Stephen Moore wrote a book in 2004: Bullish on Bush: How George Bush's Ownership Society Will Make America Stronger - with a Forward by Larry Kudlow
Now he puts out Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive Our Economy
These guys are so convinced of their doctrine that they ignore the actual results
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Professor Krugman has the distinction of being wrong nearly 100 percent of the time.
3.2 GDP growth announced today. What happened to the economic disaster predicted by the good Doctor if President Trump was elected?
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Paul, perhaps you didn’t have enough room in this column but worth mentioning is Mr Moore’s book published early in the Bush (43) administration with a title something like ‘How the Bush Ownership economy will lead to long term good times’ The book was still on Amazon after Bush’s tax and regulatory lowering caused their inevitable bubble and its very loud bust.
The GOP has committed itself to a moveable set of alternative facts in support of a moveable alternative narrative designed to keep their base focused and motivated.
Moore’s track record compared to reality is immaterial. What’s important is his track record in supporting the contemporary GOP narrative. Moore scores well in that regard and will thus receive full support from Republican Senators.
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How would Mr Krugman describe his guess of how the stock market would react after the election of Trump? Amazing that a Nobel prize winner forgets his ominous prediction of the market crashing,but as he states,evidence has a well known bias,or at least the interpretation of the facts. Instead of listening to his predictions,people should consult the Oracle of Delphi,and at least have a nice trip to Greece;the answers,for what they are worth will be the same.
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"It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover? A first-pass answer is never… So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight." - Paul Krugman the day after the election.
Whats the expression, if you live in a glass house...
Regardless economic forecasting has never worked. A chaotic dynamic system with new variables being introduced constantly marches to it's own drummer. It is not predictable except to say the economy goes up and the economy goes down and occasionally goes up or down really fast.
If it were predictable we could all get rich buying on the forecast lows and selling on the forecast highs.
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It is clear that Krugman never tires of being wrong.
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I guess that’s so in the Ministry of Truth. How about the facts just being the facts without a bias?
The guy who bleated about an inevitable economic apocalypse that would surely follow President Trump's inauguration wants to warn you about "right-wing" economists, by gosh. The evidence today suggests that Krugman is a delusional, hyperpartisan fool, and there is a liberal amount of it. Is that what he means in his subheading?
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Paul, didn't you say that, with Trump's election, "we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight."? I know you did, because I copied the quote.
Today, Q1 GDP growth was 3.2%. Last year was over 3%, which never happened under Obama. Trump has plenty of flaws, but his policies work better than Obama's and his predictions (and Moore's) have proven far more accurate than yours.
Instead of ripping on the right where they're right and you're clearly and easily proven wrong, why not admit they're right on certain components of economic policy but then advocate using some of that growth to fund environmental remediation and funding R&D for technological improvements to combat global warming?
Maybe I'm just biased in favor of things like "evidence" and "data", but I think the way to succeed is to pick the best ideas, wherever they may arise (and regardless of party), and then try to build from those ideas something greater than the sum of its parts.
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Is this the same Paul Krugman who predicted that Trump would immediately tank the economy ? Tell me again why anyone should trust his judgement.
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Krugman still has to have the record for being most wrong about an imagined Trump economy and market, whereas, Moore and Kudlow were pretty well spot on. That must drive Krugman nuts.
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"Evidence has a well-known liberal bias."
You have that backwards.
Corrected statement: It is well known socialists offer biased evidence.
For example, Professor Krugman points at the consumer price index for the proposition then Fed's manufacture of trillions of dollars in fiat money did not create inflation, instead of noting the rampant hyper inflation of stock prices during a period of economic stagnation.
2
I missed Krugman's apology for declaring, on the night Trump was elected and stock market futures were trending sharply down, that "Never" would be a good prediction for when the markets would recover. Does anyone have a link?
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Speaking of experts who get things wrong, how about that stock market projection made back in Nov of 2016? Remember? "markets are plunging." and "If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never." You said that. The market was at 19,000 and went to 26,500. What credibility do you have? You wrote some of the most anti-Obama articles in 2008. You were wrong about Obama, too. In fact, you're wrong about a lot of stuff, and not a very nice person. You have essentially blown whatever credibility you had.
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The sub-headline for this article is not accurate. FACTS have a liberal bias, which is why grifters prefer to talk about alternative facts.
2
It is difficult to understand that most all of us grew up in the same religiously tolerant country and hold similar values.
You're backwards in your opening statement. It isn't that evidence has a liberal bias, but liberals have a bias towards evidence. Conservatives don't care about evidence; they give much more weight to emotional thinking and ideology.
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Misogyny rules.
Obviously, the ignorant and opinionated, Moore, also speaks to an audience of one: President Trump.
“Recently Moore declared that the Fed is “filled with hundreds of economists who are worthless, who have the wrong model in their mind. They should all be, they should all be fired and they should be replaced by good economists.”
Trump must have loved that!
1
Isn't Moore the guy who was until recently still flogging Arthur Laffer's theory about trickle down economics and that whole 'Laffer Curve' business?
And in what world is someone who owes $75,000 in child support and $300,000 in spousal support a viable candidate for the Federal Reserve?
Plus, he routinely denigrates and denies any contributions women have made and continue to make to, well, just about any field of endeavor that exists.
I guess he fits right in with the rest of this administration.
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Man is a selfish rationale calculating agent (Gary Becker).
Age of death must be seen as an a quantitative economic factor, (Gérard Debreu).
"The economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable" (Larry Summers).
Three Nobel Prize in Economics.
Three human beings living in the comfort of their university peerage.
With due respect to Paul Krugman believing what an economist says (any economist) is no more effective than the belief our ancestors had in quack doctors or medicine men.
At best economics is an empirical occupation that makes one guess how to tip the balance of power… more often it's a mind game who wouldn't care less for the life of people like you and me. Stephen Moore is certainly not very competent… but be sure he's not the only one in both camps.
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In Barron's this past weekend, economist Michael Pettis made the convincing argument that is diametrically opposed To the trickle down thesis that is still the cornerstone of Republican views on the economy and taxation. It a view that Larry Kudlow and Stephen Moore have been promulgating for years, decades.
Pettis strikes right at the core of their deeply mistaken views:
"By the 1920s, however, the U.S. had already emerged as the most advanced society in the world and was no longer facing a shortage of material resources. For the past 100 years, investment has not been constrained by the cost of capital, but by concerns about whether there will be enough demand to justify building additional capacity. Businesses today have access to near-unlimited amounts of capital at historically low interest rates, but find little reason to invest because the demand for their production is not growing quickly enough to justify more investment."
This elaborates Henry Ford's observation that his workers had to be paid well enough to buy the cars they were producing. Pettis points out that when you reduce income inequality and and many more people have buying power, then wealth TRICKLES UP because the investments the rich hold in the stock market become worth more since the companies know increased production will be bought and their revenues will grow.
Pettis is right that increasingly it is the lack of demand that stops growth not a lack of capital. The GOP has it all backwards.
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as Grover Norquist always says "we only need someone with 5 digits [to sign our directives]." it goes from bad to worse. will it ever end?
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And so trump's chipping away at core elements of our system continues. And the republicans either mutely stand by or actively support him because it suits their desire to stay in power.
It's disturbing how a system we worked so hard and long to build can be so quickly undermined and disassembled.
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Today's GOP does not want to be confused by the facts.
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This is just another manifestation of the reality that the problem is not only Trump. It is the Republican party. They as a group view admitting they are wrong about anything as a sign of weakness and they value "strength" above all other qualities. They are anti-intellectual and actually anti-truth. They only care about maintaining power and enriching their donors. We need at least two viable parties, but, for the good of the country the current GOP shouldn't be one of them.
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Mr. Krugman, you are an eminent economist, a Nobel laureate in economics. You are a reliable columnist for The New York Times. You wrote many best-selling books on complex topics, with critical acclaim. You are a professor at an elite (i.e. good) university.
Here you logically lay-out facts to show Stephen Moore as a hack, a person who does not understand economics, and... a person who should NOT be in a position of power to impact our Federal government's policies.
Please say this much more clearly, for the 38% who most need to hear it.
They misunderstand sentences written for above the 9th grade level, so please make it simple. Because sadly, we have a homogeneous bunch, the least educated and least capable of Americans -- who because of their cluelessness are die-hard trumpians who alone feed trump's narcissism.
Tell those trumpian 38% that Stephen Moore is against America's poor. His policies will VERY likely destabilize (i.e., "tank") our economy -- and that will hurt THEM. It will more than sting. It will destroy our underclass, making the middle class fall into and compete with the lower class.
It's now vital to talk to those 38% - because they now come to the NYTimes in droves. They're sent here by their conservative facebook groups, who put links to help them post comments here, to sway public opinion.
But while they're here, some will read the first paragraph of articles. Grab them in paragraph one. Don't use logic or facts. Use ethos, their fear & despair!
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You have to quit scaring me, Dr. K. These people that have the worst advice which is proven twrong need to go on the "Do Not Hire," "Do Not Listen," "Fox News" lists.
In a field where the data is recorded and can be objectively analyzed, like you know, factually, people that get it wrong over and over should not be sought for their counsel. Seriously. Litigiousnessly, even.
Unfortunately, this is SOP for the GOP. Grover Norquist, a man whose mantra was created at the decidedly dangerous age of 13 is their tax expert. Thirteen.
I'm guessing Trump's mantra was locked in when he was about 3 years old. He also belongs on the lists above, and perhaps under the heading of Prisoner-1.
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To quote Mr. Spock in the "The Wrath of Khan": The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.
We are seeing government working for the few and those few are the economic elites. One could argue that this is not government at all. It's tyranny. It's an oligarchy which is not what the United States was supposed to be. We've also watched Trump appoint incompetent sycophants to important posts with the complete support of the GOP. If this is patriotism I'd hate to see treason or betrayal of the country as per the GOP.
4/25/2019 12:30pm
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I share your view that anyone who is not terrified is not paying attention.
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"Evidence has a well-know liberal bias"
If you want to understand why people around the world are (literally) rioting against arrogant, self-righteous, out-of-touch elites, read no further than Dr. K's first sentence.
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But he proved the point with actual evidence. So the jokes on you. People who dismiss evidence and facts deserve to be looked down upon and scorned. What is 1 1? If a buffoon like Stephen Moore told you the answer was 17.4, would you believe it because he’s part of your tribe and it would “trigger the libs”? Or would you consider the actual evidence that plainly shows the answer is still 2? I’m guessing you’d go with 17.4. And then you’d say that those who mocked you for it are “elites.”
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Only the best people, which apparently means people who cater only to Trump's needs. Trump wants the Fed, whose role he clearly doesn't understand, to bend to his will—no matter how dangerous his whims are to the stability of the world economy.
Trump now has toadies installed in virtually every key position in his administration. Whatever "guard rails" existed in the first two years of his administration are gone. Perhaps the worst is our new attorney general, who has been exposed as a liar paid to do Trump's bidding instead of his job, which is to represent the best interests of the American people.
Representing the best interests of the American people is a concept this president does not understand. Nor does he care. He treats his office as just another one of his corrupt dodges.
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"Evidence has a well-known liberal bias." Wow.
Just wow.
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So what does Trump want Moore to do? Or is this merely the appointment of a sycophant?
Republican Senators have proven time after time that they approve of the worst people. They show no backbone, they do not care about the country. They are puppets of Trump. Their slogan should be: make America worse.
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Liars club.
Moore is a TOTAL PUTZ!
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$19k a month is a year's wages for people at minimum wage.
Stephen Moore is a billboard for white, male privilege. Reneging on the most basic responsibility to his children disqualifies him for leadership positions. He can continue to make millions in the private sector - that seems to be how the US works now, but hasn't the decency or character to lead.
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If the Fed had followed Republican monetary advice after 2008-9, it might have slowed down the recovery enough to prevent a second term for a Democrat president. If Moore joins the Fed now, he can help it keep interest rates low to keep the economy hot through 2020, improving the chances of re-electing a Republican president. Context is everything.
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Stephen Moore had petty much exposed himself for all the world to see as a political hack posing as a scholarly economist. Which makes him a perfect, predictable choice for Trump. I wouldn't buy into an alternative economic model proposed by Stephen Moore any more than I'd invest in a casino in Atlantic City. That being said, one must ask: What is right about the current economic model, which for close to 40 years has controlled systemic inflation in large part by keeping wages below the inflation curve, thus suppressing the earning power of working people? In other words, destroying the middle class. Just wondering.
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I fear that the silent rage and glumness I regularly feel about the grifters Trump nominates to important federal positions is that I’ve become nonchalant, lackadaisical about the Trump administration’s autocratic ways, and, in so doing, play right into Trump’s authoritarian ways. For all the good and bright women and men he could pick for the Fed, he chooses the likes of a Moore. This says much about not only Trump but Republicans.
8
Let's see,
try to wreck NATO-Check
try to make yourself an autocrat by ignoring congress-Check
try to wreck government by placing unqualified leaders into the posts-Check
try to make money by putting people onto the FED board who will answer to you-Check
4
Let’s see. Willing to ignore court orders? Check. Dishonest? Check. Discredited opinions/beliefs? Check. White male? Check. Misogynistic? Check.
Another Least-Qualified.org certified Trump nominee.
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A gigantic invasion of Giant Metallic Communist Frogs would explain the whole mystery.
Speaking of getting things wrong hiw’s The economy? You have been so wrong so often that you should move to a third world country and help them with their economy. You sure have helped the US.
4
The more Fox pays Moore, the more Moore lies. The more we learn, the less Moore knows. More or less, Moore is less. Less Moore is better but no Moore is best. The more the mores of the world progress, the more Mr. Moore's regress. The more we learn about Mr. Moore, the more we want no more of him.
(I submitted a rough version of this doggerel a few minutes ago. However, the present doggerel is definitively better than the prior doggerel.)
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An ignorant/arrogant boss will always surround himself with persons he thinks are more ignorant than he is. To make things more complicated is the fact that such a boss always thinks to be competent and that his choices are wright but, in spite of his incompetence, he always will sense when somebody is competent and to avoid or isolate.
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@Mur
Finally--Obama's cabinet explained.
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All of the reasoning and facts in the world are not going to change the thinking of those fools who have joined a cult whether it is a cult with a lot of money and self appointed experts in faith based economics or religion.
Left to their own means, they will destroy themselves. As long as they are not in power over us they will not destroy us. However, we now have a cult in power in the Senate and the Presidency.
This is a dire situation that can only be rectified by a concerted effort to educate the voter through Congressional hearing on the dishonesty and criminality of the republican party and its 'experts' followed by a legitimate removal from office and jailing of these miscreants.
The only alternative is to sit back and allow this group of idiots to crash and burn the republic and hope it can rise from the ashes. Although, the most likely scenario is the creation of an authoritarian theocracy as occurred with Rome.
Vote in 2020.
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My brother (a conservative) asked me, incredulously, if I think that conservatives are stupid. I said "I'm really starting to think so." And they just keep proving me right. Though I have to give credit to the never Trump conservatives. Those people have really impressed me.
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but... her emails...
Wacky economic views, liar and hates/is afraid of women. Perfect pick for the fed.
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a total fraud and charlatan
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Facts Matter!
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OMG. I’ve been watching Stephen Moore for years on cable, writing in the WSJ, on various panels, etc., always arrogant and a jerk. But I had no idea to what level he’s arrogant and a jerk. He’s world class! Yesterday there was an article by Ryan Grenoble “Trump’s Embattled Federal Reserve Pick Seeks Cover In Brett Kavanaugh” in HuffPost which exposed that Moore’s personal life is just as rank, maybe more so, than his so-called professional one. How Heritage can have him as the head of any department is really beyond me. He must have something on somebody. He gives the word ‘deplorable’ new meaning. Someone needs to tell Trump Moore is a real LOSER.
That article and this one are a set.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stephen-moore-brett-kavanaugh_n_5cc079fae4b0764d31db8826
2
I'm not sure that the Swamp is being emptied in America at all although it certainly is now open for fracking, drilling, dumping, poisoning, contamination, tax exemption, employer discrimination and exploitation.
While at the same time key federal and administration positions and appointments are being filled with apologists, lobbyists, trumpists, misogynists, Hippo Critters, biased blowhards, corporate cronies, yes men, guess men, lesser men, profiteers, war mongers, fear mongers and because lots of things are beginning to really stink, fishmongers (not dealers of sea life, but dealers in all things suspicious and fishy) and so many more...
All led, fed and put to bed by their head with the lies by him said , the Leader (no reader) who is losing all cred and from whom reality has fled...
...The no collusion Maistro of Confusion under the delusion that truth is the illusion that belongs in the Dump:
The resident President ,none fitter to twitter ...
***Donald J. Trump.***
Survival of the Twittist.
Not of the Strongest but the Wrongest.
(And as such, the best proof and evidence for Creationism it's ever seen!)
If Moore were black like Herman Cain he would be gone like Herman Cain. Unqualified white men are given the benefit of the doubt. Just one example of what people are talking about when they refer to “white privilege”.
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What do you expect Professor of the Card Carrying members of the New Dark Age movement, actual thought based on evidence?
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GOP campaign slogan: Wrong Once Again.
Albert Einstein : “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
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Trump doesn’t want competent people.
They make him look bad, won’t follow him off cliffs, and might be mistaken for people who have good educations and other liberal characteristics.
When a world leader is profoundly immoral, malevolent and beyond redemption, it’s a safe bet that the people he likes are selected for ulterior motives.
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hardly ulterior: Trump selects for loyalty. he wants yesmen who will gladly fall on a sword for him. white and already wealthy enough not to put the touch on him are also perks. competence is not even on the list, as previous appointments have shown.
Republicans fiancé theory is wrong and they don't admit it and they don't change.
Evil stays evil.
How diabolical! Instead of merely firing Fed chair Powell, the Administration will torture him first by nominating the likes of Moore and Cain to the Board of Governors. With Cain having withdrawn, who will be the next nominee? Someone with the last name of Trump or Kushner?
Economists in our society fill the same roll for politicians that augurs did in Roman society. They are called out on important occasions to read the chicken guts and make a prediction that is useful to the politicians. The prediction need not come true: if right, it is remembered and praised; if wrong, quickly pushed out of sight.
Nobody cares about accuracy other than a few economists who are trying to turn augurism into real science. Politicians don't like those very much, particularly if they are politicians from a party that usually favours economic nonsense.
So, while I agree with Mr. Krugman that being wrong all the time should be career ending for an economist, I'm not waiting for that to happen. Cooking the auspices is a pretty good way of pleasing the boss -- particularly if he doesn't believe they make any difference apart from conning the rubes.
2
The charts are clear. What isn't clear is why the US economy has not responded much to all this stimulation. The existing Fed must have thought we could grow while rates were bumped to 3.5, maybe 4%. It appears that even 2.5% is all we can have without decline. Why is that? That's not much room to stimulate if we see a dive. The only thing holding up the stock market is the remarkably low earnings on bonds. I just decided to take those low earnings for a while instead of losing 50% on stocks. The next recovery will be even slower than this one.
1
If we have low inflation why is the price of food always going up?
I'm reading this right after reading the Sarah Sanders piece and the situation has struck me as similar.
Sanders has come off as shockingly childish in her reaction to questions about her lying. She seems utterly unable to take criticism or admit she was wrong.
It seems that some Republicans work off of what they think reality should be and not what it is. Their morality is narrow and punitive: people should suffer for their perceived faults (which include not siding with them). It's not about truth but about who is declared righteous.
People with open hearts can admit error and learn. People with authoritarian personalities know their whole structure could come tumbling down with one honest admission.
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I greatly appreciate the opening line as I have often argued that Truth has a liberal bias. The accurate right-wing complaint that liberalism is the norm in our institutions of higher education shows that the better educated people are, the more likely they are to hold liberal viewpoints. The Republican strategy of crippling public schools anddefunding secondary education along with blatant media propaganda supports their goal of keeping the masses uninformed and easily manipulated.
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I am beginning to understand that the term "conservative" no longer is defined as a person who guards the status quo.
The modern "conservative" is a person who allows belief to over rule fact.
There is an old saw that states that we can convince ourselves of almost anything if said belief enhances our financial well being.
That is the definition of today's "conservative" - facts need not apply.
I am just finishing Doris Kearns Goodwin's book on leadership. The battle that Dr. K describes between economists trying to mitigate the Bush2 crash is very much analogous to Herbert Hoover's economists trying to starve their way out of the Great Depression vs FDR's Keynesian understanding that Government stimulus was the best way out.
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Speaking of being monstrously wrong and never admitting it: Has Dr. Krugman ever admitted how wrong he was when he predicted a market meltdown when Trump was elected? Still waiting.
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@NJLiberty
Many of the Billary faithful predicted immediate economic and societal downfall. At the time I thought it childish. As it was and is obvious to the most casual observers of human nature, that the outbursts were and are not political rhetoric, but wounded egos; just pathetic.
3
Trump has a knack for thumbing his nose at conventional thinking. That is why he hires folks like talking head Larry Kudlow, who once spouted nonsense about an "old Chinese saying" that "if you have a dime, spend a nickel on flowers and a nickel on bread."
I've been to China more times than I can count, dating back to 1981, and I'm not aware that nickels and dimes are or ever were part of its currency. Furthermore, no one I've asked there has ever heard of Kudlow's "old Chinese saying."
In Trumpworld, however, that apparently qualifies him to be Director of the National Economic Council, where he can apply his two cents worth.
2
@Quoth The Raven
Check out Saadi, Persian poet. I have a little book of his poetry. And my favorite lines, "If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft, and from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left, sell the one and buy hyacinths to feed thou soul."
You are so right about those who trump picks. He has continued to pick "worser".
1
On the street, "Moore" means More.
Republicans don't care if someone has lots of heavy baggage. They only care what the guy's name is and what his policies are. It's kind of like the Mafia. They'll hire anybody if they are served by them. I do believe Trump has repeatedly demanded "Loyalty" from people.
2
The G in GOP is for Gaslighting.
When you're against science (climate, evolution, gun safety...) and your policy goals are immoral (throw money at the rich, punish the poor, drill baby drill...) you just gotta lie a lot.
So it's no departure for the GOP to have Trump, who lies several times a day, at the top, nor for him to appoint--and the Republican-controlled Senate to confirm--liars like "we have no child separation policy" Nielsen, "no collusion" Barr, and "I'm right about everything" Moore. It's their brand.
7
News Flash: Trump to pardon Bernie Madoff and nominate him for open seat at the Fed. Trump calls Madoff "a victim of a radical left wing liberal witch hunt" who is "very good with numbers, almost as good as my daughter Ivanka and about even with Herman Cain. "
2
@mutineer
Nope - Madoff was always a committed Democrat.
Prof. Krugman: ... You neglected to mention the economic thought origins of these dummkopf economists - Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek. Both Friedman and Hayek have been proven decidedly wrong, and yet, remain lionized by other dummkopfs.
2
The word we're looking for is confabulation: To fabricate imaginary experiences as compensation for loss of memory, and in spite of direct evidence to the contrary. So....purposeful liars or a contagious psychiatric disorder.
2
Always so thoughtful and correct!
1
Hey Pauly,
How many times have you written this column in the last 12 years? It must be in the billions. I still enjoy them like an old pair of sneakers.
These guys are not economists, scholars, politicians or public servants. They are actors in a serial drama called "The News". Their main skill is taking the toughest, most awkward lines and landing them on target. They are Lenny and Squiggy, or maybe, Rosenkranz and Guildenstern on their best days. Bit players, but important ones. They heighten or relieve the dramatic tension so that you will keep watching for the denouement; commercials and click bait ads included. Tune in tomorrow!
