Buyer Be Wary of Academic Dunces

Have you ever wondered whether we should have a warning label on college courses? “Warning: this course is taught by a professor who has proven he is a dunce.”

Your child can sign up for a course at Princeton with Professor Paul Krugman. He won a Nobel Prize in economics. He writes for the New York Times. And for many other papers via syndication.

Very often he writes and teaches garbage.

Your child might attend a course taught by Professor Paul Ehrlich at Stanford University. A course about population trends in the world. He is an expert in this field. He sold 3 million copies of his book on this subject. What he wrote and what he taught is garbage.

First, let’s discuss Krugman. Right after Donald Trump’s election he announced stock markets would plunge and never recover. He proclaimed the new president was irresponsible, ignorant, and has put all the wrong people in charge of the economy.

Krugman said we are probably looking at a global recession with no end in sight. “…a terrible thing just happened,” he proclaimed.

Who is irresponsible here? Krugman. He has probably millions of readers around the world. Serious people take him seriously. After all, he won a Nobel, and Princeton lets him teach. His opinions are so powerful in this world, they might easily start a few trembles in markets. Thereby affecting the wealth of hundreds of millions of people.

I am sure many investors took Krugman’s advice and dumped their stocks. Today, they look at how stocks (as measured by the S&P 500 index) have gained more than 35 percent since the 2016 election, while their money sat on the sidelines. Economies in most of the world are healthy.

Krugman was utterly, totally, completely wrong — on one of the most important questions of the day.

Fifty years ago, Professor Ehrlich scared the hell out of millions. He announced the battle to feed humanity was over. In the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of millions would starve, he predicted. They would, no matter what crash programs we fired up. He told us nothing could prevent huge increases in the world’s death rate.

Ehrlich’s impact was powerful. Some claim it frightened India into forcing millions of women to be sterilized. He helped generate hysteria among those concerned with the environment. To this day, we hear some folks wail about how overpopulation will destroy us.

All of it was rot. He made numerous predictions of doom. In nearly all cases the very opposite came about. He was as good at predicting as was Krugman.

Suppose you are the top financial executive in a company. Suppose your projections are as far out from reality as those of these guys. You would get fired. And you would deserve it.

Did these guys get fired? Nah. They got promoted. They got protected with tenure. Did the New York Times decide that this guy, Krugman, maybe does not know what he writes about? Nope. The Times seems to love him.

Anybody can make mistakes, of course. But, how can Princeton take students’ money? For courses taught by a guy who predicts worldwide meltdown when the opposite happens? Krugman did a little mea culpa on television. He admitted he let his political biases color his thinking. How can Stanford allow someone to teach about population when he is 1,000 percent wrong in his big book?

Many academic experts also predicted we would be squeezing the last few drops of oil from the earth by now. They were utterly wrong. Worse, they influenced the writing of various policies. The policies look ridiculous today. Because they were based on the predictions from these academics.

Yet they continue to teach. They continue to win honors. Tenure is supposed to give academics freedom and protection. Is it supposed to protect them from being dismissed for fraud?

I truly do believe some universities deserve to be branded as purveyors of fraud.

From Tom…as in Morgan.                       

Tom Morgan writes about political, financial, and other subjects from his home near Oneonta. Write Tom at tomasinmorgan@yahoo.com. Read more of his writing at tomasinmorgan.com