“under Trump it’s springtime for grifters.”
I see what you did there Paul Krugman.
31
Nice "Producers" reference.....IE Springtime for Grifters.
18
Trumpism is just bad, period. Donald Trump is not concerned with the Democrats' barricades or bridges; he knows he does not have to be. While praising the intelligence of the American electorate, he secretly knows that they can be led around like bulls with nose rings - only instead of bull rings, he uses their beliefs and prejudices to lead them wherever he wants. If DJT doesn't destroy our fragile democracy, he has published the blueprint and playbook for some other demagogue to do it later. If a democracy like America's is going to exist, there will have to be a paradigm shift in human thought throughout the world.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is important and what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for dirty tricks and destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of us all. When we understand this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
15
The only business that America's Siberian President cares about is hidden from the American people in his personal income tax returns and business accounting financial records.
Donald Trump made a solemn sworn oath to preserve, protect and defend whatever profitable Trump Organization advantage that he is hiding arising from his occupation of the White House.
Donald Trump also made a solemn sworn oath to preserve, protect and defend the smiles and smirks on the faces of his ventriloquist masters Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin.
Making the American military pay for the border wall with Mexico clearly fulfills that Trumpian era duty.
No collusion except for all of the collusion.
No obstruction of justice except for all of the obstruction of justice.
And Robert Mueller and James Mattis prance and preen and pretend and parade to be honorable moral patriotic legends in their own minds.
While ' Being There' and ' The Caine Mutiny' seem to be fictional depictions of the essence of Trump Presidency.
21
Ah, Trump the "brilliant" businessman. He is, and always was, nothing but a conman, a snake oil salesman.
Some of his failures:
Trump Steaks (he sold ‘em in clothing stores!)
Trump University (a proven fraud)
Trump Network (vitamins fraudulently sold based on the results of an expensive urine test)
Trump Shuttle (he killed the formerly successful Eastern Airlines)
NJ Generals and the USFL (Donald killed the USFL)
Trump Taj Mahal (he failed in the gambling biz!)
Trump Vodka (he’s a teetotaler)
Trump Magazine
Trump Mortgage (he got in at the height of the housing craze)
Trump Water
Trump: The Game
GoTrump.com
Six bankruptcies
Stiffed contractors
Stiffed investors
Trump Tower Tampa (and numerous other real estate projects that never came to fruition)
Over four thousand lawsuits
The Polish Brigade
31
Krugman draws the necessary distinction between “productive” businesses which actually produce value for society no matter how much they may profit from it and NON PRODUCTIVE enterprise as is most likely to be epitomized in certain monopolies, but especially on the widening fringes of high finance and banking which is increasing entangled in dangerous (to the rest of us) speculation and casino capitalism. THOSE titans of irresponsible instability and MORAL HAZARD are encouraged by a long history of bail-outs and crony capitalism (otherwise known as “socialism for the rich”).
Of course, in the wild “real” world, every enterprise has some admixture of productive and non productive (even self destructively so) activities and attitudes. Smaller businesses are much more vulnerable to fatal effects from their own folly, but smallness itself is often correlated with idiosyncrasy, limited perspective, and downright idiocy. A certain sector of enterprise including many types of manufacturers and farmers (no matter how “globalized”) can be counted on to grin and swallow all of trimp’s abuse in the name of “patriotism” however tinged with racism and other forms of revanchist anxiety.
7
The idea of a businessman as president has been a GOP fantasy for years. Because of trump's incompetence and corruption, it's still just a fantasy.
18
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020.
18
Trump has always been a bust out grifter. He takes what he can from whatever he can reach and then he moves on to the next sucker. Does McConnell believe he'll not be remembered for owning a big part of this mess? And I'm not hearing much from business organizations. What do they think they're going to get for their silence?
12
I spit coffee on my screen when I read, "under Trump it’s springtime for grifters." I couldn't help but wonder if Krugman was slyly referencing The Producers: https://www.google.com/search?q=its+springtime+for+hitler&oq=its+spring&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l4.4822j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Germany was having trouble
What a sad, sad story
Needed a new leader
To restore its former glory
Where, oh where was he?
Where could that man be?
We looked around
And then we found
The man for you and me
And now it's
Springtime for hitler and germany
Deutschland is happy and gay
We're marching to a faster pace
Look out
Here comes the master race
Springtime for hitler and germany
Winter for poland and france
Springtime for hitler and germany
Come on, germans
Go into your dance
I was born in dusseldorf
And that is why they call me rolf
Don't be stupid, be a smarty
Come and join the nazi party
Springtime for hitler and germany
Goosestep's the new step today
Bombs falling from the skies again
Deutschland is on the rise again
Springtime for hitler and germany
Uboats are sailing once more
Springtime for hitler and germany
Means that soon we'll be going
We've got to be going
You know we'll be going to war
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: MEL BROOKS
Springtime for Hitler lyrics © Sony/ATV Melody, Ensign Music, Mel Brooks Music, COPYRIGHT CONTROL (NON-HFA)
5
"Springtime for Grifters?" I smell Tony and maybe a Mel Brooks lawsuit.
7
In private life, Donald Trump has had six major bankruptcies.
Failed Trump businesses include:
'Trump Airlines' (folded in 1990),
'Trump: The Game' (folded in 1990),
'Trump Ice' (folded in 2006),
'Trump American Pale Ale' (folded in 2007),
'Trump Mortgage' (folded in 2007),
'Trump Steaks' (folded in 2007),
'GoTrump.com' travel site (folded in 2007),
'Trump' magazine (folded in 2009),
'Trump University' (folded in 2010),
'Trump Vodka' (folded in 2011).
Trump took $450 million in inheritance 40 years ago from his slumlord father Fred, and has demolished that stake over the last four decades. Trump is known as the "King of Debt", owing $ billions to the Russian oligarchs.
So yes, "Trumpism is bad for business". Donald is financially ignorant, but he is a super con man!
14
Cant you just elect a German Shepherd as president?
Trump has demonstrated it does not matter.
8
Dems should erect campaign billboards with a pic of 45 and under it "would you buy a used car from this man?"
14
Just a few miles down US Highway 40 where I live is the tiny town of Tabernash, Colorado. There’s a mechanical shop business housed in a large metal pre-fab building. High on the side of that building is a sign, in three-foot high letters, that proclaims, “WE built this, not OBAMA!”
News flash: Obama’s been out of office for a little over 2-1/2 years. The sign’s still there. You say, “...taken out of context;” I say, “Racist.”
18
Is it just me, or did anyone hear the tune from “The Producers,” in their head when they read “springtime for grifters” in the column?
4
Trump is many things, but he is at best an example in dichotomy. The Wharton-educated economics student who knows nothing about economics. The businessman with spectacular failures that puts his pride ahead of business. The leader who can only lead by fear, lies, and intimidation. The "most powerful man in the world" who cannot control his mouth and his thumbs. The father of five who acts like a child of five.
Economics 101: Trade is good, isolationism bad. Legal immigration is needed for countries and economies to grow. Businesses need stable, predictable environments to make long-term, strategic decisions, to grow, to hire and promote employees, and to produce. Consumers need clear-cut, stable tax and fiscal policies, and employment so they can make smart decisions. Economies rely on stability, consumer confidence, strategic trade and monetary policy, and business investment in assets and employees in order to grow.
We are on a precipice potentially worse than 2007. Shame on us for not learning from OUR mistakes.
After all, it is the economy, stupid.
14
Gee, I would never have guessed that the bankrupter in chief would be bad for the US economy.
15
Krugman is right of course. Too bad it's taking all this time to finally come around to listening to people who know what they're talking about. People who thought the earth was flat finally agreed that it was really round and the thought. now, of there even BEING flat earth people is hilarious. Someday the same will be true of Trumpers.
12
Good post Dr Krugman. You are right to point out the Trump world view: take the main chance and everybody else is on their own!
"You never know when or whether he’ll declare victory and surrender" -- Trump will definitely surrender before the next election, making the 'greatest deal ever' -- and the everybody else will be poorer.
6
“. . . he’ll declare victory and surrender.” Priceless! Totally trump.
10
After all this time it astounds me that any rational American could possibly remain bamboozled by this guy. Trump doesn't have one redeeming quality about him. But I guess when some folks are spoon fed gallons of fear the boogeyman pudding, the end result is believing a fake reality tv persona.
14
Well Paul, the next "Big Short" will certainly make the first "Big Short"..........look.......short. Anyone else worried about asset appreciation out there? What happens when, if 30 yr bonds go from 2% to 4%. Not unreasonable. If the Fed keeps holding up the stock mkt by the neck.......for how long?.......and why?
4
Trump was the way for large part of US population to said stop globalization as it is working to 2015. Now, is what he is doing right? I do not know at all.
Trump, Brexit, ultra-nationalism, the current separativity are system´s last blows perishing, even that China grows so rapidly and the rest nor is wrong. Our problems are interrelated: https://neconeconomiaycomhare.blogspot.com/2016/03/resumen-del-blog-el-desafio-de-crear-un.html
The current global system contains fewer people, with a competitiveness crisses where competition parameters are not defined: we called globalization, when reality it is a permanent creation of asymmetries http: //neweconomics and sharing.blogspot. com.ar/2016/09/izquierda-derecha-o-evolucion.html
The current economic system has euphoria moments, but euphoria passes and the poor income distribution remains. THEN, AS SAID ONCE ABOUT: IT´S THE ECONOMY, NOW SHOULD BE SAID: IT´S THE SYSTEM. Luckily, in a short time the wisdom teachers will emerge with Maitreya, Jesus and others, it will be the biggest event in history and the beginning of the change, they will show the real panorama of the planet. http://nuevaeconomiaycomhare.blogspot.com.ar/2012/08/la-ayuda-de-maitreya-esta-muy-cerca.html http://nuevaeconomiaycomhare.blogspot.com/2013/05/el-cambio-mundial -y-el-pbi-mundial-como.html
"Springtime for grifters" is just so mean, and on the nose.
Come to think of it, Trump does resemble the comical Hitler from "The Producers".
6
This malevolent narcissist's chaos is making the entire world, but especially our country, sick - emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially.
I eagerly await the day he is gone from the White House and some semblance of patient normalcy returns to us all. That day cannot come soon enough for me - if only the 25th actually worked in these severe partisan times.
8
Make America Grifted Again.
1
Trump takes credit for Hurricane Dorian missing Alabama.
9
Trump is toxic...to everybody and everything
5
Who are you going to believe, Krugman? —or your lying eyes?
Trump clearly believes that business owners who aren’t the smash-and-grab types are idiots who leave money on the table.
4
Businesses must be benefitting from Trump's mishmash of economic theory because they still support him. It is springtime for grifters just as there was "Springtime for Hitler and Germany." As long as there is money to be made by swindling the gullible and the moneymakers believe the governor is holding a fistful of pardons, then we will continue to see business as usual.
2
How can we buy into the oh-so-tired myth of “American free-market capitalism” while our wealth is polarized, our red state senators are heavily armed with fully automatic NRA support, and Jeff Bezos became the richest man in planetary history by building an efficient mail-order business.
Did Jeffie invent the internet? No.
The department store? No.
Parcel post? No.
The mail-order business? No.
Did he cure all forms of cancer? No.
What’d he get? $160,000,000,000.
Seems fair.
Meanwhile, the president is obsessed with beliefs that Alabama deserves to be ripped a new one by a Category 5 hurricane. Even though he’s publicly proclaimed on eight different occasions that, “I’ve never heard of a Category 5. I didn’t know they made fives! No one knew. Category 5? Who knew??C’mon!”
But Don’s willing to risk federal prison for altering NOAA maps to get a Cat 5 to the Alabama border. There’s a twisted, unmet need here.
CNN has Trump on VHS cassette promising his underlings boxcars filled with opioids if they admit they spontaneously fixed the maps out of loyalty and love for the “Old Man.”
Plus they owe him a loving, maudlin, respectful, affectionate letter Trump can pull out of his inner suitcoat pocket for tearful dramatic moments at rallies.
“Once. Just once, in your life, you should be so lucky as to receive letter like this. Maybe someday I’ll read this one to you. Maybe...”
And this idiot is single-handedly running the American economy???
Get serious.
9
Pathetic piece from a Nobel Prize winner.
Trump is irrational.
Economics claims to be a science.
Dani Rodrik made a decent case for it in his recent book “Economics Rules.”
Witty and substantial.
Unlike your OpEd.
1
Open borders Democrats are worse for business.
1
If Trumpism is, indeed, bad for business, and generally bad for America, it's because Trump is hell bent for leather to bully the country into policies motivated by his own selfishness and, in the short term at least, designed benefit only the core supporters who elected him who, he hopes, will re-elect him in 2020.
He gives little, if any, thought to the long-term consequences of his actions, leading with his impulsive emotions rather than with the considered judgment that is required of a president. He doesn't do war-gaming or sensitivity analyses. He simply goes to war and is the manifestation of abject insensitivity.
We should not be surprised. Trump's entire business career was pock-marked by lots of sizzle but little steak. It was all about the ego-driven appearances of Trump-emblazoned businesses, many of which failed when they turned out to be little more than poorly-considered publicity stunts built with other peoples' money.
Businesses, generally, do not thrive when they cannot plan. Their leaders want predictability, to be in control of their destinies. That's not to say that they are universally pure in thought and motivation; they are not. But there is, generally speaking, a method to their madness.
The reality is that we have an erratic, unpredictable and self-indulgent president who, above all else, isn't so much concerned with anyone but himself, and it is that abiding obsession that drives virtually all of his knee-jerk politics and policies.
7
The ONLY Business Trumpism is bad for are Countries who LIe ,Cheat , and Steal A.K.A. CCP/ when History looks back on this and China is a DEMOCRA?CY.....and Not the Socialist Democracy that many in the Democrat Party Dream of turning this Nation into....it will clearly show that it was the imposing of tariffs on Products that bought about Fair trade that has a reciprocal balance that brought about a Global Healthy Future^
1
Agree that Trump’s tariffs and labeling hurting US companies as badly run & weak are poor ideas. It’s not a valid comparison though to Obama’s ‘you didn’t build that’ statement which can still only be understood as a swipe at entrepreneurs & capitalism. Obama was not a supporter of either.
6
@RMS I remember one time during a job interview many years ago I was asked, " Give me an example of one of your greatest achievements in business." I think I replied something like, "Well, no one ever does anything all by himself," and then went on to describe the contributions of others to my success. I got the job and was told later that that answer cinched it.
14
@O`nce From Rome - Ahh, yeah .. next time you build your business, and the roads that connect to it, and the septic/sewer/electric systems that feed it, and the local tax rebates that help fund it, you can justly brag that you did it all by yourself. Until then, President Obama was right, and instead of thinking it was a swipe, you might consider it was a means of saying we're all in this together.
14
@Once From Rome
Obama not a supporter of capitalism? Were you in Rome when he was in office?
He went out and hired ex-bankers and laissez-faire intellectuals by the score.
He loaded his staff with uber capitalists. People like Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, Michael Froman...
He bailed out and then gave a pass to the mega banks which caused the great recession. The door to the oval office was always wide open to the biggest and most disgusting members of the capital class.
To say Obama was way too cozy with Wall Street is an understatement.
5
Dr. Krugman bashes Trump in one column after another, but never offers a single solution to the massive trade deficits with China or their theft of intellectual property.
Either he doesn't think there is a problem or he so consumed by hatred for Trump that he just doesn't care.
I just wish Dr. Krugman would visit a place like Youngstown, Ohio and see what "free trade" has wrought. Were lower prices at Wal Mart really worth the destruction of so many communities across America?
I think not and neither does Donald Trump. I voted for him and will do so again because he is the only one trying to do something to protect America.
2
It´s the uncertainty, stupid.
7
Four more years? Four more years?
1
All The Donald has ever been is a smash and grab type "business man." That is he does deals and gets the money quick before people realize that they have been taken. Go back and review his career -- his real estate ventures, Trump University, etc. everyone finds out real quick that he is a quick buck con man.
But apparently about 45 per cent of the electorate hasn't caught on. They seem to believe that, while The Donald has cheated others, he will keep his promises to them.
The shame is that we have real problems with our China trade and trade with other countries. But The Donald has no clue as to how to fix these problems and won't listen to any advisors who do know. And he still thinks that we are in the 1950's.
But The Donald is not really that good as a con man. Most people who deal with The Donald find out real quick that he is a crook. If he was smoother he could make the grift last longer; maybe that is the reason he got into politics. Some people say that national politics in the USA is one long con game.
7
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), a man with no formal education, wrote his first book in 1851, "Social Satics ".
He argued for the justified survival of the fittest (a phrase Darwin later adopted), in human Society.
This led him to oppose such things as goverment help for the poor, public health, and public education.
Those views were the theoretical bases of the ultraindividualist and conservative ideology that later become know as social Darwinism (although Spencerism would have been a more appropriate designation).
My rules, or no rules, says Mr Trump.
Trumpism is today´s Spencerism (or Social Darwinism).
1
"In a move that has reportedly enraged Trump, several companies have reached an agreement with the state of California."
Donald brings new meaning to the term "hair trigger."
3
Crazy man, crazy actions. No consistency ,no logic its all emotions and impulse. Remember, 5 bankruptcies.
4
Does Paul know 50 companies have relocated from China due to the tariffs? Seems like a good thing.
2
Mr. Douthat sees what he wants. Today, he NYT, describing the addition of 130,000 jobs "show that the economy continues to add jobs despite the trade war and a global slowdown." Th unemployment rate is the lowest in 50 years and holding steady. As far as the trade war, our economy is holding pretty stable, while China's is minus 6% and millions have lost jobs. We were China’s largest trading partner and they were ours. Now they have dropped to third. There number two trading partner was Hong Kong who just had their credit rating dropped. It won’t be against the law if big businesses keep the present guidelines. We will see what happens but now we are doing well add big business is making money. Right now, as lawyers say, res ipsa loquitur or, "the thing speaks for itself"
1
Looking at his track record, it seems not unreasonable to think that everything he touches dies. And it looks like the US will not be an exception. And with his syncophants quietly backstopping his in Congress while blocking anything progressive the road off the cliff seems all too imminent. And yet his supporters still want him. The world is reforming away from the US -- in an amazingly short time he has move the US from being the center to being a pariah. Definitely grates on everyone. Business depends on predictability to make product decisions and long term investments -- a bit tough when the rules could change with the next tweet. And I would hate to have to negotiate with someone who lies reflexively and thinks a good deal is one where he alone comes out ahead. And whether he is as all-knowing as he claims or merely an elaborate Potemkin village propped up by dubious activities is for others to judge. Change was needed, but not breaking everything in the room and having nothing to replace it. I weep for my family and friends who still live in the US, now a dark and dangerous place that I no longer recognize.
8
Uncertainty is his trademark. Yes, it makes him stronger due to the power he has at his fingertips. You don't want to make him angry.
America became what it is through trust. But now someone is squandering it to his own advantage in detriment to everyone else; businesses, economy, climate, NATO...
5
@Alex. Trust? By whom? Do you think NATO should be free to everyone else? And the economy is doing great.
One thing Trump knows is that the stock market will respond to his erratic tweets in very predictable ways. I don’t doubt that he and his family/cronies are profiting from what can only be called the greatest insider trading opportunity in history. The House Oversight Committee needs to look into this.
13
Imagine a 1.5 trillion dollar INVESTMENT in America rather than the give away that we got. Investment is about believing in the future. Give always are about no imagination and giving up on America.
4
As a businessman for over 50 years until I sold, I can say with certainty that certainty and stability (Bruce Rozenblit) underpin a healthy economy. Uncertainty is a motivator for greed and quick, short-term "raiding". Our society is complex and expensive; our state morality - the common good, no one left behind, etc. - costs a lot of money. But it's REALLY worth it. It's so nice to take a glass of water and not worry about parasites, it's so nice to have the garbage picked up or the snow cleared, it's so nice to find public beaches or parks that have not been closed because they are polluted or there is an extreme hazard of fire or landslides. Here in Canada, it was so nice to have a major surgery and spend 17 days in hospital without anyone even approaching us about the bill - because there wasn't any ! BE GRATEFUL YOU LIVE IN AN ORDERLY for the most part HUMANE and for the most part TOLERANT society. It's good stuff !!
6
Tweak the title by adding "also" and it more accurately portrays the havoc and pain created by this administration:
"Trumpism is also bad for business"---because its badness is not limited to business. Climate, mass shootings, environmental pollution, waste of funds, cutting health care, horrific treatment of children (migrants, children's health care)---the list goes on and on.
Business is also affected by the swirling changes that characterize Trumpism. When things obviously are not working well for sectors of the economy, Trump once again uses his "blame game"---"the businesses are badly run and weak"--always others not the chief malefactor himself--are to blame.
Essentially Trump has helped --as Dr. Krugman points out--grifters who take the money and run, while long term businesses---those who want a long future in this country---bear the long term loss. A huge tax cut with a short term stimulus but a long term deficit does not bode well for the future. When Trump said that "trade wars are easy to win"---implying that it's easy to win when making deals--he really means "easy to whim"---he can run the economy by wHim---everything will depend on the president's always changing whims--with business unable to know what to do now because the business climate will change within the hour.
The president rules by whims---no long term planning---requires too much intellectual effort.
2
I have deep respect for Professor Krugman. But it really doesn’t take a laureate or an economist to see that Individual 1 and his gang are bad for business. A better question might be, what, if anything, are they good for? From where I sit, they are not even good for a laugh.
4
ONE hour about Trump's background is all I ask. Watch the Fronline special: Decision 2016. It talks about Hilary, also. But there's so many disturbing facts about DJT. As a youth, he always got into fights, so he was sent to a strict military academy. His time in school was unimpressive, and his failing business ventures resulted in becoming a credit risk. His strict and demanding father had to none-the-less bale out his son- the one that hadn't committed suicide- with hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars- so he could still live the life of a successful entrepreneur. After his TV adventure and his new contact/friend who "knew" V.Putin, money started to flow again from foreign banks who strangely decided he was a good risk once again. Onward and upward, upon insult after insult directed at Obama ( he had cooked up some new strategy), he knew the "tea party" would be a big help. With bluster and out-of-my-way manners he forced himself onto
the media and a disbelieving public. He just goes on talking nonsense non-stop unless you put some strong tape over his
mouth. His English sounds like he's a recent immigrant who's still learning the language. His ideas center around wealth and money, and people will prefer to listen to a billionaire since (as from Fiddler on the Roof): When asked a difficult question, "when you're rich they think you really know". Well, he certainly is a "successful man"- with a hundred skeletons in his closet (and at the I.R.S.).
7
Trumpism is Republicanism writ large. Trumpism grew out of Republican ideas, goals and dreams; it was embraced by Republicans, and supported by them. They are silent even as Trumpism drives the economy closer to an abyss. Trumpism is the ugly face of what has been Republicanism all along.
13
Where is the bottom of Trump’s ignorance and the consequent harm to our economy? His Presidency is a national disaster, an economic Dorian. What a perfect metaphor for the Trump Presidency.
2
We traveled widely this summer, in Asia and Europe. Everywhere we went, everyone agreed Trump is a disaster. We received sympathy from strangers and we had to defend ourselves against, you Americans voted for him, outrage! The one and only thing people seemed to agree on was that maybe perhaps maybe Trump will finally rein in China. People were disgusted with Chinese tourists, they are loud obnoxious irreverent, wherever they go. Like American tourists were previously notorious for. People are disgusted with their markets flooded with cheap Chinese products. In Vietnam we visited made in Vietnam stores where all the garments and products are made by Vietnamese, not Chinese (they emphasized the difference in quality). The one thing Trump has done is put the high beam on China, it can no longer insidiously work to infiltrate all economies or steal technological intelligence...who knows. Head slap
2
Really? Trumpism is Bad for Business?
Trump is BAD for everything except Trump.
7
I see The Occupant as the anti-innovation president. He is the Fred Flintstone of leaders, bombing us back to the stone age. Clearly the man has never stepped into a Home Depot...you can hardly find an incandescent bulb any more, and those of us who actually change light bulbs (the peons) love the long-term efficiency of halogen lights.Those of us who actually drive and fill the tank, also appreciate fuel efficient vehicles. The Occupant is not a leader or a visionary. He is guided by vengeance, ignorance and personal preservation. He does not make decisions in the national interest, it is a nation of one...or maybe three...me, mine, my.
6
How right you are Mr. Krugman. You make sense out of chaos. One of the reasons I keep subscribing to the NYT.