Unfortunately, It's the only convenient way for ordinary citizens experience their government. It's sweeping the nation.
2
He squirms or becomes transparently embarrassed when caught out Lying Big Tme or Evincing Ignorance. He seems to grow smaller.
You would merely need to see his Face over the years on cable news or Bloomberg or CNBC, wherever.
His expression is much like a kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar - it's a Most Surprising visage, like no one else I have seen over the years.
He just takes the punding, giving up in the face of the pushback he gets when lying or showing his ignorance: he's a perfect President Grifter nominee.
He all but puts his head down, and almost does, as he scrunches in embarrassment
2
I was a token woman planning manager for a company owned by Royal Dutch/Shell in the 1970's when OPEC suddenly raised crude oil prices. The parent company told us that our planning assumption should be that petroluem prices would steadily rise from those inflated levels.
I presented evidence that commodity prices never play out that way and actually convinced them to alter their ideas. This was rare. I wish I had had Krugman's charts then. It is amazingly pathetic that 45 years later, our Federal Economists should wind up less aware than those British corporate executives.
4
Changes in the monetary base only provides the potential for changes in the actual money supply. The forecast of runaway inflation by a number of pundits required that this increase in the monetary base translate into a similar increase in the money supply(along with a stable or increasing velocity).
To get to level of inflation that they are predicting it requires lenders to ramp up their lending and borrowers to ramp up their borrowing and spending. This did not happen. The Fed is not acting in isolation.
While the monetary base did increase by over 375% since the "Great Recession", the money supply(M2) increased by less than 1/3 that amount while the real GDP grew by over 25%. The Fed primed the pump but not too excessively like Moore and others thought.
The Trump administration, viewed as an ecosystem, rewards bad people and ejects good people. Evolution within the ecosystem continues and the system while internally consistent, externally is becoming less viable in the ecosystem which is the planet.
That first chart, which shows money supply expanding to 5X pre-208 levels and now at 4X, indicates a US economy that while internally consistent, is externally out of step with the rest of the planet.
Like a giant supertanker gliding across the ocean, this navigational errors are slowly moving it away from navigable waters and known trade routes. Many small errors over time accumulate, like compound interest.
Beware the shoals ahead for the less viable.
4
1. Sadly, we who read and comment here are mostly 'preaching to the choir'!
2. While I can understand that most inflation charts alway exclude 'volatile commodities' such as food and fuel, I think that what we really need is to look at just that. While we keep saying that inflation is under control, it is only the portion of inflation that relates to capital flows, financial markets and the like. Separate out those prices which comprise the basic necessities of life for the bottom 99%. The cost of actually living in this economy has grown enormously, witness the cost of food, car insurance, health insurance, public transportation, and home heating and housing. Compare this over a period starting from 1980 to the present, and you have the answer to the continually growing income inequality. The bottom of the population is so disproportionately paying more and more every year in order to just exist.
Why not look to devise and implement policies to address this? What use is it to argue over the rightness or wrongness of the past policies?
What happened to all that money added to the money supply? Could it be that most of it just went into the pockets of the supper rich. Of course there is no inflation for most of us because most of us don't have extra cash and the capitalist world needs us to buy it's products. But there is a whole other economy for the rich and ultra rich and in this economy there is massive inflation. Think of housing costs in wealthy towns like San Francisco,
I fear for the future of America. We are slowly watching the destruction of our institutions and democracy one appointment at a time.
3
I finally understand what Mr. Trump meant when he said he only hired the "best" people.
Fact free economics is like fact free politics. No need for any qualifications or evidence. You only need to assert everyone is wrong and you are right. I guess it does require a big brain, so there is that.
5
If consistency must be rewarded, even consistency in being wrong for years about everything, then Stephen Moore is owed some sort of an award.
Appointment as Larry Kudlow’s wingman at the White House may be the appropriate award for Moore, but he should never, never be put on the Federal Reserve Board.
4
You are in a terrible position, Dr. Krugman. While your argument in this op-ed is sound, you preach to the choir.
Our president infamously does not read. Words are irrelevant to him. Charts and graphs are even less interesting to him.
His party loyalists have willful blindness, valuing a continued place at the public trough over truth.
His base voters have been systematically and repeatedly made afraid. We know the fight or flight reaction shuts down considered decision making.
This seems as hopeless as one teacher's job I remember. This doctor was the director of a training program for young physicians. He sat with head in hands and told me of his trainees who were all Koreans and their patients were all Hispanic and he spoke neither Korean nor Spanish.
That did not end well and this will not either.
3
Periodically, I keep my Dad company by watching FOX news shows---I will say, it is entertaining watching one "expert" crackpot after another recount the same conspiracy theories by Dad and is friends discuss at morning coffee. But it is not entertaining to watch these same crackpots actually administering in the halls of power. And now, Trump has moved the employee bar lower with hiring clowns over crackpots.
6
@Amanda Jones
But but but Mr Trump is constantly victimized.... Just listen to his statements...I find it amazing that so many believe that as well as these "experts" that are constantly wrong.
Just as there is no Climate Change caused by humans.
I am constantly amazed at what is coming from Washington D.C. and that so much is believed.
2
Sounds like Moore is Trump's kind of guy--someone who doesn't let mere facts change his mind.
4
The important conclusion is that these people are chosen because of their willingness to be part of an unscrupulous team that puts personal gain over everything, even over the survival of the species (e.g. climate change). Excellent analysis (as usual) from Krugman.
3
@OS: The Republican Party is a very determined collection of people who believe willpower alters reality.
1
Bravo! And we've known this for years. The economists of the GOP are incapable of self-reflection (deliberately so, or not).
The only reason these people are well-known is because their inane ramblings support established GOP policy. For example, Moore has never published an academic paper on economics. Moore would be an absolute non-entity in an administration that values qualifications and experience.
He's a Republican apparatchik like all the others. These economists don't care about evidence; if they did, the GOP would never have elevated them.
7
Moore's nomination to the Fed is another example of Trump's administration as a kakistocracy:
Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens
4
The problem of a political operative on the Fed is that he will try to crash the economy if the president is a Democrat. That’s what all the austerity talk was about during the Great Recession. Tight money for thee, loose for me!
6
"Evidence has a well-known liberal bias."
I am sorry but I rarely read your columns any more. Why read something of which I am sure that it will be biased and in a direction I can anticipate?
The tragedy is that too many New Yorkers follow you and mortgage their ability to think.
4
Before you criticize readers for being unable to think, look at the charts.
3
Trump's one and only source of approval is the good economy. (And still he has remained underwater his entire presidency; you'd think that would tell him something.) But being Trump, he's doing everything he can to change that. Everything from the aforementioned terrible choices for the Fed, to the unnecessary trade war with China, to the tariffs, to ballooning the debt that was caused by tax cuts that were, again, unnecessary. And he's just getting started. His threat to close the border will indeed hurt Mexico's economy, but it will hurt our's as well.
What the continued good economy shows is how just resilient the economy is. But that will change if he gets a second term.
3
So true. That comedians like Moore, Kudlow and Hassett are key players in running economic policy in the US is beyond shocking.
2
Am I missing something? The red line in chart 1 goes from about 80 to about 120. That's a 50% increase in consumer prices! That hardly seems like, as Krugman says, "basically nothing."
@Fred Morgenstern - You have to look more closely. The actual figures for the CPI were 207 in 2007 and 244 in 2017, an increase of about 18% over 10 years. The latest value was 254 in 3/2019. These figures are from the BLS which uses 1982 - 1984 as as a base (=100).
3
In applying for any position, the employer looks at the candidates record, obviously. Not so with the Donald and not surprisingly as he had no record in public office but the people put him into the highest office in the land. "Common sense" shows us one again there is nothing common about good sense.
1
We have to teach democracy first, then you can have a discussion about rational approaches to financial governance. Right now, we have been forced into a tribal battle posture by eons of divisive politics.
2
Republicans knows that easy monetary policy and fiscal stimulus is required in a recession. They argued against it to hurt Obama. They would hurt the American people to gain political advantage. They also know not to cut taxes in time of recovery and the deficit will soar. They just lie to get what they want. The can't admit they are wrong, because they need to keep the scam going.
6
As far as the Republican party is concerned he is correct. He advocates for supply-side economics which transfers wealth to the political donor class. That is what he is paid to do. Needless to say they will continue to elevate him as long as they benefit.
11
R's basic position is: The Free Market with No Government Rules is the Best System and Is What The Country Should Always Follow.
OK. Inadeaquate Housing, Unemployment. What is the R position on these Major Problems, which they cannot deny are problems? Is the Free Market doing anything, anything at all, to solve them?
The answer is it is doing NOTHING.
If Nothing, how will be problems be solved?
The Ds say, as Adam Smith said in his Wealth of Nations, there are issues that the Free Market cannot solve (because it really does not care since those are the problems of Other People) and that is where Government should act to solve, or at least improve, these matters.
THAT is the difference between Rs and Ds including Adam Smith. The R position is not an intellectual one. It is Pure Greed and Selfishness. Show me where I am wrong.
9
@Tom Jordan
You think 3.8% unemployment is a problem? Most of us recognize that metric as very positive. And why do You capitalize So Many words Unnecessarily?
1
I think it would be very entertaining to have Moore's list of "good economists" to replace the "bad economists" at the FED.
Neither Kudlow or Moore are economists. They are akin to "creation scientists." With no real knowledge or understanding of the underlying principle they critique. They misrepresent and distort to arrive at the desired, albeit completely wrong, conclusions.
9
The real question one needs to ask is why? Why do right wingers want high interest rates? Put simply, if you own money high interest rates are good for you. Low interest rates are more distributive and promote economic growth most of the time. If the economy grows more relative to interest rates those that don’t own money make out better. The current admin push for low interest might alienate the owners of money - hear the stone cold silence on this issue?
When price of producer commodities like copper and soybeans dips deeply twice in a decade and barely regains a foothold thereafter (has been lower than previous high before 2008) indicates the nature of stagnation since then.
Facts are pointless in the face of ideology. In so many ways the conservative think tanks are merely there to support a false world view and will willfully ignore/ reject/ taint/ find new variables/ lie to maintain their perspective.
The greatest lie perpetrated in the last 50 years was that the media had a liberal bias and that their point of view was not given the time and attention that it deserved. Now 50 years on, we see that their perspective was not based in reality but a fantasy of how people behave, countries work, and what causes what effect. There was no liberal bias just a preference to report fact based analysis.
So now we live in a world where a huge chunk of the population is steeped in fantasy/ conspiracy and we wonder why we can't come to agreement on anything.
22
It seems Trump wants the Fed to be a personal political tool. We saw this when Trump criticized his own Fed chair for raising interest rates. Trump wants the economy to be on a sugar high as we go into an election year, actual monetary policy be damned. With that in the background, it's hard not to see the Trump trying to put "HIS guy" on the Fed Board of Governors with this nomination.
15
I don’t know about the rest of you , but I am exhausted by all this “winning”.
9
Moore is just another one of Trump’s chumps. He does not need to be thoughtful, truthful, or educated in his craft or a responsible choice.
9
Well of course in Trump bizzaro world the incompetents get the job.
5
@CA John
Anything to reduce unemployment.
4
The term you left out, the term right-wing ideologues (I won't call them economists) used to scare the minimally employed and the minimally educated was "hyperinflation."
And of course they knew better than the President, since they were, well, you know (white) and he was, well, you know (a community organizer). ;)
My guess is give him a keg of beer and he would be every bit as racist as he is sexist.
6
@priceofcivilization
Worked for keg o'beer Kavanaugh.
Being a right-wing “intellectual” really sounds like an easy gig.
All you have to do is constantly publish stuff that supports their agenda and you will keep getting prominent positions.
The quality of your work is irrelevant.
21
"And that, presumably, is why conservatives prefer “experts” who not only consistently get things wrong, but refuse to admit or learn from their mistakes."
There are a few articles out there that conclude you're wrong quite a lot, too, Paul.
In 2013 piece titled "Knaves, Fools, and Me (Meta)", you said, "The point is not that I have an uncanny ability to be right; it’s that the other guys have an intense desire to be wrong. And they’ve achieved their goal."
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/knaves-fools-and-me-meta/
"Fact Checking Paul Krugman's Claim To Be "Right About Everything":
https://mises.org/library/fact-checking-paul-krugmans-claim-be-right-about-everything
"Paul Krugman’s Errors and Omissions":
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-09-22/paul-krugman-s-errors-and-omissions/
"Six Mistakes Paul Krugman Makes About Medicare's Finances":
https://economics21.org/html/six-mistakes-paul-krugman-makes-about-medicares-finances-1447.html
"Paul Krugman the lord of wrong predictions" (January 22, 2018):
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2018/01/22/paul-krugman-lord-wrong-predictions-592049
2
@hm1342: Your choices of “articles” are telling. Mises (a right-wing Austrian think tank), Economics21 (an arm of the conservative Manhattan Institute), and Bizpacreview (a “publication” that explicitly touts its conservative credentials - it has been cited by such conservative “luminaries” as Donald Trump, Jr. and Sarah Palin!) lack the partiality, journalistic integrity, and sophisticated intelligence necessary to rebut Mr. Krugman’s carefully-considered, objective positions on the issues he writes about. Your reliance on biased sources who simply tout the accepted dogma of the American conservative movement only aids in bolstering the argument that the American right wing values brash stupidity over conscientious res arch and consideration. In the future, hm1342, choose better sources to support your arguments; by touting the “findings” of biased conservative organizations in your response to this article, you only accomplish a vivid demonstration of the paucity of intelligent discourse on the American right.
2
Oh, look...a Trumpist has cited a buncha right-wingers and called the jumble a rational argument.
Imagine my surprise.
1
@Dec03: "@hm1342: Your choices of “articles” are telling."
No more nor less than Krugman's biases.
"In the future, hm1342, choose better sources to support your arguments..."
If it's good enough for Krugman and most of the commenters here to pick just one side of an argument, then don't complain when anyone else decides to bring up alternate views. I thought one of the tenets of liberalism was open-mindedness. Apparently that's not quite true.
2
This pattern has accelerated, but it’s been in place since Reagan:
Expert: “This is where the evidence leads us.”
Right-wing “expert”: “My analysis says you’re wrong.”
One event later:
Expert: “Our evidence-based model was largely correct.”
Right-wing “expert”: *Goes on Fox News to talk about how the correct analysis was and remains all wrong, as was the evidence—then gets a plum GOP appointment*
It takes a very large propaganda campaign to keep any portion of the population from the truth; those “experts” are part of that effort, and they do a serious disservice to their professions.
5
I've been saying for years (ever since Newt and his gang of fellow thug, actually) that being a Republican is a form of mental illness. People have always suggested to me that I've been talking in extremes. Can anyone now deny it? How are Trump, Moore, Sanders, all of these people not ragingly mentally ill? (I'm serious: this is not a rhetorical question.)
9
Few outside liberal NYT circles take Krugman seriously. Remember, he's the same guy who told us the financial markets would tank if Trump became president. The exact opposite happened. How do you take a guy like that seriously on anything? He has no credibility. He's just a partisan who economic analyses are worth zero.
4
@Devlin
"Few outside liberal NYT circles take Krugman seriously."
"How do you take a guy like that seriously on anything?"
Apparently the Nobel Prize Committee did in 2008. Sorry to disappoint you.
@eheck
The committee that awarded the Peace Prize to Jimmy Carter, solely as a rebuke ("kick in the leg" to George W. Bush? And who awarded the prize to Barack Obama for...nothing?
Picking a President with the soft bigotry of low expectations on full display gets you a President who is soft. YOU KNOW WHERE!
George III out of nowhere, and only our voters to blame.
1
Moore is human dross with no place in public life, and certainly not in anything in any way connected with economics.
1
Survival of the Wrongest is actually Survival of the Biggest Liars. I suspect that economic commentators like Moore and Kudlow know that what they're saying is false but do it deliberately because it brings in money from billionaires looking for cuts in taxes and wages. They are just shameless professional liars, whose specialty is lying about economics.
6
I salute you sir thank you for being brave
1
Apparently Dr. Krugman and the NYT have a problem with peace and prosperity.
2
The explanation for the Republican Trump Cult is that Republicans share Trump's Reality TV way of thinking. As a result whatever they touch rots. Unfortunately that now includes the USA.
Reality is subjective for Trump. Scientists say their beliefs are reality based, and cite data and statistics. Republicans and Trump go with what stirs up voters. The latest is Trump as Victim. The funniest is Pompeo's Trump as Queen Esther saving the Jews. The most ridiculous is the Evangelical support for Trump and his Mendacity Gospel.
2
Where does Trump find his arrogant, talentless, nominees? From the propaganda pits of Fox News and the conservative "think tanks", of course.
3
I am embarrassed that Stephen Moore attended my wonderful university, the University of Illinois! What a reprehensible outlook on women!!
It's obvious to those of us who'd rather not walk through life with our heads in the sand, but don't expect Republicans to agree. If a single talking head from a conservative news venue ranted for an hour that 2+2 doesn't equal 4, before the day was out Republicans would be picketing out in front of their kids elementary school with signs reading, "Facts + Facts = Lies!!!". They think it's not wrong if their side says it's right, to heck with physical or mathematical law.
5
The Republican party is more like a mystical cult than a serious reality-based group that would like to govern our country and improve our lives. From voodoo economics, to science denial, to the stubborn belief that the life of a fertilized egg in utero is more precious and more deserving of protection than the living breathing woman who carries that egg. ... It doesn't matter what reality is to Republicans; what matters is loyalty, branding, and whatever Fox News says. That's all.
4
The grift goes on .... It's pretty bad when even Greg Mankiw objects.
2
anyone who cant manage their own finances successfully i.e. avoid being behind in alimony etc is unqualified to be on the Fed. But we have a serial bankruptcy purveyor in the white house why should we be surprised
2
What is so scary is that the GOP, once the party of fiscal practicality, is likely to actually appoint him to the Fed. Of course as soon as he damages the economy Trump will insult and fire him but by then we will all have taken losses.
@Alexandra Hamilton they were never the party of fiscal practicality
. That was just the demo.
Beautifully written and morbidly depressing.
3
Ya, no, we can do better. What was his explanation for the use of selective facts in the Kansas City Star piece? Maybe, we’ve discovered Trump’s problems, bad advice?
I've been fond of saying "reality has a liberal bias" for a while now, lol.
3
Nonplussed. Krugs, have you admitted to how wrong you have been in every article since Trump freed the markets?
2
@Pilot examples pleas. And how has Trumped freed the markets?The problem with talking to people like Pilot is that the entire time is spent refuting absurd statements.
Sustained ignorance in the face of facts has a well known conservative bias. From well before the Flat Earth.
2
Thank you, Dr. Krugman!
How do we know if they were wrong? How can you prove it?Meanwhile.....Record low unemployment. Market at an all time high. Wages finally headed up. Now if we want to talk about wrong, what quantifiable prediction can we point to? I think you know. Election night!? Heck of a job Paulie. Thank your very lucky stars you don’t have to live on your predictions. I do, and being 180 degrees from your predictions has made me quite well off. Please keep it up.
3
@ThirdWay
"Record low unemployment. Market at an all time high. Wages finally headed up."
Thanks President Obama!
1
Prof. Krugman forgot to add that the IRS is pursuing Mr. Moore for fraudulent tax return filing, and that he has been slapped with a lien of $ 75,000 for unpaid taxes and penalties. How low can we go in selecting the financial trustees of our nation ?
2
@Tom Mix
I fear that the conclusion of Trump supporters is that the IRS is part of the deep state, and these liens are part of a liberal conspiracy against God-fearing Republican servants who just want America to be great again, like it was in the 1950s.
2
The Republicans have no integrity and are willing to lie, cheat and steal to get power.
The Republicans have no empathy nor tolerance for anyone who is different from them (race, religion, economic status, education, attitudes toward women, ...).
Republicans only respect rich white men. Everyone else is second class - or worse.
Republicans believe only they are entitled to rule. Whatever they say or do is right because they are the entitled rulers. If they admit they are wrong then maybe they are not entitled and they might have to share power.
This would be disastrous and would mean the end of this country and democracy. (However, as Moore has said - he is not a fan of democracy, capitalism is more important)
Once we accept this we can understand why they do all that they do.
Maybe we need to reopen the mental institutions.
3
It is very discouraging to see about half of the national politicians signing onto positions of total willful ignorance, and still (as of the 2016 and 2018 elections) receiving a lot of votes instead of losing by landslides. I think of the Biblical prediction of the two witnesses in St. John's Revelation who could breathe fire and consume their enemies, make the rain stop and so forth, and consider that it would take speech that forceful to make Republicans accept truth. They just don't want to hear truth, no matter what. There has got to be something seriously mentally ill about them.
The economic profession also has intransigent people in denial of fact and sound theory, and they are culpable of fostering ignorance but lack the political power to create problems. But the willful ignorance of people in power should be a grave concern for all of us. I can't think of any lawful solutions for that.
I commend to everyone chapter 10 of The Road to Serfdom: "Why the Worst Get on Top".
@D. Conroy
And watch "How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying"
No one has a monopoly on the truth. Especially elitist, self-loving, smug ideologues like Paul Krugman. He is so partisan that he probably froths at the mouth in the presence of conservatives. It is very difficult to treat anything he says as credible. That said, Stephen Moore is not qualified for this job. He is on television a lot, which I view as a big negative. I suggest Gregory Mankiw. Mankiw is whip smart and objective. The fact that he can survive and thrive in the far left environs of Harvard indicates that he could handle the politics of the Fed. And Paul- please retire. You are getting very tiresome.
1
@Tim Lewis " . . . far left environs of Harvard"? Irony is truly dead.
So now partisan tribalism has infected the profession of Economics. That's the only explanation for people like Moore and Kudlow.
1
so let me see - modus operandi of the republicans - lie to the poor people to keep them repressed, while stealing their future with tax cuts ?
1
But can our country survive the loss of the 999 Plan?
Dr. Krugman, I think you would find that the book "Democracy in Chains," by Nancy McLean answers a lot of your questions. You generally seem bewildered by the seeming cluelessness of the Republicans; however, they are not clueless at all. They have a plan dating way back that intends to de-democratize our society in favor of the oligarchs, using stealth because their policies are so unpopular. Read it and be scared!
@sdf There was another book written several decades ago titled Tragedy And Hope which also reported on the wish by elites to de-democratize our American society. In my opinion, such a goal is a huge mistake that will probably end terribly, the ultimate outcome being the restoration of democracy. But while the disasters form and occur, life wouldn't be a joyride for most people, as the policies of elites will be unpopular for very good reasons. And the results will be very bad for those anti-democratic elites, just as they were in France around 1790.
1
Krugman doesn't say WHY the vast increase in monetary base did not increase prices. We didn't produce a lot more stuff during that period. One would expect more money chasing the same amount of stuff would raise prices. A reasonable explantion can be found at https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2014/september/what-does-money-velocity-tell-us-about-low-inflation-in-the-us
Briefly in my words:
There's this little equation:
P = (MV)/S
where P is prices , M is the amount of money in the economy, V measures the frequency that money changes hands usefully, & S is the dollar amount of the amount of stuff, goods and services, we can produce in some time period.
A word on V. If the government gives Scrooge McDuck a Billion for advice on the comic book market, M increases by a Billion, but if Scrooge puts the bucks in his basement, and forgets about it, that doesn't affect P at all. That Billion has a V of 0. Also, if Scrooge lose a bet to Daddy Warbucks, and the Billion moves from Scrooge's basement to Daddy's, that is a change, but the V does increase because it is not a useful change. It doesn't affect commerce.
