Krugman: The magazine cover effect

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

The magazine cover effect
Paul Krugman March 28, 2009

I’ve long been a believer in the magazine cover indicator: when you see a corporate chieftain on the cover of a glossy magazine, short the stock. Or as I once put it (I’d actually forgotten I’d said that), “Whom the Gods would destroy, they first put on the cover of Business Week.”

There’s even empirical evidence supporting the proposition that celebrity ruins the performance of previously good chief executives.

Presumably the same effect applies to, say, economists.

You have been warned.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/the-magazine-cover-effect/

[MarjorieG]

1. Krugman was pro budget today on Roundtable. Using 10-15 year arguments, health care the worst cost,

so current 5 year rationale wrong and short-sighted.

[Captain Hilts]

7. He LOVES the Obama budget. Folks here ignore that. nt

[KittyWampus]

16. It seems he's enjoying the relief that comes from an Administration who releases

honest numbers.

[Captain Hilts]

17. As are we all. nt

[Exilednight]

2. I find it hard to take advice, or criticisim, from a man who ..........

said that he would not serve the President if asked, especially since no one asked him the question.

Krugman's job is to sell newspapers, and his bashing of Obama is doing a fine job for the NYT. He's not a reporter, he's an Op-Ed contributor.

Krugman is an economist, just buy his book for $19.99 and read all about his economic plan to end poverty.

[Luminous Animal]

11. Someone did ask...

back in October '08.

"Would you be Barack Obama’s Treasury secretary if he asked?
I would urge him very much to reconsider. I’m just temperamentally unsuited.

So you would blink.
Yes. I don’t want the job. I don’t want any kind of administration job. I think that it’s better for me, the country, and general mental health to have me on the outside."

http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/51386/

[Exilednight]

13. I meant, no one from the administration. n/t

[Luminous Animal]

14. He never claimed anyone did. n/t

[Exilednight]

15. Then he should of kicked the question down the road. He's not going to do a Q&A with his ........

own paper without knowing the questions upfront.

[Luminous Animal]

18. It's not his own paper.

You are confusing New York (the magazine) with The New York Times Magazine.

[depakid]

19. His job isn't to "sell newspapers" LOL

He's a professor at Priceton who happens to have a column.

You can take or leave what he has to say- but do it on the substance and the merits- not via some strange bias about the guy.

[Exilednight]

23. It's not a strange bias. By his own admission he makes a nice sum of money from the Times .........

You really don't believe that the guy works for free and out of the goodness of his heart, do you?

I will guarantee that his salary is at least six figures from the NYT.

[depakid]

24. It's nice gig no doubt

But that's not his "day job,"and he's not a journo or substanceless hack like say, Maureen Dowd.

People can agree or disagree with his takes- but whole whole Krugman sucks because "he doesn't like" Obama's just dumb.

[Exilednight]

26. I'm not saying that he sucks because he doesn't like Obama, I am saying ..........

that there is a conflict of interest.

[depakid]

27. "Conflict of interest?"

:shrug:

[Exilednight]

28. His job is to sell papers, and the best way to sell papers is to .........

create controversy on your op-ed pages. It's the basics of business in journalism.

[BlooInBloo]

3. Heh. Not as bad as winning the Heisman Trophy, but close.

[Captain Hilts]

8. Or getting on the cover of Sports Illustrated. nt

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

20. The Sports Illustrated curse is a cool example of reversion to the mean

The player on the cover of Sports Illustrated just did something out of the ordinary, even by his or her standards.

So subsequent performance almost always declines.

[CBR]

25. That is a cool point...

I always dread when my Phillies are on the cover but it worked out for them last time!!

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

29. And if Sports Illustrated was even handed...

And if Sports Illustrated was even handed it would often be the Sports Illustrated blessing.

A team that wins 20 in a row makes the cover. A team that loses twenty in a row tends not to. (Unless they are flirting with a major record for futility)

A regular news magazine may have a cover-blessing because negatives are considered more newsworthy. (A lot of people make the news only during the worst week of their lives.)

But people don't buy sports magazines to feel angry.

And what is telling about Krugman's example is that BUSINESS WEEK is more like Sports Illustrated than it is like a news magazine. People read it to feel good. The guy on the cover is usually someone whose company stock just went up 50%.

[Jennicut]

4. Krugman dislikes Obama's bank plan and likes his budget.

I don't get the hub bub over any of it.

[BlooInBloo]

5. The biggest hubbub is just the ihateobama DUers, who are gleeful...

about having some actual ammunition to whine about Obama with, rather than sitting and pouting with nothing to say.

(The ihateobama crowd here can't really come up with much on their own - they just have to wait for Krugman to say something, and then they all chant in unison "Yah! What Krugman said!")

[Captain Hilts]

9. Me either. I'm interested in both views here. I like Obama and Krugman.

But what do I know, I liked Obama and Clinton.

Guess I'm not an 'all or nothing at all' girl.

[tridim]

12. I liked Krugman pre-ego trip

[Pirate Smile]

10. True. All bank options suck. Obama still has to deal with it. I don't think anyone has a larger

incentive for the damn thing to work then Obama. As he has said repeatedly, his options are generally between bad and worse (thanks to Bush).

[jwirr]

22. And he only dislikes it because he thinks it was not big enough - thus

he thinks it is the right way to go just not going far enough. He is not the only economist that feels this way either.

[Barack_America]

6. Paranoid much?

So now "they" are after him?

:shrug:

Wow. This guy is even more narcissistic than I thought.

[paulk]

30. he's making a joke -

but it's as good an opportunity as any for a little character assassination...

[Barack_America]

31. That was humor?

Um, okay.

:shrug:

I'm usually better at recognizing that sort of thing.

[FrenchieCat]

21. So in effect, Krugman is worried about himself and how the cover will affect him?

and not so much the message sent to Americans when they see the cover, while mulling over whether the Obama budget or anything else the Obama Administration is proposing is good for the country?

Well, OK. :shrug:

[Barack_America]

32. paulk says it was a joke.

:shrug:

Honestly, it's probably just an effort to draw attention to the cover.