Paul Krugman used to be an eminent economist, a Nobel Prize winner and Princeton professor. But something happened to him, and his role as a New York Times columnist seems to have captured his soul.  He is in the thrall of Keynsianism, the faith that government spending will cure all ills, debt be damned.

Accordingly, Krugman cannot abide a successful economic recovery driven by cutting government spending so the private sector can regain its footing, generate profits and jobs (the two are related).  So it rankled Krugman to see Toomas Hendrik Ilves, president of Estonia and a successful advocate of government austerity, accorded the role of exemplar of common sense economics.

Thus, he posted this snarky blog denigrating Estonia's performance.

Ilves responded on Twitter.  Joshua Keating of Foreign Policy noticed and reprinted the tweets:

Let's write about something we know nothing about & be smug, overbearing & patronizing: after all, they're just wogs:http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/estonian-rhapsdoy/

Guess a Nobel in trade means you can pontificate on fiscal matters & declare my country a "wasteland". Must be a Princeton vs Columbia thing [Ilves went to Columbia for undergrad.]

But yes, what do we know? We're just dumb & silly East Europeans. Unenlightened. Someday we too will understand. Nostra culpa.

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.

Let's see: an academic theorist versus a guy actually running an economy that is growing and who doesn't mince words. This promises to be entertaining