At most a couple of months of high growth...
Well that's a couple more months than Obama ever produced or Dr. Krugman ever predicted!
Low unemployment across every sector of the economy. Not bad. Not bad at all.
7
There are only three Presidents in my lifetime (I am 61) that I am confident their intelligence is significantly below mine. I am sure it is a statistical anomaly that they are all Republicans: Reagan (dumb), W (Dumber), and Trump (dumbest).
If Republican voters are not concerned about intellectual capacity of their presidential candidates, then what are their criteria for choosing the best candidate. Looking at their policies (and flip-flops on policies) the most important attributes appear to be that the candidate must be a liar, a white supremacist, and rich.
74
Trump will be Trump, it's clear by now. Why are his millions of supporters still not awakened to the reality of who Trump is? At this point, I blame them, and the Republicans in Congress, and the conservative pundits in various conservative websites and organizations for being equally if not more thoughtless, clueless, foolish, selfish, fake,....and morally corrupt.
31
While Donald Trump knows little on how the Fed works his followers, those cheering and adoring crowds at his rallies wearing the red MAGA hats know even less.
That is one reason why he will continue to pull the wool over their eyes, and why they will continue to drink from the kool-aid.
They may or may not be collectively stupid, so I’ll be kind and just say they are uninformed.
There-eight percent of the vote will never get Trump to a second term. He must be too stupid to realize that.
18
Trump reflects the abject stupidity and ignorance of his core constituency perfectly. If I recall, he's threatened to default on our debt during the campaign and didn't realize/understand/or care about the impact of that and the meaning of "full faith and credit". In the private sector he was the king of strategic bankruptcy but that doesn't work as the leader of a nation.
24
Re: "...Donald Trump marked the anniversary of 9/11 by repeating several lies about his own actions on that day..."
I was IN Jersey City on 1.Sept., '01.
...Unlike 418 recently former coworkers, I'd been outsourced...a few weeks before this blasphemous crime, known by it's data of occurrence!
I DIDN'T SEE any of the people who Mr. Trump repeatedly claimed, were, '...jumping, up / down on roofs, cheering'!!
Mr. Trump continues to make domestic 'N international policies by what he's thought-/-felt-/-imagined -/- pretended -/- lied, about, over the previous 5 minutes;
I CAN'T wait to vote, against / see him replaced in 2020!
14
We can only pray that The Good Lord keeps us from tanking somewhere along the road to perdition. Knowing Donald, however, I can imagine him doing some sort of Crazylegs legs Herst dipsy doodle so that he can claim victory.
But what's that gonna do for the workers, the companies still left to scratch their balding heads, all whilst Duh Donald points his tiny fingers at everyone else in the nation -- save for himself when he looks in the mirror and primps and piroettes in that vacuum called dreamland.
Will we survive?
My bet?
Donald will somehow, and in spades, too., while the workers start ride-sharing ... by the scores...to save a few bucks...
5
“He’s not the kind of person who ever admits, even to himself, that he made mistakes; his instinct is always to blame someone else while doubling down on his failed policies…”
Just like Maduro.
The war against inflation is easy to win. All you need to do is declare price controls and exchange controls and…presto…
To turn America into Venezuela you don’t need “socialism.”
The current administration will do in a few years what took Chavez- Maduro over twenty years to do.
September 13, 2019 4:02 pm EST
5
Not just "a bad place." "The bad place."
3
Need we state the obvious? Trump is ignorant and incompetent. Anyone reading this could do a better job because anyone reading this is actually reading something. Trump doesn't read. Trump doesn't consult. Trump can't escape his own ignorance, because his egomaniac view is that he knows more than anyone else.
We are in such terrible trouble with this bozo in charge. We must oust him or we will be lost for generations into the future.
35
Impeach on economic grounds? Hmmmmmmmm...?
1
No...
"I can only fix it" (Paraphrased)...
Then, fix it with no thought of how if affects your political standing.