2
It's interesting that you were awarded a Nobel Prize and President Obama was awarded a Peace Prize. So, why would the voters' who put Obama in office put Trump in office? In my opinion, it was a ponzi scheme, in that, those of us who invested in the economy, education, volunteered, etc., etc, were taken advantage of. The jobs never materialized just excuses. They steal everything from you and stick you with the check. This is identity theft. And they shift these "academics" around like they shifted the pediphile priests around. What is going on in Australia? I have never in my life even considered taking someone else's child out of town without the permission of that person's legal custodial parent. It seems to me common decency is a thing of the past. It's unbelievable. I have never seen anything like this before.
"You never know when or whether he will declare victory and surrender." Ha! Great line about the Failure in Chief.
2
remember Michael Bloomberg at the Democratic Convention- run the country like he runs his business??? Ovey! and what the majority of New Yorkers already knew: he's a con'.
The Republicans for decades have only been interested in the future of its politicians and the party- not those who vote for them. Perhaps this support for Trump might be more for a dying party that resembles a cult.
1
Trump is bad for business. That’s why our economy is doing so poorly now.
I imagine the economy will recover nicely when Democrats nationalize the entire health care and energy industries.
Those promises of yore: you can keep your doctor; if you like your plan you can keep it; insurance costs will be reduced; everyone will be covered; etc.; the last time Democrats worked their magic can only convince Americans of the merit of Democrats’ claims.
The nice thing about reading Krugman’s drivel is that you know the opposite of whatever he is moaning about is almost certainly the truth. He is like a Chinese puzzle.
Trump wants to roll back emissions standards.
US car companies look out at the world and they see Europe moving ahead with plans to transition to 100 percent electric vehicles, and China way ahead of the US in production of electric vehicles. In China, if you want a gas powered car it costs a lot more in the form of a tax.
The US car companies know that they have to keep up or they are going to be left behind again, as they were in the 1980s by the Japanese. Trump's policies aren't helping.
As Krugman says, they aren't stupid. The president is.
2
"Sure, you'd like to pay less in taxes and not have to comply with costly regulations.". Really, Paul? This asinine statement is Trump. This is Trump's motto! And here we have Krugman's article castigating Trump, and correctly so, but then adopting Trump's mantra as though such a sentiment is natural and as right as rain! Really, Paul? Is there no public good provided by taxes and regulations? Is it good and proper to eschew them, like taking a breath of air?
The more we see and hear from Trump the more he becomes a pathetic figure. His history reveals he is no where near a business wizard,but rather a business failure. His self declared negotiating wizardry has now shown no nation is willing to sit down and really negotiate with someone who lies and breaks his word. Now we are shown the man doesn't even know where the state of Alabama is located on the map and he has spent hours and lies to trying to cover his tracks. Indeed, what was once man of some stature and become nothing more than a figure ridiculed around the world and a pathetic human being here at home.
1
Like any gaslighting bully, Trump's only goal is to maintain his power and dominance. Our country has become like that abused spouse that can't leave.
2
trump isn't only bad for business, he's bad for everything having to do with the running of this country. He steals money allocated for 127 vital projects throughout the country just to feed his huge ego. Does he really think that stupid wall is going to deter anyone from coming into the country...you know, where there's a will, there's a way. His childish trade wars will hurt the middle class. They never got the tax break he promised them last year. But keeping promises is certainly not his forte. A good job for him would be to rotate around his various golf clubs as concierge.
2
More corruption, crazy, and chaos.
Imagine DJT applying for any management position in any company anywhere. No one would hire him. Terrible business track record, no demonstrated understanding of any aspect of running a business, unable to work with others, attention span of a sleep deprived gnat and a self-aggrandizing boor to boot.
6
Many successful businessmen share that profile. They are so unemployable they have to start their own businesses. Then, they single-mindedly make money the old fashioned way: they steal it. The risks are low: only a small percentage wind up in jail. It does help to start out already holding Boardwalk and Park Place, so you never really needed to be hired in the first place.
1
Trump is America's most untreated mental disease. He has inflicted everyone with either anxiety and depression, or hallucinatory euphoria. And we are all aware that treatment is not an option because Republicans will not act to limit this disease. In fact, they rather enjoy it.
Business owners and corporate CEO's look to his latest tweet before venturing business decisions - and no matter what they decide to do, with Trump's unstable mind, it will be an uncertain venture. Business leaders cannot publicly decry his irrational policies, they can't reason with him in private. They fear his wrath should they speak up about his trade madness.
Investors profit or lose on Trump's latest tweet. The markets go up when he lies about trade talks. The markets go down when he threatens or imposes tariffs. (A clue to market investment: its not about actual business outcomes - success or failure; it's about investors hanging on to the latest rumor, lie, tweet.)
The consumer is also terribly afflicted. The American public is schizophrenic, some believing Trump is the chosen one, most believing Trump was chosen by Putin. Either way, Trump has created an alternate reality where Republicans bask in lies and delusions while the rest of us look on in disbelief, fear and depression.
One thing is for certain. If America doesn't find a cure for Trump disease soon, we will not be America for long.
4
We need a regime change!
5
Trump is a Baron von Munchhausen without wisdom, insight, morality or conscience. He has no interests in anything other than in behaving in ways the demonstrates his power and being the center of attention regardless of the impact his behavior has on anyone. This is painfully clear.
1
"Springtime for grifters"... and thieeveeery!
Paul, I think we've got hit on our hands. Now all we need are some investors. Mexico?
Just like The Producers, you can see the wheels turning in Trump's brain - he knows the economy is all he's got to get reelected, so he's he's pulling out all stops. The problem is, as you mentioned, that he is so erratic that the business community are unable to do any long term planning.
Anyone remember the tariffs on Canadian steel? What happened with that? Seems like decades ago. But now Trump wants Canada and the rapists in Mexico to help him with his economic war with China. (Their leaders will probably say, 'Oh, sorry. We have to wash our hair that day. Maybe Vladimir can help you.')
4
The Trump Economic Plan: Smash and grab.
1
Trumpism absolutely SHOULD be bad for business. Anyone who'll openly hitch their wagon behind such an embarrassingly loathsome human seemingly bent on acting like an overgrown spoiled brat and willing to drag down the world's oldest democracy with him and his rudderless Republican Party, is complicit to such behavior. If they weren't, why are they offering open support???
4
No matter how many facts are put into evidence nothing will change Trump's base. They are haters and the liberal world is the object of their hate. Liberal as in science and diversity.
trump is the epitome of broken business and promises.
His personal bankruptcies, his many failed and failing businesses should be an eye opening for the many Americans who trust his managerial “ acuity “ and histrionic business advice.
Verba volant , facta manent .
His are just words , we need facts !
1
And then there's the turn away from LCD light bulbs. What will be next? Whale blubber for oil lamps? Trump is Ahab in search of the white whale.
3
Trumpism is bad, period.
It is bad for:
1. Women
2. Anybody who is not White and Christian
3. Human right advocates
4. Climate change efforts
5. Our Farmers
6. Our Children
7. Gun control advocates
8. Science and its outreach
9. First Amendment protection
10. Our businesses
and of course everything else in between.
There is a reason why this man's business empire declared bankruptcy a mere half dozen times.
6
Trump is the consummate improviser. Uncertainty is certain when you make it up as you go along.
1
“springtime for grifters”. What a perfect line
Thank you. We all need the perfect sound bite
Might even become a song. Are you listening Randy Rainbow?
1
Bush II destroyed the economy, and after 8 years of Democratic recovery, the GOP and Republican voters could not wait to do it all over again. Who cares about a decades long depression, as long as "strange people" aren't using the public restroom? Such is the crass, self-deluding, incalculable idiocy of the modern Republican.
4
Can we get it out there that America is losing - badly - the race to wind, solar, efficiency, etc? Because if there's one thing 45 doesn't want, it's to be the presiding loser.
Trump is a man who wouldn't be hired by any legitimate business because, quite frankly, he's never done a honest days work in his life. So naturally he can only poison the well of American business.
1
No Criminal Trump, it's you. It's all you. You're single handedly bringing on a recession that will directly elect a democrat president, and return the senate to democrat control. Keep up the good work.
GOP's new motto and marketing jingle: "GOP - We Own Hypocrisy!"
1
The trump crime syndicate should have been exposed by SDNY decades ago. If it had, perhaps our country would not be collapsing before our eyes.
1
Trump does nothing unless there is something for him to gain. He would sell his mother down the river if it paid enough. He's a screwball and a liar of the worst kind. He is manipulating our market's with his tweets. And, someone is profiting off all this. You don't have to be a genius to see what he's up to. Everything he does is to help Putin. Pay attention out there before it's too late. Or, just make a list of what he's done or overturned since taking office. Then have a good cry. He needs to go.
"If you can't say anything good about a person, then don't say anything at all''.
If you can't say anything good about a President, then Impeach!
It is as simple as that. What a waste of digital space,energy, time, and brain power, while democracy dissolves and Mr. President golfs on into the sunset and commenters turn to a new story.
Our economy and the world system of trade is being destroyed by the tantrums of a maniacal Kindergartner.
the president of the united states lies like a rug, day in and day out. if this isn't a crime, i don't know what is. he lies to cover up his previous lies. he draws a weather map to include alabama because he was wrong about it being in dorian's path, and everybody just accepts his lies and moves on. there is a mental deviation in this man, and it is getting worse. can you justify the lies? is there no way to remove this mental deviate from the highest post in our land? what's the matter with this country?
1
Trump's (fake) presidency is a giant scam. Putin's massive interference and less than 80,000 votes in three swing states put this con man and ignoramus in the White House. So all he can do, given his obvious and enormous limitations in understanding, preparation, and fitness for the position, is to cling to the core themes of his life and campaign: bullying and lying, whether with international strategic and trading partners, or in America. Now it's the turn of American businessmen to get the short end of the stick. For Trump can only be right (in his own mind), it's always everybody else's fault - never his. As for Americans who still believe him, after all they voted for him and how many would admit to being wrong? All those who really believed a virtual reality showman and failed real estate developer, an intimate of Mafiosi and a launderer of dirty Russian money, would Make America Great Again - were just the right kind of victims for the most conspicuous of the charlatans and rogues who have been such a feature of American life. Maybe they should read the chapter in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn about the Royal Nonesuch - how the "King" and the "Duke" scammed a whole town and got away with it (at least until they were caught, tarred and feathered).
Paul, don't forget his tweets ("We're talking." "No I'm tariffing." "We're talking." "I'm tariffing again." "No we're definitely talking. Xi called me, believe me.") that are tantamount to market manipulation.
3
Springtime for grifters and autumn for decency and common sense.
Worse since Trumps deregulation are by Trump decree many manufacturer are worried they will be remove with the stroke of another President's sharpie. Car manufacturers know people in their biggest markets want fuel efficient cars, SUVS and trucks. You don't see idiots on the coast driving those coal smokers it is rural good oleboys not a huge market and definitely not an affluent market.
Look over Trump's biz records bankruptcies, 3000 lawsuits, losses over a billion this is not the CEO a company would hire or let keep his job. Trump is in power to payback the donor class running as a demagogue blaming brown folks for all the countries problems. Trump makes products in China, hiree immigrants for his properties so add hypocrite to one of his many tilles the worst of which is liar. We cannot afford to have a commander and chief to be a liar too many lives are at stake only Putin wants Trump to stay in power.
I know it’s smarter to wait and read the OpEd column before commenting, but sometimes these random thoughts about the subject at hand just creep in.
It must have been fun playing checkers or Parcheesi with him when he was small, or Candy Land or anything else. Imagine the rules changing with every move: always his turn unless he miscalculated a move. Then it was your turn, and you did it!
No wonder we can’t figure out what's next. Pity our entire country has to suffer because a small naughty boy is running it.
I am just so shocked that putting the presidency of the USA in the hands of a self-serving pathological liar would be bad for business. Who would have thought?
Wake up America, or we're all through.
1
Just revealed Trump admin official says that Trump is the one who altered the weather map with his sharpie. A CEO who was caught lying like this to the shareholders as he had said "I DONT KNOW" when asked who changed the map we cannot afford to have a liar forger in the White HOuse who would sign a deal with this fraud.
1
I frequently wonder why is the business of political opinions is such a zero sum game?
Why is it hard to say that Trump is an awful president and Obama was a pretty bad one too? If the evidence points to that conclusion (which it does), why is it that NYT opinion section can only accurately tag Trump and WSJ opinion section seems fixated on Oabama?
Does it not cause a significant loss of credibility for both of them?
Would it not show one to be an independent, thinking individual to point out the obvious?
Even Paul Krugman, whom I respect falls for that fallacy.
I get that it is cognitively and emotionally hard.
I get that tribalism pulls us into the comfort of our group's approval.
I even get that Trump is a monstrosity of incompetence and Obama was simply seriously flawed.
But why can't smart people call balls and strikes fairly?
It's easy to complain about Trump and his tariffs. A few things must be noted.
1. The U.S. had protective tariffs to enhance manufacturing employment at least since 1900 till the great Depression. Consumers paid more. This didn't mortally damage the U.S. economy. What is different now? Why are Trump's moves worse?
2. The U.S. has a huge balance of payments deficit which has become large since 1980. There is no discussion of whether this matters. Does it? If so why? Should the Federal government attempt to narrow it? The question is not answered in the Press.
1
Finally, we are getting the message. It's high times for grifters with connections to the White House.
And to make matters worse, the zig-zagging of policies is made to order for insider trading. Imagine the money you would make if you knew a day or two ahead of time how oil, gold, or bonds would move.
The worst is yet to come. The coming (and then going) of the generals Mattis, Kelly, McMaster, et al, were meant as a primer as to how the Pentagon works. That done, jthe Pentagon is now with the White House program; shift the money from the military programs to a huge wall with contractors lined up for the free money.
What next, nationalization of businesses that are "too weak" to make a profit on their own. Let an expert do the work; i.e., Trump University, 4 gambling casinos, an airline, a football team, steaks, all fantastic successes few have ever seen, that I can tell you, believe me.
1
The back story is that Trump does with with GOP complicity, and the story behind that is they are paid to shut up.
Only when GOP big money donors pick up the phone and tell Moscow Mitch to pull the plug will this end.
Paul, you are so one-sided. I get it, you don't like President Trump at all. But take another "reviled" Republican, Nixon: He gave the vote to 18-year-olds, ended the Vietnam war, started rapprochement with China and created the EPA. Granted Trump is a mixed bag, but it's not all bad. I still remember when he was elected you said the stock market would tank the next day. It didn't. It went up. And it went up yesterday and to day. Bad for business? Come on man, I dare you to find one positive thing to say about Trump.
1
The epitome of trump era idiocy is the push back on LED light bulbs. Once you install them, you will never need another incandescent bulb. LED's give off no heat, last longer and cost less to operate. Our office electric bill dropped 50% when we took advantage of a utility company offer to replace our light fixtures with LED at a discount. At home, the bulbs work in cold weather, last longer, run cooler and the light is better. LED's run on low voltage as well, so electrical hookups are easier. Manufacturers know this and the cost of LEDs are dropping as they improve their manufacturing processes.
trump thinks the Luddites will re-elect him. He's wrong on that too.
NBC create the fiction that Trump is an effective businessman. He isn't. When will we stop listening to these TV shills?
1
If Trump is indeed "bad for business" which is certainly a reasonable hypothesis, one would think most social scientists would deem his administration doomed. There are many ways a politician can sabotage his future but affecting a bad business environment, thereby threatening corporate planning is one of those "third rail" scenarios. The business community will undoubtedly be working to get rid of you, as you don't have enough enemies already. Trump's cult like political base won't be enough if he has not only mobilized a majority of the electorate to oppose him but also most institutions in American society. This does not make me sad.
Let us not make the critical error of believing that The Donald has a long term plan. This man has the attention span of a tee moth - we swings from shiny object to shiny object.
Our economy is just running on momentum. That momentum is slowing and a recession is coming - this POTUS is clueless - there are no plans, no contingencies. Once negative growth begins, Dishonest Don will simply look to place blame on whoever his current nemesis is and do nothing.
3
There are no rules...at least for tRump. He, and his criminal gang, believe that no rules apply to them. Thus, extreme deregulation. Rules make everything work properly. Rules are the glue of civilization. Lack of rules creates chaos, which is really bad for business, but even worse, deadly for society.
1
Accurate but stable business is a more subtle and ultimately worse disaster. Consider vap cigarettes, pornography, football, and the advertizing of products laced with sucrose to children, not to mention the jacking up of prices on prescription drugs and the biotechnological miracle profit maker of opiates sold as safe pain killers. All of these business ideas thrived under Obama.
Then you add to this the environmental disasters of Trump and really all previous administrations and you come up with business and society needs to evolve way, way passed where it is now before the clutch should come out and it zooms forward. Trump might be viewed as a needed brake that might just crash the careening car headed for global disaster.
Is it necessary to really get out of the predatory world of our genetic inheritance and aspire towards something Jesus or some saint might have dreamed of? Isn't it necessary to evolve drastically? Does Trump gone spell that necessary evolution or does Trump force evolution by breaking the back of our history to date and really forcing the equation way forward. We have to become an animal governed by science and enabled with technology.
There is a saying "to err is human, to really mess up you need a computer." We are an animal with a computer and we have really messed up. We need to grow up really, really fast and mass produce enlightened human beings. That's my presidency. Trump is the stepping stone out of the technological stone age.
Unfortunately, bankers seem to love trump, his low taxes and deregulation. The gas and oil industry loves him and the money just keeps rolling in for him. His base is more than just the undereducated.
I know some rich people who say they are one issue voters. Cut my taxes and you have my vote. It's very short sighted but it's all they care about.
For all supporters of false equivalence who say that the Democrats and the Republicans are the same wrt the economy:
R. Law has made a reply which shows this is very false. I hope he will not mind if I reproduce it as a top level Comment:
"Dr. K. also presents the chance to remind that in the 70+ years since WWII (covering the entire working life of virtually every living American) it has been empirically shown that Dems are always better for the economy than Repubs, by all normal measures of GDP, unemployment, S&P returns, etc.:
https://www.vox.com/2014/7/29/5945583/the-us-economy-grows-faster-under-democratic-presidents-is-that-just
It's a remarkable thing that not even once across the Dem and GOP'er administrations - across 70+ years - have GOP'ers accidentally slipped up and outperformed Dems.
Not even once.
One party demonstrably creates value, and the other extracts." - R. Law
2
Chaos, nihilism, "tear it all down", leftovers from Bannon's reign in the WH. Trump's sick personality eats that stuff up as it fits his entire MO.
This doesn't play well in the business community though. One invests if one can be reasonably be sure of a payback. Trump and the GOP do not offer that.
The results of Trump and the GOP's refusal to actually govern seems to be appearing as investment drops and consumers become afraid to buy. We will all pay the price for this.
1
The old adage, "Look for the union label" seems to have been supplanted by, "Look for the little flag pin and grifter smirk," the hallmarks of the GOP. Seriously, find a picture of Mitch McConnell that doesn't suggest that this guy is tickled at what saps the rest of us are.
Is it possible that many American business people have whined and complained for so long about conditions that they have tied themselves to the Ayn Rand nihilists that have, since Brown v. Board, insinuated themselves into a system that was intended to be by the voters for the voters and hijacked public discourse in order to convince the public that their lying eyes can't be trusted again?
Here's the dilemma: Business supports the GOP and the GOP backstops business, and usually the relationship is a comfortable waltz. However, in order to be elected in a republic, bad ideas need dumb people to think that the ideas are smart, and there aren't enough of the purely dumb extant, so those who wish to waltz have been forced to ally themselves who prefer the jitterbug and twister, otherwise known as coercive religion and blatant racism.
Meanwhile, public policy is improvised by a person whose sole criteria are personal comfort and public approbation. As you point out, Paul, his policies might have no effect on a company such as Trump Steaks, but GM and Ford probably freak out a little each time Trump decides to cast blame on yet another straw man.
Raise your hand if you voted for this insult to reality.
1
Paul Krugman is nothing if not a recidivist. The same old disinformation week-in and week-out. When he is caught in a fib, he doubles down.
Take the following sentence: "[Trump gave] corporations a huge tax cut — which has almost entirely been used for higher dividends and stock buybacks, with workers getting essentially nothing."
Fact check.
1. There is his "huge tax cut" scam. The facts: The tax cut lowered corporate income taxes to around the rate that most OECD countries charge.
2. He clings to his share buyback scam. The facts: What does Krugman think shareholders do with the proceeds of the buybacks -- splurge on yachts? Stuff the cash under their mattresses? No, it gets recycled to more productive investments.
3. The same old "workers got the shaft" scam again. The facts: Unemployment is at its lowest in 50 years and real wages have increased at a faster clip recently.
1
Instead of wasting the limited amount of words he knows, particularly when it comes to the economy; and instead of bashing the media and his critics, he should say to America what mothers have said totheir children, when they don't have a plausible answer; "Because I said so!" At least that can serve as a disclaimer for all the lies, fabrications, and other false/exaggerated statements he's made.
Given Donald Trump's record of bankruptcies, why would we expect him to be anything but bad for business (productive business, as Dr. Krugman specifies)? But, of course, the basic tenet of Trumpism is that you never look at the record, you look only at the latest thing to emanate from Donald Trump's brain.
After 3 years of reading the news and comments about this man, it baffles me that the media keeps fueling him with what seems to drive him: mentioning him by name.
This man lives off of dominating the news cycle, every single day, no matter the cost. This man who puts his last name on buildings, who prefixes his businesses with it, is thriving on how much mention his “brand” is receiving for free with every news article and broadcast. The theory “familiarity breeds positive evaluation” is at full display and most people and media outlets play right into his hands.
Isn’t it time we all stop using the T word and start exclusively referring to him as merely “the 45th President”, or more specifically add a little reminder who will need to be held accountable when this is over, “the republican President”?
In my opinion, this would diminish his ego, brand, power, and chances to win re-election manyfold. Why not start today by replacing the T word in your communication and help make a difference?
1
"Last week he declared that businesses claiming to have been hurt by his tariffs should blame themselves, because they’re “badly run and weak.” Ha ha
Look who said that: a dude that lost his father's shirt continuously, non-stop for ten years. Hilarious!
Accuary's are very good at what they do, they bide their time (play the waiting game) and have the audacity, expecting you to put bread in their basket, while claiming the well-being card (healthcare). I sit here and shake my head.
It is my choice not to pay for knee replacements, hip replacements, among other replacement parts at this time, sorry Mr. Soro's things just don't add up.
Look, it's been clear for sometime that Trump is not just out of his depth, but that his personality traits make him barely literate, barely functional.
One would think that business leaders would step up and call for sanity.
But they, just like Republican senators, are afraid of a nutjob with a Twitter account who can hurl only insults.
The entire world is tired of the see-saw effect.
BTW, Krugman scored with: "springtime for grifters."
1
Professor Krugman,
Love the last line! Makes the point.
CAn anyone think of a GOP Businessman president who didn't break the economy?
In fact has anyone seen, in their lifetime, recall a GOP president hand off a good economy?
Every panic, crash and depression since the civil war - was presented by a GOP president.' And why don't the news outlets or editorialists ever discuss their unerring ability to kill a good econ
Not only is Trumpism bad for business, it's bad for national security. When a president who claims to be the biggest supporter of the U.S. military steals $3.6 billion from the U.S. military to fund his vanity wall, one may ask where is the outrage of all those Republican national security hawks?
1
"you never know when or whether he’ll declare victory and surrender."
May I just say that this line is poetry? ;D
1
@Kate Trump's dictum: "Never apologize, never admit of any wrongdoing"
Why the unemployment is so low?
1
When you sail a sailboat, you need a steady hand, clear and consistent orders, and you need to understand some basic science in physics. You can’t jerk the tiller back and forth, raise and lower your center board on a whim, sail into irons, tweet “Blow the Jib” any old time, just to see the reaction of your crew. You can’t adorn your ship with bathing beauties just to gawk at them, if they don’t know how to sail, or look at you with blank stares when you ask them to attach the clew to the outhaul and rife the main.
In short you need to have knowledge about what you are doing, do it for a reason and in a consistent manner, and have a well trained crew.
The Trump boat is about the turtle.
Advice for the next 4 year regatta - pick a Captain who knows what they’re doing.
"We're working on it now, it's a very strong, powerful plan we will release in 2 weeks"
How many times have we heard that on how many topics?
