American economist, professor, author, and pundit, born in
1953 to traveling circus folk in Zipperhead, New York. He grew up
traveling throughout the Northeast with his family in Lucifer Bleake's
Traveling Darkside Carnival and Hell Circus, one of a number of evil
carnivals that roamed the nation during the early to mid-20th century,
seeking souls to enslave and fantasy writers to inspire. While his
family tempted and devoured farmhands and schoolteachers, young Paul
learned all the trades of the circus -- tent set-up and take-down,
trapeze acrobatics, clown wrangling, barking, human
cannonballing, international economics and trade theory, and
beating the geek when he escaped from his cage. Coincidentally, that
geek eventually grew up to become fellow New York Times columnist
Thomas Friedman.
Upon fleeing from the circus just prior to the big top being sucked
into Hell in 1970, Krugman earned a dual bachelor's degree in
economics and adventure archaeology from Yale University in 1974
and a Ph.D. in economics and surfing from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology in 1977. While at MIT, he traveled to Portugal in 1976
with a group of other students to work at the Central Bank of
Portugal. The nation had just been rocked by the Carnation
Revolution, in which a bunch of violent florists dethroned the
beloved King Earl IV and took over the country. Utilizing his studies
in combat economics, Krugman defeated each of the florists in unarmed
combat and was crowned Emperor Paul I. He ruled Portugal with an iron
fist for several months until he announced his controversial "Let's
Sacrifice Everyone in Portugal So I Can Get My Parents Released From
Evil Circus Hell" plan. Realizing the political winds had changed,
Krugman fled the nation and returned to his studies at MIT.
Krugman worked for Ronald Reagan's White House from 1982-83 as a
member of the Council of Economic Advisers, though he was quickly
ejected after eating all the president's jelly beans and watering down
his hair gel. From there, he taught at Yale, MIT, Berkeley, the
Walla Walla School of Economics and Partyin' Down, and Clovis
Community College before settling in at Princeton in 2000, where he
teaches economics, international affairs, and kickpunching.
After writing a number of textbooks on economics, competitive
racquetball, and the Monkees, Krugman began writing economics books
for more general audiences, beginning with "The Age of Diminished
Expectations" in 1990, followed by "The Great Unraviolioing," "The Conscience of a Circus Boy," "Pat Paul Krugman's Beard," and many more. His
economics books were well-received enough to get him a gig writing columns
for the New York Times. Actually, the folks running the NYT aren't all
that smart, so Krugman got his job by giving the managing editor a note
that read "THIS GUY IZ RITING 1 OV OUR COLLUMS NOW, PAY HIM SOME
MUNNEY, SIGNED UR PUBLISHER (UR BOSS, DUMMY)" -- never let it be said
that Paul Krugman doesn't know how to make his own opportunities.
In 2008, Krugman received the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic
Science, which is sometimes called the Nobel Prize in Economics. He
celebrated the award by catching a plane to Cyprus to gloat about the
win to Christopher A. Pissarides, a professor of labor economics and
macroeconomics. This led to an awkward situation just two years later
when Pissarides received the Riksbank Prize himself. During the last
meeting of Krugman and Pissarides, a four-block area of Washington,
D.C. was destroyed in their battle, and Secretary of the Treasury
Timothy Geithner suffered injuries that required him to undergo an emergency
coccyx transplant.
Today, Krugman spends much of his time writing columns and blog posts
for the NYTimes, appearing as a pundit on news programs, and trying to
resurrect the evil carnival where he grew up. He also enjoys
prank-calling Fox News pundit Charles Krauthammer ("Is this
Rumplestiltskin?" "A WITCH TOLD YOU THAT! A WITCH TOLD YOU THAT!") and
going across the hall to fellow NYT columnist David Brooks' office and
whuppin' nine shades of shit out of him every time Brooks writes
something stupid in his column.
Research: Personal interviews with Krugman, Pissarides, Brooks, and Lucifer Bleake
LieQuest 2013