3
Paul Krugman should see to it that this opinion piece is delivered to 'Mr Know-It-All--Nothing-Up-My-Sleeve' who sits in the oval office. It would provide a primer for mr. know-nothingness. However, we know the prez does not read. Time for another plan: a picture book created by the NYT crew that creatively conveys the concepts in this piece.
Yep, our self-defeating prez has trapped himself in the economic mess he made, but he is dragging the country along with him. And all the while he abuses his executive privilege to pillage our national treasures & treasury in service to his ego/bank account. He will walk away with bags-o-cash when he leaves office.
11
On top of everything else now we hear that Trump's Acting NSA adviser says a nuclear war is winnable.
Giving the 'useful idiot' and idea no doubt. Nuclear weapons are useful for hurricanes he wonders. Who would he attack? Our allies? Certainly not his friends in Russia. Maybe Iran.
Then it all bursts open into a fire fight and we all die. Can impeachment help? It is a slow moving train that may never get there.
Charles Kipperman needs to be locked up.
6
Many complain about Trump. Do something! Call your Reps. Donate to Dems. Speak up. Do Something!
12
If Trump could have kept his tiny hands off the economy, he might have had a decent chance for re-election. Now that we've blasted past the trillion dollar deficit milestone, couple with his idiotic tariffs that are bankrupting farmers right and left, he's doing his best to lose.
8
I know a guy who trusted Trump once... ONCE
7
Trump knows nothing about anything! Everything he touches dies. Now, it is the turn of the US economy!!!
11
oh well...
I guess it Mnuchin turn in the barrel.
Somebody's got to take the hit.
Gosh, I hope he names Kellyanne as Mnuchin's successor.
3
“…Trump declared that “we should then start to refinance our debt” …Observers were left scratching their heads, wondering what he was talking about.”
Isn’t it obvious?
He’s talking about a “haircut.”
September 13, 2019 4:07 pm EST
1
There is a cancer on the presidency. (HINT: It's the president.)
When will this long national nightmare be over?
7
We can hope that, after he is cornerd and completely in panic, that he is dumb enough to forget the code to trigger WW 3.
4
September 13, 2019
A very bad news day for President DJT and with especially having to deal with the New York Times columnist the noble mind of Doctor Paul Krugman. Herewith we have the tire hitting the road and the economic policy planning that is way beyond his intellectual capacity in what would be of parochial deliverance with governmental parameters laws. This is the mind of magic wand and vocals of his pseudo divinity of mouthing bird calls to his tyrannical proclamation to whatever and every wishful dogmatic. His resignation is forthcoming and very soon the better for his own health and for just leaving the matters to the professionals to go around or jump ship keeping us from total critical mass by ineptudes of governing and failure to his oath of service to the job he's sworn to with hand on the bible at the time of swearing to protect and defend America as Chief Executive President.
3
What do don the con, kushner inc, and the rest of his family and cronies stand to gain by lower interest rates and to lose with a recession.
The reason real Presidents have released their tax records and place finances in a blind trust, is to assure that their actions are for the American People and not for their own benefit.
We the People have NO idea how don the con benefits from the seeming chaos he sows - is he doing things in the best interest of US or of DeutcheBank ... or Russian investors... or ....????
7
Refinance government debt to get a better rate?
Wow. Trump has said countless stupid things but this one is so stupid it is almost quaint.
His stupidity is the greatest threat to America. Forget the Chinese, Russians, Al Qaeda, Drug Lords - this guy is a stone-cold killer. Worse still, there is no antidote.
Imagine. Trump is calling the members of the Federal Reserve Board "boneheads."
This has to be very confusing for Trump.
He exploded the national debt by giving a tax cut to the wealthiest 1% of Americans and corporations. Though it almost universally accepted among serious economists that supply side economics is a fraud, Trump of course believed that would work.
And of course he famously declared trade wars are easy to win when in fact such wars create only losers and he is indeed losing.
In short, what little Trump thinks he knows is absolutely wrong and he is now witnessing the results of his ignorance and stupidity play out before his very eyes.
