Boo! Hiss! For once, Krugman says something really Wrong.

[cthulu2016]

I revere Paul Krugman. In my book, he is the best thing we have going for us. And if I am anybody's sycophant, it's Krugman.

But he made a sideways, throw-away comment today that was so just... wrong.

He wrote a very good blog entry about how Poland has avoided a lot of the worst of the economic crisis because Poland is not part of the Euro, and is now very, very, very foolishly wanting to join the Euro.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/poland-is-not-yet-lost/

Excellent piece.

But he ends with this:

So what does Poland’s leadership want to do? Why, join the euro, of course.

It really does make you want to bang your head against a wall. Think of Spain, Ireland, now Cyprus. How much more evidence do we need that the euro is a trap, which can all too easily leave countries with no good options in the face of crisis? Even if you’ve bought into the legend of Latvia, which you shouldn’t, you should be willing to acknowledge that euro membership is at best a gamble, with a potentially terrible downside.

But no; they still believe that one more cavalry charge will drive those tanks away.

Argggghhhhh!!!!

It is widely believed that when Hitler invaded Poland, the out-matched Polish military conducted calvary charges (on horseback... with swords) against the German tanks.

This is not true. It is a myth. No Polish unit ever thought that men on horseback could challenge tanks. (They also did not plan a space flight to the sun at night, or make a submarine with screen doors.) Some Polish calvary units were indeed blown up by tanks while trying to escape, but the mythical calvary charge against tanks never happened. Sometimes the best way to escape a tank when on horseback is to get behind the tank's guns, which may involve going toward the tanks. Some men on horseback did, when cornered, wheel about to try to gallop past the tanks... to escape... not to hack at the tanks with sabers.

When Germany invaded Poland France and Britain declared war on Germany, but were not in much of a military position to pursue that war. The period of relative Franco-English inaction was cleverly dubbed, by wags, the "sitzkreig." And the sense that Poland was a martyr nation (brave, but abandoned by the allies) meshed with some erroneous fog-of-war journalism where a reporter had gotten the impression that the Poles were charging tanks with horses.

It fit a "tragic Poland" narrative, so it stuck. They are so bold and brave, and thus deserving of our help.

But later it became a military canard as an example of some really dumb almost stone-age people up against a first-rate modern military.

The Poles were indeed horribly outmatched by the Nazi invaders but they were not outright idiots.

But what really got my back up about Krugman's off-hand comment is this... what if it were true? What if Poland's resistance to the Nazis had been as total and 19th-century-romantic as myth suggests?

Would we really want to criticize somebody for the zeal of their resistance to the Nazis? It's just... wrong.

[RedstDem]

1. Krugman used that as a metaphor

c'mon now. you don't actually think he was referring to a fictitious historical event do you?
he made that comment to show futility in joining the European union while its under duress.

[Kolesar]

4. It landed flat

And it's a poor metaphor: nobody is "charging" anything. It's rather difficult to make a good joke about a moment that led to the deaths of millions of people. A few of the orphans and displaced people ended up in my home town.

[cthulu2016]

8. The problem is that it's offered as a previous example of Poland doing something very stupid

If it were a general historical canard, like saying that Poland joining the Euro would be like Mrs. O'Leary's cow starting the Chicago fire, that would be fine.

But it is offered as an example of Polish stupidity. That Poland is as dumb about joining the Euro as Poland was about resisting the Nazis.

It is intentionally pointed as a comment about Poland, and as such is rather raw.

It is as if France gave in on some economic policy dispute about interest rates too easily and we commented, "Hardly the first time France has surrendered too quickly."

In general, throw-away lines about how somebody's national character today is revealed by their getting their ass kicked by Hitler are to be avoided.

And when not even accurate, doubly so.

And when playing into a prejudice, triply so. (Charging tanks with horses is so clueless as to be a de facto 'pollock joke')

[RedstDem]

12. I look on the bright side

there's no stopping the stupid pole canards, so take comfort in having a country filled with the most beautiful people (women for me) I've ever seen makes a good revenge.

[graham4anything]

3. Well, I agree with your title, however, disagree with your bottom sentence.

I said the other day Krugman was not always correct, (and got yelled at), so I agree with your title.

However, as to the last sentence...
(And I am saying this as a Jewish Person who had my mother, grandparents and other relatives directly affected by Hitler and Nazi's, and someone who has heard the following soundbyte used by the pro-gun people here and in the past on other board...
That is the fabled soundbyte "If only the Jews had guns"...
That is a dangerous and utterly bogus statement to keep perpetrating because it assumes that anything different would have happened(no it would not) and at best a few seconds more, orbut probably would have meant a few weeks or a few days LESS of life.
In no way would it have changed any outcome at all, and my grandfathers brother did have a gun, and if he did not, perhaps he could have been dragged kicking and screaming BUT alive with the rest through the treachourous journey to America instead of using said gun to kill himself not wanting to relocate and start again.

And it so made me angry at QT for his movie Inglorious Bastards.

So two points of views on the OP, one agreeing, one disagreeing.

[randome]

5. Jesus, even I know that 'growing pains' are to be expected from a one-currency conversion.

It may take another decade or so before things sort themselves out in Europe. That's no reason to stop participating. Anything that helps unify Europe is, in general, a good thing.

[dawg]

7. It's not just growing pains.

Currency union without fiscal and political union is a disaster waiting to happen. Europe needs to consolidate politically before, and not after, adoption of a common currency. Everything that is happening now confirms that.

I agree with Krugman that Poland is better off *not* on the Euro.

[dawg]

6. Yes. I cringed a little at that line too.

[hfojvt]

9. sure that's the only time he has been wrong

a trivial little historical error

but his embrace of ATRA was all good http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022453600#post44

[Paulie]

10. Yeah. He could have used the example of the Polish legions in Haiti

Poles get a bad rap when it was the Polski who cracked Enigma and sent the how to to the British just before the invasion of Warsaw. And how they rebuilt Warsaw after the war with pictures to return it to how it looked unlike what we did in NOLA after Katrina.

[dipsydoodle]

11. Poland will hold a referendum on the subject.

It will be their choice one way or the other.