Now after 2008 the increase in monetary base was mostly caused by the FED pouring TRILLIONS into the banking system to save it so we wouldn't repeat 1929. But after the crisis, banks were wary of lending money to anyone, but the Rich who then used the money for financial speculation. Thus V plummeted, and the increase in M was cancelled out by the decrease in V.
Kudlow, Trump's chief economist isn't even an economist, he just played one on TV which made him perfect for this Administration.
2
Krugman doesn't tell us WHY the increase in the monetary base did not cause much inflation. That is explained in https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2014/september/what-does-money-velocity-tell-us-about-low-inflation-in-the-us
Briefly:
There's this little equation:
P = (MV)/S
where P is prices , M is the amount of money in the economy, V measures the frequency that money changes hands usefully, and S is the dollar amount of the amount of stuff, goods and services, we can produce in some time period.
A word on V. If the government gives Scrooge McDuck a Billion for advice on the comic book market, M increases by a Billion, but if Scrooge puts the bucks in his basement, and forgets about it, that doesn't affect P at all. That Billion has a V of 0. Also, if Scrooge lose a bet to Daddy Warbucks, and the Billion moves from Scrooge's basement to Daddy's, that is a change, but the V does not change because it is not a useful change. It doesn't affect commerce.
Most of the increase in monetary base was due to the FED pouring TRILLIONS into the banking system so we would not have a repeat of 1929. Although the banks then had money to use as reserves for loans, they were wary of lending except to rich people who used the money for financial speculation drive up the price of financial assets, but not the CPI. That money had very low V. In fact after 2008, V has plunged. The negated the increase in M so that MV was relatively constant and prices rose only a little.
Trump prefers ideological purity ...but then again he has no principles to guide decision-making. Moore looks good on TV. Sign him up.
1
How about the fact that Moore has never held a real job in his life? And I don't mean private vs public sector, no, he's literally been just a lobbyist his entire career. He's not an economist; he's a salesman.
2
Stephen Moore does not have a PHD in economics, and maybe always wrong, but what makes him great, like Larry Kudlow or Sarah Huckabee Sanders is that they are all marvelous propagandists. They will say what ever lies Donald Trump wants them to say. If they are caught in a lie they will just say it's a "Slip of the tongue" or they were making a joke. They ARE the kind of people that every totalitarian regime needs in order to function.
5
Here's an idea: Moore isn't incompetent, he's nefarious and ONLY wants policies that move more wealth from everyday Americans and into the coffers of the uber-rich.
Paraphrasing, of all people, Ayn Rand, to take the last few grains of rice from starving peasants and "let them gather into gems".
1
I have pretty much given up listening to Trump’s critics.
1
Moore's threat to fire all Fed economists is sufficient reason to reject his nomination. That threat should weigh heavily.
2
The people running the Heritage Foundation must suffer from some kind of mental illness to pick Moore as its Chief economist.
"Moore was wrong about everything during the financial crisis; he remained a fixture on the right-wing conference circuit, and in 2014 the Heritage Foundation appointed him as its chief economist."
3
In an earlier time, someone like Stephen Moore might at least be comforted by the idea that like the hands on a stopped clock, he could be right once in a while.
Moore's problem is that today's digital clocks have displays that simply disappear.
2
Follow the money, folks. The Heritage Foundation collects money from rich, far-right conservatives to play their tune.
In turn, the Foundation pays Moore well to spread the party line under the guise of scholarship. It's a fancy form of corruption, one that relies upon intellectual dishonesty.
3
Maybe the heritage the Heritage Foundation is emulating is that of October, 1929.
Anyway, does anyone working on Pennsylvania Avenue have a clue, about anything? Are they planning to crucify us on a cross of gold or plastic or Ponzi schemes?
We finally got the savings interest rate over a tenth of one percent. If they don’t want SocSec hanging around, they need to have interest rates for loans and savings to be reasonable so we can fund our own retirement, or have I got hold of the wrong end of the problem?
Thanks for the column. I've seen Moore a few times on Bill Maher and he always has come across as a no-nothing shill who spouts the GOP party line for his masters (i.e., the Kochs, etc.). It really is scary -- and that is not too strong a word -- to think that Trump is filling the Fed with people of his ilk.
3
Milton Friedman became famous for his monetary hypothesis, that if the Federal Reserve had not allowed money supply to drop, the Great Depression wouldn't have been the Great Depression.
A key part of his hypothesis was his belief that the velocity of money would be positively correlated with money supply, that as the Fed Increased money supply, velocity would have gone up.
Milton Friedman appears to have been not just wrong, horribly wrong. We ran the Milton Friedman playbook in the Great Recession to the ultimate degree. In 1984, the highest growth year in the last 65 years, their was $500 MZM for every $1,000 of GDP. In 2016, we had $880 of MZM for every $1,000 of GDP, an all-time record.
Result of pumping out all this money? By far the lowest velocity ever recorded- the extreme opposite of what Milton Friedman predicted.
Does this mean that the economics profession is intellectual corrupt? It has completely failed to address, much less explain, this absolute comprehensive failure of its most fundamental model.
1
Good analysis. What we've seen is steady appointments by Trump of ideologues, whose opinions and decisions are not fact based. Trump, himself, is the worst at basing decisions on his uninformed predispositions, and when reality intervenes either glosses over his decisions or changes the subject.
It would be interesting to see the same inflation analysis here with the cost of higher education. In general inflation in the U.S. has been run away where there has been no foreign competition such as education and defense. Add prescription drugs to that. Still It would be interesting to see all the factors in one place involved in inflation in higher education affecting student tuition, which has tripled since 1999. Perhaps Dr. Krugman knows some people in this field who could explain this.
2
@loveman0 When states cut the share of their funding of public colleges, the cost of those colleges falls more on students and their families. And it justifies higher prices for private college education. Isn't that simple enough to understand?
The GOP has a Rolodex full of approved experts to provide a veneer of plausibility for discredited doctrines; the long history of this 'adaptive political economy' is described by Nancy McLean in Democracy in Chains. Even with what we know of human psychology and the selective perception of evidence, it is profoundly discouraging to see the minimal response to Ben Bernanke's invitation only mentioned occasionally by astute observers like Mr. Krugman. Such an indictment of doctrine is comparable to discovering that the mathematics used to calculate the trajectory of satellites was seriously in error, but without much public response; or to discovering that humanity is destroying its own habitat, while presidential candidates ignore . . . oh, wait.
5
Why does the CPI for all urban consumers specifically ignore food and energy? Those 2 items would certainly have an impact for the 99% vs the 1% in determining economic health for the nation. National economic health is more than the just stock market and unemployment parameters.
4
@Jao The CPI does not ignore food and energy. But, food and energy prices are volatile and can give misleading indicators of overall inflation over short periods of time. Therefore the BLS also calculates a price index with food and energy price removed. Look at graphs of them both here:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUS0000SA0L1E
1
If Americans only understood how much more damage these men on the right -- and the entire GOP for that matter -- inflicted and the needless suffering we all endured due to their bogus theories and personal vanity, which could have been avoided had the government implemented Keynesian policies -- the "traditional" policies practiced in this country over the past 75 years.
There is no doubt, however, that those calling the shots on peddling such nonsense know full well they have nothing to do with helping the economy and everything to do with weakening government for their benefit.
And, they also know how easy it is to get the bloviating self-important and intellectually gullible in Congress and throughout the party to do their bidding in promoting the politics of the wealthy.
9
But I think your theories need a revision. Sure inflation has remained subdued but the monetary base is still well elevated above the baseline. Your theory was that the depressed economy would keep inflation down. The economy is no longer depressed but both inflation and interest rates are still low. Indeed, long term rates have dropped below short term rates - the negative yield curve. What’s going on? Could it be Bernanke’s global savings glut?
1
@JFC re the negative yield curve---people are borrowing more to pay bills, urgently, while the expectation for longterm growth and profits is less. This portends a slump, a recession, hard times.
Mr. Krugman lives in outdated theories.
1. Inflation in the US is two track. Items that are exposed
to global competition can not rise in price, unless the
Chinese (not the Fed) rise prices. (They won't because
then TV production would move to Vietnam)
2. Items that are not exposed to global competition, in
particular health care, underwent rampant inflation
Pretax earnings of the five largest health insurers in the
the US increase from $ 15 billion in 2009, to $ 25
billion in 2015. Physicians salary increased 7% , every
year between 2010 and 2018). Why did your
insurance go up ? Inflation.
3. The Fed printed money. It did not land where it was
needed. Ordinary Americans with underwater
mortgages could not get there hands on it. Credit
worthy Mark Zuckerberg, could. Refinancing his
Palo Alto home at 1%. So could credit worthy Mr.
Krugman, who bough Apt 23C on NYC' Riverside
drive (does he really need a 3rd residence besides
Princeton and his beach property on St. Croix)
4. Industry used the cheap money NOT to expand in the
US building new factories, but to expand in China
study GM), to buy back its own stock , and to issue
tons of BBB rated bonds - the lowest pensions funds
can buy, That is the greatest headache to economists
that understand monetary theory
That Mr. Krugman, sorry to say, does not
2
1. Do you know that the U.S. retail price of China-made products is mostly markup above the wholesale cost? This markup consists almost entirely of U.S-based costs. For example, an iPhone sold for $1000 in a Apple store is recorded as around a $250 import.
2. Do you know that medical prices are part of the CPI and are one of the things driving it up? Prices rise due to higher demand, and demand for medical services has skyrocketed in the U.S. over the past decade, with baby boomer getting older and with the ACA adding millions of people to the insurance rolls.
3. Did you know that mortgage interest rates are at near historical lows?
4. You make a good point about GM. Dr. Krugman understand this point perfectly well.
3
some guy commenting in the Times vs a Nobel prize laureate in economics. Hmmmmmm, think I'll stick with Dr. K
Obviously they want to be able to control the fed as it would give them massive control to play partisan politics. Raise interest under democrats, lower under republicans. Deregulation etc.
6
You have to understand that for a conservative “true” does not mean factually correct. It means true to the faith. And as a matter of faith it is not subject to testing by comparison to real world events.
17
Dr. Krugman is wrong to say that Moore is refusing to learn from mistakes. He is just not capable of learning. Trump did not pick him for his knowledge in economics, he picked him based on what he said about women that fits right into his image.
13
Insight into the measure of a man (or woman) is how they treat(ed) their spouse.
If they’ve lied to and abused the one they vowed to love and cherish, imagine what’s potentially in store for you as a business partner, constituent, employee or friend.
11
I suppose the only consolation is that there will be confirmation hearings at which he will have to face scrutiny under oath. But what is strange to me about these Trump nominations is that personal unsavoriness is disqualifying but lack of qualifications and technical incompetence is not.
9
Probably because Trump lacks competence too.
1
"The issue is not simply one of having made some bad forecasts. Everyone does that now and then"
Still waiting for the 30%decline in the stock market you predicted with a Trump presidency. Not to worry, a Princeton degree in Voodoo Economics will still get you a job at McDonalds, although not in management
4
@Tim NJ, there’s still time! We’ve just passed the 10th anniversary of the longest bull market in history (brought about by Obama’s policies of course), and all the economic harbingers now point to a recession very soon. And it’s going to be a doozy. Trump’s unstable and disorganised behaviour like the trade war with China, and his terrible management of the government (e.g., failing to fill large numbers of key positions) aren’t helping either.
8
citation needed.
Could it be that all of the extra money that the fed printed was not spent but hoarded away somewhere or used on things that don't affect the CPI - like investments?
2
To quote the last Krugman Editorial "The simple fact is that one of our two major parties — the one that likes to wrap itself in the flag — no longer believes in American values. And it’s very much up in the air whether America as we know it will survive."
This is Paul Krugman in his last editorial. It seems the paramount question is how to Preserve the current American Republic as undemocratic as it is. It would be great if Professor Krugman can discuss the threat to the Republic now and what we all can do about. This problem dwarfs however bad Trump's Fed appointment may be.
1
And now, when the Fed should be vigorously raising rates, these same guys are all advocating the opposite!
7
@Celeste Why should the Fed be raising rates when doing so would make the economy slump? It's not exactly booming, not when there are quite a few homeless and jobless people not being welcomed by employers taking applications. Just as soon as average and poor people start to get raises, the Fed historically has raised rates and put the country back into recession. As someone who likes being employed, I am actually in agreement with Trump that the rate hikes of last year were premature and/or excessive.
Another illustration that “alternative facts” have been the foundation of core Republican policies since at least Reagan. Trickle down economics, climate change denialism, tightening in the face of recession—they all rest on bad faith rejections of scientific thinking and a mistrust of experts in order to better serve this country’s richest.
18
Conservatism in America today is much like the church was in Medieval Europe: the self-appointed arbiter of truth.
In the Middle Ages, when observed phenomena conflicted with church dogma, observed phenomena was forced to yield (notwithstanding Galileo’s (alleged) statement “and yet it moves” after being forced to recant his assertion that the Earth circles the sun).
We see time and again today conservative dogma being asserted in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary — from economic policy to global warming — with apostates threatened with excommunication from the movement if they dare accept evidence over party orthodoxy.
Truly, Republicans would return us to the Dark Ages if given the chance.
38
@DadInReston: "Conservatism in America today is much like the church was in Medieval Europe: the self-appointed arbiter of truth."
It also sounds like most of the media - self appointed arbiters of truth.
At least the medieval Church at its best cared for the sick and fed the poor. This is more than can be said for Trump, Moore, and the other Republican apologists for plutocracy. Dogma is never so dangerous as when it is joined to arrogance and greed.
My 91 year old father, still an FDR Democrat would say to us when we were young to "never trust a Republican." My father is still saying it and he's still right.
63
@Robert Pohlman
John McCain was the last respectable Republican choice for President, until he picked Sarah Palin to be running mate.
Wow, he even believed in climate change!
No American should have to FEAR having a Republican President.
1
@Robert Pohlman
My father used to say"say never trust anyone from Illinois" because of its political leadership and lack of fiscal responsibility
There is an element of sadism in these Republican economic conservatives. They are more interested in punishing those who violate what they regard as moral principles, than in having a successful outcome. Whether those principles are actually moral is another whole set of questions.
14
Krugman is right about the money supply, but "core inflation" is a meaningless number for the 99%. Food and energy are excluded? Besides housing that is a huge fraction of people's personal bills. And it seems every year $100 buys fewer and fewer groceries.
17
"... In 2014 Bloomberg contacted as many of the signatories of that open letter to Bernanke as it could, to ask what they thought given subdued inflation and a solid economic recovery. …"
I check this list of names before reading any article. If the name of the author of the article is on this list, I skip over the article.
4
The latest example of Trump elevating another poser to a serious position that requires deep knowledge and policy expertise -- not a political hack pretending to be an economist. As for Moore's appalling misogyny? Just proof that Trump's MAGA litmus test is attracting EXACTLY who he is trying to resonate with -- men who can't handle the fact that the world has changed, and women play an integral role in the national economy. Move over, Stephen Moore. No room for you here anymore. And pay your child support before you go!
15
In 2008, I left the Republican party with whom I had been in lockstep for 30 years. It was due to my party's inability to see the enormous failure in the presidency of George W. Bush (whom I voted for twice) and his policies (many of which I supported).
Whenever I gathered with my Republican friends and colleagues for dinner, poker or a football game, there was a deep recognition that we had lost our way, that Rumsfeld, Cheney et. al., had lied and betrayed our principles, and that we were simply wrong about too much.
Yet, in the face of this, I was shocked that we did not call ourselves, our party and our leaders to accountability. Republicans instead soothed themselves with "the Democrats are so much worse." The pain dissipated and the Righteous vindication returned.
No doubt some principled Republicans remained - but over time, most, like me, a "broken-hearted Republican," had to leave.
What breaks my heart is the damnable hubris that blinds and cements the Republican party. It is why neither the base nor the leadership care a fig about presidential norms, senate traditions, constitutional rights and powers, nor their many lies and hypocrisy. The Republican party is simply a vast stinking "dead-man-walking" carcass of cliches about defining America. Grasping to hold on to power NOT to make America great, but to keep themselves entrenched in their safe bubble. This requires no repentance, no confession, no forgiveness. It is why they will lose in time.
51
Perhaps Trump's second term will feature inflation?
1
Moore is, not surprisingly, just another Trump kakistocrat. Facts, truth, reason, and decorum, let alone merit and humility, were proudly tossed out the window by the president and his party long ago.
The frustration I feel must be familiar to a physician doggedly attempting to eradicate a cancer. It’ll end eventually.....one way or another. Let’s hope the collateral damage isn’t the current global order.
10
The damage wrought by Trump and the damage Trump tries to wreak—
Is so staggering, nationwide and worldwide, there is no means of expressing it or quantifying it.
6
Like Mr Moore, I have a Master’s degree in Economics. As such, I am qualified to teach at the local community college and extremely unqualified to sit on the Fed’s Board of Governors.
The Board of Governors need to be PhD economists, just as the Surgeon General needs to be a doctor and Supreme Court Justices need to be lawyers.
I can’t believe I need to say that, but apparently I do.
60
@K D P Agree, but would add that I have known many PhD's who were not that bright, education is not everything.
1
@K D P: "...Supreme Court Justices need to be lawyers. "
Unlike members of Congress and the President, there are no age or citizenship requirements to be a federal judge. There is definitely no requirement to be a member of the legal profession. My 11 year-old grandson is constitutionally qualified to be the next Supreme Court justice. Many times he makes more sense than a lot of SCOTUS justices.
@hm1342 As a practical matter, these jobs require deep expertise that comes only with education and experience. Stephen Moore says, "I’m new to this game, so I’m going to be on a steep learning curve about how the Fed operates."
2
Krugs is right on the core inflation issue, to be sure. QE was necessary to help the recovery. But rates have been too low for too long and it's creating big asset bubbles. And the problem is everyone is so addicted to cheap money/debt, every time Powell even hints at raising rates, the market goes nuts. Just as Greenspan kept rates too low after the 2001 recession and created a housing bubble, this is happening again. This is a rather large willful omission by Krugs. Of course he didn't think the Internet was a big deal either!
4
@David C If you look at the data, you see no such housing boom looming. Please point me to your "housing boom 2019" data.
5
This is of a pattern, decrying expertise in favour of....what? In every field, those with knowledge and experience are denigrated, demeaned, and dismissed. It is mostly partisan, skewed very heavily Republican, but not completely so (anti-vaxxers, for instance, come in all political stripes).
What’s the goal? A return to the dark ages?
Is the Age of Enlightenment truly over?
9
@Lisa
My opinion is as good as your facts! Expertise OUT, bullying IN
The status quo in politics isn't going to end because we politely ask for change, AND have the facts on our side, it will end only with mass protest on the level of Yellow vests and Extinction Rebellion.
2
I've stopped paying attention to Trump's nominees for anything. I've pretty much given up.
9
@Stuart Weiner That’s exactly what the Trump Republicans want you to do. The more people they can exclude, the more likely they will succeed in transforming our country into their country.
2
Paul, you accurately highlight the wrongheaded economic policy views of Moore, Kudlow and their ilk (and let's not forget Moore's about-face on monetary policy now that Trump wants more juice for the economy...). However, I take issue with the broad-brush sub-title "Evidence has a well-known liberal bias." The column discusses a fairly limited scope of policy positions held by Moore and other "Trump people." But we should acknowledge that principled economists often interpret data and facts in different ways and weigh different data points differently. I think fairness would argue against such a broad conclusionary statement. Principled and earnest economists may fall into liberal or conservative camps, but will typically have valid data to support their conclusions one way or the other. I'm not sure whether you selected that sub-title or the NYT editors, but my guess is that Prof. Krugman can lay claim to it.
2
@AMH says: "The column discusses a fairly limited scope of policy positions held by Moore and other "Trump people" and in saying so completely misses the point - the right is not only differing on policy (should interest rates go up or down at a particular point) but presuming an entirely different economic universe where the state of the economy and the important causes and effects are completely different, contradictory ,and inconsistent with observation. It is one thing to argue that the money supply has components not measured accurately by some metric, it is yet another to change the metric every time the Republican economist wants a different result because the party in the White House changes.
Krugman's point in this and other columns is that your "Principled and earnest {republican] economists" appear to be unicorns of your imagination - they certainly have not appeared making any statements to the press about why their predictions have not been evidenced by subsequent history. That "valid data" is in your imagination.
5
@bcw, you misread my post entirely. Much too quick to take sides, aim, and fire instinctively. Try taking a step back first, bcw...
I have to believe that after the Mueller Report the best Trump can attract is D team members. Thankfully Obama left Trump a strong economy with no major crisis other than Russian election interference that was done to benefit Trump. The scary thing is eventually something bad is going to happen and Trump and his merry band of D team members is going to make a mess of it.
8
@Chris You are right about the D team players. However, the reason Trump picks these people is so he can maintain dominance over them, get them to do what he wants, not what is good for the American people.
5
@Bubba Lew
Yes, but Trump is also a D team player, so he would be threatened by anyone smarter than him, both to tell the truth or just to disobey him orders to break the law.
1
It is interesting that Trump settled on clueless Kudlow as an economic adviser. Watching him make mistake after mistake in his predictions on CNBC all those years was hilarious and like comedy central.
8
Oh please, don’t insult Comedy Central. They actually can put some thoughts together from time to time.
1
Except Comedy Central is actually funny...
1
Moore is singing to the choir. The choir listens to hymns not facts. So it is a perfect storm of sorts and the echo chamber is huge. None of the people of a conservative nature can be persuaded by facts since they dismiss them as "fake news." Unfortunately, we now live in a world where any argument can be supported by a Google search without any verification needed. People with a computer and little ability to discern the truth find validity in these falsehoods. Moore is just one more perpetrator of falsehoods who believes that the more he repeats himself, the truer he is. Those of us who inhabit a round earth where climate change is real and vaccines are useful are left to fend for ourselves. If enough of us wake up for the next election, sanity may once again prevail. But I am not making any bets on that, yet.
3
@Paul Krugman
Professor Krugmann. I'd really like an explanation of how asset inflation differs from 'normal' inflation. It seems to me that we have seen a massive asset inflation over the past few years (I have absolutely no empirical proof of this and may be completely wrong). I have an underlying fear that we don't really capture 'inflation' in our 'inflation' figures.
2
@Martin - Asset inflation is merely money chasing itself. It has little to do with commerce, the buying and selling of goods and services. Thus it las low velocity and little effect on prices.
3
All of this would be amusing, like Herman Cain’s “9-9-9” idea (that may be too strong a word for it) except for the fact that these gentlemen are being proposed for posts of great influence in government.
The damage that Mr. Trump does is in the choices he makes for positions in this government. And, the policies put in place by these people may last for quite a long time.
3
It's like giving a card carrying member of the Flat Earth Society a job at NASA
19
@JPLA "Faith, what be this fiendishly intricate contraption?"
"It's a pencil."
1
Bingo!
2
We deserve so much better — at the Fed, in the White House, running our goverment agencies, on the Supreme Court, in the Senate. I sure hope what goes around is going to come around soon. This is excruciating.
5
There must be something in the coffee that these Republicans have been drinking. Morality, decency, honesty all seem to be irrelevant to them to the point of wearing it as some badge of honor or maintaining their conservative purity. Will it take the walls crashing around them for them to come to their collective senses.
11
Anyone who can't see the value of women's contributions in the labor force and otherwise is a "bad" economist in my book.
290
@Me I couldn't agree more. If we ever achieve a time when women are given the support that they need in order to have meaningful, equitable participation in the workplace based on the merit of their work, you will see a time of incredible productivity and prosperity.