Such a simpleton is incapable of comprehending the complexity of the Presidency. Of course this was all so predictable. But we are left with the same problem: 40% of Americans support this idiot. For me, that is the true head scratcher.
16
Perhaps Trump can apply his black sharpie to the economic forecast and fix his economic problems.
2
His residency is the emergency. The notion is emerging on many fronts that the ol' Wiz is a fraud and a humbug. His response is to flail around for some "thing-a-muh-jiggy" button to push and some magic words to say. I dunno, something like, "We've got to do something about the rainbow unicorns!" to give his ever-gullible base something to point their snoots at next... Yawn. Wake me up when a real adult gets elected.
3
Elect a clown, get a circus.
7
#traitor45 bankrupts everything he touches because he is NOT educated, flies only by the seat of his pants, can't/doesn't read, will not consult with any expert in any field, pretends he and he alone knows everything about every topic - and has consistently told everyone that that's the case, and is not capable of receiving any input about anything.
Those of you who still worship him are quite amusing. You're witnessing in public how he conducts himself in private. In private he destroys everything. In public, he's doing the same. Your desperate need to have everything destroyed is telling about YOU. It's YOU who are the problem. He's just a symptom of stupid voters.
7
Show me how any of this is going to make a difference. Unless people outside of NYT readers start really understanding who Trump is, he gets re-elected. I had a conversation with a very smart financial guy yesterday who complained that Elizabeth Warren lies about her American Indian heritage and that he doesn't like Kamal Harris' body language. He claims to not like Trump but he won't vote for the left wing, socialist democrats. He proudly stated that he didn't vote for Trump or Clinton in the last election which means he voted for Trump. When I pointed out that he was actually voting for a vile, corrupt, lying idiot, he just shrugged his shoulders. All you people need to stop preaching to the choir and got engaged with fools in America who are going to keep this guy in power. My friend pointed out that Venezuela was in so much trouble because they voted a liberal, Chavez, into office a few years back. This is the kind of reasoning that a least 40% of Americans are buying into. You, NYT reader, have got to change the minds of Trump supporters.
7
Is there actually a panic button at the White House within the president's reach It looks more like ejectable seat devices placed all over the West wing more or less at random.
Reading the column and some of the comments, it struck me that president Trump's crass ignorance is actually a key factor to his popularity with his followers: they all see themselves in him, whenever he brags ,blunders or simply becomes plain vulgar: they relate and feel as if they were president.
Lying ,contradicting himself, or blatantly falsifying a weather forecast map and threatening anyone daring to set him straight, all of it is the stuff of all the Archie Bunkers of the country, and they are all enjoying the ride , even if it leads to a catastrophic end. That part fits perfectly with their belief that the world is ending and Armaggedon is near now that Jerusalem has been returned to its biblical glory.
President Trump believes his chutzpah is the trump card leading to his re election. I can't wait to see him bumbling and fumbling while trying to articulate a semblance of a thought facing E Warren.Now she would be a great president for the USA and the world.
2
Trump in theory with the nuclear briefcase can start a nuclear war and end mankind. It seems to me that Trump's minority election is a reductio ad absurdum of our system. Lets hope a rational competent President gets elected soon and the obvious flaws with Gun violence, 10000 deaths in the desert because of incompetent immigration laws, inability to stop disastrous climate change. Its amazing the human race has lasted so long given these and other attempts at mass suicide. Lets all the myriad problems with the U.S get fixed before we are all dead. I am not optimistic at this point
1
"Boom, the shock of each moment of still being alive."
There are two Trumps at work: the first is President Trump, determined to stay in office and therefore out of jail with things going against his prospects for re-election. The second is Businessman Trump, undivested from his business empire and up to his neck in debt, with many of his properties and deals doing poorly despite the emoluments and expected boost of his reality tv presidency. This Trump is a short term thinker who sees a current personal opportunity in his ability to manipulate markets so he and his can profit... and trying to push interest rates lower so that he pays less (or pays off loans at a lower rate to save money and boost his credit score). Besides the signature coiffure, what they share is basic dishonesty.
