http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/campaign-0-1240
I think we should try and revive this. It certainly hasn’t been abandoned by Bob Murphy, and we would benefit in a huge way if we succeeded. Also, we lose nothing if we don’t succeed, because thepoint doesn’t charge unless the goal is reached.
damn it… the title is misleading, i thought it was an actual debate between the two…
Same here. Frankly, I really don’t think Krugman’s gonna take the bait if he hasn’t by this point.
If he doesn’t take it, then we still win; first, you lose no money, and second, it would be bad publicity for Krugman to reject a debate with 100k going towards charity, as it would show him to be a blatant fraud.
I appluad whoever came up with this idea. This is very smart politics.
Krugman makes a living telling people what they already believe. He doesn’t need respect.
Obviously Krugman isn’t going to debate Bob Murphy. He has nothing to gain from it and everything to lose. The winning candidate never agrees to a risky debate, it’s always the underdog who wants that. The last thing the mainstream wants is to bring attention to Austrians.
It would bring us even more attention if Krugman refused despite 100k for charity. After all, we are believers of an archaic economic school, so surely he can debate us. If he doesn’t it does us even more benefit then if he does.
Now, see, the problem I find here is the assumption that the media will actually care about Krugman refusing despite 100k for charity. The reason for my pessimism is that I don’t think anyone’s going to care or notice even if we get to 100k. Krugman sure isn’t going to even mention the offer and has probably ignored emails sent to him regarding it.
I doubt they would get away with ignoring it. With all the Ron Paul supporters, we could redirect Krugman’s rejection to them and they would spread it across the blogosphere, whereupon it would probably reach media of some form (read: the conservatives that hate Krugman).
Remember what happened when Fox tried to replace the CPAC 2010 footage with 2011 footage a couple weeks ago? Same idea.
Did that get picket up by the mainstream media? Or are you referring to the blogopshere only in the CPAC 2011/2010 case?
A couple of weeks ago? do you mean three days ago 
I am bad with dates, sorry
but yeah, the point still applies. They can’t get away with ignoring this sort of thing any more.
I am so confused by this. Could someone please explain to me why Krugman should be embarrassed that a group of fringe ideologues refuse to give to charity unless it advances their political philosophy?
Nobody is pretending that the Austrian side of thing is being completely altruistic here. Yes, we are trying to strongarm Krugman into debating ABCT. Nobody is denying that. The point is that by just agreeing to the debate, he will transfer 70k from greedy libertarians to a food bank. The ball is in his court.
Or the libertarians could just do it now. Instead of making themselves look incredibly selfish.
Are you are commanding us to give our money to the poor and if not then we are selfish?
I’m saying that Krugman can’t be held responsible for the actions of libertarians.
Since when has this ever been the case? No one here is even implying this. The main point is to attract media attention.
By making libertarians look like selfish, callous fools.