26
@Me
Agreed. 6 weeks ago the House passed legislation to address the considerable gender pay gap that this country should be embarrass to admit still exists. The legislation got 7 Republican "Yes" votes and 187 "No's". One has to wonder, "what exactly is the problem Republicans have with women???
38
@Me One of the first things I remember hearing out of Pete Buttigieg was that there should be recognition of the work women do in child rearing and maintenance of home and family. That was notable to me. I hadn’t heard that concept mentioned in a long time. But with revived interests and concerns in birth rates, failing educational systems, healthcare, single parent households, etc., recognition of the labor of bringing up the next generation definitely needs to be re-examined. And not just with lip service.
10
What is wrong with the super-rich right wing? Why are they so committed to ideas contrary to evidence? Surely, they’re educated people who know how to parse facts. Therefore, they must be wilfully obtuse. But to what end?
If their calls were heeded during the Great Recession, surely they’d have less wealth than they do now. Or perhaps they feel that they would still have their wealth, but other less-fortunate would have less, which would make them feel better? Or perhaps it’s as basic as: if it’s not their idea, it’s a bad idea.
I really fail to understand the goals of the right. I would love to ask their members, how do you win?
I can’t wait for this long nightmare to be over, but how will it end? How can it?
7
@PW They stay rich, and the impedance of their constant increase of riches is as low as possible. Humanity can go hang.
1
The staying power of Mr. Moore astounds me.
Then, I remind myself of who sits in the Oval Office ( how many documented lies a day?), and It makes some kind of perverse sense.
Reality and demonstrated mathematics have no sway in the current administration. We are in perilous territory here.
13
Moore believes regulation is the true evil. He wants there to be no policy for anything.
Where was the runaway inflation that never was? All through the Obama years Europe's economy was stagnant. that hit the US recovery.
Where is the Trump recession that smart economists are talking about? Waiting in the wings for all the Trump tax cut stimulation vs tariffs; vs corporate dereg vs gov't regressive enviro deregulation; vs betting on old economy business vs new economy business growth; vs pulling out of business growth incentive treaties vs globalization; vs depressing wage growth vs impressive high income wage growth; vs anti-new deal programs stunting middle class buying power vs supporting growth of the middle class to reverberate through the economy. When it settles into a "what the heck happened to all that gov't fiscal policy that helped the wealthy most of all". Gov't in debt with little to show for it - little infrastructure, education, innovation, economic partnerships, immigration policy, health plan, SS solvency.
Once reality hits after the Trump show leaves town, the rest of us will be holding an empty bag. What will Moore be doing? Blaming everyone but himself like all Trump people do.
7
In physics, my discipline, you can't be so consistently wrong and still call yourself a physicist, or be seen by others as a legitimate physicist. Hence, the perpetual energy fanatics are dismissed as cranks. Cold fusion charlatans are roundly excoriated as charlatans.
In economics and in econometrics, however, different standards of intellectual rigour evidently apply. This seems to be because for all its efforts to portray itself as an empirical intersubjective discipline, based on the application of sound mathematical theory and the careful collection of data, in 2019 economics is still not a science in the sense that physics and chemistry have long been sciences.
Instead of hiring voodoo scientists such as economists, ie those with undergrad degrees in economics and not much else, the high priests of modern robber capitalism, the Heritage Foundation and others, might be better off hiring physicists and mathematicians. They could hardly do a worse job than the likes of Stephen Moore.
8
@Colenso
Physicists wouldn't like it. How people "feel" about the economy has a causal effect on the economy.
How people feel about cold fusion doesn't change anything about cold fusion. Too bad. I feel cold fusion would be awesome.
5
Best take-down of the week.
Of course, it's only Wednesday.
12
@Phil Carson
They know it too, because they were on Fox bashing Krugman tonight.
1
The Republican economic philosophy is quite simple, actually: expansionary for Republican presidents, and austerity for Democrats.
15
"If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never... So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight." - Paul Krugman, November 9, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/election-night-2016/paul-krugman-the-economic-fallout.
As we all know now, your forecast of Nov. 9, 2016, could not have been more wrong. I think we would all appreciate some humility on your part regarding your track record of outright wrong predictions, Paul, before you begin tearing into others. Moore is certainly wrong not to admit his mistakes, but a mea culpa on your part seems to be strikingly absent, too.
9
Krugman has repeatedly stated in this column that he was wrong. Too bad the same can't be said of other economists, especially those inhabiting the right wing.
7
@Martin that was an off the cuff reaction to the disaster that is Trump. That wasn't based on a model, it wasn't based on anything but a gut feeling. On that night, and the day after, most of us were feeling gut punched by the awfulness we knew was coming.
Moore on the other hand, has actually never been right. There's a difference.
6
Stephen Moore is evil not stupid. He calls for higher interest rates when a Democrat is in the White House, and for lower interest rates when a Republican is in the White House.
In times of recession, government spending is needed to counter act the recession, and get the economy going again. Republicans in congress largely limited this action in 2009 and 2010. Paul Krugman wrote about that quite a bit at the time. The Republican excuse was the deficit. Stephen Moore and other unscrupulous economists lent their ''expertise'' to explain that more government spending would lead to runaway deficits and runaway inflation and ruin the economy.
It's in this context of insufficient government action that the Fed stepped in to compensate the lack of Federal government spending. But the Fed could not compensate the lack of federal spending, and the US suffered though a slow recovery. Millions of Americans remained unemployed far longer then they should have, and far more suffered through years of stagnant wages or falling wages due to the lackluster recovery.
As Paul Krugman has repeatedly demonstrated, Republicans would not allow the government to demonstrate it's effectiveness. Instead, rising deficits were to be the justification to privatize and gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Do not underestimate Republicans. They are cynical and immoral, but not stupid.
26
@rapatoul
Well, they're really just selfish and hateful. (I don't know if that's much of an improvement of your labeling of them.)
The more Fox pays Moore, the more Moore lies. The more we learn, the less Moore knows. The more the mores of the world progress, the more Mr. Moore's devolve. The more we learn about Mr. Moore, the more we want no more of him.
13
@Robert
The present doggerel below is better than the prior doggerel above:
The more Fox pays Moore, the more Moore lies. The more we learn, the less Moore knows. More or less, Moore is less. That is, less Moore is better but no Moore is best. The more the mores of the world progress, the more Mr. Moore's mores regress. The more we learn about Mr. Moore, the more we want no more of Moore.
3
Still waiting for your short the market call on Trump.
5
@Dady
Your point is that mr. Krugman has also been wrong in the past? This is an argument to put an idiot on the Fed's board?
7
First this presidency gave us “alternative facts,” and now it’s giving us “alternative” everything, including people like “alternative economist” Stephen Moore. As a Nobel Laureate in Economics, Paul Krugman has all my sympathy as he watches this travesty continue to unfold.
12
A few of Trump's picks were impressive - Gary Cohn comes to mind. But they're getting worse all the time now. Larry Kudlow is just a talking head. However, Moore makes mediocre (at best) Kudlow appear impressive.
The Federal Reserve is vitally important to the world economy. We deserve to have only the most respected economists in these positions.
329
@Cal Sorry to disagree but Cohn is a two bit hustler in a $2000 suit. He would sell out his family for an extra point in a bond deal. Not make that a quarter of a point. But you are right, they are getting worse. They are the bottom of the barrel.
15
@Paul
Probably because anyone with any integrity doesn't want to be associated with the current trainwreck
6
@Cal
Only REASONABLY non-partisan and open-minded economists should be nominated to the Federal Reserve Board. Stephen Moore is extremely partisan & quite close-minded.
It maybe a little difficult to find "most respected" economists. Economics is such a nebulous area of science that economists are subject to criticism. But it's not difficult to find non-partisan & open-minded economists of HIGH caliber.
5
Paul, you're not the right audience for this. Maybe you like rock and even opera, but this is like Tuvan throat singing that has a very different audience.
Moore's—and others'—songs aren't meant to make sense to you; they're to soothe the consciences of those who practice some form of “greed is good” by pitching themes that justify the GOP looking good.
360
@Walt French
You explained GOP economic insanity - thank you!
Trickle Down Economics is not an economic theory, it's political coverup for transferring money upward and blaming the victims.
36
@Walt French - Uh, do you think he doesn't know that already?
11
@Annie. Laughing at myself for not thinking that! But, then, I have trouble believing he’s actually that conscious. I believe he’s just knee jerk. Any old reaction to explain away his most recent faceplant will work. He’s not that devious. He’s an articulate buffoon, IMHO.
3
SO all the economists who were wrong in their assessment of the economy and fed action in this article are the ones who argued successfully about the positive economic growth and tax cuts for the middle class the tax cuts passed by Congress. Those predictions are turning out to also be wrong, except for then 1%. The reduced corporate tax rate benefits outlined only proved to be minimally right. Made business more profitable but the benefits never reached workers.... it profited shareholders and management who got bonuses based on escalating stock prices thru stock buybacks. However this all fits nicely with the real republican agenda of enriching their elite and let the masses figure out their own financial crisis(s).
3
Just another part of the systematic attempt to replace science with religion. And, I don't mean the go-to-church kind, although that's in there. It's the plan to replace reason with belief -- especially belief in Fearless Leader.
Appointments like this one are just the complement to the unending campaign to denigrate all conclusions based on investigation and analysis. Alternative facts, anyone?
6
It seems that the way to get a cushy job in the Trump Administration is to just create an article or essay or book that someone can read to Trump. Make sure that you mention how great he is doing, and next thing you know there will be a high level job he will want you to accept in his administration. I suspect Mr. Barr had this in mind when he wrote some time ago that he thought the investigation of the Russian interference in our election was not a reasonable thing. Not too long after he was offered the job of Attorney General. I see that pattern in other choices Trump has made in his choice for filling positions in his administration. Our nation is suffering because of the president's choices of unqualified people he has placed in consequential positions. .
8
And its no wonder that so many direct mail internet con men are attracted to the GOP in senior leadership, advisory and media roles. They handle their finances in a low transparency manner: inherit it, grift it, shelter it, launder it, offshore it, pay no taxes on it ( even better if running the cash through a non-for profit or religious organization), spend it on models and invest it with poolboys and money losing golf resorts in hostile territories. Any kind of fiscal sanity or financial savvy in the public space has been deserted by the GOP and ceded to the Dems.
5
BZ. Timely and accurate. I see these political appointments as a means of distracting the public from the stuff that goes on behind the curtain. I watched Larry Kudlow at the National Press Club and he reminded everyone on how great the "new" approach to the economy was causing much better performance in all sectors than they had even imagined. The tax cut was paying off, their efforts at improving the wages of the blue collar workers was historic, and we were all fortunate to have a very astute business leader, who understood this economic stuff, as President Trump.
Mr. Kudlow is an experienced, smooth talking, salesman/talk show host that I have never heard, that seems to have the convincing power to assuage the concerns of the free press.
His 4/23 appearance is in the C-Span archives. https://www.c-span.org/video/?459866-1/larry-kudlow-addresses-national-press-club-washington-dc
I urge you to watch just to hear his bit on how much he learned at the knee of Paul Volcker.
DT doesn't really appreciate anyone who is confident, knowledgeable, and is willing to give him information. Even with his appointees in positions related to the military, it wore old that they had more ability to give solutions to problems. DT just wants chaos, not stability, as he has been a chaotic person, since he was a child. It is surprising in this day, and age that any normal person, male or female, would be willing to defer to DT. Wrong, but the pickings are becoming slimmer by the day.
3
We must thank Trump.
Goodness gracious ! Thanking Trump ! What for ?
For pushing Mr. Krugman to ever higher peaks of wit and bravura.
"Survival of the Wrongest" is, so far, the best description of the Trump administration.
4
The man needs the money and Trump wants to reward him with a sinecure for the rest of his "working" life for supporting him as a Candidate.
Moore is unlikely to get past the Senate but he will hate the job if he does. He will be looked down on by the competent as an incompetent gadfly and political hack. He will not be able to say much that people will take notice of.
Much better to stay at Heritage and bloviate on FOX.
There is a role for a competent conservative on the FED and indeed most of the present Governors are of a conservative persuasion.
2
Pond scum rises to the surface of the pond, Dude!
3
It's evangelical economics: if I believe it, and if I say it enough times, then it's true -- no matter what the evidence says.
Religious fanatics have predicted the end of the world, and when it doesn't happen, they don't admit they were wrong. They say the truth they prophesied is still waiting to happen.
So it is with Trump and his economic fanatics. Their prophesies may always be wrong, but that's just because we haven't waited long enough. Their "great truths" are still going to happen, because they believe they will happen, and the evidence be damned.
4
As I am collecting Vile Votes for the 2020 Senate campaign, I am interested to see who votes to confirm Moore.
We should all be taking names in red states. Some of them have started to turn pink already.
Speaking of key numbers, we need to turn 4 seats blue for a simple majority, and 20 for a two-thirds majority.
The Senate is key to staffing our government competently. Focus, people.
6
What passes for Republican "economic theory" has been consistently wrong since at least 1980. It has been the consistent pattern that Democratic presidents have had to spend an inordinate amount of time fixing the mess made by their Republican predecessors, always to the constant carping of Republican legislators that the reasonable and prudent actions being taken to restore the damaged economy will, instead, destroy it.
Republicans, in general, seem incapable of learning from their own mistakes.
4
I feel like we're lost in the Twilight Zone. How can mainstream Americans turn this ship around? We are surrounded by mis-information, incompetence and blind allegiance. I'm very worried, not only for myself but for my country.
4
The more we learn about Mr. Moore, the more we want no more of him.
4
Wrongheadedness is rewarded again and again in our political and governmental lives. People proven terribly wrong, incompetent, untruthful or any combination thereof should be ignored for future positions as should their commentary. That goes for the tv talking heads as well. They so got the 2016 election wrong and went right on prognosticating the next week as if nothing had happened. When I see various people from the Hillary Clinton campaign talking about how Dems should approach anything I want to scream. Some people should just leave the arena and Moore is certainly one of them.
1
Interestingly, Stephen Moore does not have a Ph.D in economics and has never written anything that has been peer reviewed. The pop culture economics opining he has done has blown up spectacularly (in some instances because he didn't understand the field; other times because of outright fraud and dishonesty).
If Republicans want to put this guy our as the avatar of their economic views and their standard for expertise, I wholeheartedly second it.
2
The dichotomy here is broader in my mind. We have two groups of people in America - people who believe that the economy is a fixed pie of which they wish to maximize their share, and people who want to grow the economic pie, recognizing that their income will grow along with it. Fixed pie people want to cut taxes to save themselves money; while growing pie people (Warren Buffett and Bill Gates come to mind) believe in public education and health care, because a healthy, educated workforce will increase the overall economy and profit everyone.
4
"Evidence has a well-known liberal bias." Which is why hard-right thinkers are unable (or unwilling) to learn. If only Paul could clearly explain this to the American people, we could have an informed and active electorate, necessary for a democracy.
5
I'm still waiting for the explanation of why Hillary lost to Trump, including the explanation of why she could lose states that Obama won, twice. An evidence-based explanation, not an explanation by so-called experts.
3
Read a book. Take notes.
8
@Tony: She was nuked with Anthony Weiner's computer by an FBI Director who believed she would fire him if she won.
5
Here is the plan.
Step 1.
Combine the economic trajectory inherited from the last President with a stock-market stimulus (funded by national debt) to make anyone with a portfolio feel happy.
Step 2.
Deregulate the financial industry and nominate people with no economic sense to guide the county's finances going forward.
Step 3.
Lose the next election - and blame the coming financial crisis on that rather then the end of (1) or the actions of (2).
Book tours and public accolades until death - and one of the children will run in 2024.
8
Republicans have been out and out dishonest since the days of President Ronald Reagan with a very few exceptions that include Mr. Henry Paulson and Professor Bernanke.
Remember Greenspan, who suddenly, when Preside George W Bush assumed office, started saying how terrible it was that President Clinton had left a $250 Billion annual surplus and we ought to give a tax cut.
Republican dishonesty and partisanship is boundless. States' rights advocates on SCOTUS did not want Florida to count votes.
13
What strikes me the most is beginning an article by exposing personal life faults combined with the more important facts that he's lied about his support for the gold standard. Don't get me wrong, I'm as liberal as they come, definitely don't want Trump or his cronies in any office of the land, but let's report the PERTINENT facts. History has come to reveal JFK's terrible personal faults, but cannot strip him of the good he was able to accomplish despite them. Please report the story, not the hype that puts us on the level of Little Donny.
Support for the gold standard has a direct effect on his potential position at the Fed. How is that trivial or off-topic? The guy is an unqualified rank amateur who has never been correct in his supposed area of expertise. His decisions would have a huge effect on world financial markets. Focus.
2
Conservatism only makes sense as a religion. Saying a conservative economist got something wrong is like saying an evangelical predicted the wrong date for the apocalypse. Said evangelical will simply say, no I didn't, you just misunderstood what I was predicting, just wait. Those economists Krugman is talking about all said the same thing. Let them have their own church, just please don't let them into the Fed.
4
Besides being wrong all the time and also just a miserable jerk in his persoal life and the way he talks about women, Moore's academic qualifications are laughable regarding the Fed position. How can the Heritage Foundation appoint him their chief economist. He has only an MA and not a Ph.D in economics from George Mason University. I from what I could tell in researching him has never in his life published an article in a peer reviewed journal. It seems to me this guy is a total fraud. Krugman goes easy on him as guess not to seem elitist. Moore makes Cain look more qualified.
21
@BC well, I agree with you. But note that in many fields, diversity advocates have suggested that the PhD requirement is a ruse to favor those evil privileged white males. After all, everyone knows that a PhD is just a Masters with a long, boring paper included!
@bxSorry to disagree with you but the Ph.D. depends on the field and your description does not fit many fields. I am a white male but not privileged as was one of eight children from working class family who worked long hours in high school to pay my way through University. Because of an NIMH fellowship I attained my Ph.D. in four years but again lived on very meager funds. Having been a professor at a major state research University in sociology I can assure you the Ph.D. is much more than you describe. However, given job market in many fields the years to Ph.D. have increased due to fact that grad students now days often have to publish in graduate school to compete well on job market. These publications by the way are in peer reviewed journals. Finally, in terms of my own dissertation and 90% of those I have served own as director or committee member were far from boring but highly creative and exciting work from scholars of a wide range of backgrounds in terms of gender, race, ethnicity and class. However, again your point is well taken regarding some fields of study and economics is especially guilty of excluding (or at least not trying hard enough to increase the number in their ranks of) women and all people of color.
Trumpism (also known as the GOP) is a cult. Obedience to and reverence for the Supreme Leader is all that is required.
Those with any integrity need not apply!
7
Boy howdy! If you didn't know better you might think these so called "economists" want nothing more than to completely destroy the economy and plunge the nation and the world by extension into a depression the likes of which we may never recover.
Ignorance is one thing, willful ignorance is a killer of souls.
3
Typical of the rightwing and most conservatives: “We don’t care about being correct, but we do want to - we demand - be in charge and have control.” Thus, any and every idea possible to elbow their way to the table and dominate the discussion. I know of which I speak. I worked for a research center that specialized in some of these nut-ball economic concepts and gave idiots like Moore room to jabber, all under the ridiculous umbrella they called “the marketplace of ideas.”
6
And Moore is actually a step up from Herman Cain.
205
@Brad Steele,
That's probably part of Trump's strategy. Start with someone patently unqualified and then "concede" and move to someone seemingly qualified.
25
@Brad Steele "Up"? More like a sideways "step over".
14
@Brad Steele
That step up is only the second rung from the bottom of the ladder. And amazingly that puts him one rung above President Pinocchio.
4
Another certifiable quack ... Trump's kind of guy. They flock to him like flies .. ....
16
Krugman 2020
8
I think there was a line in an old movie, "Dumb and dumber"; as for the Republicans in the senate, "Stupid and stupider".
6
The only economist worth a damn in the last hundred and fifty years is Keynes.
4
@Vesuviano
Silly
1
@Chet
Then refute it.
And then there is the Sam Brownback Kansas experiment.
The results were so bad that even Kansas Republicans repealed it after a few years of damage.
10
The job of a right-wing economist is, as said before, to make the rich richer, the poor poorer and screw everybody else.
22
While we may never learn who let the illiterate president know what Paul Krugman writes about him, he did lash out yesterday. And that made me so very proud of Nobel Prize-winning Krugman, an able writer as well as an astute economist. (The creature will never win a Nobel even when he nominates himself.) And so, Paul has been addressing the nation's shortcomings when it succumbs to an unfit-to-serve president. Paul should receive yet another Nobel for psychology.
12
Moore is fatuous and a professional shill.
I would not allow him to run an elevator for me.
He always had an undercurrent of malevolence to him. The fact he was very cruel to his first wife did not surprise me.
8
How is it that people with a track record of being wrong, wrong, wrong keep getting microphones put in front of them? Why has the press not banned the pundits and so-called “experts” whose take on things has led us into tragedies?
And I’m not just talking about conservatives – as far as I’m concerned, the media should not interview or broadcast anyone who is a chronic liar [DJT and his ilk] or who got major policy decisions disastrously wrong like the Iraq War [HRC and her ilk]. Why does the press not seek the wisdom of those who got it right, like Howard Dean [Iraq War] or Noam Chomsky [um, everything]?
Oh, that’s right – corporatist media loves corporatist talking heads. Welcome to America.
4
For today's GOP the only sin is being poor, and the only crime is getting caught. Moore is just another obnoxious embodiment of those principles in action. It's gotten to the point where anyone who's a Republican must either be brain dead, unbelievable rich, misogynistic and/or a flaming racist. That's a nice set of character flaws to choose from! So it's no wonder that Moore's nomination isn't being opposed by Senate Republicans.
5
Moore is exactly the kind of shill which will be inhabiting our institutions when my prediction comes true;
2020 - The Village Idiot is re-elected,
2021 - An economic crisis occurs,
2021 - 2022 - Moore and his ilk mismanage the response,
2022 - A full fledged Depression develops,
2022 - 2024 - The economy hits bottom,
2024 - The Republican Party is crushed at the polls and lives in
the wilderness for decades. Maybe even dies!
While this may sound like a fantasy, just subtract 92 from these dates. It has happened before, with modifications many many times before.
A lot of people seem to be unable to recognize reality until they are lying in mud up to their eyebrows. Some, that is, not all.
5
Silly Krugman. He thinks words are a means of conveying "truth." No, as Trump and Moore both understand, words are a means to get whatever it is you want. Truth is for losers. Winners say whatever it is they need to say to get whatever it is they want to get.
3
there you go again using confusing numbers instead of easy to understand words.
4
These same GOP economists declared that the ACA would completely ruin the American economy. Pundits like Moore are dangers not only to our economic well being but more importantly to our truthful debate and discourse as a nation.
Trump's draining of the swamp has only shown what creatures were obfuscated by it.
6
As indicated in other columns, the only thing that matters to Republicans is pushing money toward the oligarchs at the top. The rest is window dressing. If it takes Russian help or economic shamanism, so be it. If it destroys democracy, that's OK-the oligarch will be in charge.
5
Paul Krugman has been wrong about almost every actual prediction he has made for decades. He called for first deflation - it never came - then inflation - not yet. He called for the Euro’s demise years ago - it may come, but a decade too late. He said Trump’s election would crash the markets and lead to an immediate global recession. Wow, was that a stinker. If Trump had ignored our trade imbalances, global growth would be stronger no doubt, but the US still leads the Western growth parade, and the markets are returning to all time highs.