1
I want to press another button, and with some pleasure.
Where are all these people who used to comment here along the line “Krugman doesn’t understand a thing about economy. Liberals will eventually see that the tax cut is a huge success and that fact will doom their hope to regain the White House”?
Where are they?
4
President Trump is a very angry and disappointed person. His dad gave him $425 million. He ranked multiple businesses and declared bankruptcy several times. He’s been married multiple times and has had more affairs. He had kids in three different marriages and probably didn’t want want one or two of those families. All of this makes his very weak decision making even shakier.
3
This is a person (I cannot bring myself to say “man”) who drove multiple enterprises into bankruptcy, always leaving others holding the bag. He needed daddy to break state gaming regulations in order to save him. Why would anyone trust his judgment on any financial matter?
3
Remember when Trump munificently offered advice to North Korea's horrific dictator that he had great real estate and how he could, pardon the pun, make a killing? Location, location, location my young dictator friend.
So any plan ol' Don has for any national economic stimulus will be akin to a five year old presenting a mud pie to Mary Berry and completely expecting first prize.
2
WWll - many people are still alive who lived through it.
American weakness - perceived or not, occurred on December 7 1941.
If there is another Dec 7 available, it is now, with a clueless leader in office.
FDR was running the country in 1941.
With Trump, the USA is totally naked.
2
Yes, Trump is capable of caving on the Chinese Trade War and then bellowing on and on about what a great victory it is. Those who already love him will buy it. Those that know the President is a charlatan will roll their eyes at more of the same.
2
Politics is theatre. Trump is the master of theatre. Do you really think that the majority of Americans understand economics at the macro or micro level.
In my lifetime, JFK was good looking and was not sad sack Nixon.
Johnson was there because someone had the audacity to kill JFK, and Goldwater was a little out there.
Nixon scared people and HHH just didn't come across with the necessary toughness.
Carter is the anomaly because the country was afraid of what had just happened with Nixon.
Reagan was a grandfatherly figure that provided comfort from all the problems of the last 15 years.
Clinton was JFK light.
Bush 43 because he was a guy you wanted to have a beer with.
Obama was aspirational.
Trump was rock ' sock 'em and would stir things up.
Policy, the party of limited government has spend money like drunken sailors.
The party of liberalism is afraid of its own shadow.
There is not a credible alternative.
As the pundits quoted to us throughout 2015 and 2016, "character is destiny." Trump will crash the U.S. such as it never has been before, thus fulfilling his penchant for grandiose blather and projecting all of the negativity of his perverted and warped character onto the destiny of our country. We may never recover the ruin he is showering upon us, including upon our international reputation as a country that keeps its word, no matter what. He flushed that down the cesspit toilet, along with every other single bit of decency and honor that the United States used to stand for.
5
The right has bloviated for decades about "running government like a business". Well, here it is, y'all. Trump is trying to run the country just like he did his casino in Atlantic City...and we know how that turned out.
4
Experienced negouiators have seen enough Trumps to know that their words and contracts are worthless. They are not worth the time of day.
3
I think that the one critical point is that no one can trust trump to keep his word, his word is worthless.
2
“…reaching a deal with China that more or less restores the status quo. But that would be a de facto admission of defeat…”
Not really.
There would be a 1,000 - 1,500 jump in the Dow.
The US dollar would weaken and the trade deficit would narrow.
If he does it sooner rather than later, job creation would increase by 1,000,000 – 2,000,000 jobs and might even match that of the previous administration.
A recession/depression before November 2020 might be averted.
His chances of becoming a one-term president would be significantly reduced.
He could always blame Peter Navarro for advising him that “trade wars are easy to win” and give him the Bolton treatment.
September 13, 2019 4:31 pm EST
1
Trump’s policies don’t zigzag. Zigzagging IS the policy. Trump markets it as a successful negotiating style. But in reality it’s a smokescreen to hide his ignorance and incompetence.
Alas, the emperor’s fig leaf is now gone. The ignorance and incompetence are on full display. That’s why Trump is panicking.
