alt Hacker NewsPaul Krugman* July 1978
*Assistant Professor, Yale University. This research was supported by a grant from the Committee to Re-Elect William Proxmire.
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DonaldPShimoda • today at 6:05 PM
I saw the name and thought "that sounds familiar", only to realize it's the economist I've seen on social media a lot lately (e.g., he was recently interviewed by Hasan Minhaj [0]).
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joe_the_user • today at 6:13 PM
Krugman won the Noble Prize in economics and was an influential New York Time commentator for years. William Proxmire was a congressman famous for his laser focus on supposedly wasteful government spending who often dug up and denounced studies that sounded silly.
In case people are missing the joke...
Willian Proxmire was a Senator from Wisconsin who was strongly opposed to government spending on basic research. He gave out "Golden Fleece" awards for studies that he thought were absurd. Unfortunately, it is very easy to make meaningful research sound ridiculous: bread mold as a cure for STDs? Pencil dust computers?