Trump likes to set records. He is clearly determined to out crash Hoover. Here comes bankruptcy #7
Trump and the most devoted of his followers have never figured out the most important reason to accept environmental regulation and green technology: Someone is going to make a boatload of money.
2
Again, all opinion pieces of this nature glaringly leave out the fact that Don Trump could not do half the damage he has done to this country but for the daily enabling of him and his "policies" by congressional Republicans. It is the GOP that wants to rollback environmental protections. It is the GOP that puts the interests of millionaires and billionaires over those of the average working American. Time to clean house for good in 2020.
5
If one driller invests in ways to reduce methane emissions because it's a long term requirement, while another doesn't, the one who doesn't will have more short-term profit. If regulations require all drillers to comply, it's a level playing field. Methane emission is an "externality" that costs us all for floods and draughts, but doesn't cost the drillers, and so t he government needs to regulate.
3
@Michael: In the absence of enforced minimum standards of conduct, the bad will drive the good out of any human activity.
4
Now we need an understanding of the inverted yield curve and jobs, wages, and the future.
Is the president and his family manipulating the market? Lacking any transparency on the part of the presidential family this question comes mind; is he, or members of the family buying low and selling high? Considering the dishonesty, the arrogance and the lack of a long term national vision the president’s short term personal interests seem to play a much more role in his actions.
7
When examining the impact of public policies, one looks to the short term as well as the long term, and one also looks at the population that that receive the benefits (positive impact) as well as the population that carry the costs (negative impact). Right wingers tend to favor the rich in the short term, ignoring the long term interests of the poor. Left wingers the other way around. Trump managed his business for his personal profit and he runs the country in the same way, as right wingers like. The surprise is why and how he won the election, the results should not su surprise anyone!
3
Thank you Dr. Krugman. It isn't changing circumstances, (economic, political, envnvromental etc) that prove difficult for large business entities These entities evaluate the probability of risks negatively impacting them, hopefully thorough good, well thought out strategic planning. Yes, Dr. Krugman the environment Mr. Trump is attempting to create is festival for grifters. To my original point well run businesses, which are in it for the long haul, do very much worry about a pointlessly volatile operating environment. Trade wars are not typically easy to win. Some thought Mr. Trump would be a good President because he was a "successful" businessman. I have seen the detail of some of the loans to Mr. Trump. Those who have really looked at the Trump way of doing business, realize that to a great degree it is very much without honor and true integrity. Mr. Trump is a disruptor, who does not desire to think things through, build good long term plans, change them as needed and execute according to a well thought out, and carefully flexible plan. Try to work that way in your respective professions or enterprises- the results probably won't be as desired. Is it little wonder that Mr. Trump, flogs around pretty aimlessly in most of his Presidential endeavors ?
6
They follow failed tariff policies of the past 1932 tariffs voters got them out of office for decades. Lets do it again. Franklin Roosevelt won 4 terms as President.
2
The problem isn't just Trump though. The policy and regulation changes the Republicans have been ramming through have been so extreme that they are going to invite an equally extreme reaction if and when the Democrats gain control. While I am all for Democratic priorities, we're in for a major whipsaw in 2021.
How does I plan for that? I'll tell you--I'm already taking steps to protect myself and my business. Not because I think Democratic policies are bad, but because the massive shift that may occur will inevitably have consequences all the way down the line.
The rule of law and financial stability are the first lessons in international trade. International markets are probably lost for decades as business people realize presidential tweets can destabilize supply chains that took years to develop. Trump is turning the USA into the supplier of last resort.
Congress must retain their constitutional mandate under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress the power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes". They need to amend the Reciprocal Tariff Act of 1934, so they can override and sustain future presidential tariffs with a simple majority.
6
How can you expect rational economic policy from a President who only thinks about how something only affects him? Here we have a major hurricane that has almost destroyed the Bahamas and is hurting communities in South Carolina and North Carolina, yet all we hear from Trump is how Alabama could have been possibly impacted based on a distorted (by him) early map from the National Hurricane Center.
Why? Because Trump is fearful that he will lose Alabama and that Doug Jones be re-elected to the Senate next year. The fact that there are tens of thousands of people who need help from the Federal government (yes, we will even help the Bahamas even though they are a separate nation) and that they expect a normal President to stand with them is beyond comprehension by Trump. For him, policy is about him only.
Now, one has to ask why the Republicans in Congress (in the Senate in particular) are going along with his narcissism? Don't they see the damage that his policies are causing to the American economy? Or that the damage that his inattention to the hurricane will cause the residents of the Carolinas? Are they so afraid of the right-wing PACs who might 'Primary' them should they speak out against Trump?
In any other developed country, a crazy man like Trump would have been removed from office as soon as it became apparent that he/she was suffering from some kind of mental illness that was possibly related to a degenerative disease. But, not here, apparently.
10
How can you expect rational economic policy from a President who only thinks about how something only affects him? Here we have a major hurricane that has almost destroyed the Bahamas and is hurting communities in South Carolina and North Carolina, yet all we hear from Trump is how Alabama could have been possibly impacted based on a distorted (by him) early map from the National Hurricane Center.
Why? Because Trump is fearful that he will lose Alabama and that Doug Jones be re-elected to the Senate next year. The fact that there are tens of thousands of people who need help from the Federal government (yes, we will even help the Bahamas even though they are a separate nation) and that they expect a normal President to stand with them is beyond comprehension by Trump. For him, policy is about him only.
Now, one has to ask why the Republicans in Congress (in the Senate in particular) are going along with his narcissism? Don't they see the damage that his policies are causing to the American economy? Or that the damage that his inattention to the hurricane will cause the residents of the Carolinas? Are they so afraid of the right-wing PACs who might 'Primary' them should they speak out against Trump?
In any other developed country, a crazy man like Trump would have been removed from office as soon as it became apparent that he/she was suffering from some kind of mental illness that was possibly related to a degenerative disease. But, not here, apparently.
How can you expect rational economic policy from a President who only thinks about how something only affects him? Here we have a major hurricane that has almost destroyed the Bahamas and is hurting communities in South Carolina and North Carolina, yet all we hear from Trump is how Alabama could have been possibly impacted based on a distorted (by him) early map from the National Hurricane Center.
Why? Because Trump is fearful that he will lose Alabama and that Doug Jones be re-elected to the Senate next year. The fact that there are tens of thousands of people who need help from the Federal government (yes, we will even help the Bahamas even though they are a separate nation) and that they expect a normal President to stand with them is beyond comprehension by Trump. For him, policy is about him only.
Now, one has to ask why the Republicans in Congress (in the Senate in particular) are going along with his narcissism? Don't they see the damage that his policies are causing to the American economy? Or that the damage that his inattention to the hurricane will cause the residents of the Carolinas? Are they so afraid of the right-wing PACs who might 'Primary' them should they speak out against Trump?
In any other developed country, a crazy man like Trump would have been removed from office as soon as it became apparent that he/she was suffering from some kind of mental illness that was possibly related to a degenerative disease. But, not here, apparently.
1
In 1984 Big Brother presided over the Ministries of Truth, Peace, Plenty and Love. In 2019 Trump presides over just one ministry, the Ministry of Nonsense. Unfortunately, we now live in the age of Jabberwocky.
3
It's true that Trump is completely driven by impulse and ego. Consistency and accuracy are essentially nonexistent. Hate him all you want, but trade with China is front in center in the minds of more Americans than ever.
I know Krugman's perspective was that if we just stayed with the TPP, all would be well. That was when he wasn't arguing against it.
So, assuming a Democrat wins in 2020, it will be interesting to see the deal they close.
In terms of manufacturing, it's clear Krugman has an ax to grind against that sector. But keep in mind it was the rise of US manufacturing that enabled semi-skilled labor to obtain well paying jobs. Jobs in the state and local public service sector were enabled by taxes generated from those jobs. Unionized burger flippers will not drive that level of economic prosperity.
At one time unionized workers had bumper stickers on their vehicles that said: "Out of a job yet? Keep buying foreign." or "Buy American!".
Perhaps we can look to forward thinkers in California - is Tesla unionized?
Krugman frequently mentions race in his OP-ED pieces, however it would do wonders for his case if he addressed NYC's racially segregated NYC public school system - he could then show the folks in flyover country how public school desegregation is done. No?
If we achieve Krugman's dream and goods are again freely flowing in from China, does that mean folks on this board will stop making fun of the people who shop at Walmart?
How can you expect rational economic policy from a President who only thinks about how something only affects him? Here we have a major hurricane that has almost destroyed the Bahamas and is hurting communities in South Carolina and North Carolina, yet all we hear from Trump is how Alabama could have been possibly impacted based on a distorted (by him) early map from the National Hurricane Center.
Why? Because Trump is fearful that he will lose Alabama and that Doug Jones be re-elected to the Senate next year. The fact that there are tens of thousands of people who need help from the Federal government (yes, we will even help the Bahamas even though they are a separate nation) and that they expect a normal President to stand with them is beyond comprehension by Trump. For him, policy is about him only.
Now, one has to ask why the Republicans in Congress (in the Senate in particular) are going along with his narcissism? Don't they see the damage that his policies are causing to the American economy? Or that the damage that his inattention to the hurricane will cause the residents of the Carolinas? Are they so afraid of the right-wing PACs who might 'Primary' them should they speak out against Trump?
In any other developed country, a crazy man like Trump would have been removed from office as soon as it became apparent that he/she was suffering from some kind of mental illness that was possibly related to a degenerative disease. But, not here, apparently.
1
Ironically, the businesses that would do best under Trump would hypothetically be state owned enterprises (SOEs), which are some of the largest corporations in China. They would basically be run by his allies so he could make policy that would benefit his own SOEs; they would know in advance what policies might come from him, so could adjust faster to changing business environments. Thus he could become the Xi of America. MAGA using the business methods used in China. I do wonder if he fantasizes about this possibility sometimes.
Totally agree- predictability is desirable. However lets get real and be honest. To ignore the improved economy and jobs market while saying everything is bad because of Trump is disingenuous. Stop that.
I'm a little disappointed to read the same old Trump bashing column again here after a little bit of nuance appeared on trade in Krugman's last one.
As many readers and even colleagues (Roger Cohen) have pointed out here: Xi Jinping's China is bad news.
We cannot afford to actively contribute to making China the dominant force in the world. Our trade leverage is already significantly reduced (e.g. Brazilian farmers will continue to burn down the Amazon to grow soy for China). We need to shift our low wage production to harmless countries like Mexico or Vietnam and engage the EU again to partner up as moral majority in the world, like in the latter half of the 20th century. It's the only way we can overcome the huge challenges of today, like climate change and the rise of autocrats.
2
@Anne - "It's the only way we can overcome the huge challenges of today,"
Even you seem to understand that Trump's solution to Xi Jinping's China seem to understand that that trade tax is not the one and only solution to the problem of Xi Jinping's China. That Trumpism (which isn't the logical steps you outlined) isn't good or helping.
I apologize I have no idea what my fingers are doing (either that or Trumpism disjointed thoughts are infecting me). As intended:
Even you seem to understand that Trump's solution to Xi Jinping's China is that trade taxes are not the one and only solution to the problem of Xi Jinping's China. That Trumpism (which isn't the logical steps you outlined) isn't good or helping businesses.
@Marie Even me, with all my obvious intellectual limitations? That is mighty generous!
We need to cut ties with China. Nudging their leadership in the right direction (e.g. TPP) seemed like a good idea in the pre-Xi years. Now they are a ruthless competitor in a world with limited resources. Our country is only waking up now to the fact that we're already too dependent on China for rare minerals and electronic components.
A radical change was overdue, and a Democratic president would have never had the audacity to confront China the way Trump has done.
Because of Trump's policies on the environment alone, let alone all the other stuff, I could never vote for him but his legacy will be mixed, not 100% negative as the Trump bashers want us to believe.
1
Spot on today, Mr. Krugman!
Companies in this for the long run do not want to see the "barriers to entry" that environmental regulations pose to new competitors removed. As you point out, removing these regulations only allows grifters to cheaply enter the markets they otherwise could never compete in.
China will wait out Trump and his tariffs. Heck, what's left 16 months (or less)? That's well within the long view China takes on these things. A little pain now, a big gain tomorrow.
And established American business' really have to think the same way and not make moves for the short term gains offered via de-regulation, or they won't have the wherewithal to make the alternative investments they would be making now were this a stable environment.
1
People who do not approve of Trump still vote for him. On the day he was elected in 2016 he had a 33% approval rating according to the NBC / Wall Street Journal Poll and he went on to win 46% of the vote. Now he has a 43% approval rating, so does that mean he goes on to win more than 50%?
1
Yeah, business frets about predictability and stability. But what if somehow the GOP could keep winning elections and remain in power permanently? That might 'stabilize' things. Maybe Mitch McConnell has some thoughts on that?
One thing to also consider is that deregulation and smash-and-grab taxation policies force good institutions that look to do the right thing in regard to environmental regulation or consumer protection or a hundred other essential issues are forced to compete with shady competitors who are given a competitive advantage by exploiting these new permissions.
For example, deregulation will dry up investment dollars, sales and products opportunities and skilled employee interest for a new technologically innovative, environmentally sound, responsibly run alternative energy company as long as old-school environmentally damaging coal companies can promise short-term returns.
2
Before scrambling after Chicken Little, maybe we should ask ourselves, what does the FED have to say?
A newly published Fed working paper measures the effect of trade policy uncertainty on the US economy:
"Our firm-level estimates suggest that uncertainty about trade policy in 2018 only may have lowered aggregate US investment by more than 1%."
Think about this. This is not a drop-off of 1% of GDP. This is a drop of 1% of aggregate investment.
So, although it is not nothing, it's a long way from the 'the sky is falling, hide the women and children' headlines you hear from some sources (ahem).
It's important to recognize that there are other, more important factors hitting trade and growth now.
Before scrambling after Chicken Little, maybe we should ask ourselves, what does the FED have to say?
A newly published Fed working paper measures the effect of trade policy uncertainty on the US economy:
"Our firm-level estimates suggest that uncertainty about trade policy in 2018 only may have lowered aggregate US investment by more than 1%."
Think about this. This is not a drop-off of 1% of GDP. This is a drop of 1% of aggregate investment.
So, although it is not nothing, it's a long way from the 'the sky is falling, hide the women and children' headlines you hear from some sources (ahem).
It's important to recognize that there are other, more important factors hitting trade and growth now.
I'll hold my breath while the Wall Street types and the Chamber of Commerce swings around to abandoning Trump and the Republican Party. I'm turning blue already. The country's future depends on whether the collapse comes before or after November 2020. It's not going to be rescued by enlightened self-interest from the likes of Mitch McConnell.
5
Remember the "uncertainty" argument that Republicans used to make regarding the strangulation of business due to the "disastrous " passage and roll-out of Obama-care?
Larry Kudlow, and the rest of these pompous know-it-alls proclaimed the paralyzing uncertainty fomented by Obama's radical central economic planning, as if the U.S. were China in the 1950's . If that was uncertainty---what is this trade war?
11
"Last week he declared that businesses claiming to have been hurt by his tariffs should blame themselves, because they're 'badly run and weak.' "
Another day, another classic example of projection by Trump.
7
Trump has no strategy for the American people. The strategy he is using benefits HIM and the GOP followers (e.g. Mitch McConnell).
My prediction --- next year he will come to an agreement with China that will not change anything prior to the tariffs, lift the tariffs, and boast about how he saved the United States when really nothing would have changed. His incompetent base will cheer and run to the polls and vote for him for another four years.
It is sad a significant number of Americans cannot see this --- or knowingly ignore it.
13
Mr. Krugman beware: As the economy slows, Trump will claim it was people like you whose nay saying is the cause of the recession.
3
Krugman never has a good word to say about Trump or Trumponomics.
Which shows that the Nobel Laureate has courage and knows what he's talking about.
Trumpism has been a disaster on all fronts. In this regard, however, it is only fair to say that it is consistent, dependable, and predictable. So if you stand on your head, all economic indicators are streaking upwards.
Thanks, Mr. President, for making bad things worse, and the worst things widespread. You do have a knack.
(I guess America is paying for all its bad karma in one four-year payment plan. I join in with those screaming a metaphysical Ouch!)
7
As always, this author can not get anything correct. All one needs to do is look at a graph of the S and P 500, find the upward inflection points when trump came in to debunk this nonsense. Overall the economy, that is at the end of a normal cycle, has been boosted by trump and the republicans. Most long term businesses do favor trump over the democrats even with the instability caused by the trade war. How about writing something that is supported by evidence- some of us would appreciate it.
@sh Then why has the S&P been in such turmoil the past year and a half? Why have there been no periods of real gain in that time? Why can major downturns in in be marked to the exact minute Trump tweets something? No, the S&P does nothing to show Trump is good for business unless his term ended in 2017.
4
Why ask Mr Krugman to write your critic of his view of policy.
A shoot the messenger debunk such as your begs the question, why isn’t someone paying you a six or even seven figure sum, to write your version.
Trump has his boosters elsewhere and they will write their version.
Trouble is we NYT readers, have mostly studied history economics or some other useful subject a we know that the history of Luddism and Trade wars is not good.
Best thing you can do is read FRIEDMAN from the 1980’s that would only reinforce your views, then reflect on the fact FRIEDMAN unlike Trump admitted he was wrong.
The most important thing is that Trump is bad for our planet. We’ve only got one, and I just hope it’s not down for the count..
3
In regard to Trump's comment about companies being “badly run and weak”, he would be the expert on that.
5
When questioned about climate change at the G-7, and after having skipped the meeting on global warming, Trump refused to be drawn, and talked instead about America’s “tremendous wealth” and said his main priority was not to “lose it to dreams and windmills.”
During the same press conference he did however say something which is undeniably true. - “I’ve made that wealth come alive.” He just forgot to mention that it was only for the 1%.
2
He would know about badly run businesses...how many bankruptcies has he gone through? The thought that he is steering the financial well being of the country should frighten every American.
.
3
Mr. Trump seems to be one of the leaders in trying to take advantage of the short term gains to be had during his administration.
1
According to Reuters, the Trump EPA has decided to revoke California's waiver to set greenhouse gas standards. Of course this will end up as a court battle...but in the mean time...
What with a crumbling infrastructure, the unchecked Russian infiltration of the electoral system, the cancellation of TPP in Asia and instead a foolhardy escalating trade war with China, North Korea’s unfettered nuclearizing efforts, deficits going through the roof, weekly mass shootings and a president unabashedly toying with weird notions of nuking hurricanes and buying Greenland, it’s clear that the GOP which steadfastly holds fast to a banner of security at all costs is actually leading the nation on a ruinous path to chaos and ruin.
4
I say it again. Trump is manipulating the economy and not for the benefit of the American people. Threaten to raise tariffs and the market drops and interest rates drop. Schedule a meeting with China on tariffs and the market goes up. Someone should track the investments of the Trump company and his close associates like his son in law, Jared. My guess is that they have the inside “dope” when Trump manipulates and girates and are profiting greatly. How did our system give the POTUS the unilateral power to apply tariffs withot any over sight?
3
Could not have said it better myself Paul. Back in 2016 I would ask Trump supporters would any real successful billionaire be involved with a scam real estate school with his own name attached? Or for that matter turn his vacation home into a for profit club? Not a chance but not for a second do I expect the people who fell for his con to wake up and realise the error of their thinking.
6
The "Hardball," September 5, 2019, MSNBC's Steve Kornacki reported that "swing voters" think the Current Occupant is better than a generic Democrat on managing the economy (48% to 35% - 17% undecided, I guess).
How on earth can any thinking person believe that after seeing what this man has done to the economy (uncertainty, stock market volatility, tariffs adding to middle class COI, inverted bond yield curve, adding billions/trillions to the deficit, etc)?
I'm dumbfounded!
Oh ... and I'm even more dumbfounded that there can really be such things as "swing voters" (about 30% of the electorate according to MSNBC). How can any thinking person be "swinging" at this point?
6
So Trump is widening his circle of targets to blame his failed policies on. First it was the Fed and Powell, then the press, now business. So if business is poorly run and weak because they are exhibiting self protective behavior, will that be enough? Or will the next group to be poorly managed and weak be the taxpayers he claims to be helping? Clearly he can't point the finger at them. But farmers are starting to ask why they are losing so much money. It won't be long before average people start to see their 'new found wealth' dry up with higher prices related to tariffs. Trump used to get other opinions on what to do. And would make a choice. Now he only listens to the voices in his own head. Desperate men do desperate things. Just before the end.
1
We are all aware unqualified, unprofessional, petty and vindictive individuals are making decisions behind Trump who is basically a marionette. Even in that position he is incapable dancing along with the strings they pull due to disinterest and preoccupation with his personal whims and the trappings that come along with his position. It is becoming apparent with each executive order or rollback of policies there is a faction in the White House that is devoted to taking the obvious and obscure such as drilling along the Atlantic coast, with the exception of the proximity of Trump's crown jewel, to the issue of energy efficient lightbulbs and deregulating.
If Trump were really bad for business, the stock market wouldnt have rocketed 40% higher starting the day after he won the election. The Fed wouldnt had raised rates 8 times. They raised them ONCE during the Obama years. Unemployment wouldnt be at multi decade lows, and labor participation wouldnt be going up, as it had fell out of bed during the Obama years. Not to mention middle class wages are rising, not so under Obama, and productivity is rising as well. What was really really bad for business, was ignoring China's cheating and stealing of intellectual property. That gutted US manufacturing over the years, which also gutted much of the middle class around the country. Why didnt Obama address this problem? The answer? Because he didnt know how. Obama knew nothing of business and trade. Surely, there isnt a single Democrat in existence that would have taken China to task. Heck, none of the Republican candidates would have went this far either. they are all afraid, because they are career politicians. We all got used to the status quo. Everything is made in china. we lost our manufacturing base - so be it. Churning the pot is political suicide. Somebody has to do the hard work, and make the hard decisions. Are we supposed to just ignore China, Paul? Would that be good for business?
@SurgicalBiologics
Number one, Paul has never said we should ignore China (just peruse his past op-eds if you don't believe me). In fact, he has said it's one thing that Trump is actually right about, just that the haphazard and unilateral way he's doing it is idiotic. Which is correct. And btw, walking away from the TPP was a huge mistake. If you actually knew anything about its provisions you would realize that.
And do you really think the stock market going up is indicative of anything other than the market reacting to the fact that big businesses were going to be much more likely to be getting a fat tax cut? And then turn around and use that windfall to buy back their own stock, thereby artificially pumping up the price? Long term it was nothing more than yet another wealth transfer to the wealthy paid for with yet more deficit spending.
Trump is chaos. There is no doubt about that. But I wonder if the "business community" has actually learned anything from three years of mayhem?
We keep hearing that business needs certainty or stability or [insert your synonym for the ability to make plans here]. But somehow "certainty" becomes not a virtue but a vice when it's employees who want some certainty. No job security even when times are good. Mass layoffs due not to economic downturns but to "remain competitive." No pensions. No set schedules. The "gig" economy. Classify them as contractors. Expect your employees to provide and fund their own training. Pay as little as you can possibly get away with even if it's illegal; that'll keep 'em on their toes! And don't even think about the "certainty" of a contract! The protection of a contract is reserved for the business side of the equation only! Let them eat cake.
Business community, you may think that Trump is a smash and grab president and you now have no "assurance that the rules of the game will be stable." And you're absolutely correct. But please remember one thing -- this is what it's like to work for you.
4
Paul the price of stocks keep going up even though these companies make fewer widgets what gives
Still waiting for Krugman's plan to confront China. Is Krugman content to let China steal our technology and engage in trade practices that are not only unfair but hurt the United States? Surely a Nobel prize winner (just like Obama) can come up with some ideas.
1
Good opinion piece.Surely when policy keeps shifting planning becomes a nightmare and implementation almost impossible.The trade war in china is a good example with tariff hikes from either side coming too often this piece being an example https://newszetu.com/china-warns-u-s-on-tariffs-dont-underestimate-determination-of-the-chinese-people/
" Remaking the U.S. economy in the image of Trump University isn’t exactly making America great again." This puts it perfectly. However, Fox and Fiends (spelling intentional) will keep telling his supporters that he's the best president in HISTORY! Trump has no idea what he's talking about -- ever -- but he has the right-wing state news team to tell him what he means, always quick to impose an intelligent narrative upon the rambling nonsense that is Trump's twitter feed (and mouth), reassuring the audience that he's the BEST EVER and that his opponents are a bunch of socialists who will turn the US into a third world country. This is literally how it works in a nutshell. However, the fact that 40% still approve says all you need to know about the brilliant white folks who are willing to undermine their own interests...and the interests of their children...on purely emotional grounds.