Economics is the dismal science. It is hard to thing of a more dismal record than Mr. K’s. Perhaps he should polish that Nobel - as deserved as Mr. Arafat’s, and consult his Ouija board more often. That is what happens when you allow politics to interfere with science. Krugman is the anti-vaxxer of liberal economics.
3
I agree with everything you write about Stephen Moore but my question is why does CNN a liberal channel employ him? Moore is on TV all the time. Before CNN it was FOX and then the man is a guest on other shows all the time. I find him not only not bright but really dull. Robert Rubin CEO of Goldman Sachs, became our Treasury Secretary and was the biggest pusher of more leverage and debt to be used in our financial system. Rubin pushed for 33 times leverage. $1 in assets backed up by $33 in debt. Moore is a clown, Kudlow is a likable clown but many others on the other side are complete empty suits who were actually in power and did actual damage.
2
@Jack: Moore is telegenic. He looks like he must know what he is talking about.
When you have elected a fact-less and feckless autocrat as President, people like Stephen Moore are just who you'd expect. He joins the hallowed pantheon of Kirstjen Nielsen, Matt Whitaker, Tom Price, Scott Pruitt, Ryan Zinke. When you are truth-challenged as our current Liar-in-Chief it's all about loyalty not facts, not evidence. Unfortunately, it is our "survival" that has been compromised by these "wrongest" doers of malignant malfeasance.
7
Another Hobson's Choice for a top appointment in the Trump administration.
So is it Herman Cain or Stephen Moore for the Fed? This is like asking: "Which do you want for dinner? brussel sprouts or radishes?" (Note: Research indicates these 2 vegetables rank tops on the list of what people consider the worst tasting vegetables)
Okay, Cain dropped out, so we are down to Moore, who clearly fits Rex Tillerson's spot-on description of President Trump when Tillerson was Secretary of State.
We saw Moore several times on Bill Maher's "Real Time" show, and Moore was so embarrassingly idiotic that we were yelling at the TV.
Somebody once said (maybe Churchill?) that Americans don't want to vote for anyone smarter than they are. So perhaps this is one reason Trump basically appoints the "wrongest" and most idiotic people to top positions.
But I suspect these appointments are being suggested to Trump by doctrinaire, ideological libertarian hardliners, who are quite successfully pursuing their mission of drowning the federal government in the bathtub.
With Stephen Moore and so many other Trump appointments, I would say "Mission Accomplished."
Out of curiosity, who in the Trump circle is providing Trump with possible names for government appointments—especially in this case for the Fed? Or is it Vladimir Putin?
7
Sean Hannity
3
@Ajit Pendse
Oh great, and based on Trump's intelligence functioning, this could well be true.
Just checked, and Hannity attended 3 colleges (NYU, UC Santa Barbara, & Adelphi College) but only attended for 2 years and never graduated. He worked as a house painter, then construction until he started doing radio.
Hannity: The guy who has enthusiastically promoted just about every idiotic right-wing conspiracy theory. Who better for Trump to take advice from about economics and political policy??
Why doesn't anyone ever point out that most failed conservative "thinkers" are veterans of the Wall Street Journal. It's the print version of Fox News.
11
Another member of the Trump wrecking crew. Just like the Obama admin correcting the Bush admin, the effort to repair the Trump damage by the next admin will be enormous.
2
@RonRich: Probably insuperable because the judiciary has been infiltrated with State's Rights revanchists.
3
“In a camp like this, one draws one's menials from a small and brackish pool.”
--- E.B. Farnum (William Sanderson) on the television series “Deadwood.”
Look at Trump’s entire crop of Presidential cabinet officers and presidential assistants. Third and fourth-rate crooks who spend 90 percent of their time imitating him.
I am not talking here about financially successful and powerful people. That a few of them are.
I am talking here about first-rate men or women in the way that Frederick Douglass described self-made men in a famous speech in 1859.
“Self-made men […] are the men who owe little or nothing to birth, relationship, friendly surroundings; to wealth inherited or to early approved means of education; who are what they are, without the aid of any of the favoring conditions by which other men usually rise in the world and achieve great results.”
We have many such people in this country. It would not be difficult for a different President to find them.
4
I thought that republicans were followers of Ayn Rand -- she who preached survival of the fittest. Remember that Paul Ryan, the economic genius and policy wonk, was a disciple of Ms. Rand. Like many republicans Mr. Ryan said the answer to any problem with the economy or government policy was to cut taxes on the wealthy and gut Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. Image -- all ills would be cured with massive tax cuts to benefit the wealthy and savage cuts to entitlements for the rest of us. Paul Ryan told the media that he was a great policy wonk and economic wizard and, typically, they kept repeating it long after smart people had discovered that it was not true.
Everything that Dick Cheney said about the Middle East, in the lead up to war in 2003, turned to be wrong. But right wingers love to be mislead and they still hang on his every word. Dick also never saw a war he did not like but he got five deferments to stay our of Vietnam. Does that say chicken hawk?
Turns out we have not the survival of the fittest, but the survival of dumbest.
6
@Aubrey: When war ends, all the dead shall have died in vain.
7
Apparently what "fair and balanced" means in reporting is that wrong ideas deserve equal time to ideas that are not wrong and propaganda deserves equal time to news with an actual factual basis just because the propaganda is pushed by a major political party. Oh, yeah, and I keep reminding myself to mention the fact that the Republicans are a dirty party. Repeat it, repeat it, until is sinks in, because it is true, it is a fact. Face the truth.
3
Like Russia, the US has oligarchs and state media, FOX, spreading the fake GOP party line. Moore fits right in.
This can flourish in our once great democracy because we legally turn our elections over to the wealthy and corporations for financing, and make both parties compete. As this sets our norms, the opposition can go only so far.
The S. Court, said in a Trump-type lie, that limits on political donations by the rich is anti 1st Amendment Free speech. Average citizens can't compete to get representation and influence our laws.
The GOP equates giving the elites all the advantages with 'American Freedom', and equates any govt actions to block abuse of the public as Big Govt Socialism. Then the Dems and columnists counter the rw, but try to not look too 'left wing' doing it.
Many other democracies ban what is our biggest expense---the campaign ads that manipulate our voters. And their insurance companies and big pharmaceuticals cannot dictate policy for HC profits with mega donations. That's centrist abroad, but left wing here.
We are blocked from reforms that will restore our economy, the middle class, and our democracy. Most voters want to reverse Citizens United. Why do columnists avoid this crucial topic?
Without more public funding of elections and limits on mega donors, we stay stuck. The Trump courtiers like Moore will fight to keep elites on top. But to rebalance our economy & politics, the media must start to trace cause/effect in our politics.
5
Mr. Moore is the poster child for the know-nothing-learn-nothing Trumpublican approach to economic policy. He is just as much an economics expert as President Trump is an administrative expert.
Moore and Trump will never acknowledge their errors and hence will never learn from their mistakes. Those who think with their guts, who act impulsively and whose vision is always impaired by ideological blinders are unfit for any administrative role.
4
"Evidence has a well-known liberal bias" - which, I suppose, is why right wingers like Moore, and very definitely Trump, have no use for it.
3
“In 2014 Bloomberg contacted as many of the signatories of that open letter to Bernanke as it could, to ask what they thought given subdued inflation and a solid economic recovery.”
What “solid economic recovery” in 2014?
I see Krugman still has no idea why Trump won. Hint: It wasn’t the likes of Moore.
1
Really, Yaj? Perhaps you have forgotten how bad things got under our previous Republican president, or how it was the robust and wise efforts of the Obama administration that brought about an economic turnaround and low unemployment. There are already signs that Trump’s policies are reversing that progress, with his incoherent tariff policy, supply side voodoo tax cuts for the wealthy, and soaring deficits. Again, really, Yaj?
3
@nimitta:
"Really, Yaj? Perhaps you have forgotten how bad things got under our previous Republican president,"
You mean Obama?
"or how it was the robust and wise efforts of the Obama administration that brought about an economic turnaround and low unemployment."
low unemployment? You really have no idea why Trump won is all you're saying. Did you no even read my post a little. That things are better in 2019 than they were in 2009 doesn't mean they're good.
"Again, really, Yaj?"
Yeah, really, Obama helped to elect Trump and so did this kind of essay from Krugman.
Dr Krugman,
Can you write a piece on why inflation did not rise as some had feared?
Thanks
1
Survival of the Badest.
"Evidence [and truthfulness] has a well-known liberal bias." Faith and self-entitlement and aggrandizement has a well-known conservative bias with no bearing on reality, reason or facts. Indeed, in a conservative world of survival of the richest, why would anyone "pay alimony and child support"?
The only inflation that continues unabated is the wealth going to the wealthiest FROM the rest of us where wealth is deflating unabated. Quant-easing, where the Fed lowers interest rates to banks so they can then use that money to lend back to the Fed as bonds at a higher interest rate. Talk about easy money for doing absolutely nothing - free money from the Fed!
Yes, it added liquidity back into...BANKS! Not to the rest of us. There was a stock market explosion. A wealth for the wealthiest explosion. The rest of us got a life implosion. Only the wealthy and largest banks had and have the means and resources to game the game to their benefit - they're the only beneficiaries, making a killing! As the Obama economy MERELY RECOVERED for the rest of us.
"Not one was willing to admit that the letter’s warnings had proved incorrect." Of course not! It's like asking the faithful to admit they're wrong viewing a round earth from space and the Bible is as flawed as its creator: mankind.
What's the equivalent of disbarment of a lawyer but for economists who continually get it wrong? Imagine the Goldman Sachs of the world relying on Moore and Kudlow for expertise!
3
@PAN: The Fed implements "Quantitative Easing" by purchasing US and US-backed debt instruments from banks with electronic equivalents of cash.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing
1
This is an excellent and insightful article that documents an integral contributing factor to the travesty of Trumptopia. Content and information designers of my ilk love the graphs. But, Paul the observations and thoughts you share in this editorial are far to important. Approaching 2020 this nation is at a critical juncture. Every American needs to understand what you are saying. In fact, I feel it's imperative that we all clearly grasp and visualize how getting it wrong all the time and not caring directly impacts your average American. Please write an accompanying editorial and instead of using graphs and clear and concise editorial phrases, paint pictures...clearly illustrate how the irresponsibility and cavalier attitudes and greed of the current administration effects the lives of average American citizens of all ages, cultures and races.
2
To the extent I want poor forecasts I need look no further tha Paul Krugman. Yes, he is right in his forecasts on occasion, but it is as though you thought a stopped clock was correct because it happen to show the correct time twice a day. Yes, I still remember when he forecast an immediate market crash if Trump were elected. And yes, I am still waiting for the crash.
2
Empirical evidence is considerably more believable than ad hominem attacks. Nice try.
4
Moore is the wrong choice for just about every reason one can imagine and then some.
But here, Krugman is also, quite slyly, building the case against UBI (Universal Basic Income), and it is just as wrong-headed and cruel as the worst of Republican zombie policies. He gave an interview this week on the topic.
While we may not be overrun by robots who take away everyone's jobs tomorrow, we are already at a third of the nation being employed in the gig economy. What is the difference, one may ask? In order just to make rent, the vast majority of these gig workers have to work a 60-hour week, more if they want to afford the other basics.
Adding even an inadequate amount of money in the form of UBI would provide much needed relief.
Krugman says it's too expensive. I disagree. What is too expensive, onerous, stifling even, is the fact that the wealthiest of individuals and corporation no longer pay taxes and still ship our jobs overseas. These are Americans, mind you.
There is money. The question is, do we have the leadership that is free from influence and has the courage to go claw it back?
If one reads "‘Stop Sanders’ Democrats Are Agonizing Over His Momentum" from last week in the Times, the answer may well be no. Oh, and you can substitute Sanders with Warren, in this case.
---
Things Trump Did While You Weren’t Looking [2019]
https://wp.me/p2KJ3H-3h2
5
@Rima Regas....Krugman wrote a positive column on Warren but was always negative on Sanders' ideas. We need a compare/contrast.
Maybe PK still wants to be Treasury Secretary if a Dem wins 2020, so his liberalism goes only so far. It's a piece of cake to bash the worst president ever and his courtiers like Moore, etc.
Article: "A basic income for everyone? Yes, Finland shows it really can work ..."
https://www.theguardian.com/
Would PK want to debate this real-world policy with evidence-based facts on the ground? This could influence public opinion more than Trump bashing.
1
A massive 2020 progressive blue tidal wave is the only hope to prevent the further steamrolling of the average American, Rima.
The Grand Old Pirates will not stop until they drive us over their 'supply-side' cliff of unregulated greed...and then they'll blame the victims.
Nice GOPeople.
4
"Not one was willing to admit that the letter’s warnings had proved incorrect."
Am assuming all the signatories were aligned with the Republican Party and detested anything, such as the financial recovery, that could possible be credited in anyway to Obama.
We see the same mindset with respect to the ACA (a.k.a. Obamacare). The Republicans could see nothing of value in the ACA, although it provided health care coverage that protected and saved the lives of millions of Americans, and they had no replacement for it.
These folks obviously never embraced the wisdom of the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."
2
''He misstates facts so much that one newspaper editor vowed never to publish him again,...'' - gee, why can't media do the same thing for the President ? Sorry, I digress.
I am no world class economist, ( I just comment in his section) but it seems to me that you invest and spend when money is cheap, and save, while tightening the belts when money is expensive. (buy low and sell high)
It always fascinates me how economists or pundits on the conservative side, almost all seem to say the opposite.
I suppose it is to be expected, because many are paid to say what they do by people that want to cornet the market in some fashion or another. Others still want to bankrupt the country/government, so everything becomes privatized, and again they can corner the market.
That is some truth ''right'' there.
365
@FunkyIrishman - What you say about "buy low and sell high" is certainly correct for a person or a business, but the federal government has an infinite supply of money, so its finances are going to be very different.
Think about how you might run your finances if you had a printing press in your basement.
PS Since the federal government can create as much of the currency its debt are in as it wants, out of thin air, it can NEVER go bankrupt.
Just remember that the government will run out of money the day after the NFL runs out of points.
12
@FunkyIrishman
Where a man stands depends on where he sits, (in the house of commons)
6
@Len
Tis' true mate, but me point is a simple one in relation to conservatives - they LOVE to talk up austerity when they are not in power (or conversely in regards to social spending when they are) but spend like drunken sailors when in power. (usually wringing up said deficits, creating a burst of any bubble, and then costing more to borrow for their military spending)
As far as the federal government going bankrupt, I do hear your point, but at some point the inflation would overtake the printing press. - it hasn't been tested to extremes like some other parts of the world.
I would only point out that when (using your sports analogy) the score is run up, the opposing team takes and remembers for a long time, to even the score . (harshly)
I am sure we don't want to test it.
28
When Stephen Moore was held in contempt of court for failing to pay alimony and child support, did he respond with that snivelling laughter that we've all seen on Bill Maher after he says something not only sycophantic but downright idiotic?
If Trump were to suggest that Moore lick his boots, literally, Moore would probably kneel down and plant his tongue right on those bone spurs.
6
I am no fan of Krugman by any means, but he is right about his criticism of Moore. He is nothing more than a sake oil salesman and has no place in the FED
3
Unfortunately, misogyny and failure to pay child support and alimony go hand in hand. Any GOP Senator who votes for this loser should be ashamed. And any God fearing church going people who pray with that Senator every Sunday should find their salvation elsewhere.
4
I have watched Moore as he was constantly given a platform on CNN along with another fool, Santorum (what’s the deal with the eyeliner Rick) and listened in disbelief that CNN payed these morons for obviously false comments. If CNN wants o appear fair and balanced, trotting out the village idiot is not the way to do it. I guess this is the best the right can do, it seems their spokespeople are all village idiots with a evil streak.
3
@Paulie
Are you sure that's eyeliner and not an overflow of whatever he's full of?
The election of Trump and appointments like Moore and Kudlow simply demonstrate the Republican Party has finally wholly embraced faith-based politics (which is not to be confused with religious faith, per se).
In the GOP's new dominant paradigm, the only thing that matters is loyalty to the Faith, as laid out by the Party leadership. Facts and results be damned. From emergencies on the border, FBI corruption, and the size of Inauguration crowds, there can be no admission of error, since that would suggest disloyalty to the Republican Faith itself.
Right wing broadcast media vigorously preach the new faith, and castigate the unbelievers. In the WH, those without the new Republican faith, or those who question the faith, are labeled "treasonous". The faith is held to be higher than public opinion, higher than the law, higher than reason or evidence.
Small wonder Moore can't bring himself to admit his views were resoundingly, repeatedly proven wrong, in detail. And why Republicans in Congress choose to pretend it never happened.
4
This incarnation of the GOP, Trump headed, originated when the Southern Dixiecrats defected from the Democrats, when we elected Ronald Reagan as president in the 1980s, when Nixon was in office and forced to resign because of Watergate. We are now a country being run by the most incompetent administration in modern history. We have an incompetent president, a cabinet of rich incompetent secretaries heading agencies that are vital yet not being well served, and a Senate dominated by a power hungry, ethically deficient head who sees nothing wrong with supporting a president whose interests are in direct conflict with what can benefit Americans.
Perhaps God doesn't make mistakes. But humans do and I see no reason for this administration to be any different. But we have gotten the government we deserve because enough Americans continue to put people like McConnell, Graham, Paul, etc., back in office even after they see these same people enacting laws that hurt them. This tax overhaul is not working for most Americans. The rollback in regulations meant to protect us and the environment hurts us. Our current immigration policy hurts us.
The last thing is that the GOP is composed of elitists. It caters to them. It panders to them and ignores the rest of us. It's why we're seeing rich white men in positions of power who are not representative of America.
4/24/2019 1:01pm
3
It's amusing to read reasoned, fact based arguments about Trump appointments. Based on what we know of Trump's decision making process, his reasons for selecting Moore could easily be any of the following:
1. Moore was recommended by an aide and Trump simply took their word on his qualifications.
2. Trump thought Moore looked like an economist. Central casting.
3. Trump knew about Moore's misogyny and incompetence and selected him to annoy Trump's detractors.
4. Moore was tall enough.
I'd say any of the above explanations has about an equal chance of being correct.
1
Mr. Moore says all the members of the board should be fired and replaced by good economists. Is he making a list and checking it twice? As a Trump nominee, he should know that good is not good enough, only great will do when you are working for the President. You don't have to be great at your job, just great at constantly showing gratitude.
1
This apparent conflict is the result of comparing interpretation of facts through a lens of ideology vs. through empirical observation and scientific deduction.
Sort of like looking at the history of the universe from a Fundamentalist pastor's view vs. a theoretical physicist.
If you think facts are important, educate those around you.
1
Economics, it is said, is the oldest of the sciences and the newest of the professions. Moore apparently got it backwards.
3
Every time I read about the USA now, I am just so glad that I no longer live there.
It is totally broken. It is the most unhappy of the world's civilized countries. Mainly because Americans think that happiness is directly proportional to the amount of money and guns one has. Some day they may notice that the Scandinavian countries are the happiest countries on earth and that this is the result of more equality and free health care which the Americans are ignorant of.
Add to this that Americans voted for THE most divisive government they could in D J tRump. The GOP and Democrats hate each other so much that the country is going down. The Russians have won big time. The USA has lost and is lost with no direction other than hate.
2
Stephen Moore is to macroeconomics as Peter Navarro is to trade, totally unqualified, fringe, dangerous. President Trump hires only the best people!
2
Unfortunately most Trump supporters have no understanding of even the most basic economics. Trump certainly doesn’t. I still cannot fathom how he ever graduated from high school much less college. This country is in deep trouble.
2
I don't know why everything is labeled "misogyny" these days when a lot of it is really old fashioned chauvinism from the 60s. (In this guy's case, it's more like the 40s.)
This guy thinks women belong in their place either having children or serving him. The rest of the world is a man's club.
It's silly and immature, but it's not hatred of women. It's "we'll tell you when we need you, hon."
If you want misogyny, try how Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries treat women.
2
"When we want your opinion we'll give it to you, dear", as you note it here, is the definition of misogyny, just the same as it is in Saudi Arabia.
1
"...So far not a single Republican senator has questioned Moore’s qualifications."
That's because the senate is junk, Paul. It is not a body representative of American virtues and democracy. Like the electoral college, it exists to advance and maintain the power of a minority over a majority, by awarding lightly populated, politically less-significant states representation equal to heavily populated, highly politically significant states.
Don't try to look for reason or logic in an archaic institution intended by our illustrious, infallible Founders to help Slave States keep disproportionate power and free labor. You won't find any.
2
There are two critical issues raised by this article which merit concern in a democracy. ( 1) In offer to advance, develop and sustain needed innovations and breakthroughs there is the need to create a culture which is “immune” from both the fear of failure and the process of “failure blindness.” “Risking” failure needs to be stimulated, for individuals and systems, with the generic goal of “failing better.” One trial learning is a rare phenomenon!How many of us, for example, learn to experience a sense of balance and to walk by just getting up from all four limb crawling all at once? Buddhists have described this process elegantly: “ Fall down 7 times, get up 8 times, that is the road to perfection.” (2) Planning and carrying out a process in which only limited outcomes are considered as predetermined, relevant, data for analyzed derived information, which is further limited in creating necessary types, levels and qualities of understanding, and it’s shorter and longer term implications, can and does blind us to the existing complexities and the challenges and opportunities which they present for uncovering! When, and if, Moore, as a person and as a metaphor, is enabled with impunity, to BE a non-Biblical Prophet, during a secular-science era of “evidence-informed” underpinnings for generalizable-successful-policies, when consistently wrong in his analyses, personal unaccountability is being seeded, fostered and harvested as consensualized norms and values! By each of US.
The Republican Party Is a business.
The goal, especially since Reagan, is to loot the country - and they are succeeding.
They know that if the people trust you, it’s easy to ignore and betray that trust, and serve the rich (including yourself).
The swamp is filled with those working for themselves and betraying the country and it’s people.
Unfortunately, the swamp controls the Presidency, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and most of the policy.
The game is rigged against the American People.
2
Dr. Krugman thank your for writing about the fake economist Stephen Moore. He doesn't belong on the Fed’s Board of Governors. If any one has seen Stephen Moore on CNBC, CNN or Bill Maher knows this guy is not a serious economist. He is a right wing hack and a silly person. Moore is always shaking his shoulders and cackling when he is cross examined/questioned about one of his economic theories or ultra conservative ideas. Bill Maher doesn't have Moore on his show anymore and I always wondered how this man could be a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Any reasonably educated person knows from hearing and looking at Moore that he doesn't know what he is talking about. Stephen Moore should be called a false equivalency economist, because he is alway on the news shows as a counter point to a real economist.
3
History has repeatedly proven Republican economic orthodoxy wrong. Remember when the Trump administration told us that its tax cuts would pay for themselves? (They didn't). Or, how about their argument that higher top marginal tax rates will curb growth? (Not according to history). Oh, and remember when deficits were anathema to Republicans? Seems like only yesterday.
The Republican Party has been post-truth for a long time. Trump fits right in.
2
A long time back, Steve Earle hit the nail on the head: "it's called snake oil, y'all. it's been around for a long, long time"
1
An ideologue is someone who expends tremendous amounts of intellectual and emotional energy trying to understand, conceptualize, and further an ideology. But the rub is, the ideologue does not see, at all, that they are advancing an ideology. They think all this hullabaloo is about reality.
Hence their exasperation at those who contest them.
It is like the great prophet George Costanza once said: It's not an ideology, if you believe it.