1
Krugman concludes by saying "The fact is that when it comes to economic policy, Trump has trapped himself in a bad place.".
Sorry Professor, but Trump has trapped us in a bad place. We -- those of us who are not billionaires and/or do not control the mans of production -- are the losers.
2
If the Chinese want to get rid of Trump all they have to do is refuse to sign a trade deal before the election in 13 months. If he can't claim victory in the trade war he's finished. You think over there they haven't figured this out already? they're not as dumb as voters in Iowa and Kansas.
2
Randall Balmer's "Thy Kingdom Come" - How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America - is a must read
for those who want to know how we got to this degenerate
President and Party.
2
If one looks at this from a narcissistic viewpoint, it all makes sense. But the other important factor is when Trump's tweets cause the market to swing, who is benefiting from that swing? Maybe he doesn't understand the debt like a fox doesn't understand the henhouse. Never forget that Trump has much experience being a showman and old liars are better at the art...
2
Comment after comment lamented Trump's incompetence and ignorance about economy, trade, foreign policy, governance...., you know what, his supporters still love him and worship him as their dear leader. What, do we say about these Americans, our fellow countrymen?
This column for Trump to read should be titled: “Trump Hits the Panic Button” (Wonkish)
He's really good at being a mean stand-up comic. That seems to be enough.
1
Anything DT does is about $$$$ and the highest bidder for the snake oil he's peddling. Watching those 2016 debates no one gave him a chance. The day after the election was a huge hangover and we have not emerged yet.
1
The worst attempt at vote buying I've ever heard of.
1
"The fact is that when it comes to economic policy, Trump has trapped himself in a bad place."
Womp, womp!
3
Trump makes dumb people feel like they've been right all along, and he gives them a constant scapegoat for their fears and anger.
Seeing as how these people aren't going to become smarter or more educated in the near future, I am gravely concerned for our country and my safety.
1
Just imagine the crazy, diabolical ideas that run through the stable geniuses mind everyday! His yes men are less than a dozen now. I'm sure they fill him with praise even knowing he is hurting so many people. And Pence, I am embarrassed for him. Such a stooge.
2
Most of us who did not vote for him in 2016 know he knows nothing about anything. He is a failure at business and the presidency. If you put a 'know nothing' in the oval office, you shouldn't be surprised by his ignorance and incompetence. The worst in this case is his never ending lies and exaggerations used primarily to cover up his incompetence. China is only one example of trying to deal with a real problem using a hammer. There is no finesse and no understanding. Just shoot from the hip.
3
Our Wignut - in - Chief gets wobblier by the week. Something is going to fall off soon. Worst president ever - that will be the legacy of Trump and the Republicans.
2
Trump has HUGH debts, hidden away on his grubby tax returns.
It's always about HIM. Every single tweet, every single move, every single golf weekend. This is the reason he wants to penalize
savers and retirees who have saved hard for retirement and get a tiny bit of interest. He's not a saver. In fact, his ME ME ME is killing the economy.
2
You forgot to mention the how deep the swamp of corruption has become since he began monetizing the White House, and filling it with like-minded liars and con artists.
2
Hey Donald Trump, maybe this simple analogy will help you better understand the relationship between businesses and the economy, they are NOT the same...
Companies are like a fish swimming in an ocean. Some are strong, some are weak, some devour others, some get devoured, they live, they die, they thrive, they starve.
The Economy is the ocean. It raises, it falls. A good ocean helps make great fish. A bad ocean kills fish. FISH ARE NOT OCEANS, OCEANS ARE NOT FISH.
Does that help?
Does that help?
22
Trump's business is under scrutiny first corruption. The court has revived the lawsuit. I hope this brings him down. All his other corruption hasn't so far.
7
Why can’t the Treasury purchase bonds from current owners and then issue new bonds at lower rates, if rates have fallen?