3
What’s scary about Dr. K is that he casually drops blatantly false statements as if he actually believes them. Reminds me a bit of a certain orange president...
Exhibit A: “Attacks on Obama as being anti-business were, of course, made in bad faith.”
Seriously? Obama spent years bashing business and shaking down the private sector financial system. Maybe not to the extent that Comrades Sanders and Warren would prefer, but he was as unfriendly to business as they come.
Liberals scratch their heads at how the economy and employment have held up so well under the current madman in office. They scoff at the suggestion that Obama’s anti-business rhetoric and stifling regulation held back growth. Obama’s GDP growth record was dismal - the lowest ever recorded post-recession. Liberals try to blame secular stagnation, blah, blah blah, but the fact is that business drives the economy (sorry, Bernie), and that when you take an anti-business approach like Obama did, you get, well, predictable results.
Trumpism is bad for [fill in the blank]. There will be no end to the chaos until he is voted out of office in November 2020.
2
Hundreds of US businesses fled our shores in search of basement production costs and relief from EPA and other
governmental controls.. in tandem with Japanese quality takeover of the Auto Industry and great influx of foreign steel and metals .. add in textiles exit .... these are the seed of the current pin cushion
situation in which the American Economy developed.. The President is more than correct of the running status of a great many US businesses. Chrysler // General Motors
Bethlehem Steel are a few of the buried fat and happy run
failures .. as for agriculture -- the price supports to farmers set a situation for absent marketing ... time for the
growers to create a global strategy for success -- overlay the corporate swallow of most of American food production and
the result is .. what we have ... in plain sight.. .. The US emerged from WWII as the power and principle lead of the entire world... It has taken less than a century to be placed in a place .. to strive.. Not much tact since 1945 .. victimization by fledgling economies .. The President is making the right moves ...patience children ... your lulled sleep of the past seven decades will require a shake off of the cobwebs.
A new definition of chutzpah:
Trump chastising others that their "businesses are badly run and weak". Thus spake the serial bankrupter.
How can any business expect a stable economic environment when the country is headed by a guy who is fundamentally unstable?
4
Dear Mr. Krugman. I am currently writing two book. They're going to be great books. The best books anyone ever read. Books that no one even knew were so hard to write and would be so goodly, or bigly: One is: "How I learned to stop worrying and let Mexico pay for everything." And the other is, "Anything Mexico Won't Pay For is Fake News."
These books I am sure I am writing, absolutely sure, will sell like yoga pants made in border-town maquiladoras! You just have to believe, invest, and let Mexico pay!
So I am not worried about business. Mexico will pay and Hillary will continue to earn a lot of money as a pinata. Obama will play basketball and give erudite speeches for carloads of money (I'd pay for it!). It all seems like good economics, right? It's a plan, right? Come on. Right!?
2
This is interesting. You'd think given these facts that business owners large and small would be speaking loudly about impeachment. It's not like we don't have an assortment of violations to choose from. At least with an impeachment they'd still have Pence dealing out the healthy tax cuts. Given that plus the fact that trump is in Putin's pocket seems like way more than enough incentive.
Except no. Crickets.
1
Democrats never need to play defense when it comes to the economy -- long-term studies have consistently shown that the US economy does better under Democratic administrations than Republican ones.
Here's a link to one summary:
https://evonomics.com/economists-agree-democratic-presidents-better-making-us-rich-eight-reasons/
This helps to explain why the vast majority of economists themselves vote for Democrats. It's a real problem that much of the pubic, and a sizable chunk of the media, has been gaslighted into thinking the opposite.
6
It is clear by every reasonable measure that Trump is bad for the future of America and of the world and so, too, is the Republican party, or the Republic party if using GOP nomenclature.
..., one should take a moderate dose of reality here.
The so-called businessman-in-chief has never made any complex strategy decisions; slabbing your name of stuff, running dishonest promotions, failing colossally basically at every turn and then seeking to charge someone else with the losses, isn’t difficult.
The notion that the American legal system continues to enable it; well, that’s another matter - and a sad one at that.
Donald J. Trump then “graduates” from those appallingly pathetic business playgrounds and then sets out to run the country, and of course, doing so by the very same principles (if one can them that to begin with).
There is nothing in that man’s trajectory that should give anyone any idea that this - in any way, shape or form - can make America great again. And, it ain’t ...
Alas, some people can easily be fooled - and there you are ...
One part of me (the one with the devil horns) wishes the economy runs into the ground and everyone who voted for this monstrosity will be hurt...but 65 million others would suffer too.
Trump is the nightmare that never stops.
2
You do realize that Trump is thoroughly enjoying himself at this countries humiliation. Whether it be doctored weather maps or outright lying about Chinese phone calls he retreats to laugh as his "Fake news" are going crazy in an attempt to score points over him.
1
Professor, I understand how the President’s temperament can have business on edge - he also has this housewife on edge. Having once dreamed I didn’t have a turkey for Thanksgiving and the family hated me, and after reading an article in Barrons concerning the history of Septembers and the stock market, along with the President’s tweets and trade, maybe I should go buy the turkey today?
Couldn't agree more. Trump is careless and short sighted, our country will pay for his "policies" for many years to come.
2
Every single aspect of trump’s presidency is personal - from getting two scoops of ice cream to provoking Iran into another unwinnable war. His only decision on policy is based on what’s in it for him - more money or base approval or intimidation. Or retaliation. At this point in his presidency, only a fool would expect anything else.
3
Americans are ignorant in economy.
They think it is about making money.
French economist Thomas Piketty has a new book out.
4 volumes, 1000 pages : " Capital et ideologie " .
A historical research of inequalities and the ideologies enforcing them since the Ancien regime to today's economies through different nations.
1
You have to admire Krugman
Since Trump was elected President
(About 1060 Days) Paul has been predicting the immediate end of the US economy, every law that’s been passed every executive order signed was our death blow, But yet here we are still going strong, (I know I know the bottom is going to fall out any second) This should help expose the chasm which divides Theory and Reality, Mr Krugman would like to legislate from theory (you know the place where your never able to proven wrong) instead of Dealing with Reality,
1
So Trumpie just reversed Summers and Reich's acquisition of Freddie and Fannie in 2009 privatizing it to the delight of hedge fund operators. Are Trumpie and Mnuchin on the way toward creating a Greater Recession? Please clarify! The NYT article today didn't.
1
Read this after the obit for Robert Mugabe it is understandable that he saw in Trump a little of himself and said give him a chance. Yes given enough time Trump will do for America’s economy what a Robert did for his.
3
Well, what can a person do? When you're dealing with compulsive disorders, you can be in violation of hipaa laws (while promoting getting your steps in and exercise),yet, your own health is at risk (you never know who will be at your door). That said, I think your rhetorical question in your book, "End This Depression Now!" is relevant in today's context. You write, "Did it matter that the spending was for defense, not domestic programs? In economic terms, not at all: spending creates demand, whatever it's for. In political terms, of course, it mattered enormously:... ." (pg. 39)
I have a sense of humor but seriously.
Trump is right in some oblique ways. There was little hidden about the choice republicans made in 2016. They knew he was a narcissistic sociopath, a serial bankruptcy tycoon, hollow, and indefatigable liar. They continue to know that, and it has not changed their cult like devotion to and worship of this fanged and horned god. There is no destruction or havoc he perpetrates, no action he takes to cheapen the nation's consciousness and destroy its revered institutions that does not trigger mirth and endless chortling among their ranks.
Hence, if the constituencies he promised to help are now being hurt by his actions, it is indeed them, not him. It is not Trump, but the republican mainstream and leadership that are too far gone. Seek a ride on the back of a scorpion, and hope to make it to the other side, eh?
2
His base seems to still rally around Trump. Maybe when Wall Street (Journal) turns on him some support will go away.
118
@Bob", do you really think that his supporters value the opinion of the Wall Street Journal? Wouldn't Trump's supporters look with disdain at a staff comprised of east coast, educated elitists?
33
@Bob I doubt many - or any - of his base read the WSJ
24
@Bob I's a murdoch rag - the WSJ will never turn, and it has become something of a joke among traders
29
Mr K,
I wish you would do a deep dive into capitalism and climate change. These corporations that understand that fossil fuels are going to severely degrade human (and all) life on the planet are currently investing $50billion into development of MORE extraction.
How can anyone participate in a capitalist system when corporations are designed to “maximize shareholder value” and not be a part of this? It’s as if we somehow believe that corporations wouldn’t put money over the welfare of people they can either exploit for profit or shift costs to. (Think cigarettes, opioids, flame retardants, the so big-Ag)
As the current occupant of the WH destabilizes the world economy should I be cheering him on for the welfare of future generations?? As you said, no Democrat could do this???
2
If car companies took Trump up on his relaxed emissions standards, a few years down the road, they'd discover they're not competitive in a global marketplace with higher standards. Rather than helping the American car industry, Trump's policy would hurt it. The gas-guzzlers of the 70s were killed by the oil crisis. Chrysler needed a bailout to avoid bankruptcy. I'd bet many of Trump's relaxed regulations would have the same effect.
2
Sorry, Dr. Krugman. There's too much common sense here for the magical thinkers in the Trump Party.
They see endless good times ahead; there will never be another recession as long as their leader is president.
7
Some large companies see that environmental stewardship is a key to their future viability. This is a growing trend. By and large young people are environmentally conscious and connected by social media so that dirty players get "outed" The oil companies and car companies know that their future customers are heading green - the old white haired crowd have a limited lifespan and tend to reject climate change, green energy etc. Generalizations, I know - but with some element of truth in a stereotype that is enough to make the difference between success and failure in future product introductions etc.
5
Midwestern farmers face a dilemma. Their business model depended in part on soybean exports to markets that are now gone to them, probably forever. The market for corn based ethanol shrank, too, probably forever, as many refiners are switching back to oil based oxygenates.
So those farmers now need government support more than ever. And for midwestern farmers, government support means Trump.
But Trump throws everybody under the bus when he no longer needs them. If farmers continue to support Trump and he wins, he will no longer need them, and here comes the bus. If they support Trump and he loses, here comes a Democrat with coastal, urban concerns. Should they support a Democrat instead?
3
@Charles Tiege
Why do you think Democrats won't provide economic support for farmers? We all need to eat. Farmers have always benefited from government subsidies under all administrations. Are they so afraid of cultural change that they would rather go bankrupt and elect a Democrat?
3
I remember when corporations published their 5 and 10 year plans, and when they funded and promoted their research and development departments. Then Bank of America laid off tens of thousands of employees and moved headquarters out of California. Then came Enron self destructing, and the corporate raiders buying thriving companies and stripping them of their assets. Now it seems most companies have a few quarters or a year as their planning goal. It's nice to think they plan on a longer loop, but I see little evidence this is the case. There needs to be some way to return to a more stable environment, I'm not confident we can do this although Obama certainly tried.
5
As demonstrated by a handful of comments here Trump's lies are working. What is more, they will continue to work. There is a share of the population for whom this is not about reality. We could enter a Greater Depression and they would still claim it was anyone else's fault but Trump. My point is that this column feels pointless. I hope I am wrong. I hope that there are reasonable people who are swayed by the truth, but 2016 broke my soul and my spirit.
11
“Smash and grab” is a good description of Trump’s approach to everything. His order to illegally take land along the border and his efforts to take money from the military for a wall that will not solve the migrant crisis are but two examples. Trump used smash-and-grab tactics in his business ventures, but most often against workers and smaller contractors whose bills he refused to pay. Now he’s trying to use the same tactics as president. China has shown, though, that it is not a weaker opponent. Iran is not rolling over. EU members are going their own way without the US. Now if only the Republicans in Congress would stop flinging themselves down in the road for Trump to roll over them (and then praising him for crushing them) and use their Constitutional powers to put some brakes on Trump’s worst instincts, we might see a bit less chaos in the Oval Office. Unfortunately, I have no confidence whatsoever that any Republican will act to preserve the country instead of their sycophantic relationship with Trump.
11
No doubt, Trump is doing real damage to sectors of our economy, but, so far that economic damage is not translating into political damage. Not that my sample is representative, but, the few farmers I know---some are family members---and my daily contact with small business owners are still solidly behind Trump's vision for America. In fact, what leaves me scratching my head, is some of these individuals believe that they have become the new patriots for making America great again.
5
If we teach the young the advanced ways of business, why are they not the leaders of business with the exceptions of some breakout entreprenours? The young need to be well versed in pioneering businesses as well as how to run one. Funding and volunteerism for SCORE should be greatly expanded.
Chaos and hardship for business. My son works for a supplier who imports its products from China. The order that didn't arrive by August now have to be re-priced, and my son & his co-workers get to spend the weekend redoing all of the paperwork. They have had to negotiate with retailers about who will pick up the tariff tab. Some agreed to pay all of it. Another major retailer agreed to split the cost. And one retailer absolutely refuses to take possession and pay anything! That retailer will find its shelves empty at Christmas if it takes the same hard line with other suppliers. Its a terrible, chaotic business climate,,,,and of course they are all concerned about their jobs.
15
Not only is Trumpism bad for business, it's bad for national security. When a president who claims to be the biggest supporter of the U.S. military robs $3.6 billion from the Defense Department to build a vanity wall designed purely to help him win re-election, one must ask: "Where are all those national security hawks in the Republican Party?"
35
@Christy, the Republican national security hawks are trying to explain why they support the clod who claims to have driven down the price on the "F-52 fighter."
So what has the grifter class given us?
Planes with physical defects and software patches that do not work, no domestic manufactured 5G, the end phase of offshoring – white collar jobs, trillion dollar plus deficits, cuts to education and other programs benefiting children, underfunded social programs on course to collapse, corporate activities which destroy our environment then our planet and finally our species, demonization of the poor, concentration of economic and political powers, and the rise of dictators.
It will never end so long as voters elect grifters.
34
@Mr. Anderson:" no domestic manufactured 5G"
Manufacturing in the US? No in the Global Economy.
"the end phase of offshoring"
Globalism at its finest.
1
Yogi Berra once famously said, "Prediction is hard, especially about the future." To get wonkish, when there is a lot of uncertainty, the option value of holding lots of cash goes up because you may need it at a moment's notice to protect yourself or buy up an overleveraged supplier, customer, or competitor for pennies. So, even without the threat that the deregulation would go away, businesses would be loath to invest, which helps drive the economy into the ditch.
11
What may ultimately be worst for business is the freedom which banking and finance are being given to destroy themselves and the economy, as they did in the Depression. The New-Deal era regulations which restrained excessive leverage and exposure have been and continue to be rescinded and the industries are always working to devise new ways to maximize the short-term profits they take out of the economy (financial wealth is not being invested constructively). Since the 60's it has been supposed that the Fed could counteract the destructive business cycle with interest rate changes, but obviously interest rates do not have the assumed effect - if they did the record-low rates would be causing massive inflation under the current very low unemployment. The Fed bailed out the big banks in 2008 by throwing money at them, thereby increasing their size and power, but there is no guarantee that this will be repeated next time. The majority of Republicans in Congress voted against TARP. How would a Trump administration work with the Fed, and how would a Fed dominated by Trump appointees react?
Among other important issues, Democratic Presidential candidates should have a plan for dealing with the next financial collapse. It is not something that should be left up to the finance-friendly central bankers, whoever appoints them.
20
@skeptonomist
I agree that we should be seeing inflation now with such low unemployment and interest rates. Perhaps there's a third factor at play: income inequality.
The difference between the 1970s and today is that the Gini coefficient is much higher now. In practical terms, so much money (economic output) has been redistributed to the top and taken out of circulation, that with the exception of massive shortages of multiple inputs, widespread inflation is almost structurally impossible in the current economy.
2
Every time I hear that Trump intents to ramp-up the trade war with China and further damage the US economy, I am delighted because I know that the more damage he inflicts the less chance he has of being reelected. It is tough on all the people directly effected but the sooner it ends the better.
30
As most regular readers of this newspaper are aware, Trump was bad for business even when he was in business. Investors in Trump's business in the 1990's got 10 cents back on the dollar. Banks that lent to his businesses struggled to see their money again in bankruptcy courts. Trump's only real success was marketing himself -- for the most part he licenses his name to properties which in many cases have wanted that connection severed, eg. in Panama. And of course, he perfected the art of humiliating people publicly on "The Apprentice," which rather distressingly established that there was a fan base for the type of obnoxious behavior that has been the hallmark of his Presidency.
Sadly, it is hard to imagine that most successful business owners, especially those for smaller businesses whose owners are more intimately involved in day to day operations and logistics, can't tell the difference between ham handed theatrics and economic reality.
It remains to be seen whether a majority of the voters can.
56
The chaos that is Trump's business policy suggests to me that someone within his administration is taking bribes. There is no plan---just an open hand and a willingness to do anything, regardless of the consequences----for the right price.
28
Well now I’ve seen everything. Are you telling me the Republican Party has switched from one that distrusted government and promoted the private sector to one that distrusts the private sector and prefers governmental controls? And here I thought that the preeminence of the market would be the Republicans’ last stand. Well, I guess we can put the wisdom of the private sector in the same dustbin with the evils of deficit spending and the importance of character in a leader.
25
@R. Adelman
Your comment is on point to a point. Many folk have seen this coming. I am an optimist and when Mr Trump was elected I truly hoped it would be a good thing.
Part of my job (before retirement) was Hazard Materials Management, Right to Know Coordinator and other things. Part of those responsibilities was to research and understand the rules and guidelines including how they came to be. Everything I researched enacted by Mr Obama's administration was based on clear science that was published and easily available on the internet.
My research as well as my memory recalled that many agencies such as the EPA, OSHA, and others were created to protect most of us as the private sector would not so government had to. The private sector has gotten a lot better but is still not fully on board with what needs to happen. In the past couple of years the constant noise coming from Washington D.C. tends to drown out the gutting of the Federal Agencies designed to protect us and the environment.
I have to agree with the dust-bin part of your comment but the dust-bin has never been emptied so a lot is still there and can be recovered.
Just an old white man's opinion.
3
Perhaps Obama accepted the idea that our entrepreneurs contribute mightily to their own success and, in so doing, to the success of the whole society. He just didn't say it much - if ever.
He was content to make hay with his "you didn't build that" and to frequently declare that it's time for them "to pay their fair share". It was a gentle but persistent demonization.
This time around, it's worse. The Democratic candidates are falling over each other to paint business owners as the enemy of the people.
In 2016, Elizabeth Warren preceded Obama with the "you didn't build that" idea, but at the time she fairly acknowledged that business owners also made a significant contribution. Now she has discarded that balance.
Certainly not all business owners are heroes. There are lots of rent-seekers and other bad actors out there - but it is a shame that no Democratic candidate has appealed to the business class's better angels by inviting them to join the fold and be part of the solution. In this respect, the Democratic playbook is no better than the Republicans - oversimplify every situation and demonize the enemy.
And so the slugfest continues...
5
@Jim Mathewson
"You didn't build that" responses nearly did my head in all those years ago, so I really can't even.
Paying a fair share is a valid concern in the current tax climate. Every small business I've worked for has paid in the neighborhood of 25-30% in taxes, after all deductions. The year the "fair share" was started, GE paid nothing, along with Amazon, who isn't doing any state or employees any favors, and a handful of other very major companies. Yeah, they should pay their fair share. Because while Amazon built a company and changed the way we shop, they didn't build the roads they now destroy. THEY DIDN'T BUILD THAT.
2
@Jim Mathewson
Who knew that America's business titans, lionized in popular lore 99.9% of the time, turned out to be such hypersensitive babies. Seems we've got big problems when a factual statement like "you didn't build that" equates to demonization.
1
@Jim Mathewson You are taking the "you didn't build that" mantra completely out of the context of the time, when Republicans were promoting the idea that we were a country of "makers and takers." In other words, business owners were depicted as the heroic risk-takers, the only productive members of society, and everybody else, even employees, were parasites, sucking the life out of the long-suffering entrepreneur. Give me a break. The point that needed to be made was, it's a free and democratic society that provides the infrastructure for businesses to function and thrive, and that requires everybody's contribution. The notion that you did it all yourself and owe society nothing, including taxes, was (and is) very popular among the GOP. Starving the government of the means to survive has been Republican strategy for a couple of decades. The Democrats tried to introduce some balance to that extremism. I disagree that it's no better than the Republican's slash and burn approach; it's a gentle reminder that we live in a society that is supposed to beneficial to all, and requires contributions from all, especially from those who have benefited most from it.
Corporations are acting like the other countries of the world. Just ignore Trump and stay the course. Destroying environmental regulation doesn't unleash business. It unleashes greed, if acted upon. Fortunately, responsible corporations that have planned and tooled up to meet regulations aren't irresponsible enough to throw all that out and de-tool. That would be expensive and in the long run, catastrophic for their businesses, when responsible government returns to the US. Vote 2020!
23
For tariffs to work as intended the must be permanent and enforced on everyone. You can't put tariffs on China but not on Vietnam. Manufacturing will not come home just move to Vietnam. Trade deficit does not go down and jobs don't return. The tariffs must be long term. If the tariffs are not long-term companies will not make expensive changes in manufacturing and hire expensive American labor unless they know they will get there money back with a profit. Thus trade wars are long, hard and very expensive. Also the jobs you create many pay more but you will lose jobs and create companies that will profit on loss of competition with inferior goods. That's the Truth. Trump, Bernie and the anti trade crowd need to tell the truth so we can rationally make good policy.
5
The uncertainties that businesses face under Trumpism are also 'trickling down' to the household.
22
Trump’s policies are not trickling but flowing down. As a member of the gig economy I see a reduction in both domestic and foreign visitors. Restaurants have fewer clientele and shops lower sales. The Europe, Canada, Mexico, and Asia bashing is sending visitors else where - to places where they feel welcome. Why visit a country where you may be turned away? Businesses that expanded to Cuba lost out on new market when Trump arrived. War thrives in the Middle East. The king of havoc reigns in his baseball cap.
24
Every single “Fact” sight is in fact your “Feelings” from Resturant customers to record number of tourists, to point out just one contradiction, no tourists want to visit the unfriendly USA but record numbers of people are willing to brave death and to live illegally in this Country,
I’ve been in business for more than 30 years. More than over regulation, which we can adjust to, business hates uncertainty. It becomes difficult, if not impossible, to design and implement a business strategy when the rules keep changing. And nobody is going to invest millions or billions in a new plant or expansion when everything can change based on a tweet from an unstable president.
None of this should be a surprise to anyone who has watched Trump during his business career. The only surprise is that is has taken the US Chamber of Commerce so long to figure it out.
45
Regulations are always the problem until one can't drink the waters safely, breathe air without carcinogens, gets food-borne illness, home repairs that don't work, sees a tailings pond that suddenly ends up destroying the fishing in a river, gets on a 737 MAX, or smokes e-cigarettes, which possibly may be a lot worse than we knew.
If we have to wait until 2025 to bring back decent regulation, a lot of people are going to suffer and die.
1070
@Mike S.
You might also include when it is unsafe to drive over an overpass or a bridge due to crumbling infrastructure.
65
@Mike S. Exacty. Now we get to pay taxes to a government that does not fulfill the basics of governing by protecting our collective resources (air, water, infrastructure) with our pooled assets. I have no idea where my tax dollars are going these days, except for, perhaps trump's wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for, interment camps, and Farmer Welfare Programs.
77
@Free to be Me Yes, the Farmers Welfare Program that is funded by bonds that the government has to issue to pay for it, and which the Chinese are the buyers! Aren't tariffs wonderful?
53
The world is moving increasingly towards renewable energy. China and Germany (among others) are leading the way. The US and US companies are already behind, and the rule changes and policies of the Trump administration are pushing them even further behind.
The US is ceding this huge and expanding market of the future to coddle dying industries of the past, such as coal and oil.
594
@Expat London
I live in a rural area with a pretty good mix of middle and working blue collar people. Yesterday when I was taking a different route into town, I saw an oldish, not particularly impressive, farm house with a large bank of new solar panels. If I’d seen anyone around I’d have honked and given a thumbs up!
81
@Expat London
This is a hugely important point that I don’t see repeated often. I point out to my students the rather modest investment in the transistor at Bell labs. The return was a massive semiconductor industry largely lead by the US. Renewable energy technology like advanced PV, dye-sensitized solar cells, etc will be making the country that makes the breakthroughs very wealthy. Hanging on to the past will only hurt us. Perhaps Trump would like to go back to vacuum tubes?
