Dr. Paul Krugman is Fed to a Tiger

Announcer: Hello again everyone and welcome back to another thought-provoking edition of Fed to a Tiger, as always with your host  ... Cougar!

[applause]

Cougar: Hello everyone. Hello. Thank you, you are very kind. Wow great audience tonight no really thank you. I'm overwhelmed.

[applause]

Cougar: Wow look at that. I feel like I've won the Nobel Prize in Economics or something.

[polite laughter]

Cougar: Yeah you guys caught that one, good. Not many audiences would have appreciated the reference. That's why I like to work before a professional crowd once in a while. Who do we have in the audience tonight, Ben?

Announcer: Well Cougar tonight's audience is composed of academics, policy makers and critics with expertise in the fields of economics, Federal policy, and market analysis, among others.

Cougar: Seriously! That's a lot of grey matter to have all in one place. Wait I have an idea! How about instead of feeding some asshole to a tiger we instead take this opportunity to resolve now and forever the debate between the relative importance of market efficiency mechanisms verses aggregate demand? Anyone up for that?

[loud applause and laughter]

Announcer: Sorry Cougar, but our  producer just informed me we really do need to feed someone to the tiger. Something about this being stipulated in Kali's performance contract.

Cougar: Snap! Well there you go folks. Sorry. But if it comes down to either clarifying the world's great macroeconomic questions ... or feeding a hungry tiger ... well I gotta go with keeping myself alive out here, see?

[laughter]

Cougar: What a great bunch. I'm really having fun up here. But since Kali like time waits for no man, we must forge ahead. And we really do have a very special show tonight. Tonight we kill and devour no less a light than Dr. Paul Krugman!

[applause]

Cougar: Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics. And a frequent contributing columnist for The New York Times. Recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Author of 20 books, more than 200 scholarly articles, and over 750 columns on topics covering economic and political issues! So won't you please raise the roof for today's cat food ... Paul Krugman!
 
[applause as Dr. Krugman enters stage left]

Cougar: Welcome sir. Thank you for joining us on the show. Have a seat please right here. Excellent.

PK: It's a pleasure to be here.

Cougar: Excellent just excellent. Mad props for taking time away from your busy schedule of appearances and writing vaguely slanderous op-ed pieces to join us. So share with us Dr. Krugman your thoughts on the current state of the global economic picture.

PK: I see evidence that flexible monetary policy responses taken together have improved the overall stability of the macroeconomic picture.

Cougar: Or to put that in English; the rich got richer, so it's all good.

PK: You know I am heading up an effort to better understand the issues of wealth inequality.

Cougar: At $25,000 per month, yes we heard about that. And as for understanding it, I'll save you some trouble and let you know that the rich getting all the money on the planet for their personal use is likely 100% of the problem. I won't even charge you a dime for that bit, my gift to humanity. With that said you are of course planning to donate your gains from the project to charity?

[applause]

PK: The best route for capital investment during a recession is via government spending, not charity.

Cougar: Ah yes your favourite baseless canard unsupported by evidence. The consensus now is that so much money has been siphoned off by the insolvent too-big-to-fail institutions like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs that almost nothing -- no let me correct myself -- absolutely nothing makes its way to Main Street where it might do some good. So explain to us again how does qualitative easing actually manage to save the economy?

PK: Government intervention calms markets and creates incentives to invest.

Cougar: Spoken like a true saltwater economist! Keynes must be proud.

[laughter]

PK: The freshwater school of economics is composed of morons who never understood the classic foundations of macroeconomic theory.

[boos and jeers]

Cougar: Oooh! Burn! And yet many working economists claim you have deliberately taken a steaming shit all over those very classics, creating instead a parody of classicism that from the outset enabled the overbearing excesses of the central management style of authoritarian state, setting us all up for a possible resurgence of corporatist Fascism not seen since 1936 Germany. Or am I wrong?

[loud applause]

PK: You are worse than wrong sir you are a fool and a discredit to the field of economics.

Cougar: Actually I'm a writer of fantasy fiction but now you mention it there are some cogent similarities with economics.

[laughter] 

Cougar: Great audience tonight. Classy bunch. You guys can laugh at yourselves, I like it.

PK: Economics is a science. Fact. We know everything and hold all the power in the world. Actually forget this we thing -- I know everything and I do not share power. Resulting from my high opinion of myself and the manner in which my theories further empower the powerful, I have been recruit to consult with presidents and central bankers the world over. My opinions are now enshrined in the monetary and economic policy of five continents. There is no room for debate. The verdict is in and monetary interventionism supporting deficit investment has saved the global economy from ruin. So I win. Anyone disagrees will be shown in an unfavourable light in my next column for the New York Times. You sir in particular have offended my sensibilities and must atone or be socially destroyed. Here, kiss my Nobel ring.

