It's one thing to conclude one specific article is offtopic (in which case please just flag it instead of commenting), but are you really saying that nothing Krugman could ever write would be interesting to hackers?
I think a great deal of what Krugman says is interesting (perhaps minus the Bush bashing, that just gets old), and occasionally something on reason.com, too, for that matter. I also like to read Kling, Thoma, Cowen and Mankiw, as well as The Economist's Free Exchange, and a few others from time to time. I suspect that I'm not alone in those interests.
However, I very rarely submit the articles I find that I like. My fear is that the ensuing discussions tend to be very much about ideologies and create lots of heat, but little light - they're about 'firm beliefs' rather than something that can ever really be proven in an internet discussion forum. These sorts of discussions, in my opinion, attract people that want to talk about politics and economics, which are sort of low-hanging fruit - everyone, not just hackers, has opinions on them. Also, there is so much written about those topics that it would be extremely easy to crowd out hacker/startup topics with economic ones, even restricting economics/politics postings to relatively good ones. My gut feeling is that if these articles prosper, this site will, with time, decline. Your site, your call though - if you say economics and or politics go, I will no longer comment or flag them. Maybe I'll even submit a few of my own.
BTW, one of my favorite articles of Krugman's is this one:
You're very protective of this community, David, and I appreciate it. But this economic crisis is not only a once-in-a-lifetime event, but it has tremendous consequences for start-ups.
It's better just to flag what you don't like. Personally, I find this article to be both insightful and important.
Heh, I suppose I get a bit wrapped up in it. Living in the middle of the Tirolean Alps, and not speaking much of the local language (German), I don't really interact much with hackers outside of this site, or pretty much at all in real life, which is less than ideal - I'm a fairly social person. Hopefully we'll be back in Italy in a few months and things will improve.
> But this economic crisis is not only a once-in-a-lifetime event, but it has tremendous consequences for start-ups.
Sure, but plenty of real, serious economists are still discussing the great depression too, so I am quite sure that there will be enough discussion about current events to last at least a generation. This article wasn't really all that directly related to startups, either. I thought it was pretty evident he wasn't talking about plain old stocks and bonds, but a lot of the wackier things going on (CDO's, CDS's, hedge funds, etc...). Even there, though, he was doing it in sort of a facile way that probably doesn't add much to the debate.
Easy counter-question: would it be okay to publish economists with different political opinions as long as some hacker was interested in it?
At some point, a public person decides to make politics part of his brand. That's a business decision. The results of that decision is that whenever they write, whatever the topic, politics gets inserted into the stream.
Personally I thought it was a poorly-worded and easily constructed essay based on class warfare and ignorance of the value of managing risk. (Which is odd given Krugman's occupation) All securities are risky. People make lots of money managing that risk for their clients. Every now and then Wall Street blows up and investors get screwed.
Nothing much to see here, except Krugman's dancing on the grave of hundreds of billions lost to the tune of "I'm with the little guy"