Why? Is he worried about the debt? Didn't he want to "re-negotiate" debt by paying less on a dollar? Wasn't that a brilliant idea? Poorer countries/people are usually less inclined to complain about hardship as opposed to rich, who already rich, will complain not just if they get a little poorer but about their taxes! It is already lowered. They won't be happy until it is also negative -- I am sure Trump agrees with them here -- govt. should pay rich people since they are making the country rich(by enriching themselves!).
1
Instead of a traditional news anchor, I wish that CNN would hire an economist to question this administration's economic strategy and policies. Peter Navarro should be asked:
1. Why in an apparent "booming economy" with low unemployment are we increasing the national debt and trade deficit?
2. Will lowering Fed interest rates to 0% as Trump is suggesting .... pay down the National debt? If Navarro answers in the affirmative .... The follow up question should be....
3. If we lower interest rates to 0% and the economy spirals into a recession .... is that the time to increase taxes to pay down the debt and put our deficit on course?
18
Krugman makes a good point. Trump is running America as though it was a casino. Trump’s failure in Atlantic City is well documented. With Trump in charge America is heading in the same direction. Does Trump have any skills in any field other than creating his own fictional narrative?
22
Pre-Trump I told friends year over year 4-5 % growth was a pipe dream, they would not listen. There are too many deflationary forces at play to get near that kind of growth now or in the near future. People were not happy with slow and steady and instead went for chaos.
20
I'm sure Larry Kudlow will fill Trump's ear with the only solution he knows how to peddle: More tax cuts for the rich.
He pushed tax cuts for G.W.Bush in the early 2000s that over-inflated he stock markets and housing markets -- with disastrous results. Even as the economy was crashing and burning in 2008, there was Kudlow barking about "give tax cuts more time."
Phony stimulus of tax cuts will only goose the stock and housing markets to unhealthy levels, but I'm sure we'll hear about more proposed cuts as Trump seeks to raise his standings.
Dangerous as they are, the political optics of tax cuts for the GOP are as addictive as drugs from Purdue Pharma, and just as deadly.
18
China will mostly not want to make short term deals with Trump so he can get elected again. In China's view, one more year of economic and political turbulence is far better than four more years.
15
If the banks can borrow money from the Fed at close to 0% interest how will that effect the bank depositors interest income ?
Bank interest on deposits are low enough as it is for those of us who would rather not gamble on the stock market.
13
You state that Treasury bonds "can't be prepaid." I am not advocating it, particularly while at the lower bound, but can't the Federal Reserve buy bonds on the NY markets the same way they sell them? Buying back your own bonds, would seem to me to be effectively prepaying.
1
@TH Of course you are right. And one can also replace maturing short term debt with longer term debt to lock in low rates. I have long followed PK as he is the most brilliant economist of his generation. However he knows next to nothing about finance.
1
@TH
In principle, yes. But given that market forces are what govern the actual yield on bonds, doing that would probably be a wash. Bond investors aren’t stupid.
In any case, the really big thing Trump does not understand is that it is not the Fed’s job to issue bonds and finance that debt: that’s the job of the Treasury, which unlike the Fed, works for him.
1
No mention by Mr. Krugman of how we deal with this reckless capricious erratic one-man-show called Trump and his "panic buttons".
We could have had a Sanders/Warren in the White House and no Trump if certain "conscience of a liberal" and other progressive columnists had supported it and written about it in 2016.
Now Trump is upon us. Let's at least talk about what can be done to show the public that his removal by Congress is underway.
5
It's not so much that Trump is a know-nothing, it's that he is a SPITEFUL know-nothing.
There are things the president could do to really stimulate the economy, things like infrastructure. But that's too complicated for him and he wants to look good to his base right now. Actually doing a big stimulus the correct way won't give him an easy soundbite to tweet about.