Cougar: If I must then ... oh that's pretty. Can my girlfriend have a look? She's into shiny things.

PK: Yeah I know, this drives women crazy. Sure bring her out but be warned she might want my D after.

Cougar: Dr. Krugman my girl is totally going down on your D ... in exactly 53 seconds. Kali come here girl good tiger that's right.

[tiger Kali walks on stage right]

PK: Is that a real tiger?

Cougar: No sir, it is not a tiger rather it as a theory being put to a test.

PK: I see. And what is the test?

Cougar: The test is will this particular tiger will hit someone made entirely of asshole.

PK: Oh I'm an expert in that field as well, having held the prestigious Peabody Chair for Asshatery in Dublin. Where in 1988 -- in response to some silly nonsense written by Nestler 1986 -- I first stipulated in a 512 page opinion that tigers will not hit asshole.

Cougar: Yes we know about that, we read it and noticed some flaws in your logic. But we can clear this up easily enough with a simple field test. Kali ... kill the mutherfucker!

[roaring, crashing of furniture accompanied by screams]

[loud applause and cheering]

Cougar: Wow look at that, seems Nestler 1986 nailed that shit first time. You owe him a retraction, Krugman you noisy fucker.

PK: [gasping] Subject to ... initial conditions ... but ... Nobel Prize ...

[Kali snarling rips out Dr. Krugman's throat]

[applause and cheering]

Cougar: Oops looks like Kali was just as sick of listening to your shit as the rest of us, Krugman. But don't worry we'll take care of the retraction for you.

Announcer: Hey Cougar, according to the producer Dr. Nestler (retired Chair Emertus Cornell University School of Business Sciences) is right here in the audience!

Cougar: Get out! That is sooooo cool. Bring the good man forward. Oh that must be him right now dancing the funky chicken in the isle! Looking good for -- what -- must be 96? Join me on the stage sir, if you don't mind. Someone help him up. This is great just great.

[loud sustained applause and cheering]

[Dr. Nestler slowing taking the stage on a cane with assistance]

Cougar: Thank you for joining us on the set, Dr. Nestler. Seems your theory turned out to be spot-on after all. Any words for the audience in this your moment of vindication?

Dr. Nestler: [clears throat] This is a very special moment for myself and the entire field of applied macrotigeromics. I would like to thank Dr. Krugman for taking the time in 1988 to respond to my presentation, but as I pointed out at the time he was nothing but an insufferable asshole whose skill in the field did not attain his undo influence. He is far better off eaten by a tiger. Thank you.

[loud applause]

Cougar: Eloquent and gracious! What a class act. Thank you Dr. Nestler for joining us!

[Dr. Nestler  making his way off stage with assistance.]

[sustained applause]

Announcer: And that about wraps up this edition of Fed to a Tiger, with today's special guest Dr. Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate and all around complete asshole. Filmed live before a studio audience made up entirely of peers and colleagues whom he has made a long career of villifying with baseless insults and accusations of incompetance. Tune in next time when we'll revisit Dr. Krugman after he has been reduced to a bucket of Kali's excrement.

Cougar: Twenty-seven feet of aggressive feline digestive tract will probably do that to just about anyone, but we're still doing ground tests to verify. Tell the audience about the best part, Ben.

Announcer: Everyone who contributed to luring Dr. Krugman out of his ivory tower and getting him on the set will receive via postal carrier a small, freeze-dried piece of Dr. Krugman as excrement. Courtesy of Fed to a Tiger.

[applause]

Cougar: Real Paul Krugman Nobel Laureate, adviser to kings, realized as actual cat shit. Have him bronzed. Set him in resin. Mount him on a plaque on the wall in the business school library. We know it's small consolation realized too late, and we freely admit that Paul Krugman as cat shit is not the Nobel Prize in Economics, but since the Nobel committee tarnished the prize by giving it to an asshole like Krugman who wants it anyway?

[applause]

Announcer: So until next time, don't let yourself be ...

Audience: Fed to a Tiger!

[cheering and applause]

[roll credits]

Announcer: Kali's collar by Eaten Alive of London. Cougar's wardrobe courtesy REI Outfitters. Set design by Fortran. Our audio engineer tonight was Rose MacIntyre. All characters are fictitious. Any resemblance to any real asshole economists destroying the global economy with flawed advice is strictly satirical. The cast, technical staff and host of course wish Dr. Paul Krugman all the best in his future professional endeavours, but if there was any way we could have legally fed him to a tiger, we absolutely would have.