94
@Expat London
I'm pretty sure I've seen statistics that show that US employment in the renewable energy sector is close to 1 million.
The coal industry? 60,000.
50
My problem is I didn’t do Economics 101. Or 102, 103 ...But I find Prof Krugman’s articles very informative, and believable, and if he’s wrong on anything, one can work out why. I think he’s nailed why Trump will most likley lose the next Presidential Election. That’d be a huge relief for business and everyone else. Imagine Don Lemon or Anderson Cooper with nothing much to say.
17
One of the best things about the Clinton era was that the tax laws didn't change for over five years. In my little business that made some things very easy and in expensive as record keeping and filing was simple. Of course the bookkeeping firms didn't like it much, but they are not a part of the productive economy. The worst thing for a small business is having to respond to constant changes in rules that have nothing to do with the productive part of the business.
35
Trump's business is self-promotion. He doesn't produce anything. He actually knows little about how businesses are successfully run. He knows how to promote his image, and his biggest source of income what licensing his name.
42
Except for a few buildings, trump's whole career has been about swooping into a market or business...making a quick buck...and leaving when the going gets tough, leaving the mess and debt for someone else. He does not have the mental capacity to look long term. His attention span is perfect for a one-hour reality TV show.
The question comes down to, who will business back in 2020? Will they want 4 more years of chaos, or will they go with a the Democrat and be able to plan ahead more than the next twitter tirade. My guess is trump's re-election is in more trouble that even his campaign knows.
30
So much for the supposed businessman presidency!
Painful as it would be to see financial devastation, it will have two silver linings:
First, once and for all, dispelling the Republican myth that we need someone from the private sector to helm the government, as if they were interchangeable;
Second, to hurt Trump’s odds of reelection. He married himself to the economy, saying that people had to vote for him, like it or not, because he’s good for their bottom line. Trump may just have said goodbye to his campaign talking points.
448
@NM Financial devastation would be difficult. Especially if you're approaching retirement, as I am. But markets recover. The damage Trump could do given another 4 year presidency may not be recoverable.
265
@NM: You write "First, once and for all, dispelling the Republican myth that we need someone from the private sector to helm the government, as if they were interchangeable".
I think you underestimate the power of myth. "Run government like a business" is a perennial, never mind that they're two entirely different things. Two others are trickledown economics and comparing the requirements of government budgets to those of household budgets. No matter how many times they are disproved, are continually invoked.
73
@John Leonard: I agree that there are people who will continue to say that government should be run like a business, but I think that now there are more people who will question that premise. There were certainly people who touted Trump's supposed business acumen when he was running for President, but there were plenty of people even then who understood that Trump was a self-promoting huckster and that he had a long record of business failures. Quite a few of his supporters may have understood this, too. In the end, I suspect, Trump's perceived record as a businessman was probably more of an excuse than a reason for many people to vote for him. I believe that, among the reasons that Trump was actually elected, his ability to run the government like a business was probably pretty far down the list.
41
“Smash and Grab” has been Trump’s business model, political strategy and policy strategy as president.
19
As a small business owner, I can confidently say that business wants three things. Stability. Stability. And Stability. Trump is wrecking all three.
As written here before, Trump is the chaos president. It's as if he stays up all night thinking of ways to create the maximum upset in the world. That keeps him on the front page. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if constant media exposure isn't at the heart of his chaos causing proclamations. We have heard him value people and events by their ratings. You can't get high ratings if you aren't in the media spotlight and that is something Trump excels at.
But back to stability. The economy and all aspects of it are totally global. Global supply chains are the rule, not the exception. Information technology is global. Most business buy services and programs from overseas operations. Data centers are located all over the world. Global supply chains are precisely what Trump keeps attacking. But doing so causes him to attack American production.
The tariffs are starting to affect my little business. Parts costs are going up. This is squeezing profit margins. Soon, I will have to raise prices to pass them on. That will decrease sales. Trump is creating a classic lose, lose situation for me and millions of other operations. I can't understand why the powerful CEOs of major multinational corporations don't stand up and call is guy out for ruining everything. What are they waiting for?
1586
@Bruce Rozenblit - Even though the question is rhetorical, the answer is that CEO silence was bought with $1.5 Trillion$ in tax cuts; which GOP'ers will try to extract from Jane/Joe Sixpack's Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and throwing kids off of SNAP.
Always enjoy hearing about your real world biz situation.
518
@Bruce Rozenblit over a career that lasted 37 year and 19 days working for the Government in a position where you would prefer to see a 60 Minutes news crew waiting to see in your office on Monday Morning then seeing me at any time. The one complaint I heard over and over from 1982 to Sept 2018 was the change of the rules of the game by the business men by local/state or Feds . Not what the rules were, But they Were changed after investment had been made. I never had a response to that complaint
85
@Bruce Rozenblit
Whereas I do not disagree with R. Law, I think another reason is as Krugman posits: the CEOs of the big corporations are thinking Trump could well lose in 2020 and things will get back to normal moreover if the Dems can capture the Senate (longshot but one can hope) so there is little reason to challenge Trump now. If Trump wins in 2020 there may well be a revolt but not by the proletariat but by big business telling every republican in congress if they let Trump continue to run roughshod there will be no further funding for their campaigns.
129
It is a fantasy to expect a miracle but some enlightened companies have an opportunity to walk a virtuous path by ignoring the diktats of our president and continue with the constraints which are better for the planet and for their companies stability.
Taking the high road would position them for long-term success and allow them to parlay their good stewardship of the planet into unbeatable public relations.
And enough of us with grandchildren would be willing to invest in such efforts whether directly or by buying their products purposefully.
6
Seems that the American democracy has fallen so sadly in
to this state because the flaw in the system is what happens when
the legislative branch does not enforce checks and
balances.
It will be interesting how historians will address the Trump
Mire, and why American governing has failed so shockingly.
20
All valid points. The problem is: How many voters in swing states will actually believe this argument and see past the Flim Flam Man's theatrics to vote him out? I fear not enough will get past the smoke and mirrors.
13
Short term this piece is not true, long term yes. The problem is that most people today are only focused on the former!
Trump is engineering a merger of the world's two largest economies. Think of the European Union on steroids. Our $21 trillion economy and China's $14 trillion economy.
China's economy is capable of growing at 11% or even higher, yet it is only growing at 5% because it has been listening to Krugman.
Trump's opening of China's economy will create a new multi-trillion marketplace and unleash a PAX Americana unseen since the very early 50s.
@John Huppenthal: "Trump's opening of China's economy"
How does one open an economy using trade taxes?
This will be good.
35
You must be kidding! Trump will do no such thing. The Chinese will build it on their own with a well educated populace & 21st century technology. Trump wants to take the world back to the 1950’s...when the US was great!
3
@J Huppenthal - Trump engineered the “America First” foreign policy “doctrine” under which every meaningful political and economic agreement in existence, from nuclear treaties to free trade agreements, were nullified, violated, withdrawn, cancelled, or re-negotiated. Every single one. Except foreign aid to Israel.
A trade war with China will not result in a merging of the US economy to China. In Trump’s view that would require surrendering America First and doing trade for mutual benefit. He is incapable of holding that thought in this head, as he has illustrated for every nation on earth except two: RUSSIA and Israel.
2
Many are struggling to explain Trump's actions as catering to his voter base. However, his actions are more easily understood in terms of "what would Putin want?". Breaking down western alliances, disrupting global trade, clearing the way for authoritarian rule, promotion of oligarchs are all easily understood in the context of WWPW!
46
@Dan Agree. Thanks for keeping this line of thought on the agenda. Time to shine light on Trump’s tax returns, among other things, to expose how much debt he owes to Putin and his oligarchs.
17
Major oil and gas producers and major auto producers "want to keep those regulations in place."
Well, they would wouldn't they. Oligopolists (emphasis on "major") always support regulations which increase the costs of doing business and make it harder for potential competitors to enter their industries.
In context Prof. Krugman's choice of the word "however" is a surprising -- dare I say partisan -- non sequitur.
1
@ellen1910
Indeed, the lobbyists write the rules to inhibit any competition to their pay masters.
People seem to be rather unthinking. If an automaker, or any other manufacturer, wanted to, because of market demand, create products that exceed any artificial standard imposed by government, they are obviously free to do so.
Why an automaker would claim that they want the government to put in place standards they already have set for themselves or they plan to exceed is rather strange.
1
The "smash-and-grab" metaphor is right on. It's been evident since before he took office that Trump's whole method, so to speak, is to create as much chaos as possible, then grab whatever he wants out of it.
37
@Dana Wilde
When we refer to Trump's "smash and grab" policies, we should include his promotion of his own business, and his family's, violating the emoluments clause. It also feels to me that the stock market is being manipulated. Bad news on trade war/tariffs to be increased, stock prices plunge. A day or 2 later, talks are back on with China, or we are holding off on implementing new tariffs, stock prices soar. Rinse and repeat. Trump attempts to bully the Fed Chair Jerome Powell to cut interest rates, which will rally the stock market, while bragging about having the greatest economy ever. How many people have advance knowledge of these swings in trade policy/Fed policy on interest rates, and can buy or sell stocks accordingly? Is any regulatory body paying attention? This is the ultimate smash and grab. The market swings up and down, profits can be taken both ways. The rest of us are at the mercy of these "smash and grab" policies.
13
As the insanity of Trunp's floundering presidency has its predictable effect on the economy, what Republican senator will have the courage of their British counterpart to stand up and step across the aisle? It's long past the time to recognize the king wears no clothes.
166
@Tom Miller. Floundering presidency? Let me guess, you get your news from Certainly Not News. Have you seen the unemployment rate? The stock market?
@Jackson, in 2006-7, everyone thought the economy was going swimmingly well while that autistic fella was shorting mortgage backed securities. I believe several books and movies about it have been written since then.
1
When it comes to business during the Trump years, there are a million ways to measure how it has been faring. Since we’re talking about broad policies I figured I’d look at the biggest companies during the most recent calendar year. I don’t pretend to suggest whether this says a whole lot. It is what it is and nothing else.
The four largest US corporations are Walmart, Exxon Mobil, Apple, and Berkshire Hathaway. In calendar year 2018, Walmart experienced record growth. Exxon Mobil continued its steady growth since Trump was elected after substantial decline during the late Obama years. Apple set all kinds of records in 2018 — it was an excellent year. And Berkshire Hathaway continued the steady growth which it has experienced for many years.
I am sure someone will suggest that up is down and this does nothing to undermine Mr. Krugman. I am pretty sure this is evidence that multinational corporations aren’t all fed up with Trump. But I don’t care how you explain this away. As I say, it is what it is.
1
@michjas
I live in Zhengzhong, China. It so happens that many of the university I teach work at an Apple assembly plant during the summer. I also happen to hold shares in Apple and have for many years.
If you don't think Trump's trade war hasn't devastated Apple's prospects for selling phones in China (there are two Apple stores near my home), you're wrong. This is a 1.4 billion person markets, and many people do own Iphones. Next time they upgrade to 5g, they will probably go with Huawei.
It's probable that the trade war has hurt Apple's stock at least 20 percent. This has been documented in Bloomberg. I could write another long post about how American farmers have been hurt.
55
@David. You do know that Huawei has been widely charged with corporate espionage? You may be overestimating the appeal of owning one of their phones.
1
@David, and once US companies and farmers lose that market, there is no going back.
16
Despite wanting to make the rules of the game more fair across the board, Elizabeth Warren will be better for businesses in the long-run. Trump has created an environment where only a few monopolies can thrive in multiple sectors. Innovation is in the hands of these big companies who only want to develop better and better picture applications.
We need more people starting businesses and working in high-technology sectors that will benefit many people. If the rules are perceived as fairer, the business community would not have to worry about threats from socialists or from the incoherent fascists on the right who want to install, whatever they are saying they want to install.
We need fair rules that are intuitive from the perspective of some original position --and Elizabeth Warren is the only candidate who would do that.
26
Trump’s base is well under half of the US, so why hasn’t the majority risen up to more effectively challenge him? Remaining silent and ineffective is what tyrants thrive on.
50
@Denis, no matter which democrat wins the nomination, every single democrat has to get behind him or her, regardless. Dr Krugman then has to play the role of a Uniter not a divider he has been famously known for. He belatedly accepted Obama and his policies. Not until the health care bill became a law, did Dr Krugman come around and see Obama’s worth. In 2015-16 he ignored Bernie and did a major hit job on him. With the blessings of NYT. Despite it, Bernie kept growing his followers working at the grass roots town council school board levels and in 2018 we saw the election of many of these bernie inspired candidates elected to state and national levels. At least this time, Paul is slightly showing some understanding of Liz Warren’s proposals, favorably. We love Liz, we love Bernie. Both of them. And we hope Dr Krugman gets behind either of them while not diminishing the other. Wild hope.
4
@Denis
There were signs of life in 2018, when the Democrats took back the House. However, the opposition to Trump/Republicans needs to be even more vocal and active in 2020. Not only must Trump be defeated decisively, but the Democrats must win the Senate (at least a net 4 seat gain). If much of the electorate remains passive and silent, and turnout remains relatively low in 2020, historians might (rightly) conclude that the American people have become soft, unwilling to fight for their Democracy as the people in Hong Kong are fighting for theirs.
1
@Denis
Why? Here's 19 reasons:
1 Real economic growth in 2018 $630 billion versus $300 billion in 2016 versus Europe’s 210 billion
2 Full-time jobs up 3.1 million in 2018, 200% of the 1.56 million increase in 2016.
3 Manufacturing jobs up 500,000 under Trump. 2016? Down 7,000.
4 Total job openings 7.3 million up 25% from 2016’s peak 5.8 million jobs
5 Unemployed 6.0 million in 2018 versus 7.5 million in 2016
6 Stock market: $33 trillion, up $9 trillion since the 2016 election
7 Mortgage delinquency rate down 26% from 2016
8 Combined Black and Hispanic jobs set ten all-time records in 2018 at higher wages than in 2016
9 Consumer confidence highest in 20 years, up sharply from 2015 and 2016.
10 Unemployment 3.7% lowest since 1969.
11 Initial Public Offerings up 250% from 2016 to $46.8 billion in 2018
12 Real disposable personal income up $597 billion in 2018 versus $244 billion in 2016
13 Total wealth $108 trillion up $13 trillion since the 2016 election.
14 Business investment growth up $334 billion in 2018 versus $52 in 2016
15 Total federal revenues increased 3% from 2016 to 2018 after negative 1% in 2016
18 1.6% inflation in 2018
19 5.7 million have escaped food stamp welfare since December 2016
20 Murder down 6.3% since Dec 2016
21 Debt service on federal debt is 1.6%, less than half of peak
22 Households able to pay all bills: 82% in 2018 up from 75.9% in 2016
2
Back in MBA school, I frequently heard the mantra that “Business needs stability.” Of course, Trump wasn’t listening when he was told that. Uncertainty is horrible for capital investment, which is the major factor for creating a prosperous economy in the long term.
Plus, don’t forget, Democratic presidents really do produce better economies - something about creating demand among the un-wealthy.
42
@Barry64
"Democratic presidents really do produce better economies..."
Every heard of Carter? Real median personal income down every year of his one-term presidency.
Every heard of Reagan? Real median personal income increased 40% in the 19 years after his tax cuts began.
2
@John Huppenthal
And after his tax cuts. Reagan raised taxes twice.
11
It went up because the highest incomes went up dramatically. Not because of an voodoo economics. Lowest incomes have stayed relatively flat.
14
Trump passed the cost of building an unnecessary wall onto his base, tax dollars earmarked for the military. Trump passed the costs of tariffs onto his base, they pay the added costs of imported goods. Trump has passed the costs of 1.5T tax cut to his base. Taxpayers will pay for the additional debt. And they love him for it. A classic case of robbing the blind.
44
In George Orwell's book 1984 this is what is known as "doublespeak" which is disinformation. Each day those the write editorials wake up and ask themselves "what bad thing can I write about President Trump today?" It doesn't have to be true it just has to be negative.
3
@P McGrath
"what bad thing can I write about President Trump today?
Oh, I know. I'll simply repeat what he said in his tweets yesterday.
1
@P McGrath Trump writes his own negative press. Every single day. And it is truly bizarre to see a Trump fan citing Orwell only a couple of days after Trump literally lied to the public about - the weather.
1
@P McGrath
It's more like this: Every day, editorialists wake up an say what bad thing has Trump done now that I have to write about. There is such a wide selection.
1
"Trump is bad for business..."
Depends on how you define "bad".
Since Trujmp was elected, the value of bsuinesses has increased by $8.5 trillion.
It took 44 presidents and 200 yers for the stock market to get to $8.5 trillion.
Took Trump 2.5 years.
In 2018, the economy created 3.1 million full-time jobs, the most since 1984.
In 2018, real disposable personal income increased by $597 billion, 200% of 2016's $244 billion.
3
@John Huppenthal And of course, Herbert Hoover took the Dow from 350 to 40. Inflation, over time, magnifies all.
15
@John Huppenthal "… It took 44 presidents and 200 yers for the stock market to get to $8.5 trillion".
YUP, and how much of that is with stock buy-backs using the $1-2 trillion in Trump tax cuts. YUP, GDP doubling every 20-25 years, the Federal debt every 8-10 years while household debt is growing towards another all time high exceeding $12 trillion.
Heaps of unproductive money secured in digital accounts have inflated stock prices and brought federal long term bond rates below short term bond rates while unsecured personal loan rates at exorbitant rates rake disposable personal income into those accounts.
Business is good for business, Trump is bad for people the sellers and the buyers.
17
With millions in the market, my portfolio has soared under Trump. Most people are poorer. And he's destroying the environment, while assisting mass murderers of children in Yemen and elsewhere.
Seems fair.
1
Those who believe and rely on invisible hands also have 'eye's as a normal person; retaliation to China may be inevitable event, because over-decade renewed bilateral diplomacy still works in both China and US, though speculators are more likely fending off their defence then hardworking citizens, while moral hezard phenomenon, like 'Helicoper Ben' syndrom, spreading out; that matters.
1
Can you please tell me one positive thing that Trump has done for us? And now tell me one positive thing Trump has done for Russia? And I'm not referring to Trumps tax cuts for the wealthy.
24
Paul. I recall reading one of your columns some months ago which said that Trump's tariffs were not going to harm the vast U.S. economy. Why do they now?
10
@Mike He said that tariffs can create losers and winners but it is Trump erratic behavior about tariffs that will harm the US economy.
15
@NSf
Also, "some months ago" the tariffs were different and had a theoretical end.
It is impossible to make long range plans when
Trump keeps changing the rules often on an hourly
basis.
Trump has no idea what he is doing and business
has caught on.
57
@bill bTrump is manipulating the economy with profits being made by people who are aware when the next tweet is coming. Could it be Russian oligarchs or son in law, Jared?
Trumpism has been phenomenal for business both small and large except business has to be on its toes as the rules keep changing. I don't think any businessman is shedding tears over the changes.
3
@Girish Kotwal
I guess you haven't been reading about broke farmers who lost their foreign markets due to trump's belligerence and inability to negotiate trade deals. That's just one damaged sector; there are others.
56
@Girish Kotwal I've seen your name on several letters to the NYT. I have yet to see a reasoned letter from you that doesn't simply say that Trump is some kind of miracle-man who will solve all the world's problems. The vast amount of evidence--yes, facts--strongly suggest otherwise.
1
@raph101
"...broke farmers..."
Wheat exports are up over 20% since Trump was elected.
Some farmers aren't broke.
1
This isn’t a normal administration
This is corruption - out front- and blatant and open as can be with the complete complicity of republicans in the senate
Are elections the only recourse?
2020 cannot get here fast enough
Sweeping the senate is more important than the presidency- there can be no correction without removal of senate republicans and especially Mitch McConnell
206
Americans found out (too late, perhaps) that for much of Reagan's second term, he was suffering from Alzheimer's and rightly should have resigned or the 25th Amendment should have been invoked.
Will we find out sometime in the future that Trump is suffering mental illness and should have resigned or been removed from office? Is it too much to ask that our president be in full control of their faculties?
141
@Paul
Economic growth was 16% in Reagan's second term as compared to Obama's 7% in his second term.
Maybe a president's faculties are overrated.
1
@John Huppenthal
"Economic growth was 16% in Reagan's second term..." Putting billions in the hands of already wealthy people isn't my idea of "economic growth". An economy that doesn't include ALL AMERICANS is a failure...
15
@Paul. From his recent behaviour (marking up a weather forecast with a sharpie, claiming at least twice that his father was born in Germany) it seems pretty clear that he is showing signs of Alzheimer's.
I spent the years taking care of a mother with Alzheimer's and to me the signs seem pretty clear.
10
The environmental point is worth emphasizing. Isn't it time to stop pretending that what's good for "the environment" is bad for our economy?
"The environment" is ultimately, us. We can't exist except as a part of it. If we don't want to destroy ourselves and our economic future, we need to abandon the pretense that "the environment" is some externality quite separate from our economic health.
Even just from the perspective of unpredictability, it isn't hard to imagine the deleterious economic effects of pending climate change data and events.
For all of the destruction these past few decades, we can thank the fossil fuel industry, among others, for our pending devastation. They are the ultimate example of a "take the money and run" business.
58
Trumpism is bad for business, indeed. My husband's employer is currently laying off workers. This is surprising for many reasons, the most obvious ones being that nationwide unemployment is low and supposedly the economy is thriving.
54
@Amye
Some businesses are always laying off workers. Even with the economy growing 3% and 7 million jobs open for the last year, businesses laid off 21 million people.
It's called creative destruction. Some businesses are always eating another business's lunch.
1
Whether you call it "creative destruction" or "creative disruption" it's doublespeak. These war technics are hurting people.
An individual who is observed to be inconstant to his plans, or perhaps to carry on his affairs without any plan at all, is marked at once, by all prudent people, as a speedy victim to his own unsteadiness and folly.
Federalist No 62 (James Madison)
86
@JR
Prudence is out of fashion these days except for those who worry about climate change.
2
@JR
What's inconsistent about Trump?
You either deal or its a fight to the death. Totally consistent. Sane people chose to deal.
1
The business world may be in a state of confusion over their future, but they sure do love the tax cuts they got in the recent past. You won't hear a peep of criticism of the President for quite a long time from them. They'd take confusion of tax increases under a Democrat any day. Just listen...hear any business leaders criticizing Trump? Me neither.
15
@Kathy The tax cut sugar high with borrowed money is done. Now a steady hand on the tiller is needed. Look for that in vain.
27
@zarf11
"..sugar high..."
Nice chant but not true.
Nominal gdp growth in 2018? $1,030 billion
Deficit? 780 billion
Nominal gdp growth in 2016? $485 billion
Deficit $580 billion
@Kathy
It would take a reckless business leader indeed to criticize trump, given how he goes after individuals and companies by name when they displease him.
As long as "shareholder profits" are the chief consideration of American businesspeople, they cannot endanger their profitability by dissing the naked emperor.
As important as it is to hold Trump's bone-spurred feet to the fire, it's difficult if not impossible to use metaphors to illustrate his shortfalls in thinking, vision, management, strategies, contradictions, malapropisms and weather forecasting (a new skill we were all unaware of.) The reason is metaphors fall apart when it comes to Donald Trump. He's been described as a 'street fighter' when he is in fact a 'brawler' - his self-described business acumen is more closely aligned with Carthaginian destruction than it is to creating wealth - his idea of a coin toss is 'heads I win, tails you lose' etc. The end of Donald Trump's presidency cannot come soon enough, it is in fact long overdue.
The kindest thing that can be said about his tenure as Commander in Chief is that it was a beacon of hope for the less fortunate - but the beacon turned out to be an uncontrollable bonfire...which is, of course, another collapsed metaphor.
57
It would be ILLOGICAL to criticize EVERYTHING Trump does. It's hard to argue against his trade fight against Chine - it was a fight waiting to happen. This is true for a lot of issues - such as roll back of excessive bureaucratic regulations, enforcement of border integrity, etc.
The professor would enhance his credibility by indicating the Trump policies he appreciates.
6
What policies are there to appreciate other than tax cuts offering short term shareholder enrichment?
63
@Robert R Read my comment. Of course if you'd rather have China dominate trade with the US using unfair tactics, lawless borders or no borders at all, uncontrolled regulations that stifle business and job creation - of course you would find nothing to appreciate.
