Thread by @sgurumurthy

Mr @TheEconomist, your cover story July 19-24, 2009 issue said Modern Economic Theory has collapsed. I only approvingly quoted you. But you have charged me as saying that I say the subject of economics is collapsing. So refresh your institutional memory

amp.economist.com/finance-and-ec…

You quoted Paul Krugman who said dmuch of past 30 years of macro economics was spectacularly useless at best and positively harmful at worst". And Barry Eichengreen who said "the crisis has cast into doubt much of what we believed to be economics. Recall Mr @TheEconomist

You @TheEconomist also quoted Larry Summers who said "economics has forgotten a fair amount of what is relevant and it has been distracted by an enormous amount" (of irrelevance). You cited Bradford Delang who said "Economics is in crisis"

Now Mr @TheEconomist refresh your institutional memory you castigated economics and I agree with you. Now not saying you were also of that view sometime earlier you are saying as if it is my view alone. It strays away from honest journalism

And more Mr @TheEconomist your editorial in that issue said "Of all the economic bubble that have been pricked, few have burst more spectacularly than the reputation of economics itself". You also said the arrogant profession stood humbled. You say what you say now...

You said in 2009 that western economits have been humiliated and have to learn a lot. Mr @TheEconomist I only quoted you and said that the western educated economics in India need a change of mind set. But you charge me as an outcaste for saying now what you had said in 2009

You recall Yugoslavian experience in 1994? Great economits advocated IMF package but Yugoslavia defied and throught differently. Refresh your institutional memory back to early 1990s

Yugo was running 200k % inflation. Nation lost faith in its currency Dinar. IMF package was the fashion of all economits then. Yugo refused it on the advice of Dragoslav Avromic the octogenarian economist then living in Swiss. Recall what Drag advised.

Drag told Yugo to go for a convertible second Dinar. Everyone thought what little capital was there would fly away. But Sloboden Milosevic accepted Drags advice. Issued a new Dinar. Result in weeks inflation was down to single digit. Forex reserves in DM rose by 50%

You Mr @TheEconomist waited for a year for Yugo experiment to fail. When it refused to, you wrote about the Yugo miracle. This is your record. You refuse hear views other than your own. You love your theories and words. And so is the constituency of economists nursed by you

It is much like what JK Galbraith. He said the ideological service of economics instructs several hundred thousand students every year with serciceable set of ideas and led to accept what they might otherwise criticise. You @TheEconomist hear this guild which brooks no dissent

Now again you Mr @TheEconomist read your 2009 issue. Robert Lucas castigated macro economists as making errors all over. Robert Barro saying it is beheaded Economics. And 30 years of macro economic studies in US/UK universities as costly waste of time

Having forgotten all this and having not know I only quoted you when I said Western-educated economists who disagree need a “correction” of the mind, you are trying to portray me as an outcaste. Now I will come to Dr Bhagwati calling me a Bharatnatyam dancer

In 1993 Dr Bhagwati advised govt India to institute policies including easy import of consumer goods to make indian families & women spend as he felt household saving of 19% of GDP too high. For captial he said allow investments. I stood for savings driven growth, critiqued him

It was then that he said if I could be called an economist he could be called a Bharatnatyam dancer. Later Indian development model proved its growth was driven by savings. Dr Shankaracharya Advise to Indian govt even wrote about how India was growing with less FDI

Later I wrote in 2002 in New Indian Express 'Neo Economics Savings as Sin and spending virtue' where I criticised Dr Bhagwati. It was a highly debated articles in different fora. Shockingly some attributed the article to Dr Bhagwati!!!

After all this the govt of India quitetly removed Dr Bhagwati paper in which he had suggested savings cut and spending surge as cure for India's economic issues. This much for Bhagwati calling me a dancer. Now you may judge why for over two decades Bhagwati is not speaking.

Now coming to your profile of me, it is less than honest. I had sent to you m background which you didn't even look at and wrote what suits you and your agenda. I know you will not carry my response. So I had to resort to multiple tweets. Thanks