Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson roasted New York Times columnist Paul Krugman over his history of erroneous predictions and lack of civility on his blog Thursday on Morning Joe.
Among a plethora of mistaken forecasts, Ferguson noted in particular Krugman's "180 degree" switch on the danger of the U.S. national debt as evidence of rank political hypocrisy.
Moreover, Ferguson said "Krugtron the Invincible" lacks the necessary "humility, honesty and civility" requisite for public discussion.
Ferguson has taken it upon himself in a series of blog posts to "call him out" because "everyone seems to be afraid of him, but I'm not":
NIALL FERGUSON: Krugman's key claims is that we should have done a much bigger stimulus, three times of the size of the one we did in 2009 and there would have been no down side risk to the credit worthiness of the United States. I don't think that claim is plausible, and the reason I don't think it's plausible is that it's not testable. It's based on his models, his beloved models. No, these are not the kind of models you're thinking of Harold these are economic models. I have to say, these models were so -- these models --
HAROLD FORD: He knows my wife.
FERGUSON: I'm sorry, there shouldn't be levity in this discussion. I'm serious. These models failed to predict the financial crisis. They were really wrong about that. I show that in my Huffington Post article on the second day, and they were totally wrong on the Euro, totally wrong.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: The third of the third part series on "Krugtron the Invincible" just came out.
FERGUSON: That's what he calls himself.
SCARBOROUGH: He does call himself that, anyway you got to read that.
HAROLD FORD: He calls himself that?
FERGUSON: Yeah, he glories. You see it's the hubris of it. But I'm here to tell him in public exchange, in public discussion there needs be humility, honesty and civility. That's all. And that's what he lacks. And there's no accountability. Nobody seems to edit that blog in the New York Times and it's high time that somebody call him out. People are afraid of him. I'm not.
Full segment: