Deficit plugging Krugman slammed by Estonian leaders

June 10, 2012 (LBO) - Paul Krugman, an influential Nobel laureate who peddles a formula of deficit spending for rulers and currency depreciation for the people as tools of economic recovery, has received a set down from a small nation that did the exact opposite. In a New York Times blog post earlier this week, Krugman ridiculed the economic recovery of Estonia, a Baltic nation, brought about by conscientious rulers who cut spending and a citizenry that supported it by paying higher taxes.

"Let's write about something we know nothing about & be smug, overbearing & patronizing: after all, they're just wogs," an angry Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said in a post on Twitter, a social networking site.

"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."

Currency Board

After exiting the tumbling ruble in 1992, Estonia created a currency board-like system or hard peg, initially with the Deutche Mark, and later with the Euro. In 2011, Estonia entered the Euro zone.

Estonia's economy was hit from 2008, with the end