Germany and Italy have horribly low birthrates and should be affected much more by this.

Since internal trade and capital flows are much more important for the EU economy than external trade and capital flows, what matters is the relative aging effect compared to other EU countries.

So it was valid to discard that effect for a discussion of the broader dynamics.

Now apply some numbers to that analysis and we have an argument. How much have medium-term German and Italian default risks (in percentage points) been affected by low birthrates? How do the projected French rates compare?

To rephrase, imagine a benchmark test comparing javascript engines. A good blog post comparing those tests would have charts and graphs describing relative performance, what affects performance, and so on.

I don't see that kind of reasoning here, just the political equivalent of javascript linkbait.

Again, given his goals and target audience, I don't think Krugman wrote a bad column. I just think this is the wrong medium for it.

By your comparison you are looking for an analysis that is guaranteed to be completely flawed. It's just a fact that we don't have a theory of economics that can generate an analysis of that detail that is predictive at all.

You should be aware that if you see an analysis like that it's the same level of evidence as this piece, but the turd is polished to look more authoritative.

Not a good direction to go in. At all.

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