hipsterlibertarian:

“Let’s sh*t on East Europeans: their English is bad, won’t respond & actually do what they’ve agreed to & reelect govts that are responsible.”

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Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, going after Keynesian economist Paul Krugman on Twitter after the latter criticized Estonia’s use of austerity measures to produce a steady, though still incomplete, recovery from the recession.

Ilves sent out a series of very angry tweets in response to Krugman’s short article, and later shared a lengthy article he wrote in March explaining his support for thrifty policies in Estonia — and how well they have worked compared to the policies of many of Estonia’s European neighbors to the West and South.

The Estonian Finance Minister also followed up in a press conference, saying:

In reality, Krugman has to a great extent supported the system that created our poverty and which is now over — and which regulated and printed money according to their own interpretation of economic rules. In the US that is possible, but we cannot solve our poverty according to those recipes — by borrowing money and buying ourselves expensive things.

He’s right — except that it’s not really possible for us either.

This is one of the more entertaining arguments to happen on Twitter lately — and it will be interesting to see if Krugman has to eat his words on this one in a year.