@Outspoken
If you're going to take on such a mammoth task, you'd better have a strategy other than bluster and punishing American consumers with tariffs.
Trump is bad for everything. But it is true that what Obama said is the start of a road the end of which we've seen before. We saw the future, and it didn't work. Libertarians overdo it, but George Will has a point:
"The banal fact that no person lives or thinks or works in a vacuum becomes the basis for asserting a 'vital independence' of the individual on society. ... Individualism is attenuated to the point of disappearance, and society can claim ownership to whatever portion it feels entitled to of what individuals produce.
"In the Soviet Union, 'society' claimed ownership of the individual: People wishing to emigrate were denied permission on the ground that they would be taking away education provided by the state. The individual could not be distinguished from society. This is where [such an attack] leads.
"Disparagement of the idea of individual achievement remains part of the pulse of progressivism. 'If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.' ... The progressive project of diluting the concept of individual achievement is a prerequisite for advancement of a collectivist political agenda. The more that individualism can be portrayed as a chimera ... the more society is entitled to conscript whatever portion of the individual's wealth that it considers its fair share. Society may, as an optional act of grace, allow the individual to keep the remainder of what it thinks is misleadingly called the individual's possession."
3
Far from claiming I can argue with George Will, what is left out is recognizing the importance of interdependence in a world that is getting more crowded and interconnected and individual strength is best tested by maintaining your principles while making one plus one greater than two.
33
@David L, Jr.
It is simple to invert that argument.
If workers are allowed to take no ownership of anything, then their individual contributions are attenuated to the point of disappearance and employers can claim ownership of whatever portion it feels it is entitled from what workers produce.
If society is not allowed to take no ownership of any common resources that are vital to the public good, then any individual is free to take ownership of those resources, use them only for their benefit and deny them to everyone else. They take control of rivers and deny others use of their water. They can charge people for breathing air.
The logical fallacy in these statements is exactly the same as the logical fallacy in George Wills argument.
The degree to which individualism IS a chimera is not arbitrary in any way and cannot be "portrayed" to any degree one chooses. A person asserting that it can invites one to think they belong to the cult that rejects the notion of objective truth. The contribution an individual did make cannot be discounted any more than the contribution of others to his work. Its not either or.
30
It's not surprising to be mercurial and boastful in doing business to have the upper hand on making a deal. It's surreally surprising that such a braggart becoming a US president.
14
Donald knows more about badly run and weak business better than anyone else, like his Taj Mahal Casino built in 1990s at 1.2 billion, bankrupted in 2009 and sold for 4 cents on a dollar in 2017.
what a guy, he is the best at bashing others...
What would Saturday-night-Live do without him?
46
@paul
Exactly. Anyone who read the NYT (2015 or 16 I think) article about his casino failures was already aware that he knows nothing about managing a project, keeping it in scope and within budget. His constant changing of the requirements bankrupted his company and the many businesses he stiffed when it came time to pay them for their work and materials.
43
Did we misunderstand what Trump was saying?
Because of his inability to spell correctly, maybe what he really meant was
MAKE AMERICA GRATE AGAIN.
If that is the case, I would say he has been enormously successful, as the nerves of people all over the world (including in the US) are being grated to no end by Trump's America.
55
@Tom Krebsbach: Yes, the bumpersticker reads "Ban shredded cheese — make America grate again."
2
@Tom Krebsbach
Hey, that was my slogan!
1
It's not surprising to be mercurial and boastful in doing business to have the upper hand on making a deal. It's surreally surprising that such a braggart becoming a US president who trying to MAGA.
1
Since trump became president, members of his administration have done horrible things to people who did not deserve it. One of the key players in this has been Stephen Miller. Certainly none of these things have been against American law per say. However, the evil intent is nothing short of cruel and unusual. Since Miller has not broken American law, I wonder if his behavior might be prosecuted internationally. The International Court of Justice at the Hague, seems to be a reasonable court for prosecuting people whose abuse of power resulted in deaths even if indirectly, and his behavior has resulted in deaths.
20
@Jerome Stoll,
Yeah, referring American citizens you can't get your desired ruling against in US courts to an international tribunal is sure to resonate with 70-80% of the voters. To be clear, I don't think you have any idea how much aid and comfort you have provided to the Trump administration.
2
@Charles Becker I don't think my suggestion would reach as high as the trump administration. Since no one has polled on this issue, your numbers are a fabrication.
@Jerome Stoll,
And you think polling numbers aren't Fabrications? Of course they are, they're just wrapped in a mathematically fancy cover. Logic and reason are all that is required to see your idea for what it is: yet another nail in the coffin in the gallows of our democracy.
1
Somebody is making large sums of money on Trump’s market volatility. It isn’t just Trump’s impetuousness.
Somebody in Alabama is making something out of Trump’s insistent claim that hurricane Dorian was going to hit it.
Trump is an able grifter and con, even if he isn’t too bright.
24
Remember when Republicans said Obamacare would create so much uncertainty it would hurt business?
Seems quaint now, huh?
32
Trump did not come to the table untarnished; we all knew that he had undergone bankruptcy more than a few times, and yet watched as ignorance reigned. "I voted for a businessman," we were told. "We want change, disruption!" Change for change sake is a poor way to run a country. He couldn't even run a casino! Gamblers will throw their house payments away at these places, and he couldn't even make that a going concern.
There was no way that Trump could have been good for the economy. This is no surprise. And this is just the beginning...
23
Conditions for business will be a lot worse if we doing rein in China's cheating.
3
@Grace
I would be for it if he were confronting China competently, but since he never built support for it, even within the Republican Party, China will simply out wait him.
21
@Matt
China is quickly going bankrupt. Soon enough, Xi will be ejected.
1
Notwithstanding Trump's Socialistic bailout of farmers injured by his trade war; his unpredictability causing manufacturers to hesitate to retool their plants; his lack of knowledge of basic economics, etc., he's an impetuous kid in a "China" closet who is causing economic havoc throughout the world. I suspect that many corporate/business powers-at-be will have had enough by the time our next presidential election comes around and ironically will choose to support his opponent - especially if he or she is a moderate.
7
Yes, Paul. You keep up the predictions and the analysis You've been predicting the same economic collapse for over three years now. Reminds me of Godfather II when Michael Corleone says of: " Hyman Roth has been dying of the same heart attack for 20 years." Such is Level III Trump-derangement. One day historians and psychiatrists will figure out how and why Trump has the uncanny ability to turn normally intelligent people into babbling buffoons not to mention conspiracy mongers.
Oh, by the way: the latest released economic data yesterday shows small businesses in the US are increasing their hiring and in fact are having trouble filling job openings. Not exactly recession sounding. Wouldn't you say? But never fear. A recession inevitably comes at some point in the business cycle. Just keep predicting a recession, and sooner or later you will be right. As is a broken clock twice a day.
3
@JW
By the way, don't forget to thank Obama. His administration walked us away from the Bush recession and built the foundation for this Trump economy, such as it is.
27
@JW what historians and psychiatrists will show is Trump Derangement Syndrome as the affliction suffered by Trump SUPPORTERS not detractors. And I agree that these supporters ARE babbling bafoons and conspiracy theorists, however they NEVER were intelligent.
@JW
If he's been predicting it for three years then he must have predicted it would happen while Obama was still president, yet you call it Trump-derangement.
more to the point, the Fed says Trump's trade war will shave 1% off GDP growth in the next year:
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/trade-uncertainty-to-cut-1-from-us-gdp-federal-reserve
5
@Smokey geo,
GDP growth is the stuff of conventional economists. In other words, it's nearly meaningless compared to the welfare of the bottom 20% socioeconomic group. Real wages for working Americans have been rising for the first time in over two decades. If GDP goes down by 1% but the 20th percentile is better off, then that is a good thing ... Lunless your last name is Koch.
1
@Charles Becker
When gdp goes down, the bottom 20% is the first to suffer.
The children of poverty in India help support their families by cleaning latrines with their bare hands, live in shacks, have no shoes and eat rats to survive.
Our poor have cars, cell phones, running water, electricity, toilets, showers, sinks, beds, refrigerators, silverware, flat screen tvs and more calories than are healthy for them.
They have these things and only have these things because the Koch industries and their employees pay over $35 billion in taxes per year.
Saying one wants a businessperson for a president is like saying someone wants an animal for a pet. Trump is a decent salesperson of a sort. He is not even close in his background, education, or achievements to what one may reasonably expect of a senior executive at an established, large corporation. People have to stop being duped by the "businessperson" label some politicians adopt. The fact that people have money doesn't mean they know more than you do about how to fix the country. When it comes to Trump, he pretty much knows nothing. He was a lousy student because he's a non-learner, which doesn't just make him a lousy choice for president, but for any management position. Without Daddy's money he'd have a hard time holding down a job.
29
@Joe,
You don't respect Trump. Neither do I. How does that change the real-world-outside-America imperative to encourage the PRC government to start acting like a mature, responsible, and ethical actor on the world stage?
1
@Charles Becker, stop defending him.
1
No one has shown that Trump has run a successful busines. He gott 400 million from his father and rent gauged poor people in New York. He lost his gambling casinos and no one wanted to lend him money except the Russians. Why did American business executives roll over for this GOP con man? We saw what went on with Real Estate investors i last Saturday's paper.
10
Trump stands for erratic. Erratic destroys confidence and trust; two cornerstones of our economic scheme. Trump thinks he is still grifting in real estate and we know about his poor record there with several BK’s under his belt. He is overmatched in every facet of his job and it truly shows.
4
U.S. exports Jan - July 2017 $1,349,898 million;
U.S. exports Jan - July 2018 $1,460,044 million;
U.S. exports Jan - July 2019 $1,456,693 million.
'Crisis' growth rate over period +7.9%.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, September 4, 2019,
Paul retire.
3
@Tim I notice that 2019 is a decrease from 2018. From these numbers, it would appear to me that in the course of one year we from an 8.2% increase to negative growth. It may be a little premature to put Paul out to pasture.
3
@Tim
Amen.
U.S. trade exports were 6% higher in the second quarter of 2019 than in the second quarter of 2016.
Stats to die for.
1
@Tim
Why don't you also list the U.S. imports? Perhaps then the numbers would not fit your narrative?
1
I was ready to say that the pain is worth it. Poor misunderstood Pres. But Prof Krugman finished big with Springtime for grifters and a reminder of Trump U. And the games (did he mention ‘breathing room’ for Huawei and I missed it??) We need to change priorities like the Pope (and Bernie) said but Mr. Reichstag Fire II aint the solution and never was. Although for a moment it seemed he could pivot into the light. Then, Nyet.
2
Well done, Professor. Comparing your analysis to the False Equivalence claptrap that comes from your colleague Mr. Brooks is like comparing President Obama to Mr. Indecency. On the one hand, rationality and logic. On the other, wishful thinking to bolster a fragile ego.
1
A chemical company can minimize the cost it must pay—its private costs—to dispose of its toxic waste and, thereby, maximize its profits, by simply dumping its waste into the nearest stream or ditch. The polluted streams and aquifers that result threaten our supplies of potable water and cost society dearly. When a chemical company is able to externalize the costs of disposing of its toxic waste in this way, the private costs of producing chemicals are substantially less than they would be if the company had to pay these costs, and the true costs to society as a whole of the chemicals produced are not reflected in their prices.
What’s more, if chemical companies are not prevented by law from dumping their toxic waste, they will have no choice but to dump it because those companies that try to be socially responsible and dispose of their toxic waste safely will have higher costs than those that do not try to be socially responsible. As a result, socially responsible companies will be driven out of business by socially irresponsible companies as irresponsible companies drive market prices below the costs that must be paid by companies that try to dispose of their toxic waste responsibly.
In other words, chemical companies must be forced by the government to be socially responsible or they will be forced by the market to be socially irresponsible. That’s how markets work. This problem is, of course, not limited to the chemical industry:
http://rweconomics.com/WD/Ch19.htm
24
Trump’s erratic and impulsive economic management style with its trade wars and tariffs is guaranteed to harm the economy and will likely lead to a recession.
He inherited an improving and fairly strong economy but with his poorly conceived tax cuts enriched corporations without benefiting the working and middle class. He failed to invest money in badly needed infrastructure projects and in combatting the existential threat of climate change with renewable energy programs. These initiatives would have created millions of high paying jobs. He has tried to harm health care which is the fastest growing job producer in America and needs to be intelligently reformed not threatened with program cuts. He is obsessed with the anachronistic manufacturing jobs of the 1950s ignoring automation and globalization. He doesn’t understand the complexities of global trade, supply lines, and the benefits economically of American dominance in finance that offsets to a large extent our trade deficits. His Presidency is a disaster in its economic policies and in his erratic bombastic and confrontational leadership.
He is incompetent, ignorant, and a distraction to our global leadership in economic and world affairs.
He is in my opinion the greatest threat to our economic prosperity since the great depression.
Almost all his policy decisions are poorly conceived and handled. His economic and trade teams reflect this incompetence and do not represent top talents. He is in short an embarrassment!
14
Trump’s stock answer isn’t exactly “it’s not me, it’s you”, it’s more akin to “I know you are, but what am I?” Not that either version is worth reporting. If there have been any serious answers, I must have missed them.
3
Based on Trump's many business FAILURES, take the GIANT STEP and conclude he's not only bad for BUSINESS, he's BAD at doing everything!!! He continues to rely ONLY on his EGO.
4
My cavachon puppy knows more about economics, fiscal policy, and business than Donald Trump.
4
How about real estate business? I am planning to build towers in Timbuktu!
I wonder how well the Trump business is doing these days.
2
@Norman
It can't be good for a business that makes its money licensing the trump name to keep having to remove the name from properties.
OTOH, ivanka is getting all the permissions she needs to keep doing business in China. Perhaps the family can flourish just on her ripped off shoe designs?
1
"Springtime for grifters"--great line, Paul and so true
10
"To be fair, however, some kinds of business do thrive under Trumpism"
Not least, those operated by people named Trump.
Maybe V.P. Pence will line-item his expense report for staying at the Irish Trump property: "education for U.S. citizenry re BOTH emoluments clauses."
7
Corporate profits hit an all-time high of 11.7% GDP in Q1 2012. For the history buffs, that was under Obama.
Profits have fallen since, to 8.8% GDP under Trump. Somehow we all got by with corporate profits around 6% GDP on average from 1950 to 1999.
In $ terms, corporate profits have moved mostly sideways since Q1 2012, around $1.9 trillion annualized in 2012 and 2019.
So, Obama wasn't so bad for big business, and Trump hasn't done much to help them, as the profit to GDP ratio continues to decline.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?graph_id=151912
13
As I review your summary of the Trump initiatives (the ones that were in front of the curtain) that appear to be failing at every turn and doing harm to the families of the United States and weakening the economy in the markets that we have invested in developing, I was haunted by this statement in your newsletter this week, "Now, the truth is that it’s hard to know what will really happen (and the research economist in me is, rather ghoulishly, eager to find out.) I used to know a very good manager who had a sign on her desk that read, “When all else fails, lower your standards.” .
Since we are probably stuck with this President until January, 2021, and the Congress doesn't appear to be able to hold him in check, I begin to think about the President's tariff policies which are imposing a tax on American consumers and then I thought about the 100;s a Billions of dollars that are flowing into the Treasury (The President often brags about this} and turning it back to people with average middle class incomes with a new tax cut for the middle income tax bracket. Maybe using it to give his cut in payroll taxes he mentioned about a month ago.
The problem is we really only have one more legislative year, but tax cuts could be made retroactive so that working class people would immediately benefit Anyway, it would be a great experiment to convert to tariffs rather than direct taxes on income to fund the activities of government. Sort of a value added tax.
1
@james jordan
Except a VAT is highly regressive isn't it? And regressive taxes are bad for consumers. No thank you. I would rather tax those that have been lying for 40 years about how cutting the taxes of the super rich would trickle down. But of course they forgot about the Act until only recently but then essentially removed tax deductions for what, the mostly blue states while we are being asked to subsidize farmers who are being hurt by the tariffs. Bad policy is bad policy. You only have to look at outcomes. Enormous debt and deficits all to make the really rich, richer. Time for change, and time for the country to claw back what was stolen by the corrupt for two generations. And after we get true tax reform, we can discuss some "experiments".
17
@Mark
I agree but I am amazed that the Congress can't stop tariffs. It frustrates me, and I like your wariness on regressive taxes.
5
@james jordan
*won't stop tariffs (they can and should)
1
Having Trump as President is not bad for businesses, at least not for his own businesses.
11
I agree that business realize that in the long run they will have to transition to a low-emissions economy. That's why I think that we should give fossil fuel energy companies incentives to transition make the change. This will speed up the transition which needs to be take place NOW. An example would be turning an oil fracking field into an enhanced geothermal energy plant.
11
Don't worry about it! Most of those business managers can't make good plans when they think they know what is happening. Let's take Boeing for example.
7
Yes, the rules keep changing - in favor of business
From today's New York Time
"Trump Moves to Send Mortgage Giants Back to Private Sector"
"Privatization could also bring a windfall for hedge funds and other investors that bought Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stock after the crisis for pennies,"
“President Trump’s housing plan will make mortgages more expensive and harder to get,” said Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the top Democrat on the banking committee. “I’m urging the president: Make it easier for working people to buy or rent their homes, not harder.”
Expect more pro business from Trump - and less for working Americans.
28
@Lars
Fixed rate 30 year mortgages are now 3.6%. The lowest in history. I remember when a Carter took them to 18%.
Here is another anti-business policy pushed by the Trump administration. His drive to break up trade alliances to create several bilateral trading relationships is going to make doing business internationally more complicated and more expensive for everyone. If Trump were a real business person he would understand that trying to conduct multiple trading relationships each with a different set of rules is a nightmare. Frankly, I don't know how a small company like mine could cope.
16
Prof. K, I think that Trump might just know what he's tweeting about when the subject is 'businesses run poorly, and weak'. After all, with several bankruptcies, thousands of lawsuits, and multiple court settlements under his belt, Trump has personal experience with running a business "poorly, and weak".
47
Agriculture arose in the distant history of mankind when the climate became stable enough that crops could be raised with some success most of the time. Similarly businesses that want to flourish for many years need stable inputs and outputs, they can work for years to get the right suppliers making the inputs they desire, and they can develop long term customers for their current products and the new improved versions that outperform earlier versions or replace worn out products some years in use.
Many farmers cannot count on the weather, cities cannot build when they have catastrophic flooding 4 years in 10; people, even with insurance, cannot replace everything every year due to flooding.
We have climate change devastating farmers and some citizens in some cities, and we have unpredictable economic climate and taxation change making mid term planning for most corporations either impractical or too risky for investment purposes.
trump likes to kick over other peoples' apple carts; he enjoys the chaos. And he may have created enough chaos to destroy the economy, the farming communities, and enough of the citizens of the country to have single handedly destroyed the hope and faith of people in the United States
24
@Warren Courtney
I wish we could inject a little chaos into Trump's life by "sic-ing" the Southern District of New York on him.
Paul Krugman left out one of the "take-the-money-and-run" types Trump is good for: usurious payday-lenders.
32
I just can't help but think Trump [while at one of clubs] winks and nods to his friends.. "I'm going to tweet this next week about commodities futures," If a man is giving me signals like that, why would I want to vote him out of office?
35
@Aaron You KNOW it's happening every single day. Trump's buddies are getting richer by the second.
5
I cannot agree more. The trump administration is deciding who the economic winners will be. Every and tarif and exemption from tarifs, every pay to play hotel stay, every tax cut and every loosened regulation puts businesses picked by trump at an advantage. Does the usa really want this serial bankruptee who thinks it is 1950 to pick who the economic “winners” in the “free” market? It will take time and more money to unwind these mistakes but you can bet the profits will stay privatized and the costs socialized.
41
Prof. Krugman is, of course, focusing on corporate America here and showing us how bad the Trump administration's trade, taxation and fiscal policies have been for Big Business. But what of Main Street U.S.A. which this "president" and so many other Republicans keep referencing during election cycles? Well, from everything that I've been able to make out, small businesses have been shutting down all over the U.S., most especially in the Midwest whose disillusioned voters gambled on a reality-TV huckster in November 2008. Even here in NYC, I keep watching as my favorite groceries, book stores, diners and laundromats close up entirely or get taken over by the still-extant chain franchises. Thanks, Donald! Things will only get worse until you're replaced by a Democrat (or other intelligent life-form).
82
@stu freeman
The best employment statistics in memory! It's a great time especially for minority workers.
1
@stu freeman
Actually, the shuttering of Main Street started with Walmart.
2
@Grace
Low unemployment is good, but if all these jobs don't pay a living wage -- as is the case now -- it's not a "great time" for large swaths of the population. The socialist-haters who crow about trump's economy conveniently overlook the fact that for each poorly-paid worker, the US taxpayer has to subsidize the cheap employer through SNAP, WIC, etc.
7
I think Paul is right that many industries flourish under a fairly strict system of regulations which more or less protect the public interest, while providing a predictable set of rules how to conduct your business. Those players who learn the rules figure out a business model that makes money, even if some rules, e.g.. environmental restrictions, increase your costs and/or aggravate you because they don't make as much sense as you'd like. The system breaks down when either bad actors bypass the rules and aren't punished or the regulators truly run amok and the industry either freezes due to unpredictability in the regulatory climate or becomes uncompetitive with the rest of the world. Having a President who refuses to govern, where everything he does is simply a political statement for his base, is simply bad for business.
32
@Roy Lowenstein
Like banking under Bush Lite. Slack regulation and then a world crisis.
6
Agree, some businesses are suffering from Trump's actions, however I don't read enough out there to support businesses are hurting as much as PK's article. Their tax relief from Trump was substantial is still is. Who is actually hurting is our U.S. Treasury that declared bankruptcy when Trump came to D.C. Gov't spending is out of control. Who's complaining. No one. Businesses are complaining, lower taxes and their prices didn't go down. So until all those $Billions of tariffs kick in with higher prices it seems businesses are enjoy great profit margins. Money is cheap, consumers continue to further into debt. I would say Trump has the economy right where he wants it. And what will the Dems do, just come along and add more debt with their social programs. We'll see tariffs reduced soon. Trump knows he can't continue to add more $trillions to the national debt.
4
@Me Too
You seem to be laboring under the delusion that Trump will suddenly end his trade war, but unless he gets what he Specifically wants, you can expect the trade war to go on. You also mentioned if liberals “come along and add more debt with their social programs” it never ceases to amaze me how easily you and other supporters seem to overlook the over 40 billion dollars, tax payer dollars and more coming, that soybean farmers have been given to be held harmless from Trumps ill advised trade war. One thing that I’ve noticed, is when the economy is growing, social programs seem to be the target of choice of Trumplican supporters. Yet these are the very same people that line up for any kind of government program, during an economic downturn. Take 2008, these same people that denigrate social programs, applied for extended unemployment benefits, and other benefits. And let’s not forget, since red states are usually the ones being hit by floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. these same anti-social program people AKA Republicans, line up for FEMA cheap flood insurance and more to help THEM REBUILD over and over, those are tax payer driven programs, which is socialism. The day republicans stop taking any form of government handouts, disability payments, welfare,whatever you want to call it, is the day democrats will stop demanding single payer healthcare. Meaning republicans need to put up or shut up, lead by example, but do you really think that those in red states would ever.
54
@Me Too Funny how every time those liberal Dems have been in charge recently defecit spending goes down.
1
I am the founder of a well funded startup. Over the past year I have been negotiating a business launch in China. Imagine the impact of being ordered by the President to not do business there. Worse he said if we loose opportunity or money because of his statement we business operators are incompetent.
I am certain he is not to be underestimated as to the damage he will cause by such behavior.
49
@George Burch,
First, Trump can’t order you to pull out of any country in the current political environment. Second, his ordering by tweet, demonstrates how incompetent he truly is. I only hope that those who voted for him, suffer the most.
4
Poor DT, he thought that trade with China could be resolved by simply serving Xi "the most beautiful chocolate cake ever" at
Mar A Lago while obtaining multiple licenses for Ivanka. No one told him that real life was more complicated. Can't blame the man for throwing a tantrum now.
28
@Vondamae. Pres. Trump may have felt that the cake would make a very big impression, after all, Trump himself was enormously impressed when he was served three scoops of ice cream once when others were served only two.
3
The whole Trump-as-president thing is absurd. Absurd! Yet NYT continues to publish serious articles about him. "Trump wants to buy Greenland." "Trump uses Sharpie to alter weather forecast map." And all Republicans suck up to him. "Of course we should buy Greenland." "Why is the fake news focusing on a Sharpie?"
