Eventually, Google is going to ruin us all.

Here's a blurb from the Nobel Prize winning economist's Google page yesterday:

"People on twitter might be joking, but in all seriousness, we would see a bigger boost in spending and hence economic growth if the earthquake had done more damage.

Yeah, just think of all the life insurance payouts to the families of those dead victims if the quake had been really serious. That's a Keyenesian way to stimulate the economy if I ever heard one.

Allah wonders if Krugman is being serious:

Is it real or just a goof? Kevin Williamson isn't sure and neither am I, but given that this is the same guy who fantasized recently about the Keynesian awesomeness of an alien invasion, it's at least a toss-up. All day long I've felt relieved that the quake caused only very minor damage, but now suddenly I'm bummed that the Brooklyn Bridge didn't fall into the river. Maybe we can get DHS or the NYPD to blow it up? That's a few thousand jobs right there.

Maybe Paulie needs to get out more.

Update:

Someone has been pulling our legs, with a somewhat plausible concept to be coming from Mister Space Aliens. David Paulin writes:

Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman posted something at his NYT blog this morning titled "Identify Theft," (click here) stating that somebody impersonated him on a Google page; accordingly, that link you have to Krugman's bogus Google page is now dead.

In Krugman's "Identify Theft" blog, his statement includes this:

This is really cute, not. Apparently some people can't find enough things to attack in what I actually say, so they're busy creating fake quotes. And I have enough on my plate without trying to chase all this stuff down.

So if you see me quoted as saying something really stupid or outrageous, and it didn't come from the Times or some other verifiable site, you should probably assume it was a fake. (Emphasis added)

Put another way, Krugman seems to be saying that if he does say something stupid or outrageous-- and it is printed in The Times -- then you can assume the stupid comment should be taken seriously because it was printed in The Times.

Also, Krugman's blog, which I'm seeing for the first time, is called, "The Conscience of a Liberal." Isn't this sort of a rip-off of Berry Goldwater's book, "The Conscience of a Conservative"?

 Update. David Paulin writes:

Slate has a somewhat disingenuous post (click here) on the Krugman hoax. Among other things, it claims that Rick Moran was among those in the "new media" who was taken in by it. As you know, Rick's original post, written before anybody know what was really going on, injected some skepticism into whether Krguman's website was in fact legitimate. It was part opinion, part reporting.

Also, as we all know, the bogus Google page was believable precisely because of Krugman's earlier comments about an alien space invasion. Yet Slate argues:

One wag asked me if the hoax was not so unfair, because Krugman has analyzed the possible economic impact of other disasters and speculated about the impact of fantasy disasters. Yes. The hoax is unfair. Krugman didn't say this, for one, and there's an obvious difference between speculating about a fantasy disaster and what happened here. (Emphasis added)

An obvious difference? I don't think a lot of people would buy that (though that doesn't mean that I don't have a problem with identity theft; however, this case of identify theft does seem to be a misguided effort at satire.)