A Nobel laureate must have some unconventional wisdom. That unconventional wisdom in Paul Krugman's omninous New Year greeting to the Chinese on Dec 31 in The New York Times has confounded many ordinary people like me.

I have taken a few economics classes and I got to meet Paul Samuelson 10 years ago at MIT, when Krugman's office was on the same floor. Yet Samuelson, quoted by Krugman as if he were the Bible in his article, would disagree with Krugman's assertion that "if the Chinese do dump dollars, we should send them a thank-you note".

In an article written last June, Samuelson was worried about the possible dumping of US dollars or the end of the purchase of more US dollars by Chinese, Japanese and Koreans over pessimism about the greenback.