It's all absurd. How is this guy still the president? Why haven't Republicans dumped him for someone competent and sane?
201
@tanstaafl It's actually the Democrats' Deep State plot to confuse Republicans and remind voters what a good president Obama was.
17
@tanstaafl
That's because when Harry Truman expressed interest in buying Greenland for the same obvious strategic reasons -- not to mention Iceland too, he was a Democrat saying it; but if Trump suggests the same, it must be insanity. As far as Trump fudging a gaffe and not honing up to it? Well, pretend it's Joe Biden instead. Then you can say it's simply Joe being Joe. Or Bill Clinton, in which case you can say: "It all depends on what a Sharpie is." Oh, but again: those two are Democrats. So nothing to see here. Move along. Move along.
2
@JW
Re: Truman's interest in Greenland, It's been observed that we obtained many strategic benefits as a result of the Truman administration's talks with the Danish government - benefits we still enjoy today. What was remarkable about the Trump approach is that it seemed to involve no sense of context, no diplomacy to speak of, and very little effort on his part, yet the offer was crassly (to the point of insultingly) delivered as if it was some sort of gift. Thinking that is an approach to success on the world stage is pretty insane, no matter what party you belong to.
29
If you are being attacked by Trump, chances are you are doing something right. If Trump is praising you, chances are you are doing something that will prove to be wrong before long. It is actually a mark of distinction for a business to be criticized by Trump -- or for a politician, a public servant, or practically anyone else. As with most everything that comes out of his mouth, the opposite is actually the truth. I rather doubt that he himself actually believes much of what he says. He just think it resonates with his "base." He thinks it is good for his ratings.
39
Republicans are the mollycoddling nursemaids of plutocrats. Whatever self-destructive whim the rich tantrum for, Republicans rush in tripping over themselves to placate. The results are predictable, with notable examples such as the S&L debacle and the subprime catastrophe.
Ironically, it is left to the adults on the Left to administer the tough love that fixes capitalism until the cycle starts again. What we learn from this history is that we never learn from history and must repeat our mistakes over and over until the end of time.
39
Paul is in the wrong track again. He considers what business wants or needs has some role, and Trump isn’t recognizing this. But come on, Paul. Trump is a marionette working for the “dismantle government” billionaire backers of his administration. They want chaos. They want people to see government as failure.
Then they want to restore order from their created chaos as knights in shining armor. A narrow minded inflexible Oligarchy of bonkers billionaires.
13
Yes, the rules keep changing for business. The rules also keep changing for immigrants. The rules keep changing for consumers. The rules keep changing for the environment. The rules keep changing for students and their families. For all the government agencies — every grifter who gets a job in the trump administration either came from an industry he or she once worked for or will work for after going through the trump revolving door. The grifters change the rules to benefit those previous or future employers. The grift and graft are despicable.
49
We used to think the really big political decisions were made by rich and powerful individuals in a smoke-filled room. Obviously the GOP crapshoot that selected T as the candidate lacked wisdom and foresight. Does the GOP now amount to nothing more than Moscow Mitch, Graham, and a few thousand fundraisers and sycophants?
31
@Texas Trader: The Grahams, McConnells, Trumps etc are just marionettes, and hence their vacuity. The power behind them are the billionaire backers: the Mercers, the Kochs, the DeVos, the Murdoch’s, the Spencers — the list is long. They are interested in establishing themselves more securely. Already they run the GOP, the Senate, half the Supreme Court, and many State Legislatures. And an incomparable propaganda machine that has almost half of voters glued to alternative facts and phoney conspiracy theories. Eventually they hope to install themselves explicitly as a replacement for democracy.
5
@Texas Trader
If Moscow Mitch gets an alliterative sobriquet, I think his buddy Lindsey should get one too. How about Groveling Graham or the more old fashioned lick spittle Lindsey? He’s an exemplar of both behaviors.
1
The reason that so many people have an almost visceral dislike for Donald Trump has to do with the fact that nothing he says can be trusted. If a sitting president of the United States is supposed to create stability, and this president by his lies, duplicity, and “changing his mind” repeatedly does just the opposite, then you can be sure that this instability will create its own fallout for the United States. And if one doubts this all we have to do is look at the record. Time and time again he has contradicted himself, covered his lies, created lies on top of lies to cover himself and so on . It will take us years to rebuild the trust that has been lost with our allies. It will take American citizens decades to regain trust in our political leaders because of Donald Trump.
Hopefully by now most of the country realizes that he’s making this up as he goes along with no apparent plan.It’s time for the rest of America to wake up and understand that they have been conned.
46
Don’t hold your breath.
Krugman has yet to explain why the economy has flourished under Trump's policies when he predicted exactly the opposite, that it would crash under Trump. The masses media continues to get the economy wrong. Their hatred of 45 dictates their reporting. Since they suffer no consequences, pundits like Krugman are unrepentant and and learn nothing from their past and numerous failures.
1
@William Aiken, he has explained it. The tax cut gave an unnecessary boost to an already recovering economy, resulting in stock buy-backs that didn't help workers and an increase in the deficit (when Trump and Republicans predicted exactly the opposite).
So, you think Trump is telling the truth about the state of the economy?
19
@William Aiken- It has flourished because of the nearly decade of foundation laid by President Obama and Democrats. Don't worry though; Donald Trump is busy undoing all that work and sending the US economy into the can. The warning signs are blinking all over the place.
24
@William Aiken The economy has continued to flourish under Trump because the actions of the Obama administration gave it very solid foundations. Economic policies, good or bad, take some time to filter through to impacts on the actual economy, which means even Trump's lunacy has taken time to bite. But it is now having serious ramifications, farm bankruptcies are way up, national debt is heading towards $29 trillion, manufacturing is down and a recession seems nearer every day. It took Trump 20 years to bankrupt his casinos; America will take less time than that but the costs will be astronomical.
It seems that it is Trump that refuses to learn lessons from his past failures, which is unfortunate seeing as there's so many of them.
29
It's good news that many business leaders are resisting the weakening/removing of many long-standing, common sense government programs and regulations.
The question is; what are they doing to get together to get rid of Trump and politically neutralize his clan of grifters and his brain-poisoned base?
Corporate CEO's and the like are the movers and shakers of the nation. These are the people who can make things happen.
You got your tax break, you got your judges. Nothing else you would want will be forthcoming from this term or, god help us, a second Trump term.
Any rational Republicans that may be left in the country would do well to remember that the ascendancy of Barak Obama was a direct result of the train wreck of the Bush II Administration.
The pendulum always swings back with equal force.
13
Long ago an American businessman with experience in Asia,
wrote "Why Goliath Can'r Export".
The main message was that American's don't understand other
cultures.
Then along came Mr. Trump, who doesn't understand anything.
Mr Trump can't tariff his way out of this problem. He keeps
making it worse.
thank you.
ancient Canadian economist with long experience in Asia and
more recently Mexico
Ref "Why Goliath Can't Export" The Economist, London circa 1985
5
"In other words, under Trump it’s springtime for grifters."
This sums up all your columns for the past two years, and, I would argue, for the next 14 months till November 2020 .
Trump is personally clueless, whatever the subject matter. he has flushed all the somewhat competent advisors he had at the beginning and replaced them with ignorant sycophants, and that includes Navarro and the rest off the economics team.
So, although dr K's columns are always accurate and to the point, they are also like a broken record, explaining why Trump is wrong but with a different anecdote. Because Trump has no plan except to self-deal himself and his buddies, all of whom loath him, so whatever he decides is a spur of the moment thing sprung out of Fox News or Steve Miller's brain, sort of.
The real question is, as Bruce Rosenblit asked an hour ago:
"I can't understand why the powerful CEOs of major multinational corporations don't stand up and call is guy out for ruining everything. What are they waiting for?"
Exactly! What are they waiting for?
229
@William Dufort,
What are they waiting for, you ask, they are waiting for things to go really sideways. Then they will ask for a tax payer bailout.
21
@William Dufort Let's start wit Rex Tillerson who knows what Trump is, and said so. In a normal world, some loyalty to the president is appropriate but there's nothing patriotic about being loyal to Donald Trump.
6
The Trump administration is an asset of the Russian intelligence and security apparatus. Everything becomes clear once this is understood.
23
I don’t think it’s the Farmers Market, farmers that are failing - it’s AgroBuz!
Not too big to fail.
Let them sink.
2
Dr.Paul Krugman details why he thinks Trump is bad for business.But I think the jury is still out.Krugman mentions some oddities:
1.When Trump says businesses are failing,because they are run badly,there is no reaction.But when Obama said“You didn’t build it”,there was outrage.But that is because Trump has given a trillion$ tax cut.Obama did not&never spoke positively about business.
2.Krugman is right when he says the trade war has upset business calculations.But there is consensus that China had to be checked&Trump is doing it.Even business wants China brought under check.Without pain,I can’t see how USA can get anything from China.
3.Even Democrats want China to change its rules of engagement with the USA.Trump is trying to do it.
4.While It is difficult to predict what Trump will do with China,everyone agrees that Trump has given China a big scare. China never faced anyone as problematic&disrespectful as Trump.Trump is immune to the strategies of China,as he does not wants its approval.
5.Trump’s very unpredictability&lack of fixed plans is his strength.China is aware that Trump faces problems in USA.But they are also aware that they can’t coerce Trump through the media or through the”pundits”.Trump does not call intellectuals”pointy-headed guys”,as George Wallace did.But he thinks of them the same way.This is wrong,but it makes Trump harder to influence.
Who knows who will win the US- China trade war?But Trump has shaken up China&made China sense it’s vulnerabilties!
1
@Dr.Pentapati Pullarao.Ph.D- If Trump were immune to the strategies of China, we wouldn't be in this trade war. Don't conflate an unwillingness to back down no matter what the circumstances with a well-thought out and executed strategy.
15
Looking forward to watching the president declare victory and surrender. Then plod up the steps to the roof of the WH where he will be whisked away on the last helicopter out of Washington.
5
This is one of Dr. Krugman's best articles on the Idiocracy of Trumpistan, formerly known as the United States of America.
28
Most businesses, unlike real estate developers, don't have Russian mob money to fall back on when things get rough.
25
We should clear one thing up: Obama's phrasing was not artful in that it could be very easily misconstrued. If he had had any experience in business management, he likely would have caught the sloppiness of his phrasing and either said it differently or corrected himself.
Entrepreneurs take great pride in building businesses, and sometimes excessive pride, but if that is what helps propel them to work long hours and takes big risks, who's to argue? It is also a fact that no business exists in a vacuum, nothing stands entirely on its own. A business sells products and services into the economy as it exists; nothing works unless it there is an established market and customers have the ability to pay.
Business people are able to leverage the improvements and infrastructure we all pay for to get rich while others live in dire poverty. Example: a state builds a new highway into an undeveloped area. Land speculators get rich. People who build houses on the land make millions. New stores and services flood the zone. What do we get? A 30 year mortgage and the expenses of a longer commutes.
Businesses should pay higher taxes not only because they are able to leverage public investments for private gain but also to support the development of additional infrastructure, etc., from which they can benefit in the future. Instead, "low tax states", like Texas, shift the burden onto working citizens. Those who make less pay more.
As for "badly run" companies, Trump is an expert there.
17
Supporters of Trump's absurd trade wars keep claiming that American companies will rise up and fill the role of foreign suppliers any minute now. That's absurd. First, businesses don't magically pop out of the ground like mushrooms after the rain. If I were going to start a company to supply rare earth magnets (mostly from China right now), for example, it is going to require a lot work and investment. I would need acquire mining rights or land, survey deposits, build excavating operations, etc. It will take time and a lot of money. But, secondly, why should I risk all that investment when Trump could turn around and make a deal with China where the tariffs on Chinese rare earth will be low or non-existent?
This is, and has always been, the problem of electing a con man who has no plan and no idea what he is doing. Corporations will happily take Trump's tax cuts, but given how erratic the administration is, they will not risk new investments in an uncertain environment. So much for the job creators.
69
@citybumpkin
How can you say that! Rare earths pop out of the ground wherever Trump leaves his footprints. (That's why they're called "rare" and "earths".)
2
@Thomas Zaslavsky I guess that would make the Mar-a-Lago golf course the biggest deposit on rare earths.
3
@citybumpkin
You must be right. But we must mine them fast, before they melt into the rising ocean.
1
What a great line:
Remaking the U.S. economy in the image of Trump University isn’t exactly making America great again.
But as was reported yesterday about the study concerning "Chaos" that is what a lot of people apparently want. They want everything to fail.
19
@davey385
Dreams may come true, then everyone willing or not can live in the valley of ashes.
2
Look at the effect Trump’s announced campaign - remember his descent on the fold plated escalator at Trump Tower? - had on old and new money alike. They ignored him. They didn’t push against his candidacy because they believed that he was only a short term player, in it for the publicity as he’d done before. They didn’t support him not because his candidacy was a long shot but because his notoriety and abrasiveness and history in NY real estate and self-aggrandizement would bring a lot of scrutiny. The sort of scrutiny that would expose not only the skeletons in his and others closets but also the kind that would detail the financial and social shenanigans that most wealthy people participate in. The use of bankruptcy as a business plan. The structuring of businesses around multiple LLCs that cannot be identified. The abuse of the tax code with specific intent to drastically reduce tax obligations. The methods of moving income between associated entities to make it disappear. And many more. Contrary to what would appear to be common sense, the wealthy in this country did not want DJT to be President because it would bring the very spotlight they had worked so hard and paid so dearly to avoid.
32
I wish the stock market wasn't so fickle that it believed him when he said a deal with China is in the works (5th time now?).
So when nothing happens again, it will crash and so on and so on. On the other hand my respect for Walmart has grown considerably this week. Really happy they are standing up to the gun lobby.
93
@Mary Dalrymple
If Walmart would pay their employees a decent enough wage that they could afford some healthcare and nutritious food, more lives would be saved than changing what kind of guns and ammunition they sell.
4
@Mary Dalrymple
No, they (Walmart) are gambling that their phony Moral Pasturing will increase the bottom line.........
1
While I share many of your concerns about Mr. Trump, I am very concerned that your apparently visceral dislike for the man has become the prism through which you view everything. I don’t like the tariffs, but I like even less the ongoing theft and/or extortion of trade secrets by companies that are often little more than extensions of the Chinese government. What, exactly, would you propose in place of these tariffs as a weapon against this theft?
7
@Thomas Smith, Trump could work with our allies on this. In fact that idea had to have been proposed to him. But he wants to go it alone because he's making America great again and he's also putting America first. Ironically every president has tried to put our interests first. Trump doesn't seem to understand the concept of teamwork and the companies that complained about China didn't want to be named or to have anything done at the time. They wanted to complain.
I'm more concerned that Trump's supporters and the GOP are being willfully blind to what he is doing to our economy, to businesses that rely on other countries to manufacture or export what they need to function here. I would have thought that Trump's expertise as a businessman included understanding the value of planning for the future, having a steady supply and a backup, and a few other things. Judging by how he's handling things I must conclude otherwise. And my dislike for the man is visceral but not unreasoning. Nor is Mr. Krugman's.
121
@Thomas
TPP
And it’s not visceral, research his actual record, you may find it enlightening. We in NYC have known this conman for decades. He’s a tabloid, wannabe. With his Trump steaks, and Trump Vodka, and Trump Airlines, and Trump University, the Plaza Hotel etc etc etc. American banks lost so much with him through his abysmal deals and shady dealings and defaults that they refused to lend to him anymore. That’s why he went to Deutsche Bank (and you can see where that’s going).
Don’t assume that just because Trump supporters voted for him based on how they “feel” about him, that the rest of us don’t actually research and evaluate based on data the backgrounds of the candidates who may become the leaders of our country.
314
@Thomas Smith
I hear you when you describe wanting someone to stand up for the US, but Donald Trump is not that person. In his own telling, he has second thoughts on everything and he was happy to take back the tough words on tariffs when he and Xi were getting along nicely. A man whose primary concern is his own ego cannot be the champion for his country.
103
Trump's "business model" seems to be built entirely around the same assumptions as a short term real estate "flipper" and/or a licensing agent with no real "skin in the game". It's a business only in the sense that money trades hands … kind of like the world's oldest profession. But it's a far cry from the idea of healthy, sustainable economics.
125
Went shopping for clothes this weekend. I was shocked by how few clothes were in the stores. Yes, retail is dying but I went into the stores because the catalogs and websites seemed like slim pickings. Very bland styles. Everything very neutral, and not in a good way. I left with very little. I don’t think the businesses are very optimistic.
12
@TxnLady
Welcome to Gilead.
1
All the stuff K writes about is true, but it is all 2nd order stuff. The basic fact is that business expands when it has more customers to buy what it produces.
Suppose you run a business. You make cars. You cut lawns. Are you going to hire more people, build more factories, or buy another mower, if you can't sell more cars or cut more lawns? It's true that people want a new car or their lawn cut, but they don't have enough money to pay for the car or the lawn service.
It's not taxes or regulations that are holding the economy back. It is the lack of money on the part of those who would like to spend it. We have recently had 2 studies that showed if the typical American family had a real emergency & had to come up with some money, they couldn't do it. One said
that 40% the people couldn't come up with $400 & the other that 2/3rds couldn't find $1,000.
Where does money come from? Ultimately it is created by the FED, sent to the Treasury and then spent by Congress to people, businesses and state & local government. BUT:
1. If it is taxed it goes right back to the gov.
2. To help the economy it has to get to the people who need it and will spend it, not to the people who do not need it and will use it for speculation.
If not enough useful money is sent to the private sector as in 1996 - 2008, then private debt soars and eventually the banking system fails unless the we have a FED able and willing to pour TRILLIONS into it.
But it ain't pretty.
26
Plenty of money was sent to the private sector. The vast majority of that went to the top 1 percenters.
31
@Len Charlap
While your model is obviously correct, I don't agree that the tariff wars are second-order stuff regarding what Krugman is writing about. We have two drivers of business activity and inactivity at work: depletion of the active economy (the people who if they had more money would buy more stuff) and a haze of futurity that stops investment. I'd say the difference is more in the time periods involved: the former is long term, the latter is short term.
1
@John
You are absolutely right. And who was responsible for the tax cut?
4
"springtime for grifters" - classic! That perfectly sums up the Trump / Scaramucci / Bannon / Kushner / Huckabee presidency.
137
Make America Great for Grifters. Hmm, that's got a ring to it -- a ring of truth.
58
Ditto on this columns title. I even see people making a wide path to get around people with MAGA hats. Avoiding the Trumpians.
35
"When Trump won his upset victory in 2016, many investors assumed that his rule would be good for business." Likely investors with the same integrity and respect for others as does Trump! It is interesting, perhaps alarming, to view the reaction of Wall Street to every Trump "Tweet" and even outright lies! Trumpism is constant chaos and a whirlwind of lies. It is only going to get worse!
24
@Ken McBride. Yeah, unemployment is at historical lows, the markets remains at historical highs, yeah this is really rough sledding......
1
@Ken McBride The question is (as far as Wall Street goes): When? When will Wall Street stop hanging on every false utterance and tweet from this feckless charlatan?
2
@Thomas Smith, we're doing great so why hurt consumers, farmers AND business with these unnecessary tariffs? Or are you trying to argue that the tariffs have been good for our economy?
3
The rules keep changing because the President, his family, and especially his backers NEED to keep changing them as they short stocks, whole sectors and businesses. to steal away hundred of billions (trillions?) on ultimate insider trading.
If I was in control of the economy, and decided to put a crushing new tax on you or your business, so that you could NOT sell your products as you previously had, then I would have insider information.
OF COURSE there are those that profit with that information.
That is of course, excluding all of the theft going on behind the scenes as people, businesses and representatives of countries must PAY the President and his family to stay at the myriad of hotels he owns. It is a clear breaking of the Emoluments clause of the Constitution and an impeachable offence.
The U.S. is open for ''business'' - just not to you.
73
@FunkyIrishman Totally agree about insider trading. When will Congress or the SEC investigate??
5
Uncertainty is the bane of business to begin with. Logistics is extremely sensitive to these hard shifts in strategy (or what is really strategy but called silliness). Add a man-child with his hands on the wheel of our economy and sashaying left then right then brake then accelerate with no reason and so you get scared (as if reason matters with Trump).
Our economy has shown extreme resilience in response to Trump. Our economy better be better still because we as a nation cannot afford a recession with maximum deficits during good years (now). Trump needs to go but our economy has to work for all and those at the bottom will be beaten down come a recession. The well off may not be able to afford a new jet if we have a recession.
Trump is bad for our economy and is not fit for the office. What position should I take? Should I root for the economy and another term of craziness or root for a recession to root this crazy out of office (he being fired!)
I really think people should go back and look at Amy Klobuchar because she is a moderate. America will never elect a Social Democrat or Democratic Socialist (the money will be a hurricane). So small steps in getting a referee in the system. As the economy goes we need to moderate the political pendulum swinging wildly right now.
Who do you root for?
7
Chris,re money hurricanes, The idea that the federal gov has to pay for things, good & bad, with
taxes or borrowing is just plain wrong.
The gov doesn't need your money. It can (thru the FED) create as much as it needs out of thin air. Just think about where money you pay your taxes with came from in the first place. Unless you have a printing press in your basement, it originally came from the federal gov.
But there's a catch. If the gov needs to create too much money to do the things we want it to do, we may not be able to make enough stuff to soak that money up & will have too much money chasing not enough
stuff, i.e. excessive inflation. This is rare & is usually caused by shortages, e,g, of oil.
But that's easy to solve & where taxes come in. Taxes allow the gov to take back the excess money & prevent inflation. The purpose of taxes is to adjust the amount of money in the private sector. The more we
can produce, the lower taxes can be.
So the way to run things is to spend money to facilitate production. Tax cuts do this, but in an inefficient way. If we cut Daddy Warbuck's taxes, he does not need to spend the money; he uses it for financial speculation. If we cut poor Joe's taxes, he spends the money on stuff--food, house paint, etc.etc. This promotes production of food, etc.
Even better if we pay Joe to fix a bridge, the money still gets into the economy, AND we get the bridge fixed.
Remember, the federal gov will run out of money when the NFL runs out of points.
6
@Chris Patrick Augustine
I share your views on Senator Klobuchar. Intelligent, well-spoken, thoughtful, dedicated to public service, and steady in a blizzard, she strikes me as the ideal presidential candidate.
5
@Len Charlap
Excellent description.
2
“he declared that businesses claiming to have been hurt by his tariffs should blame themselves, because they’re “badly run and weak.”
This is so typical of the President, it’s never his fault, particularly when his ad-hoc decisions go awry, and that’s quite frequent. Even with a simple slip of the tongue, he can’t say he made a mistake. Alabama in the path of a hurricane, perfect example of his inability to say oops, didn’t mean that.
Our economy remains fragile, interest rates are still too low, and the FED will be hamstrung if we start slipping into a recession. This man is a danger to not only the U.S. business community, he’s a danger to the planet.
41
Trump isn't interested in business, jobs or the economy. He only cares about winning, and measures like the stock market serve as a scoreboard for his personal success (or failure).
When he loses, he blames others, like the coach who blames his players for his tactical errors. He will blame us all before he takes on any responsibility for his incompetent and reckless actions. And he will be long gone, muttering to himself at Mar a Lago, when the rest of us spend years cleaning up his mess.
43
With Trump we've have a kleptoparasitic economic policy. He's takes all the goods from others while blaming those who can't produce them under his tariff war policy as "weak" and incompetent. It's outright theft just like the tax cuts for the rich individuals and wealthy corporations; stealing land even from retirees who voted for him (as in today's Times) in order to build his wall; and stealing money allocated by Congress for badly needed defense projects also mainly in Trump red states and from FEMA as a hurricane menace our east coast. The old saying, "There's no honor among thieves" is how Trump governs. His motto, to paraphrase is book, is "The Art of the Steal." No one is safe. Blue state Democrats with the punitive $10,000 cap on SALT (State and Local Tax) deductions and now red state Republicans seeing funding for pet projects in their districts and states stolen for Trump's vanity project. So, if Trump is as bad for business that is frozen in uncertainty over his trade war and even closing plants and laying off workers, as he now is for those who have supported him, will there be a reckoning either economically with a recession or a political rebellion?
19
@Paul Wortman- That isn't the old saying I heard. It was always "there is honor among thieves". There was a kind of professional ethic.
