Comparative Advantage
How economist Paul Krugman became the most important political columnist in America.

By Nicholas Confessore

Krugman has also discovered that when you're the center of attention and you make a mistake, people notice. The most serious error was in a column written last July about Bush's dealings with the Texas Rangers, of which he became a part-owner in 1989. It's well known that Bush put $606,000 into the syndicate that bought the Rangers in 1989, about 2 percent of the total cost. When the deal was initialized that same year and Bush became the team's general manager, the syndicate awarded their well-connected partner an additional 10 percent stake, gratis. When the team was sold in 1998, Bush earned $14.9 million on his original investment. But Krugman went further, charging that Bush's extra return was "a 12-million dollar gift" to "a sitting governor," when in fact the gift had been awarded years before Bush's election as governor in 1994. Krugman later admitted the error--on his Web site, but not in the Times.