1
I agree with much of this column and still support many "liberal" economic policies, such as increasing taxes on the rich, a generous earned income tax credit, far minimum wage laws, etc. However, let's not act like liberal economic policy is without its faults.
There is a massive entitlement programs and millions of able bodied Americans simply do not work. Instead, they collect a disability check. This is outright laziness enabled by liberal dogma.
This is why compromise is key.
1
@Mark
Most of what you point out seems correct, but whether there is a connection between the presence of the "massive" entitlement programs and the unwillingness to work is not entirely clear. Social programs and resources do not automatically increase "laziness", what is important is how the programs well the programs are structured and run.
For instance, universal health coverage may actually improve productivity because workers can make employment changes freely, and can start their own businesses without health care risk.
"Laziness" may in part come from disengagement from society, which may involve educational, ethnic, religious, or inequality considerations.
Finally, "massive" is in quotes because in relation to farm subsidies, corporate tax inducements, and low capital gains taxes, the size is not that impressive.
3
@Mark I am able bodied and cannot find a job. I have been looking for a very long time. I cannot collect unemployment. I cannot receive welfare. I am 60. Please tell me where this massive entitlement program is because I need money to live. I can't even get a minimum wage job because I've worked at high level jobs and employers that pay minimum wage don't like employees like me: we keep on looking for jobs in our fields. Oh, and tell me why my hard earned skills are useless when I've worked in a tech field for the last 20 years?
The laziness is not on the liberal side here. It's from businesses that don't want to retain, hire, or train older employees who are more than capable of doing the job. It's easier to hire young people, burn them out, fire them, and start the cycle again. Actually, it's not just lazy it's stupid because if people aren't making money they stop spending.
And the GOP doesn't want to compromise on anything. They want power, money, and to be worshipped like a god.
4/24/2019 1:20pm
3
@Mark
Now now, you shouldn't be calling Sarah Huckabee Sanders lazy.
1
For all the conservative hand-wringing over the 'liberal bias' at colleges and universities, they sure manage to ignore the conservative biases of economics departments all over the country.
3
The notion that facts, evidence, and empirical data can be so easily demagogued and dismissed is a testament to the negative effect of the lack of funding and de-emphasis on public education.
3
... “core” inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, was a much better indicator of inflationary pressure than commodity prices... Who should care about either of those measures, except the financial wheelers and dealers? Food and energy prices are what affects 90% of normal Americans, and since Fed policy disregards our interests, why should the average Jane or Joe care? Blue collar workers don't gamble on commodities and they buy a car or other major purchase only once every twenty years or so. When will we get a board that cares about the lives of the ordinary Americans?
2
@vandalfan
Look at Figure 2 again. You exclude them precisely because the volatile - they go up and down quickly due to forces that no one, including the Fed, can control - if you try, you end up chasing your tail.
Not a good way to do economic policy.
This, from the expert who predicted the stock market crash after Trump was elected, as well as the economic peril of steel tariffs last year. Krugman should be more introspective...
1
Yawn. We are discussing reality and Republican lies now. Try to keep up.
1
Republicans passed a tax cut and promised it would pay for itself. Tax revenues are down over 25%. Now these guys want to cut everything else and blame entitlements. Now that's a Republican plan. Moore is one of the guys that supports this kind of taxation. Sure, lets put him on the Fed and see what kind of damage he can do there.
8
Perhaps there was no inflation from the bailouts, quantitative easing and increase in money supply because it skipped the middle class who would have spent it (maybe causing inflation), and instead went straight to inflating the stock market. Meanwhile, the Fed held back interest rates, which depleted the savings of retirees and most other Americans not in the top 10%. These were not tactics started by Trump. This was done by Obama and the banksters who supposedly saved us. They didn't save all of us.
2
@my well well: Yes, the electronic money created by QE went to accounts where it would stagnate, thereby averting inflation.
1
My assumption is that these economists never really believed these predictions, and that these are simply excused they come up with for supporting policies that help their corporate masters.
3
Well argued, Dr. Krugman. I can only hope that calmer heads who can vote on this nomination will prevail but I'm not counting on it.
9
Of course, there is nothing on the Republican agenda that remotely addresses the problems at hand, so why would we expect economists from this side of the aisle to be any different? What Republicans are focused on is their careers; thus, Moore does not propose economic solutions, he offers up instead a job application cultivated to please his potential employer. Expecting him, or any other economist on The Federalist payroll to do anything other than appease their feeders is also the definition of insanity.
Admit they were wrong? In the age and party of Donald Trump? At a time when your ability to secure employment at the national/federal level is entirely predicated on your ability and willingness to praise the emperor's new clothes?
582
Excellent article; it is invaluable to review historical predictions to evaluate policy proposals. Unfortunately, basing arguments on evidence and certainly facts has been politicized, probably because it tends to produce more liberal policy, and routinely and effectively discounted, probably because it sounds too 'egghead'. Politically, might simply arguing from "experience" (good, bad, shared, personal) be rhetorically more persuasive to some?
148
@Reuel - But what you suggest is rarely done by economists both liberal and conservative. For example, both say we should have "austerity at the Treasury during the Boom" which is usually interpreted to mean, when times are good we should practice "financial responsibility". i.e. the federal government should spend less than it takes in by taxation and use the surplus to pay down the national debt.
BUT history shows that EVERY TIME we tried that, the economy fell off of a cliff:
The federal government has balanced the budget, eliminated deficits for more than three years, and paid down the debt more than 10% in just six periods since 1776, bringing in enough revenue to cover all of its spending during 1817-21, 1823-36, 1852-57, 1867-73, 1880-93, and 1920-30. The debt was paid down 29%. 100%, 59%, 27%, 57%, and 38% respectively. A depression began in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893 and 1929.
10
I sympathise with your distress, Paull, but you're missing the enormous advantages to the current regime in being wrong. Breaking the economy is just exactly what they want because it enables them to do all the things they do which make them and their friends wealthier, while leaving the rest of the people in the dust. Austerity, for instance, has bred a group of Americans who are so economically distressed that they grab at any charlatan who comes along, without understanding or thought. We see the result of that daily.
720
@Emily
This is exactly what happened in Britain under the unforced Conservative austerity program and resulted in the pro-Brexit vote in their referendum.
But I suspect Paul knows the motives. He's keeping the column focussed on hard facts of history.
65
@Emily
"Austerity, for instance, has bred a group of Americans who are so economically distressed that they grab at any charlatan who comes along, without understanding or thought. We see the result of that daily."
...like those Trump supporters working for the Republican mandated U. S. Minimum wage and not ever questioning Trump's and the Republicans' intransigence.
60
@Emily: "Austerity, for instance, has bred a group of Americans who are so economically distressed that they grab at any charlatan who comes along, without understanding or thought."
Both parties have no problem spending more money than they take in revenues. I'm not sure what you mean by "austerity", but spending like there's no tomorrow has created a society of dependency. The founders did not design the federal government to devolve into an entitlement state.
2
Trump’s appointments need to fulfill only one criteria; will they get him re-elected. Each one is fashioned to appeal to one of his constituencies, who are bought off by Trump’s placing that right person in a high place. Many of his supporters have admitted they held their collective noses and supported Trump for the goodies he will provide them. The easiest gift is the appointment of a Justice, a Secretary or a commissioner who will tip the scales just so. When 2020 comes around, Trump voters will abhor the man but love what he gave them. So much for, “ask not what my country can do for me...”.
198
@DO5 "Criteria" is the plural of "criterion." When I read "one criteria" I simply don't read any further.
@DO5 Trump can count on Moore to make a low interest rates a priority over the risks of inflation going into the 2020 election. Winning in 2020 is Trump's priority.
1
There are other examples of conservative orthodoxies being exposed but no one cares. Think of how Kansas performed under a low tax regimen. Or think of California's success.
522
@Terry McKenna yes Kansas and California with the tax proposition are excellent examples of conservative "successes". Kansas in particular has shown the nation precisely why taxes are necessary. But conservatives (who are really reactionaries in America) don't care. And too many Americans still don't understand what taxes are for, why we need them and how to spend that money wisely when times are good or bad. We decrease taxes when times are good and that's a mistake. It's when times are bad that we should decrease them and use the good times to increase and stockpile the extra money.
89
@hen3ry Well said... "It's when times are bad that we should decrease them and use the good times to increase and stockpile the extra money." that statement in itself is worth a whole column.
37
Thinking California & hen3ry - BUT states are vastly different from the federal government.
The federal government can create as much money as it needs out of thin air. States cannot do this.
Furthermore, the federal government MUST create money because we need it to conduct commerce and for banks to use it for reserves to make loans. The way this money gets to us is by federal spending, and it has to be deficit spending because if the government takes the money back by taxation, obviously, we cannot use it.
If you look at my reply to Reuel, another Times Pick, you can see that every time we significantly paid down the national debt, we had a disaster.
11
"none ... of the Fed’s critics were willing to admit that they were wrong"
This is the essence of our current culture wars and reveals the core fragility of macho swagger.
Donald Trump and many of his fellow-travelers believe a person is either perfect or worthless; There is nothing in between. This licenses them to treat others with contempt as they spin to deflect attention from their own missteps.
Democrats on the other hand believe that we humans exist between extremes with the vast majority of us able to learn from a 'teachable moment'. Faith in learning and in each other is the core of Democratic strength. It is a faith that must be restored to government.
6
To say that these economists are consistently wrong and never learn from their mistakes is giving them too much credit. They know they are wrong but keep doing it anyway because it gives cover to GOP policies that would otherwise be too obviously favorable to the ultra-wealthy. It is these economist's job to provide the magic asterisk.
772
@Keith Exactly. And, you know, they have to have to say something, anything. Do you ever, ever hear any genuine dialogue or any substantive, understandable follow up questions to the nonsense they peddle? It's all become the noise of sales and marketing on behalf of interests that have nothing to do with a notion of the common good, patriotism. All about needing some words to throw into the mix and a place to air them.
13
@Keith
Well said.
I think it should be clear to everyone that a leader who is consistently wrong, and fails to change views when reality presents itself - can be very dangerous and costly.
222
But Trump knows the best people.
In Trump's fantasy world everyone else is out of step except him.
10
Republican politics has divorced itself from reality in all fields. The patterns described here also apply to global warming, evolution, racial inequality, immigration, just about everything Republicans run on. In opposition to legitimate science, research, data, and, well, reality, have concocted an entire alternative universe of quacks and phoney academics to support their wrong principles. Stephen Moore is a product of their manufacture.
The Republican party exists for two things. That is to reduce taxation and increase income for the wealthy. That's it. Nothing else matters to them. Their attacks on regulation are not about freedom, they are done to boost the profits of corporations and the wealthy. The lower taxes are on the top end, the more political power they can exert to keep that wealth.
This is Stephen Moore's purpose in life. This is what he does and he does it spectacularly. He is continuously victorious in losing the argument. He wins by being wrong and gets rewarded for it. He also was one of the architects who masterminded the tax cut fiasco that bankrupted the state of Kansas.
Stephen Moore is the academic analogy of a religious fanatic extremist. He cannot be bothered with facts, results, or reality. The only thing that exists are his beliefs. He is like the priest that keeps burning people at the stake for years and finally, the crops come in. See, he was right all along.
1154
@Bruce Rozenblit. Agree with what you say, but a lot of things matter to the Republican Party other than reducing taxes and boosting income for the .01%. They care to eliminate a woman's right to chose, they care to lock children up in cages, they care to gut consumers' rights, they care to accelerate climate change, and they care to eliminate the rule of law.
257
@Ambroisine
Those things are means, not ends. Do you think Trump actually cares about immigration or abortion? Do you think McConnell does, or Moore? Ha. Those are just grease for the skids. Money is everything.
216
@Bruce Rozenblit,
It's a misconception that regulation costs money. When Harvard looked at this back in the 1980s they found that companies moved manufacturing because of labor costs and unions not regulations. Of course, where there is regulated government there are usually unions. This is a coincidence. Attacks on regulation are a cover for attacks on worker's rights and public oversight. Companies don't care if they kill workers; they don't care about paying $4MM for every wrongful death suit because they own the courts, even in regulated states: the victim will die before collecting and the company lawyer will argue that it's too late to save the victim so drop the law suit.
68
Moore is worth his weight in gold to the GOP, just as actual scientists are who dispute climate change.
It's not about being right or wrong, its about providing a fig leaf for policy goals that are otherwise indefensible.
We common folk find these arguments hard to follow, so in today's climate, 'you have your expert, we have ours' is the rule of the land.
When reality is no longer the common goal, we no longer share a common reality.
1238
@Oh
Yes, alternate experts with alternate facts, together are useless and worthless. That's the GOP and Trumpsky where there is no longer reality.
75
@Oh And let's be clear about one thing:. It's about money. Someone is profiting from this.
I've said this before, scratch the surface of any major issue today and behind it you'll find a billionaire.
58
@Oh
With regard to your reference to "you have your expert, we have ours"--that is exactly the same phenomenon as has been seen in recent decades in "journalism". The chattering classes on Sunday mornings, and, of course, daily in cable "news" networks, covering a story simply involves getting two talking heads representing the two sides in the dispute (on some platforms we have our favorite screamer, and we have our in-house liberal, or in-house conservative, who is lame, lame, lame, voila!, we have a conversation, thus "covering" the story at hand.
As long was we've got a disagreement, folks, we've done our job.
25
OK. Good. But, going forward, we have to get the intellectual basis of the ideal progressive tax schedule worked out. We have to pay for Bernie's plans.
I propose intellectual work toward a fundamental algorithm that sets an appropriate progressivity scale to our tax systems. The idea is to address, fundamentally, the natural tendency of capitalism (money makes money) to lead to inequality.
Recognize the natural inequality of capitalism.
Recognize the necessity of government for what the free market will not do.
Raise our taxes and tell us how it will save us money
And make America great again.
5
John Kenneth Galbraith once referred to monetary policy as a “small, perverse lever”, since the economy was much more controllable through the taxing and spending powers of the Government.
Milton Friedman, from a completely different perspective, argued that the Fed’s role was simply to expand the money supply in a slow and predictable way.
Neither of these great economists saw the Fed as a major tool of economic policy.
This isn’t an argument in favor of
1
@Andrew M. ... in favor of Stephen Moore, but in some ways the appointment of a willing tool might be less damaging than having someone with dangerously wrong ideas about what monetary policy can accomplish.
1
Can we doubt what is at work here? To continue the unabashed looting of the country’s wealth, the GOP needs to install at every level of government willing stooges who will follow the party line. The only ability they are required to possess is being able to remember enough words to condemn any policy proposal that might actually benefit ordinary citizens and god forbid refugees fleeing oppression in other countries.
This has been in their plans for quite a while, Donald Trump does appear heaven sent, in their eyes. The nomination of Moore follows a long line of appointments that appear to be culled from the bottom of the swamp. When he brayed about draining the swamp, Trump didn’t mention it was to find his people.
27
@MG
Absolutely.
They have been looting the country for forty years and getting away with it.
2
In the eyes of Mr. Krugman, economic theory is pretty much as partisan as politics. Liberals and conservatives have different ideologies and never the twain shall meet. He believes that liberals are good people who seem always to be right and conservatives are bad people who pretty much are always wrong.
Mr. Krugman, himself, is highly partisan. He mostly talks about the politics of the economy and of economists. Read his stuff and economics seems much more partisan than scientific. You can swallow whole everything a partisan tells you or you can think for yourself.
2
@michjas Is your argument that pointing out Moore's record of incorrect economic analysis makes Krugman highly partisan? Does that mean that a non-partisan analysis would necessarily find Moore correct in all cases? Is that your point?
27
@michjas He's a liberal, yes. He's highly partisan, no doubt. It doesn't make his assertions - based on historical results, any less true. On economics, the hypotheses espoused by conservatives fail to bring about broad increases in the living standards - they do bring increases to those already wealthy. This is simply true, not opinion.
22
@michjas
Partisan or not - do these charts lie? Are you questioning the facts that he is presenting? That doesn't seem to be the case. You seem more interested in what side of the fence he is on.
But we have some real problems here, and if someone like Steven Moore was calling the shots or even had a modicum of influence in 2009+ we would most likely be in some serious trouble economically, don't you think?
I don't think it matters too much who the messenger is - it matters what the message is, and whether it's factual.
Let's switch to the Mueller report? Lifelong Republican - does this matter to anyone, or is it what was uncovered during the investigation? Is Mr. Mueller a "Partisan" in your eyes? How, exactly, should we "think for ourselves" if we did not question people involved, eye to eye, across a table?
How can I "think for myself" if I don't have a degree in economics? At some point I have to trust people who are authoritative in a field in which I am not. I've done some research on this - and it seems like Krugman is and was right during the Recession and it seems like Moore and others were plain wrong.
That's my way of thinking for myself - listen to what people say, research to back up what they say, and make a choice. In this case the choice is pretty clear - partisan or not.
5
Item one, money supply based upon political whim at this point, wonder how this ends up.
Item two, whole premise of infinite growth in finite world ignores physics and refuses to grow up, or MATURE. At such point economies should strive for dynamic, yet steady state.
Item three, too late to salvage this corrupt beast, it is doomed. Better to prepare for collapse by getting involved in your community's transition. #TransitionTowns
2
@Red Line The key to understand about monetary inflation is that it doesn't increase the net real value -- instead, it slightly decreases the value of existing currency. There are a variety of reasons this is beneficial, but there's no need for this to violate any constraints in our finite world.
Why do we need inflation? Think of currency as a way to track who has contributed and how much. We should value past contributions a little lower than future contributions, because we want to encourage more future contributions (includes both taking risks in the investment sense, and working to produce value directly).
We don't want inflation to be too fast -- that produces a fair bit of turmoil -- but without any inflation our existing capitalist systems would become much less dynamic and effective. (Consider who workers respond to a lack of raises or pay cuts, even in the face of deflation.)
There are case studies with deflation which support this assertion... IMO it also makes sense from first principles.
Look, for a change, Dr. Krugman has the evidence on his side, even overwhelmingly on his side. But this is what he does, he cherry-picks when his opponents are wrong and he is right and ignores all the times he is wrong. The people he cites should admit the were wrong, but apparently even if they do, Krugman will not give them credit (see Larry Kudlow). I could draw charts showing how wrong Dr. Krugman was about the economy never recovering after Trump's election or how the internet has had a profoundly greater impact than the fax machine or .... But doesn't Krugman admit when he in wrong? Not really. He only admitted he was wrong about the stock market after he had been proven wrong within hours, and then backpedaled, blaming it on emotion, and simultaneously claiming moral superiority for doing so. If the stock market were still down, he would be taking credit for the prediction. He consistently makes a qualified "correction," but buries it and discounts it, and quickly pivots to how his opponents are even worse. Contrary to Krugman's repeated columns on the subject, this should not be about who is a better "expert," which is ultimately an ad hominem argument. This should be about the evidence. If his column had been simply about underlying issues of loose money, infation, and recession, it would have been a great article, but Krugman is not interested in getting at the truth. He is want to be a philosopher king.
3
Charles, I guess you haven't read this, or many of his other pieces where Krugman admits his mistakes.
https://truthout.org/articles/ten-years-later-what-i-got-right-and-wrong/
1
I think this is the right time, and place to recite a description of a friend:
"This Moore does not think and Kudlow thinks wrong"... There is nothing good in this "administration of the lost."
1
It's dangerous to employ experts with knowledge and principles because they may form heretical opinions based on facts.
Obedient parrots are the best.
5
So what you're saying is, he fits right in with trump, friends, hires, and family.
4
The thousands of documented lies that Trump has uttered as president are a measure of how wrong his worldview is (apart from his other personal failings). It is, therefore, not altogether surprising that he would choose malleable people like Moore and Kudlow to bolster that flawed worldview.
8
Unbridled immorality and ineptness are the stock and trade of this administration. Given that, Stephen Moore is the perfect Trump candidate for the Fed's Board of Governor's. He will do as much damage as possible to the economy through his incompetence, then lie about it.
2020 is looming large right now. The Democrats have an opportunity for success in regaining power, but they also have an opportunity for miserable failure. How political power is spent right now is of the utmost importance. If it is wasted in hearings and impeachment proceedings, no matter how justified, it can backfire, and turn Trump from vile demagogue, to victim. We cannot abide another term of the worst president it has been the misfortune for this country to be saddled with, for another term. How many more Stephen Moore's can we tolerate until the economy fails just as it did in 2008?
2
Moreover, Moore wrote in the March 15, 2014 National Review: "...the red ink is still flowing way too fast, and the more than $6 trillion added to the debt in Mr. Obama’s first five years in office shatters all records for fiscal deviancy. Mr. Obama will clearly go down in history as the most financially irresponsible president in history." So Moore must be really upset with Trump now that it looks like he will add even more to the debt, right? Ah, no. Moore has the same courage one sees in so many associated with the Trump administration: fearlessly abiding any contradiction on behalf of partisan politics.
28
In the next election, let's have Moore debate Krugman and settle the this thing once for all, truth and honor have a liberal bias-
2
… and now the crew that was wrong advocates for unlimited spending, deficits be damned. And when inflation rises, inevitably, I guess they will blame it on Obama and claim they were right all along.
4
Donald Trump's true soulmate.
6
Comical, ironic, and yet insightful. Mr. Krugman has been wrong on so many economic policies, his socio economic assumptions debunked, and yet still retains a megaphone at the NYT.
1
"Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"
3
I wonder how Trump's heartland voters feel about that "armpit" remark.
Oh, yeah, never mind. Fox News didn't cover it, so they haven't heard it.
23
An ignorant and despicable president can surround himself only with ignorant and despicable people .
Given the evidence against Moore he should spontaneously withdraw from the nominations
5
Trump enjoys hiring swamp-mates just to bug us, to distract us, to make fun of us. I'm sufficiently bugged, but I haven't given up! Democracy will win in 2020.
14
Thanks for all of the posts and especially the wonkish ones - I'm learning a lot. But, is it possible/likely that the lower interest rates have permitted too much corporate debt taking because it is cheaper (to invest in capital) than investing in labor? Obviously this is unrelated to the articles contents almost entirely.
When they start calling "trickle down" what it really is, "trickle up" then we'll know the GOP has met its demise. Without mendacity, they would only get 1 or 2% of the vote.
3
Donald Trump has made it clear that he doesn't view the Fed's job as intelligently and objectively managing the economy through monetary policy irrespective of the political consequences, but to do whatever it takes to give him good stock market or jobs numbers for which he can claim credit. If he has to appoint hacks like Moore to get there, he's obviously OK with that.
6
But Mr. Krugman Should understand the psyche of these so-called conservative side economists.
Evidence, proof, statistics, data, science in that manner has no value in the realm of the Republican universe.
We are here medieval type mentality. These people repeatedly saw they were on the wrong side of the events.
I call this situation anymore degeneration.
3
Its breathtaking to see how Paul Krugman gets to criticize other experts and commentators for being wrong when nobody has been more wrong than Paul Krugman. Lets take a look at the facts. Before Trump's election, Krugman predicted a stock market crash if Trump were elected. The opposite has occurred. He also predicted a global recession. Wrong again. Does Paul Krugman have a stock market prediction if his favored candidate (Elizabeth Warren) wins the 2020 Presidential election? With her plan for free public college (with no meaningful reforms that address underlying costs), trillions in debt forgivness, reparations for descendants of former slaves, and universal healthcare, I think Paul Krugman owes his readers a prediction. At a minimum, an explanation will suffice.
2
@johnny can you please prove your statement that nobody has been more wrong than Paul Krugman. Please list the times Moore has been wrong, Kudlow has been wrong, vs Krugman or Stiglitz. Looking forward to your evidence-based response. By the way, I cannot find the stock market crash prediction you mentioned; it seems you are misleading the readers.