The rules keep changing because the President, his family, and especially his backers NEED to keep changing them as they short stocks, whole sectors and businesses. to grab hundreds of billions (trillions?) on ultimate insider trading.
If I was in control of the economy, and decided to put a crushing new tax on you or your business, so that you could NOT sell your products as you previously had, then I would have insider information.
OF COURSE there are those that profit with that information.
That is of course, excluding all of the theft going on behind the scenes as people, businesses and representatives of countries must PAY the President and his family to stay at the myriad of hotels he owns. It is a clear breaking of the Emoluments clause of the Constitution and an impeachable offence.
The U.S. is open for ''business'' - just not to you.
7
Krugman might have also mentioned Trump's idiotic immigration policies. Google dishwasher jobs in Phoenix AZ right now and you'll see that hundreds of jobs are listed with Indeed.com and Zip Recruiter. There are probably hundreds of thousands of (admittedly) low paying jobs that Central American immigrants and refugees would be thrilled to take in order for their kids to grow up in a safer environment and have the chance to become doctors and teachers.
29
Agreed, but know too that successive administrations since 1986 have had every opportunity to create a humane, equitable and measured immigration policy and they have not. In exchange for a ONE TIME AMNESTY, we were told we would have secure borders, an effective employment policy with simple verification and strict enforcement. We got the amnesty and nothing more. A nation has a right and a responsibility to control its borders. That control must be fair yet thorough. Closing the border and widely deporting those who’ve been here for the long term is no more appropriate than the false narrative of open borders.
5
@WDG
Continued enforcement of current immigration policies will be disastrous to the service economy including restaurants and lodging, and health and senior care. Who will look after us in our old age? Then there are so many other tasks: in the food chain from harvesting produce to meat packing; landscape maintenance; cleaning services; and on and on. Native born Americans aren't interested in these jobs.
5
@WDG. There is a case to be make for a thoughtful, humane immigration policy, but the lawless immigration that exists today is deplorable and should be remedied. I don't know what kind of quotas should be established, but a nation of 330 million cannot tell a world of 7 billion that you may come here if you like. In other words, the problem with immigration is that the potential supply of immigrants is not finite.
To contend that we must continue to allow limitless numbers of immigrants because we cannot be expected to mow our own grass, etc. is making immigration a pyramid scheme.
1
Trump knows chaos. Causing it puts him in control, which is his leitmotif.
Hurricane Dorian is the most recent example. How obvious that his fascination with a massive storm, a fearsome spectacle of nature that rivets the nation's attention, gives him yet another stage to stand on as he diffidently displays his utter ignorance and vanity with a weather map and a sharpie.
Chaos requires no intelligence, science, rationality, or discipline. It's entirely random and opportunistic. And nothing more is as satisfying to Trump than causing a 50 car pile-up and then standing in front of TV cameras to rant nonsense that's reported as either profane for the sane and profound for those who aren't.
It's his defining purpose to cry wolf 24/7.
Now real wolves are at the door. And they know chaos better than he does.
Bad management, indeed.
55
Wonder what all those CEOs who could not see passed their (Pyrrhic) tax break and voted for this clueless, narcissist, charlatan are thinking now.
They supported and voted for this incompetent toddler (for quick tax cash). rather than for Rodman Clinton, who would have been pro-business - ie. maintain a stable economy, negotiate trade deals with intelligence, experience, and taking advice from actual experts, provide companies with healthy workers (ie with health insurance) who could give their children a reasonable education (funded public schools and low rates for student loans) without going bankrupt, practical solutions for failing infrastructure, and projecting America globally as choosing the leader of the free world who was intelligent, competent, experienced, proven, and willing to listen. Now that would have great!
39
@Other
Ya, but then they might miss next quarter's revenue targets and their bonuses might get cut! The horror!
High turnover and C-suite/director compensation packages based on hitting short-term targets leads businesses to prioritize immediate gains and profits over everything else. Why should they care about long-term sustainability when they probably won't be around in ten years? And besides, if executives hit those internal targets--which are set by the directors who also won't be around for long--they'll be rich enough to avoid any downsides caused by corporatist government policies.
7
@Sam, extremely good points.
2
Of course Trumpism is bad for business. He was never good at it in the private sector. Seriously, how do yo lose money running a casino? The whole idea is for other people to lose their money to you. Yet for all the ostentation, it’s never really been about money for Trump. It is, obviously, just about himself and having everyone see him as a big shot, high-rolling winner. Never mind the business failures, Trump feels no worse about them than his marital failures. The only important thing for him is to say - look what I’ve got. The money, the suits, the wives, the mistresses, the skyscrapers, the magazine covers, the golf handicap… It’s all that has ever mattered to the man.
23
It's simple. If a politician ever wants to get their point across to a Republican, they can quote Donald Trump to them. That should shut them up.
7
Whatever the Obama administration did must be undone—especially if the undoing hurts the health of the environment, the economy, and, oh yeah, the people.
Any questions?
24
I am reminded of the words of Forrest Gump, "Stupid is as stupid does." I only hope that things will change in January 2021, if not sooner.
17
@Art Kraus I am worried about the days from Nov 4th to Jan 2021 and what damage that trump and reptiles will do before the next Pres is sworn in
1
It says here that red state America will finally reckon with their president when the nation’s finances take a swan dive and go off a cliff. There will be rocks below—and they’re going to mangle flesh and break bones and destroy bodies. “When you’ve got nothing left, you’ve got nothing to lose.”—Bob Dylan from “Like A Rolling Stone,” 1965.
We need another catastrophic depression. This will be, finally, I hope—the poison that Donald Trump’s die-hard supporters will need to experience, along with most of the rest of us, that “trickle down,” that smoking elixir of the supply side genii, St. Ronald of the Middle Class Rip-Off, was a scam designed to bilk them out of everything.
Farmers still haven’t awakened to the alien monster that has devoured their farms; their cattle and hogs; eaten their soybeans and wheat and corn; have scared away farm loan credits and bankers because China—the monster—now deals with less irritating markets than America’s.
Wall Street is one throw of the dice from another recession worse than 2007-08. Jerome Powell is trying to work with a president whose only concern is having enough worthless paper money in circulation next year so he can ride out the storm. Or he may bank on a jumped-up war with Iran as a diversion.
And, of course, his mangling of the healthcare industry is about to bear fruit. The country’s running out of money but the military industrial complex is far. The tax cuts for the rich were a disaster.
Otherwise, he’s doing great.
48
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
People like ourselves would never trust a man who rewrote meteorological history. But for others, only money talks; so let’s hope that the fallout from Trump’s irresponsibility becomes a deafening rejection of him.
Thanks for what you wrote. Take care.
28
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
I think Trump is the worst thing that's ever happened to this country, but I have to say it makes me angry when people start cheering for a recession in the hope that it will dispatch Trump - or, in your case, a "catastrophic depression." You're hoping for many millions of lives to be ruined, and you think this is the moral high ground? Do you not realize that in the face of your desired catastrophic depression, Trump supporters will blame others and seize on Trump as the only one who can save them?
1
It's never trump's fault. never. He always finds someone else to blame. I mean how do you lose money running a casino that has a built-in margin. He may be the biggest fraud this world has ever seen. There is a good reason that he's fighting to keep his taxes secret. He's a crook and a grifter.
25
Years from now, as presidential historians look back, they will shake their heads in disbelief over the irony that we elected someone based on his business acumen when, in reality, he was a fraud and numbskull when it came to business.
151
@Didier except we didn't actually elect him. It doesn't take a historian to shake their heads in wonder at the ignorance of his supporters. Most of the world is doing that today.
10
Add pay day lenders to the list of grifters. I'm sure there are more.
6
Oh gosh !
When was the last time Trump didn't change a rule to help business ?
Krugman does not understand that tariffs help US business.
Without tariffs, there would be no US auto industry left.
Closing down passenger car production (tariff 2.5%) and moving it to China, they keep producing pick up trucks and large SUV (tariff 25% since 1964) precisely because tariffs shield US workers from competition that works for 1/4 of US wages.
And it helps the US economy, that consumer driven need well paid jobs.
@Woof
You're missing the point. Even if we assume Trump would change any rule whenever it benefits business, that's not sustainable. Both because Trump won't be in office forever so the changes are temporary at best, and because giving businesses everything they want, especially when those requests come at the expense of others in society (labor, the environment, minorities, immigrants, etc.) is no way to run a healthy democracy. Would it really matter whether "the economy" (i.e., the stock market and corporate profits) is "booming" if the environment is in tatters and 90% of the population is living paycheck to paycheck?
23
Vladimir Lenin supposedly said, "If we announced that we were going to hang all the capitalists, they would sell us the rope."
Business in this country is focused on quarterly results, not the long term picture. China is seen as a potential market with four times the population of the United States. In their desire to sell into that market, American businesses submit to the demands of Chinese partners, voluntary technology transfer, and to look the other way when additional intellectual property is stolen. But those quarterly profits made by "selling the rope" to the Chinese eventually leaves them hanged.
Fact is, China engages in tactics worthy of a Chicago prohibition era criminal enterprise. Standing up to it will undoubtedly cost some short term profits, and missed opportunities on the sale of rope.
8
@RM,good points (Lenin quotation is apt). However, not sure about the short term profits.
When China was admitted to the WTO, it was under the (now proving naive and myopic) assumption of Convergence- ie that in order to have a successful market economy with a growing middle class of consumers, China (or any country) would necessarily have to converge to the free market capitalism of the US. Well, China has actually done pretty well for itself in the last few decades and has a growing middle class -while it maintains a centrally controlled, one party autocratic state.
To the Communist Party in China, playing by the US model rules and system is an existential threat to their power. When the US talks about pressuring China to fall in line with how the US (or democracies of Europe) do business, Xi and his Party are not thinking about a threat to short term profits, they are thinking about a fundamental threat to their power to rule China.
China is not about to adopt an American style free market system based on a very pro business democracy. We would do better to negotiate trade deals with counties around China to create a strong block as a counterweight to China’s presence in Asia and globally (which was the intent of TTP). As it is now, those partners and markets are all working on trade arrangements and growing trade relationships with China rather than the US.
Ironic that US currently has a president who was put in office by a minority - so much for democracy.
6
I didn't vote for Trump, but I have to come to his defense when he says that businesses that claim they are hurt by his tariffs are “badly run and weak.” If anyone knows about "badly run" businesses, it's Donald Trump.
105
@judgeroybean Good one!
19
Trump’s tariffs and evisceration of environmental regulations serve only one main purpose: to get Trump reelected. That way, he can remain in power, exert more control, make more money and avoid prison. He is in this only for himself. He has no long-term goals that would benefit either his country or global society.
Trump is using the tariffs to manipulate the Fed into lowering rates, likely by a quarter-point this month and again in December. The stock market will go through the roof and unemployment will stay at record lows. Trump will ease off on the tariffs by next year. Then consumer confidence will surge.
Trump knows racism can only get him so far. But everyone wants a good economy. That’s certainly the key in an election year.
Trump is carefully watching his moves with China. He is not really supporting the protestors in Hong Kong. He cozies up to Kim in North Korea. This behavior is working in the interests of Xi’s regime.
Trump is using China as a tool to leverage his way to victory next year.
If Trump manages to pull off another election win, we can all start saying our prayers. Trump’s economic policies are not sustainable. The US economy will eventually crash, and that will lead the world into a serious recession.
And Trump will have not an inkling of how to get us out of it.
62
@Blue Moon You paint a realistic picture of what might happen, but more and more I suspect that the overwhelming majority of voters will be fatigued enough by his act to vote him out regardless of the economy. That said, I won't believe it until I see it...
30
@Blue Moon: "Trump is using the tariffs to manipulate the Fed into lowering rates, likely by a quarter-point this month and again in December. The stock market will go through the roof and unemployment will stay at record lows..."
I heard an analysis today on NPR in an interview with David Farenthold who has been writing extensively about the trump Organization and its finances. He said that every time the Fed drops rates by 1/4 point, Trump pays nearly 1 million dollars less in interest on the loans ($300, 000, 000) held by Deutche Bank. That alone would seem sufficient as a motive for the chaos and the attacks on Jerome Powell.
106
@Blue Moon I wish Trump were so intelligent. If he was, he might do something good by accident. There is no deep game he’s playing.
9
"You never know when or whether he’ll declare victory and surrender."
This perfectly rendered correct statement is way too subtle for Trump to grasp.
46
Did any of Trump's supporters bother to examine his previous record? Or did they examine it and decide that he'd reform while in office? How many of his businesses went bankrupt because of bad decisions HE made? How many vendors did he sue in order to avoid paying them? How often did he lie about his wealth, the state of his businesses, his accomplishments, etc.?
The CEOs and other business leaders who supported this man must have closed their eyes when they decided he could be a good president. After all, Obama wasn't their cup of tea and he wasn't the kind of guy you could have a beer with. And Clinton, well she's a female. Never mind that she was a good lawyer in her own right, was a senator, was Secretary of State, and was far more qualified than Trump. Trump wasn't Clinton and he wasn't Obama.
Trump is not and never was presidential material. He should not have been nominated. If the GOP had any interest in America besides that of staying in power they would not have supported Trump. However, our Chamber of Commerce and others supported a man who has made our economy and their planning for their businesses as precarious as possible. They supported a man who is destroying the middle and working class. I hope that they realize this is how revolutions begin: when too many people are forced to struggle over too few resources while watching the elite live it up.
Trumpism is dangerous for them too.
9/5/2019 8:04pm First submit.
419
@hen3ry
I too have wondered how so many people who seemingly should have known better than to support Trump’s presidency brought us all to this terrible place. They looked the other way about his sketchy business record, his known poor character, his obvious ineptitude - and they seemingly buy into Trump’s hallucinatory reality.
And yes, they too shall ultimately face the consequences.
I would prefer that Trump’s luster would fade due because of the ugliness of who he is as a person, I suspect that for many, the state of their own wallet is their priority and the only thing that can, at last, turn them off from him.
Thanks for what you wrote. Take care.
39
you go, h3nry!
19
@hen3ry Molly Ivins always warned us: Ignore what they say, pay attention to what they have done.
23
Financial chaos was invented by professors who were bested by Milton Friedman. Paul is one of them.
3
@farleysmoot - Care to elaborate?
1
That’s way Paul won the economist Nobel— cuz he was so wrong, eh?
1
HE couldn’t make a deal on a TV Game Show. Even as the only contestant AND given the answers in advance.
Sad.
72
@Phyliss Dalmatian: Top of the first inning, Dalmatian hits it out of the park. In my next life I can only hope for a portion of your wit and laser sharp imagery. A perfect end to a perfect almost-Fall day in New England.
18
@Peggy
Thanks, fan girl. And I’m not even drinking.
Yet.
2
Dear Paul and fellow readers,
Have you considered that this market chaos is exactly what trump wants? He's holding our 401k's hostage and threatening to destroy them on a 2-3 times a week basis. This is only going to amp up as the election approaches and hold on tight if he loses in 2020.
69
@Brad
And, he and his buds are making huge bucks along the way.
19
In the natural world, the one that is independent of human law, everything is regulated, down to the atom. You want electricity? Regulate atomic fission. You want an explosion? Don’t regulate atomic fission.
Without regulation everything will destroy itself. That goes for human activity too: capitalism, democracy...guns, global warming, population growth.
147
@Mike
After the banking explosion of 2008 Frontline did a story where a financial expert pointed out that brakes are the key to a fast car. Without brakes, no one in their right mind would want to drive that car.
15
@Mike
The U. S. has been busy deregulating since Reagan, Agencies that once actually did their mission became store fronts as in Western movies- two dimensional, hollowed out.
4
with only 16 months to go, there is no guarantee the environmental rollbacks of Dishonest Donald will prevail. The public got fed up with pollutes water, unbreathable air, toxic land fills, destruction of public lands, those regulations will be brought back in even more force, written so as to make them unbreakable.
It will cost businesses more, any money saved today will be recovered. As you say, it will be the short term in and out kinds that will profit, but they risk being sued and prosecuted. Those secretaries that have given away our public lands to their friends will be sued and prosecuted for corruption.
We,the public are fed up with business getting special treatment, the Supreme Court will be busy for several years. Some businesses realize this and are working to become good citizens, they will survive, the rotten ones won't.
It is much the same today as it was in the 1890s, and the robber barons. Today's robber barons will ;meet the same treatment.
73
@David Underwood
What to do, given that politicians from both parties take the corporate payola and happily do the bidding of their masters?
1
@David Underwood
We can hope.
@David Underwood What a waste of time and energy it will be to prosecute these low lifes, tho....
Funny timing - I just started a economics class and last night we were talking about the importance of planning and the ability to predict to organizations and people. How it is impossible to plan if you have no ability to predict. Then a guy in the back said (in a very loud whisper) "welcome to trumpland"
474
@sjs Uncertainty is part of reality. Get used to it.
1
I am suspicious of companies that say they want regulation. In my distrust, I look for ways they are using it to rig markets in their favor. It is one use of regulations, and there is not far to look in these specific cases.
Natural gas producers come in various sizes, from small operations to gigantic. The specific regulations in question are much more difficult and relatively expensive for small producers. It helps the big guys to get rid of competition and buy up reserves from them on the cheap.
As for autos, the money was largely spent. It is long term investment in tech and production preparations. What Trump is doing threatens to waste that. It also threatens the expense of splitting the market, requiring producers to make different cars for different states, an expense to them. It also means that any smaller operations or foreign competition can jump in to at least part of our markets without making that up front investment.
They are not doing this for a better corporate future. They are doing it for more immediate reasons.
Actually, longer term thinking needs to be done, and this would be called for by such thinking. I just don't think American industry is all of a sudden doing that.
14
The rules keep changing because the President, his family, and especially his backers NEED to keep changing them as they short stocks, whole sectors and businesses. to grab hundreds of billions (trillions?) on ultimate insider trading.
If I was in control of the economy, and decided to put a crushing new tax on you or your business, so that you could NOT sell your products as you previously had, then I would have insider information.
OF COURSE there are those that profit with that information.
That is of course, excluding all of the raft going on behind the scenes as people, businesses and representatives of countries must PAY the President and his family to stay at the myriad of hotels he owns. It is a clear breaking of the Emoluments clause of the Constitution and an impeachable offence.
The country is open for ''business'' - just not to you.
481
Every time Trump makes one of his crazy comments that send the stock market into a tizzy, I wonder how many of his sphere were given a heads up so they could profit. I think it’s somewhere between possible and likely that is happening.
46
@What’s Next Ive been saying this since he was elected. He is a good old fashioned carpetbagger.
12
Trump's magic sharpie may be able to change the track of hurricanes in the eyes of his true believers, but he cannot rewrite reality for the rest of us. He can't draw in imaginary profits on the income statements of corporations, and he is not going to be able stop the coming wave of farm bankruptcies by sketching in make believe export markets. He can draw an arrow pointing the blame at the Fed or the media, but it won't mitigate the pain of an economic downturn.
None of this will cost him votes with the true believers in his base -- it was never really about the economy for them anyway -- but I do hope that the business community realizes there will be no more tax cuts to be had and all that is left of Trumponomics is paying the bill for his instability and incompetence. All that
money splashing around Washington and this is the best they can do?
What good is living in a corporatocracy if our corporate masters are unwilling to defend themselves against a tantrum driven recession?
638
@LT "Trump's magic sharpie may be able to change the track of hurricanes in the eyes of his true believers..."
But not in the eyes of the hurricanes!
59
@Orthoducks
Please, do not underestimate Sharpie markers. They are especially efficient against any graphical representation of data.
19
@LT: You ask "What good is living in a corporatocracy if our corporate masters are unwilling to defend themselves against a tantrum driven recession?"
I'll admit "corporatocracy" is a new one on me, I just use the old-fashioned term: "fascism". But, looking back on history you should note that corporate leaders install fascists in government with the idea that they can control them. In the end, it's they themselves who are controlled.
26
Trump’s executive order curtailing our out of control Administrative State by requiring executive agencies to eliminate duplicative regulations for every new one proposed may be the greatest boon for business ever introduced by a President.
Trump saved us from the stagnation of Obama’s “you didn’t build that” economy through regulatory reform and tax cuts. Obama was fortunate to enter the Oval Office after the Bush Administration and the Fed stabilized the economy. Despite having zero interest rates for the majority of his presidency and a economy that had nowhere to go but up, the strangling regulations he forced upon us, Obamacare being the most egregious example, ensured that economic growth never reached 3% during his presidency. The economy also stagnated from 2014-2016, and only enjoyed a resurgence upon Trump’s election. Perhaps Trump’s greatest attribute as far as the economy goes is that he is not Barack Obama.
1
@Registered Repub - Your narrative strangely omits the 2007-2008 global financial crisis that Obama steered us through. Imagine the outcome had Donald been president at that time.
37
@Registered Repub writes, "the Bush Administration and the Fed stabilized the economy."
This statement left me gasping for breadth. The Bush administration ended with the worst recession since the Great Depression .
Wait a minute. Could this comment be sarcasm? Surely nobody seriously could write a comment with so many false assertions.
Before I refute these lies, please assure me, RR, that this is not sarcasm.
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@Registered Repub - Cue theme from "Outer Limits."
Sez this ex-Republican.
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What's been amazing throughout this almost 1,000 days under the Republican President, is that the old complaint of 'UNCERTAINTY' (followed by dramatic dirge music) with which GOP'ers constantly assailed Obama, has evaporated.
Odd, that.
Instead, we get tutelage of obvious adult facts provided by the likes of Iran's Foreign Minister last week:
“Mutual unpredictability will lead to chaos. President Trump cannot expect to be unpredictable and expect others to be predictable. Unpredictability will lead to mutual unpredictability and unpredictability is chaotic.”
Just so - in business and foreign affairs, both.
Chaos and mayhem are not worthy policy goals, which seems ridiculous to have to state, but this is 2019, and here we are.
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@R. Law - Dr. K. also presents the chance to remind that in the 70+ years since WWII (covering the entire working life of virtually every living American) it has been empirically shown that Dems are always better for the economy than Repubs, by all normal measures of GDP, unemployment, S&P returns, etc.:
https://www.vox.com/2014/7/29/5945583/the-us-economy-grows-faster-under-democratic-presidents-is-that-just
It's a remarkable thing that not even once across the Dem and GOP'er administrations - across 70+ years - have GOP'ers accidentally slipped up and outperformed Dems.
Not even once.
One party demonstrably creates value, and the other extracts.
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@R. Law -I couldn't agree more. I hope every commenter that says both parties are the same reads this.
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@R. Law Thomas Edsall's column today describes how chaos, disruption, disinformation, and havoc have become ends in themselves for many Trumpists:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/opinion/trump-voters-chaos.html
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I try not to be a Trump a supporter as a female professional. I voted for Hillary. But the foundation of American business success is restoration of the meritocracy with each new wave of hard working immigrants. As a Queens kid, like Trump, the county that sends more poor kids to the likes of Stuyvesant high school and Gifted programs and Ivy leagues than any other, I am grateful to Trump administration for trying to make immigration and education more merit based. Who else before his administration would question Harvard admissions policies? The suppression of Asian talent in business, medicine and law by elites is one of the greatest travesties in the history of this nation. Nothing like that has happened in the history of this nation. Which might explain why Andrew Yang is drawing so many Trump supporters.
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@hindudr
Andrew Yang is drawing Trump supporters because many of his policies are a recipe for criminality.
As far as being one of the "greatest travesties in the history of the nation", have you asked anyone who is, for example, Native American or African American if they agree?
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@hindudr, I wouldn’t use Andrew Yang in the same sentence as The Groper. Yang is a thoughtful, caring American, unlike the grifter in the Oval. And as far as immigration, my family would be in Italy if it were more merit based. We built our country on just a few tenets. Freedom in general, but especially related to speech and religion. Hard work, caring for those less fortunate, etc. have you forgotten history?
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@hindudr
Well, one problem with your ideas is that most of the immigrants who came to the US between the late 1800's and 1920, were truly the wretched of the earth, the hungry, the poor. The Irish came because of the famine and did the Italians in the 1870. These were ignorant peasants who had never left the farm. The Jews were flee their Eastern European hovels as the pogroms raged. None of them spoke English. None of them would be accepted by trump's rules.
Oh, and do learn your history. If you are looking for suppression of talent in business, medicine and law by the elites, then I would suggest you start with the quotas imposed on Jews in the 1920's and 1930's. There were only a limited amount of seat set aside for Jews at most colleges (and not for African-Americans). And get into a law firm? Forget about it.
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