5
@johnny You forgot to mention that Krugman retracted those forecasts about a week after he made them. As Krugman says in the article, it's about learning from mistakes. Moore never admits he's been wrong, or he lies about his past statements.
11
@johnny
Aside from what others have pointed out - like the fact that Krugman retracted his statements, etc. - I'm not sure if an accurate prediction of the stock market is much of a barometer of intelligent discourse or contribution to useful thinking.
Our underlying problems go way beyond the stock market, which, as we all know, has very little to do with how 95% of the country gets by on a daily basis.
Since you are after a prediction, here is one - if Trump is re-elected, and Republicans are able to continue their toxic, long-term agenda, I predict widespread economic ruin for the bottom economic 95% of our nation, while the top 5% will continue to party like Nero's Rome - and eventually to the same end.
1
It has been said that having someone on your team who is consistently wrong is as valuable as having someone who is consistently right. Maybe our clever President sees him as a good fade.
2
The Trump administration is a kakistocracy, a kleptocracy, a nightmare.
And the Republicans in Congress are willing to go down in history as enablers.
This guy is completely unqualified--and demonstrably immoral (not paying child support? seriously?)--but, so what, empower him anyway.
Trump is a deranged, unhinged, degenerate. That's old news. What excuse do the Republican enablers in Congress have?
35
I have this image of Trump sitting behind that big empty desk and telling his minions "find me the worst possible person" for every open position. Find me the people who Obama would either fire or not even grant a first interview. Nothing in their past matters, because it can't possibly be worse than Trump's past. Now go, I know they're out there. Hannity will help.
22
I recommend Milburn Drysdale of the Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills as Trump's next choice for the Fed. He was a worthy custodian of Jed Clampett's $20 million and had to endure constant conflicts with Ellie Mae's critters, so he would be just the person to keep the bumbling Stephen Moore on a short leash.
21
They say that the key to being a good economic forecaster is to give a number or to give a date, but never to give both at the same time. That is the one thing that Heritage Foundation-type economists excell at. They call it consistency in messaging.
Inflation will one day most probably return. That day may be a long time away and both Messrs. Kudlow and Moore may be dead by then. But, as surely as the Sun rises in the east, they will be there, rising from the grave, and screaming on Fox News: I told you so. I told you so!
2
The whole GOP austerity obsession was based on slowing the economy in order to hurt the Obama Administration. So the recovery that started during those years was kept restrained. Bailing out the auto industry and paying for natural disaster relief didn't fit with GOPs small gov't dishonesty. Now the GOP passed a huge tax cut which goosed the recovery with giant deficit spending. The hypocrisy is stunning.
11
@c harris Unfortunately for the GOP, the idea that tax cuts stimulate as you suggest is wrong. Tax cuts or spending hikes have an initial positive effect, then a negative effect, and a total effect that adds up to zero over about five quarters.
Amazing how Krugman has been so wrong so many times about POTUS Trump but has survived.
3
How many more clowns can jump out of Trump's clown car?
Once again, Mitch McConnell will make the call to confirm this know-nothing.
14
@laurenlee3
I guess Mr McConnell doesn’t care about his legacy.
It is unfortunate that the followers of these wrongsters would likely never read much less heed the criticism of a regime and society so firmly rooted in falsehood and deception. Woe is America.
2
Stephen Moore, Larry kudlow and Neall Ferguson are the 3 musketeers of this orthodoxy. I have seen them off and on CNBC spouting their 'wisdom' with the anchors fawning over them.
1
Just one of a long line of unqualified swamp creatures installed by republican senators with the implicit goal of destroying their agencies.
6
What a choice: Ivanka or Moore?!
2
I mean, the guy is clearly a charlatan who's job is to lend credibility to the wrong-headed instincts of a few ultra-wealthy individuals.
2
Call it the science of sycophancy: tell people what they want to hear, and they'll promote you. To quote Billy Flynn from the musical "Chicago": "Razzle Dazzle 'em and they'll make you star."
3
It could be worse, the 'president' could have nominated one of the Kardashians.
1
Moore is a tax cheat. Shame.
4
More evidence that they only care about increasing wealth for the uber-rich. Conmen must keep up the charade or they cease to be able to execute the con. If they admit mistakes, they forfeit power. Power keeps them rich.
2
The only factor I know of that will increase investment is increased demand. Increased demand comes from consumers with money to spend and a desire to acquire more. Credit can produce a "blip" in the demand but it can run out quickly and end with a longer term reduction.
The one thing that will cause a reduction in investment is instability; unpredictable actions cause investors to become very wary of building long term capacity. trump is the very genesis of the current instability.
5
Well at least he admits "Evidence has a well-known liberal bias." He means the current DOJ rife with deep state leftovers that will take generations to replace.
3
@ImNotaWitch Evidence implies truth, maybe that is hard for you to understand.
6
@ImNotaWitch
Um ... if the Deep State exists to hold back this administration, I'll take it. The deeper the better. Thank you.
Trump and his machinations should put to rest by counterexample one abiding American Myth. Those who manage and own very large sums of money are blessed with extraordinary competence. Trump shows that these ranks are filled with those who are competent but also who are extremely incompetent. The later generally use their extra wealth as a cushion to shield themselves from their worst mistakes.
3
There is only one agenda on trump's mind. Install his flunkies in positions of power, even if they are acting instead of appointed by congress, and thereby control the agenda of everything else so that it provides him with favorable ratings.
As Miller spouted, the authority of this "precedent" will not be questioned.
It's just another day in the slow rolling trump-McConnell takeover of the federal government.
Republicans no longer govern, they serve at the whims of a mad hatter.
6
We have two problems with this craziness:
1. It promotes IRRESPONSIBLE growth, which sooner or later the little people end up paying for.
2. It pretty much leaves you careening down the highway without brakes or a seat belt, which is great until a truck gets in your way.
Of course as Trump apparently said when asked about this sort of thing, oh, well, he’ll be well down the road by then.
6
This is where the Republicans will destroy working Americans and rebuild America with their vision...which is servitude and an America of vast wealth concentrated with a few. This is the master plan from this party and these villains.
Make no mistake, republicans hate democracy and want only their way of government. We as a country are at the fork in the road.
15
@John barron
Sadly millions of working Americans are incredibly gullible.
@John barron - republicans really hate poor people,
especially the sick, hungry, homeless and pregnant.
2
With all apologies to Steve Carell, Moore reminds me of Dunder Mifflin's Michael Scott. Physically and ethically.
3
The Republican storm-troopers march in lockstep to hail their fearless king/dictator. They don't care about knowledge or evidence. Things like facts are inconvenient in their march towards destroying all aspects of our democracy including the economy. While I appreciate your column, it will fall on deaf ears if it is directed to the other side....
2
When it comes to the way the Renfield character was portrayed in the old Dracula movies, Stephen Moore sycophantic behavior toward Trump is actually hands-down far far more overdone.
1
This may all be correct, however Krugman's track record of being really wrong (e.g. Dire predictions of a certain collapse of the world economy following Brexit and then the Trump election), is hard to overlook.
Perhaps he is biased as well and we should just consider him an opinion writer as his byline clearly states.
3
@B
Brexit hasn't happened yet, so I'm not sure that any predictions are yet "wrong".
3
@B Krugman predicted the 2008 recession while Republicans were telling everyone how the economy was healthy.
On the other hand, I clearly remember Trump telling everyone who would listen that if Obama was reelected the market would crash and never recover.
1
@B
I think it's easier to be right about the past than it is the future. That's always been my experience.
So judging people on predictions - not so useful in my opinion. Nowadays, we have enormous arguments about the past, mainly because of revisionist history, the "fake news" label, and a general aversion to facts and truth.
I consider Paul Krugman an opinion writer, but an astute one at that, and I enjoy reading his opinions because his analysis (of past events) and of present issues seems accurate to me. An example is the recent recap of the Republican agenda and point of view - yesterday, I think it was. Dead on.
So yeah, he's an opinion writer all right, but I don't know about you - but he knows a lot more about economics than I do, and it seems to me a lot more than Steven Moore does.
They say you can take the measure of a man by the enemies he makes. Congratulations on being personally vilified and insulted in a presidential tweet. You're now in good company!
3
Wikipedia, describes Moore as an "American writer and economic 'commentator' and notes, "Although Moore has often been characterized as an economist, he does not hold a Ph.D. in economics."
He is, however a fabulously effective shill --- who plays an economist on TV.
Moore knows less about the devastating effects of Americans being distracted, dis-empowered, 'divided and conquered', and falling for the scam of massive 'negative externality costs' being dumped on our people, country, and world than anyone.
Moore has been a major part of phony and non-economists who make a very good living by writing the kind of deceitful articles that make less-informed Americans believe that they will benefit through the magnificent four decade joke of 'supply-side', 'trickle-down', and neoliberal economics, from Reagan to Trump of looting our society bare, in order to allow the ruling-elite tiny minority of UHNWIs (and their corporations) to become ever-Moore wealthy.
Paul, Moore, should read your own books, and other Nobel economists --- like Joseph Stiglitz's political/economic and socially 'Positive Externality Profits' oriented book, "People, Power, and Profits --- Progressive Capitalism For An Age Of Discontent"
"the only way in a democratic society for the minority—whether it’s large corporations exploiting consumers, banks exploiting borrowers, or those trying to recreate a bygone world—to maintain their economic and political dominance is by suppressing democracy"
6
Trump's ignorance, incompetence and fear driven hatred of expertise is reflected in his cabinet, his federal appointees, and the critical jobs not filled.
Stephen Moore is perfect for the job.
Not as a governor of the Federal Reserve -- that's just his title -- but the real job he was nominated for: make Trump feel good about himself and irritate the libs.
Unending sycophancy, an ability to lie without shame, a track record of supporting policies that hurt people, and a total disregard for facts?
He's perfect.
2
Here comes Krugman again--The Fake Economist.
Mr. Krugman, you have some gall to call out anyone for being wrong. After all, let's remember some of your erroneous calls on the economy.
--You exhorted the Japanese to stimulate for 20 years. They did. It lead to 2 "lost decades" and a national debt twice their GNP.
--You supported Obama's massive 900 billion stimulus plan. When no magic appeared, you argued first that it just wasn't large enough--and second, that we had to have patience--to give it time. Eventually even Obama had to admit "shovel-ready" jobs were not as "shovel-ready" as once thought. But how ironic--that you could find patience for Obama's stimulus plan--but called Trump's tax reform plan a failure before the ink wa even dry. Now, it's only gaining steam.
--You said the U.S. economy could never achieve 3% growth. Wrong.
--You said manufacturing jobs could not be lured back to the U.S. Over 500,000 have been created during Trump's time. Wrong again.
--On the eve of Trump's election, you stated the the stock market would crash--and never recover. Wrong yet again. Today it stands at record highs. Consumer and business sentiment have never been higher.
--You said tax cuts would only benefit the wealthy. Wrong.
Real wages are now growing above 3% for the first time in years.
It appears, Mr. Krugman, you and the media do have a liberal bias--but economics decidedly does not. It turns out, economics has a Conservative bias.
4
You can add Rick Santelli to that list
Moore's blatant arrogance in not wanting to admit his ignorance (his choice, given that the evidence, based on facts shows a different picture) ought to be his downfall from grace, not an incentive to move a charlatan to the Fed and possibly create chaos 'a la Trump'. Too bad that reason and common sense may not prevail, as it should, as long as we have an unhinged, and quite insolent, brutus ignoramus in the Oval Office. An ode to, in your words, to the survival of the wrongest.
1
The wrong not only survive but thrive because they are shameless and brazen in their falsehood. That's the important lesson to be learned from the Age of Trump. You are selling yourself, and being impudently and straightforwardly a mountebank is nowadays regarded as the ultimate authenticity.
1
Perhaps, fundamentally, we have a crisis of epistemology. Or at least one segment of society does not know what it means.
It's absolutely terrifying to think of him as the head of the Fed. The damage he could do to this country for decades is too ghastly to contemplate.
2
“Evidence has liberal bias, and conservatives have tough time admitting mistakes.
Definitely. Just look at how the Mueller report has Liberals lining up to admit their claims of Trump being a Putin puppet on the basis of “ he doesn’t criticize Putin,” were misguided.
Look at how easily the Brennan’s and Schiff’s and Warner’s of the world have said “ we were wrong. After 2 years of an unbridled investigation, the highly respected Mueller found no evidence of cooperation.” Yes I’ve heard those admissions often.
No shortage of irony here that Krugman points finger at the right, for of all things refusing to admit being wrong.
Maybe he’ll support the Warren plan to cancel student debt. Because colleges won’t raise tuition prices when more free money is floating around. And definitely a guy like Ray Dalio ( worth 18billion) will gladly remain a citizen and shell out 550 million dollars. There won’t be any unintended consequences from liberal plans. It’s conservatives that can’t see things.
100,000 people a month arriving at border, due at least in part to media and democrats suggesting they’ll oppose any barriers to entry.
Yeah- no mistakes by liberals to admit to. That is, if you just pretend you were right all along.
Get Trump taxes. I’m sure you’ll find an entry marked “ payment to Putin for election help”. That’s a line on 1040 that Democrats allude will be found. Awesome logic.
3
@wally s.
You do not need Mueller report, Trump is the Cohen ( Trumps make it happen man) for Putin.
What evidence you haven't seen yet?
@wally s.
Little bit twisted up there...
- We don't need the Mueller report to tell us about Putin and Trump - we have the actual behavior of the actual President in Helsinki. How do you explain a point of view that favors Putin over career Intelligence agency officials?
-- The Mueller report showed very clearly that the Trump campaign welcomed interference in the 2016 campaign from Russians. They mainly avoided criminality through incompetence. But there was plenty of cooperation on both sides.
-- In the 1950's the tax bracket for the rich was at 90%. There doesn't seem to be evidence of a max exodus of rich people. Quite the opposite.
-- 100K of people arriving at the border has nothing to do with democrats. This administration has attempted all kinds of draconian policies for deterrence, and they simply don't work. Do you really think the people from central america are coming here because the democrats are saying they are opposed to "any barrier to entry .." which by the way said no one ever. The real problem is that this white house lacks any kind of serious, nuanced idea of what to do.
Time for a change. To say the least.
1
@su
I look at facts. Not innuendo.
1) Mueller looked for 2 years with dozens of agents and a hungry media. Explicitly said found no evidence.
To contort those findings into something other than what he exactly said, is folly.
For the party of science- reading conclusions of professionals seems sorely lacking. It’s as Krugman says “ an inability to admit to the evidence”.
What evidence ( not innuendo) have you seen?
Current sanctions on Russia have been more effective than toothless sanctions levied by past administration.
Obama cancelled Polish missile system. That would be evidence of complicity of you were looking for some. Russia either got much stronger under Obama, or he was completely unaware of their strength. Called them only a regional power with limited threat to USA. Canceled programs to monitor Russia. Watched idly as they put boots on Middle East. Etc.
Facts. Might not be willing to admit. Might need to twist - but they’re nevertheless indisputable.
Krugman's facts in this article are indisputable . That these are disputed as just another opinion is a prime example of the false equivalency so common in today's economic, scientific and political discourse. God help us.
I have an idea for the Fed. Add housing prices to core inflation, then tell me how low it is. Tell me how my paycheck now will get me as much housing as it did in 2007 or even 2012.
Once you exclude food, energy, and housing, you've missed everything that matters to people on ordinary incomes.
Did I forget to mention health care or college? Will that same paycheck get me as much healthcare as it did in 2007 or 2012? Can I afford to send myself or my kids to the same college?
The way inflation is measured is irrelevant to people who spend most of their money on necessities.
22
@mlbex Housing expenses are already included in core inflation--in fact, they are a very large portion of it. (You can argue that BLS is not measuring housing expenses properly in the CPI--but then you'd have to know that they're already in the CPI.)
Also, did you know that not everyone live in California?
1
@tanstaafl: Some people live in Florida, some in Texas, some in Reno, and some in Las Vegas. Prices are up much more than core inflation in all those places.
1
@mlbex Did you know that inflation is an average? Some prices rise faster than the average and some rise more slowly.
Was a bit puzzled by the phrase "Evidence has a well-known liberal bias" so I did some searching and it turns out Paul Kurgman has used this expression almost verbatim in the past.
Copied from one of his NYT columns in 2014:
"Where is the liberal equivalent of the near-uniform conservative rejection of climate science, or the refusal to admit that Obamacare is in fact reaching a lot of previously uninsured Americans?"
Evidence isn't biased, however, the decision making regarding how to proceed according to evidence can be. Believe it or not - and I doubt many NYT readers can - it's possible to accept climate science without also supporting a green deal, especially if the specific policy measures have the potential to dramatically weaken America's place in the global economy.
2
I won't really get into this too much, but this piece kind of shows an elementary mis-undertsanding of dynamics and evolutionary biology.
Biology is about winning, if you win, you were right, if you go extinct you were wrong. Truth is devired from Nature here, not the other way around.
1
@Emily: For us humans, arguing the efficacy of a position and by proxy the person expounding that position, is part of the biological process. Survival requires convincing others that you are right, and that the person or position opposing yours is wrong.
The definition of 'fittest' includes the ability to convince others. Unfortunately it doesn't place enough emphasis on being right.
I'm certainly a long-time fan of Krugman, but I do think it is necessary to remember that economics is a means to an end, not an end in itself. If two different groups have different ends in mind, they might come up with different solutions. To each group, the other's solution (to the other's ends) seems "wrong" (to their ends).
I am not certain any more what ends modern Republicans have in mind, other than possibly dogmatic opposition to anything others might desire. I suspect a few of them sincerely want a more plutocratic form of government where economic benefits are even more unevenly distributed. If that were true, sudden fiscal austerity in the depths of a recession would make a lot of sense. It keeps wages down, reduces workers rights, and allows worker benefits such as healthcare, roads, and a healthy environment to be reduced. Similarly, big tax cuts for the wealthiest would make sense in a vibrant economy, else wages might rise.
5
@Grindelwald
The single most important thing, by far, for any politician is to get re-elected. While the tactics are vastly different between the left and the right, their strategic goal is exactly the same.
The author and many of the comments here claiming a better handle on facts or a more benevolent purpose, is abject nonsense.
For example, stating that Republicans singularly want to make the rich, richer, is equivalent to stating that Democrats singularly want to make the poor more dependent on government.
In reality, both sides simply want to ensure re-election.
1
It is apparent that no serious economist questions the cynicism behind the suggestion that Stephen Moore has any legitimate place on the Fed Board. But in this current hyper polarized political climate it does not seem to matter.
I sometimes wonder if this is a modern phenomena or the way it has always been. Maybe it just seems a lot more extreme now than it used to. Politics and partisan gain carrying more weight than intelligent policy and actual facts.
6
@randy tucker, don't fall into the 'bothsides' trap. It's not that both the left and right are more partisan. It's that the right has abandoned the concepts of intelligent policy in favor of 'whatever trump says'. At this point, they agree with him that trump IS America. Period.
I would advise you to actually watch any of the hearings or current events. Example: Michael Cohen's testimony, where Democrats asked, you know, questions. republicans yelled, threw papers, insulted everyone, and turned attention away from trump's shameful behavior every chance.
The right lies all the time, to a person, in order to cover for trump. When Democrats try to get at the truth, they are called traitors. How is that a bothsides thing?
1
The ABA rates potential Supreme Court nominees. Is there anything similar for Fed nominees?
1
"Economic product" equals "monetary base" divided by the average residency time of a unit of currency in an account.
In other words, if a flood of electronic money reduces money velocity accordingly, inflation won't occur.
I would think that the Republican Senators would be very leery of threatening the economy by putting a crank on the Federal Reserve board. That’s not a good plan for keeping the billionaire donors and the voters happy going into the 2020 election.
19
@PRJ
Thet have put cranks on the Supreme Court and filled the cabinet with worse.
4
The single most important qualification for Moore is that he will willingly serve as an unprincipled Trump "yes" man within the Federal Reserve.
For Trump, that's all he needed to hear.
93
i love your summation title. Evidence has a liberal bias. I add additional slogans:
Truth has a liberal bias. Morality has a liberal bias. Passion has a liberal bias. Goodness has a liberal bias.
297
Don’t forget science! :)
25
@Jzu . Don't forget education!
22
@Nancie, don’t forget homelessness.
3
It's not even about the difference between conservatives and liberals.
The policy prescriptions of so-called economists like Moore and Kudlow can be summarized as follows:
Recommend whatever will politically benefit a Republican administration and damage a Democratic administration, even if it's only in the short term.
Indeed, these hacks have probably figured out that wrecking the economy in a timely fashion is good politics.
Presidents Clinton and Obama left their Republican successors good economies, but Bush II left a mess to be cleaned up by the opposition.
So, I suspect, will Trump, paving the way for a Republican return to power after the Democrats are forced to take unpopular measures (like raising taxes) to get our house in order. If it isn't already too late.
103
@GV why should raising taxes be unpopular? Simply package it as "double the middle-class tax cuts the Republicans delivered", with reforms like taxing capital gains and dividends like ordinary income, eliminating pass-through advantages and the carried interest loophole, and cranking up the top marginal rates as AOC has proposed. The whole thing can be strongly revenue-positive, i.e. a tax increase, while delivering "tax relief" to the vast majority of taxpayers.
Then any Republicans who vote against it go on record as being against middle-class tax cuts.
Oh - and while we're at it, eliminate Master Limited Partnerships, depletion allowances, and fossil fuel leases on Federal lands in the same bill. It's about time we ended subsidies to polluters.
6
@GV The trouble with the Clinton and Obama administrations is that their goal was to govern the country and improve conditions for everyone. The goals of the GOP since Reagan have been to win, and collect the spoils for themselves. That's it. Wrecking the economy will supply all sorts of valuable debris, that they and their bottom-feeder friends can scoop up at fire sale prices. Win win for them. Lose, lose, lose for the rest of us.
2
These right-wingers might be on to something!
Maybe parallel universe economists?
It could work with a commodity known as "anti-matter".
11
Your analysis misses one important point, that GOP is politicizing our key institutions that make us a unified country. Mr. Moore has advocated a monitory policy to elect and entrench Republican leadership, why else would he advocate tight money at the height of a recession and loose money at the end of a long recovery cycle? It makes perfect logical sense when you look at which party was in office at the time. Left in power, the GOP will continue politicizing our institutions to the point where we have Latin-American political conditions, much like Mexico under the PRI for almost a century.
111
Why exactly was - and is - there no inflationary pressure? Why did the gigantic purchases of long-term bonds by the Fed wind up in excess reserves and not in the economy? The inescapable answer is that interest rates do not have the effect assumed in standard monetary theory. That theory assumes that providing essentially free investment funds will automatically cause investment. This is not really different from the theory, promoted by conservative economists including Moore, that funds from tax cuts for corporations with do the same thing. Most liberal economists assume that lack of demand has been the problem, but still cling to reliance on the supply-side remedy of monetary policy.
If very low interest rates actually cause an increase in investment and spending, then there should have been considerable inflationary pressure as the recovery proceeded and unemployment reached record low levels. Saying the there is a "liquidity trap" under these conditions is absurd.
There is no reason to think that Moore or Trump know how to run monetary policy other than to keep stock prices high, but it should be recognized that the standard model according to which interest rates regulate the economy is the wrong one. Krugman himself noticed that low interest rates were not working in Japan and called for more fiscal stimulus in 2008, yet still insists that the monetary theory is correct.
6
@skeptonomist
The only factor I know of that will increase investment is increased demand. Increased demand comes from consumers with money to spend and a desire to acquire more. Credit can produce a "blip" in the demand but it can run out quickly and end with a longer term reduction.
The one thing that will cause a reduction in investment is instability; unpredictable actions cause investors to become very wary of building long term capacity. trump is the very genesis of the current instability.
There is no “standard model,” according to which interest rates “run the economy,” all on their lonesome.
@skeptonomist
I recall that Milton Friedman was a famous conservative monetarist economist who insisted repeatedly that the Fed had no power over interest rates at all.
God help us!
4
Well we now have a president, a party, and potentially a Fed board that believes in monetary and fiscal contraction during slumps and monetary and fiscal stimulus during booms. As the saying goes, "What could go wrong?"
29
@fbraconi
Well, to be more precise they only believe in monetary and fiscal contraction during slumps if they are out of power and in monetary and fiscal stimulus during booms when they are in power. That said, yes, "What could go wrong?"
18
To put this column a bit more succinctly, the actual facts are of no interest to the Trump, his supporters, or right-wingers in general. They do enjoy spouting their ideas, regardless.
16
If Cain was an inappropriate choice for the Fed and he was, then Moore is equally inappropriate, and he is. Is the fact that he is white and Cain isn’t the real differentiator? Neither has the integrity to be named to anything.
23
A significant, if not decisive, portion of the citizenry have acquired a possibly terminal case of collective cognitive dysfunction. Truth? Malleable. Facts? Fake! Ethics? For losers. Morals? Situational. With such a mindset, people like Moore are the best candidates for top offices across the land.
My heart bleeds for the depths to which our Beloved Republic has fallen.
66
@Kilgore Trout
Weren't we always thus, at least the minority? They were just hiding out till their antichrist arrived. I can't believe that he transformed them overnight.
Good on you Mr. Krugman for being a truth teller. Thank you for pointing out the facts. Those "pesky little things" that will point us in the right direction on policy.
21
And so those most dangerous of all people, those who will never admit to making a mistake continue to gravitate to the infallible administration of Donald J. Trump. If Senate Republicans confirm Mr. Moore with his dubious economic and personal track record they will enable the equivalent of the insertion of an incurable and permanent virus into the Fed. A truly mediocre at best economist.
9
The Fed economists who advocated banking deregulation, indugled consumer credit usury, igored bundling of trash loans classified as high grade once bundled, ignored derivatives and the like, and proclaimed 5% unemployment fixed may be the many Fed economists Moore references and Krugman ignores.
It's a big mistake to allow the chatting class to continue to try to credit the Pre-Trump conservative GOPers as anything but cretinous, dissembling, bad faith liars, but that's what's happening.
Glad Dr. K. is pointing it out.
24
Moore is the kind of sycophant Trump loves. That his views on economics have little to do with reality is besides the point, Trump expects him to do whatever Trump wants at the moment. He is the equivalent on the Fed of Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. Given the abasement of GOP Senators I fully expect him to be confirmed just like Kavanaugh was. Even more than Trump, what will be remembered of this shameful period in US history is the total abdication of oversight responsibility by Republican Senators, including those that timidly criticized Trump.
14
This is just the latest iteration of the takeover by authoritarianism in America. Countries around the globe are being reduced to fiefdoms ruled by crony capitalists--Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, Bolsonaro, Orban and the Bannonites trying to conquer the European Union.
Of course, Xi and the Chinese capitalists are their worthy opponent. It is truly a battle for every commodity on earth, ignoring the majority of the people who live in poverty.
So naming these foxes to guard our henhouse is just par for the course for the 1%.
27
I am increasingly of the view that as liberals, we don't give the so called "moderate" and "centrist" wing of the party a free pass because we are all oh-so-frothing in the mouth about how horrible "they" are.
"They" are horrible, I agree.
But there are many wolves in sheep's clothing in the democratic party. Indeed, an entire wing of the party wants to be rewarded for its errors in 2016. They are actively trying to undermine the progressive left that actually talks about issues instead of hiding behind cultural issues. That terrible wing of the party supports nasty economic theories just as Moore does. Why not? They have all of them, the same bedfellows.
Those same people want Joe Biden, whose laughable candidacy is the latest in their meddling. It won't end well. Most of us who have a brain are wondering what kind of cruel joke Biden is supposed to be.
4
@FurthBurner
It doesn't seem to occur to you that the number of level-headed, competent, intelligent, experienced and pragmatic centrists within both parties has been declining since the 1980s and THAT is why the fringe right and fringe left have increasingly caused intractable problems - for their own gain, out of stupidity, (fill in the blank) - throughout the body politic. There is only so much that the center can fix if it no longer holds from being under constant assault by the fantasy prone stupid and by the venal opportunists.
1
Trump is an authoritarian who values loyalty more than American power. Thus if the U.S. flames out with this authoritarian it will be as Venezuela not Germany in WWII. This is a shame for Americans.
1
If it's a fight, then the people who like to fight, and are very good at fighting, will win.
So it is in the interest of people like Krugman not to turn it into a fight. But instead, he is eager to make it one. I really can't understand this, it will be the suicide of the Democrats.
1
If Trump had any credibility, he'd care how bad Mr. Moore's economic record is. But alas, he has no credibility to lose.
4
Trump has been the distraction that has prevented most of us from noticing that the rest of the Republican government establishment has been hard at work proving that government doesn't work by installing a horde of dingbats, self-dealers, and ripoff artists. Moore is just an amateur, a wannabe, compared to the rest of the crew.
9
As of yesterday, there was still, on record, a $75,000.00 federal tax lien against him from tax year 2014.
30
A rising tide does, in fact, lift all boats. Turns out to be from global warming, though—not deregulation.
21
@Michael
And the cause of the destruction of the planet is wildly unchecked human breeding for 50 years.
We had our chances, the science predicted this in the 1960s, everyone ignored the flashing red lights and common sense - along with basic 3rd grade math. There is no fix unless humans agree to zero population growth today, right now. And even then, we've only a spark of a chance, given how dumb about sex humans are, how rapidly the 3 billion became a useless, wasteful and mostly unwanted bloat of 7.6 billion in just 50 years. And given how many species humans have destroyed who will never return, along with fouling the oceans, air and ground soil.
3
Moore's positions change more than a weather vane in a tornado - the hypocrisy being exhibited doesn't often enough mention that this guy's also a co-founder and former prez of the Club for Growth !
Now, he's palling around with a POTUS running Trillion$ deficits due to handing out tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy and corporations; looters and Vultures will always show their stripes.
The coin of their realm is simple - hypocrisy and chutzpah.
5
@R. Law
To be fair, $20 of those $22 trillions in debt are at the doorstep of Bush II and Obama. Clinton left a clean no debt slate and Trump has added but $2 trillion to the Bush/Obama debacle.
Doesn't mean Trump won't add more - he will, but this is just one confirmation that 19 years of unqualified men at the Executive Branch helm are long term dangerous and short-sighted for the nation, numbing the voters into electing more unqualified egocentric men for the Executive Branch. This is a great part of what has allowed Congress and SCOTUS to also go astray. It takes a rare combination of both IQ and policy management skills to be president of the U.S.
1
@Maggie - You're off on a tangent which has nothing to do with the excellent economy that was handed to 45* and the GOP'ers, good times during which debt should be paid down, with new debt invested in infrastructure or other productivity improving projects.
It is laugh-out-loud ridiculous that a peronage such as Moore (whom Dr. K. well points out was a deficit scold during the the Obama years, when low interest rates meant the world actually paid us to take their money and invest it here) NOW advocates for looser monetary policy.
The only ostensible economic/political principles Moore holds were described by Upton Sinclair decades before Moore saw the light of day:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
And this isn't a 'both sides do it' issue, since you well point out what excellent budget conditions Bill Clinton handed off to GOP'ers the last time they won the White House; after which GOP'ers deliberately proceeded to loot the Treasury by borrowing money from China to pass out as tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy in the '00s.
3
The "D" list parade of the trump administration continues, the best and brightest indeed.
Btw, what are Mr. Kudlow's qualifications for the position he holds?
5
Paul Krugman has come up with the quote of the twenty-first century: "Evidence has a well-known liberal bias". Just perfect!
5
Lovely. Now please explain why we can't have 3-4% interest rates.... and why we don't have a luxury tax of 10% as we did once upon a time.
Price of oil is rising now.... People are urged to get college degrees -- you can't be hired as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art without one! (Talk about overkill.) PhDs in the humanities get paid $4,500 per course as adjunct professors dispensing education.) We are willing to use AI to teach children (apparently) but not to run subways and transit workers are way overpaid for the work they do.
There is a lot that is wrong in the system … and the rising population on the planet... esp. in India and Africa …
Inflation as you point out is not a problem... (except possibly in the stock market which I imagine could fall big?? or not?
4
@Auntie Mame
Your comment points out how myopic the U.S. has been since the economic 1970s shift to knowledge/tech. And that was when the U.S. population was a stable 200 million amid an already wobbly economic implosion that lasted till the mid-1980s.
It is no longer possible to function under the fantasy of a sustainable 330+ million population with a stable and improving quality of life. We have not had for some time now a constancy of system processes, a highly educated and well-employed nation. Half of the country now is one paycheck from desperation and doesn't pay anything to keep the wheels turning.
It was insane to begin doubling the U.S. population in the 1960s. Just plain stupid. Everything has its limits. The absurdity rolls forward with what is known: all the planet's next billion in human population will come from the below-the-equator semi-literate, high breeding poorest nations - with tens of millions migrating to a handful of successful nations above the equator.
Even by 1910, the economy that brought 100 million low wage, low education immigrants from abroad to work in manufacturing and factories, starting in the 1840s, was changing with automation. That march forward continued with more technology and the need for FEWER people - not more. And yet, beginning in the 1960s, the U.S. turned around and opened the floodgates to another 100 million when the manufacturing economy was evolving into knowledge/tech full automation-robotics and now also AI.
2
The Republican Party has discovered the path to shamelessness. Thus, ignorance, deception, cheating and theft are accepted as virtues.
12
conservatives continually promote these "fake" men. by that I mean men like Moore, Ryan, Hannity, trump et al who bluster and spout nonsense with a certitude that boggles the mind. the fact that he did not pay his child support tells us all we need to know about the real "man" behind the facade. out with them all..... we can start by beginning the impeachment debate in congress. to let this be decided by "the people" tab the voting booth is a dereliction of duty by the politicians..... it will become our "Brexit"..... things like this are not supposed to be decided by the people we have elected leaders for a reason. our leaders have been absent for too long and like children left home alone we are getting anxious and getting into trouble.
5
It's the same old thing, Paul. Right wingers shill for their Uber-rich Paymasters through faux think tanks. And the song will never change. Anything that helps "ordinary" Americans is to be avoided, and 'Government" must never--ever-- improve people's lives. Except for theirs.
5
Yet, I saw a discussion on CNBC about Moore and they thought he would be just fine. The Tea Party network and their ilk wanted to keep the country in recession. Now, they spend like drunken sailors on shore.
4
The core of the Republicans' beliefs are lies. The true focus of the Republican party is white supremacy and serve corporations and the top wealthy 1%, and gee who controls the Corporate ruling class? Predominately white men. It all goes hand in hand. For the last 40 to 50 years the Republicans have corrupted the political system, all branches on all levels. The present Supreme Court is a backstop for the Republican party, the 5 conservative judges are water carriers of the Republican party. With the help of Fox News, the Republicans maintain a twenty four hour propaganda machine sowing lies. Our democracy is on life support, and I don't see it surviving. The political will needed to reverse and fix the malignancy spread by the Republicans is not visible.
9
@Marc Castle
The core of both the GOP and the Democratic Party is who controls what, where and who - as is the case with all political parties of 1st world nations.
There's not as much differentiation between the two as you think. All moderately intelligent, educated, stable folk desire a safe, decent quality of life and better future for their offspring. The differences between the political parties come into play over what to do about the non-moderately intelligent, uneducated, unstable folk. The U.S. people and politicians will never crawl out from under unceasing internecine distractions to the systemic processes that formed in the 1960s and 1970s until we agree on what stability looks like and how it functions - as well as if it is desired.
There are far too many policies and programs enacted by elected officials of both parties at all levels of American govt. and society that have been nothing but a self-serving open sieve of waste and graft, begetting more waste and graft. That is the anti-thesis of not just stability and productivity necessary for the economy and govt. to function but also to provide the social glue of cohesion in the lives of individuals and the national population.
1
Krugman said, "Evidence has a well-known liberal bias." To leave it at that is to accept their argument, which is wrong.
More accurately, one should say, "The liberals tend to be more factual, evidence-based," the very antithesis of the conservatives of today. So when the conservatives complain that main stream media have liberal bias, they are really saying main stream media report the facts and truths. Whereas, right wing media like Fox News tend to skew the facts or outright lie.
Likewise with "liberal" economists, scientists, scholars, etc, who cherish and adhere to reality more than the conservatives, as Krugman repeatedly pointed out in regards to economic and finance.
It is not my intention to put down millions of conservatives, but evidence do show they are more likely to ignore truths, maybe even do not care about truths. How else can we understand their blind allegiance to a president and a party that lie constantly?
Whether it is climate change, economy, religions, governance, etc., the more essential problem of our time is losing our allegiance to truths and hence our losing grip on reality. If we do not care to see reality as it is, what else would we care, and what else can we understand correctly? When we cannot see or do not care about truths, what do we base our morality and values on? And what will we base our judiciary, democracy and our happiness on?
42
@Doodle
Science, evidence, objectivity and logic vs 'beliefs'...
1
@Doodle; The problem is -- the average human is superstitious, gullible, greedy and intellectually lazy. How else to explain that we have spent most of our time on earth killing each other. We still are doing next to nothing about climate change, with the result that we shall soon (within 75 years) become extinct.
1
The republican party has long maintained that the benefits of reducing taxes on the rich will somehow trickle down to the rest of us. In support of this flat-out lie, republican presidents appoint unqualified candidates to key positions in the federal government.
18
I love Paul Krugman. Keep up the good fight. Our democracy and its institutions are now clearly under attack.
52
Dr. Krugman,
As always, your charts speak volumes. For Republicans, facts are just another word for everything left to lose.
124
@Zdude
Me and Bobby McGee agree.
And freedom’s just another thing we will be losing if left up to the republicans.
4
Dr. Krugman: it is possible that had the Fed followed the counsel of the proposed Fed nominee we might not have had the slowest post-recession recovery ever? Possible?
You have before given credit to Obama policies for the Trump economic boom. But as an honest and brilliant man, surly you can admit that a different monetary policy could have worked. Maybe less likely to work; but could it have worked?
The Fed is like modern medicine; works wonders but eventually you need so much help to battle the side effects of the cures one has to wonder if the original condition was better left alone.
It is at least a conversation worth having. If America was on the Gold standard, no crash could have occurred. Banks cannot lend without hard gold reserves. Hmmm .... maybe we should reconsider the Gold standard. Maybe not. I leave that analysis for better men with more education: like you. I would love to read your thoughts on it.
Please consider writing about it sometime. Soon.
2
@EWG
" we might not have had the slowest post-recession recovery ever"
As Krugman warned, the Obama stimulus was too small. If the Republicans had not blocked an additional stimulus (or if Obama had listed to Krugman---and Pelosi) the original stimulus would have worked more quickly, have been more effective, and the burden of rescuing the economy would not have depended so heavily upon the Fed.
7
The Fed was right about inflation and Moore is a typically ludicrous appointee of Trump. What Mr. Krugman does not say is that the Fed's "emergency" policies have lasted ten years. During that time long and short term interest rates were suppressed, depriving savers (including pension funds) of trillions of dollars of interest income. How this stimulated the economy is rather unclear. It is true, borrowers were encouraged to borrow, with the result that total debt is now much higher than it was before the Great Financial Crisis. Low interest rates also caused an "everything bubble" in which the prices of all financial assets are grossly inflated. This situation is so precarious that the Fed could not countenance a normal stock market correction at the end of last year. It promptly stopped raising short term interest rates and announced an end to the shrinking of its balance sheet. There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with an economy that cannot prosper except with artificially low interest rates and "wealth effects" created by a central bank.
30
I agree but want to add a few points. FED has published how much money was added during the QE's and it huge several trillion. Clearly that was good for banks who could pass on the basically free money to the market charging 5,6 up to 30% from the borrowers, maybe even more for the payday loans. It seems to me such action must be contributing to the already very high inequality: enriching the banks and other financial operators, while making the rest of the people even poorer. The QE lasted for ten years, yes I am still upset over the initial design of the 2008 rescue operations: the government made sure that the banking sector was compensated to 100% or more while millions of home owners were forced into bankruptcy and hard times. Obama may have tried to correct this policy - he is reported to have pressured Geithner to do something about it in the beginning - but then he let the Rubin gang take over and save the banks and its shareholders, claiming to save the US and world economy. People are not stupid and understood and so they voted for Trump.
1
@WB Yes, I've always been rather (happily) mystified by the success of the concepts of deficit spending, the "fiat currency" standard (I just looked that up), etc. It all seems so risky, so unstable and falsely optimistic, like a mutually agreed upon Ponzi scheme. But lately, I've been thinking that when we describe the U.S. as the wealthiest nation on earth, it is primarily because our land was blessed with great wealth even before its natural resources were turned into portable riches. Sadly, and to your point, that conversion has turned out to be hazardous to our health and that of the earth itself.
5
Thank you for this column, Dr. Krugman. It should be "read into the record" at the Senate hearings.
It is not a given that the U.S. will be forever rich or that the U.S. economic system will always work well. We have the Great Recession to remind us from recent history; we have "rich as an Argentine" to remind us from other country's past.
It really matters who is on the Federal Reserve Board and it will have real and negative effects to have The Wrongest on that board. It was a minor miracle when DJT nominated Powell to become the Fed Chair. It would be a minor catastrophe to approve Moore.
59
Quantitative easing was a distant second best choice for our economic trouble. Republicans prevented the far better choices. Then Republicans made worse the very issues they said were problems with quantitative easing, by huge tax cuts magnifying the deficit.
We should have been spending on infrastructure. We should have been doing direct stimulation of the economy with government demand.
Instead we gave vast amounts of money to those who needed it least, and hoped they would do what the government did not do itself. They didn't. It did not trickle down.
Thus, we got a rather long, slow, poor recovery. It is NOT a "strong recovery." It was not recovery at all for much of the country.
I'm sure Weld opposed what should have been done, as well as what was done. Krugman at the time urged what should have been done, and fully explained how what we were doing was a distant second best.
Don't clean it up now in retrospect. It has created problems we still need to address. Those include inequalities magnified, infrastructure never built or repaired, and large parts of the country falling out of the economy in ways that make our politics more poisonous.
272
@Mark Thomason
One of the tragedies of republican obstruction is that when we had a long period of low interest rates and low construction costs, where borrowed money could have built infrastructure at a good price, the republicans were fighting their war against Obama.
Another tragedy is the 2017 giving away of trillions of dollars of federal tax revenue to the people who don't need it, robbing us of funds for other needs.
79
@Zeke27
Yes.
Exactly right and extremely important points.
The Republicans are working against the country.
22
@Mark Thomason
It makes one wonder where we would be if we had done the right thing instead of the “distant second best”.
Great perspective.
People need to be reminded of this.
21
There was a lot of inflation outside the government measurements though. For example, over the last few years, the price of buying homes has increased much faster than the price of renting, but the official inflation measurements are based on renting costs and do not consider home prices. Likewise, the price of stocks and bonds that people depend on for retirement is much higher now, so people must pay more money for the same expected future returns. Thus, to the extent people want to be homeowners or retired at some point, as most people do, those goals are now harder due to inflation.
1
@Aoy
Isn't the rising "cost" of stocks a good thing for investors?! I would hate to be buying into a market where "cost" of stocks was on a downward trend...
4
@BillH The market always corrects. Selling high and buying low is the hallmark of the successful investor. Getting the timing right is a different topic and is best left to the few geniuses among us.
2
@Aoy
Increases in stock prices are not an example of inflation. Stock prices go down when inflation goes up. The relationship is inverted. And you can buy a single share or partial share. Stock price is fairly irrelevant in terms of 'inflation' when it comes to items like food or electronics.
As for renting/buying, renting is a more accurate measure of pricing housing in the immediate term. There are many factors that go into home-purchasing trends. Increased money supply should make housing prices rise, but low interest rates make them rise much more. And when interest rates are low, people are more willing to buy more expensive homes (driving prices up) because their monthly payments still fit their budget. Real estate agents and car sellers don't ask how expensive a house/car you want. They ask "what monthly payment can you afford?" That obscures final pricing when you consider both items are almost always bought on credit.
Krugman's core argument is still intact. Moore knowingly lied to get "clicks" and "face time" as the media pursued "balance." He's not an idiot. But he is a con man. There is a big difference.
8
Runaway inflation absolutely occurred during this period of Quantitative Easing, just not in the places that Prof Krugman notes here. If you look at the insane rise of the stock and housing markets in the 10 yrs after the crisis, you see massive inflation. It's directly attributable to the Fed's policies in the wake of the crisis. So why does this inflation not worry economists in the same way?
6
@Jmolka The increase in asset prices is an intended consequence of quantitative easing. It is a feature, not a big.
10
@Jmolka You need to refine your terms. The stock market is not a measure for inflation. Plus, the housing market was returning to normal after a dramatic crash.
You would have preferred a depressed housing market and a prolonged recession with sustained unemployment and declining GDP?
18
@John Evan Correction: It is a feature, not a bug.
2
Really depressing to see how the GOP disparages expertise and facts. I would like to see more of them called out in live interviews with video clips especially GOP senators like Lindsay Graham.
Moore doesn't even have the decency to withdraw his name and go live a quiet life somewhere.
28
This shouldn't be a big surprise, conservative has become synonymous with the folk definition of insanity, trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Conservatives have sold de-regulation as an answer to economic ills, said businesses had a rational reason to show constraint, and as with the financial crisis of 2008, they are 'flabbergasted' (yeah, you, Greenspan) at what businesses end up doing when deregulated. Conservatives also have spread the mantra that if you cut taxes on 'the providers' (the rich and big business), "all boats will float", and despite the fact that supply side economics since the 1980's has inflated the deficit and debt while floating the boats only of a select few in the top .5%, we had the Trump Tax cut. Even better, when things don't work as claimed, when the Trump tax cut didn't provide the huge growth claimed, they find another scapegoat "It didn't work because the fed raised interest rates", "Supply side economics didn't work because we cut defense spending" (seriously?), it didn't work because Tax and Spend liberals didn't allow it to work (really? Federal taxes on the top earners have dropped by like 70% since 1986)....The GOP is basically alibi Ike, and their boob base believes it, so they don't have to tell the truth, why bother with a fact when a lie works as well or better?
310
@music observer
In case you didn't read it, their latest claim was that the 2008 financial crisis and the great recession was all Obama's fault. And not a single dissenter to that claim.
28
@music observer
"Empire is as Empire does"
7
@JPM Yes, amazing that Obama was so powerful that he could control the economy even BEFORE he was elected President!
33
You forgot to mention the likely reason behind Moore,s (and the GOP) vies on this. He is a complete partisan hack and opposed the right policies because he wanted to harm Obama and has reversed his views, completely inappropriately given the economy, to help Trump.
172
That's the political - media nexus in action. Get things wrong, get promoted and maintain a position on the media wheel of experts necessary to support the pre-existing political - usually conservative - narrative regardless of reality. Get things right, and perceptions fail to change to match reality.
26
@Rich
AKA The Peter Principle
2