13
It's amazing that journalists still refer to Trump's this and that. Trump's tax cuts. Really? Trump's economy. Really? And so far as the national debt is concerned I doubt he knows that China is the biggest holder of our debt. Over a trillion dollars worth. Mnuchin is the master mind not Trump. The only blame one can assign to Trump is the fact he doesn't know and he doesn't want to know nor has he put in the time to find out. And I know less than Trump so I beg the question, does the tariff war with China have anything to do with financial collusion. Trump does know what's important to him and that would be he knows he's immune to collusion or any thing that can indict him and protection beyond any president's imagination. He had Barr, McConnell and Kavanaugh in this back pocket. It doesn't get any better than that.
5
The genius behind Batman v Superman. I feel better now.
2
I fear that Trump voters continue to believe that the economy is booming and that Trump is the cause of the boom. The ailing Trump voters simply believe that they continue to hurt as a result of a temporary hit in favor of another Trump agenda item, e.g. the trade wars, that they support. The last time Trump was right about something it was when he said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and he wouldn't lose any supporters.
8
One wonders in fact if anyone in the West understands how economies work.
Apparently, the Western world’s political class in general believes we can export the wealth creation processes to China along with all the good highly skilled manufacturing and management jobs and the network effects associated with running complex manufacturing processes but remain wealthy and powerful enough to protect our way of life.
Trump Rose to power by exploiting the impact globalisation is having on people in the West.
Hillary Clinton just said the jobs are never coming back.
The simple reality is that the West does need to strengthen its economic foundations to protect its future.
Trump knows that but he is clueless as to how to do it.
Everyone should watch the movie “American Factory” to understand how patriotism powers Chinese strategy and how hard Chinese people are prepared to work.
We need to become patriotic too - patriotic in the name of freedom and democracy - otherwise a life of subservience awaits.
13
The reason sooo many people voted for Trump in the swing states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio) is that he promised them the life that they lost with globalization and automation. These Americans (along with many others throughout the country) felt that they were peddling backwards in the American economy. Plus their "traditional" values were poo-pooed by the elites on the East and West coasts.
Yes, they want to blow up the current economy and social milieu. They want to go back to the world from 1952-1965 which they understand, respect and desire. Trump's base does not care that women, minorities, LBGQ+ groups etc. were not part of the pie. The white man was in control. Everyone knew their place. The country worked for them and the crime rate was low. The US economy was booming, and the country was respected as the world power.
In Trump's base's mind the "other" is the problem not them.
The only way to get rid of Trump is at the ballot box. That means that if "YOU" want him gone that you have to vote him out of office. Hilary Clinton lost because too many citizens stayed home that would have voted for the Democratic ticket.
Yes, Trump will be more crazy in the next fourteen months before the election. That is a given.
Personally, I believe that the Democrats should nominate someone that is moderate so that the most people come out to vote Trump out of office. We can worry about the policy details later. The Republic comes first!
17
@Mary
"Worrying about the policy details later" is exactly how we will get four more years of Trump. So would be nominating a moderate -- ever since Obama was elected in 2008 after campaigning as a progressive only to govern as a neoliberal technocrat, Democrats have been running moderates and losing ground. The widening wealth gap has completely polarized our society. Winning elections is no longer about tacking to the center, but about energizing your base and getting them to the polls. The Republicans figured that out a while ago. "The perfect is the enemy of the good" and "the suburbs are not ready for that" are not the sort of rallying cries that are going to turn out anybody. Nobody's turning out simply because centrists scold them.
The old order that the moderates are yearning to restore is collapsing and won't be coming back. The electorate, both on the right and on the left, are rejecting the status quo as working only for the one per cent, not for them -- that, not the Russians or James Comey or Jill Stein, is why Trump won in 2016. Only a candidate with an answer to that will be able to defeat Trump next year. The centrists, however, don't seem even to understand what the question is.
2
As far as Michigan is concerned?
10,704 more people for Trump than Clinton in Michigan does not equal “soooo many people.”
Enough people for him to win, though? Yes, that’s true.
But, overstating his support? I am not seeing how that is helpful.
Characterizing his support? You got game and there’s data to support that targeting these voters got him to go over the top...enough...to win MI. Sadly so.
I've seen recent footage of the president. He does not look like a guy in the midst of any panic as much as you'd apparently like to think that. On the contrary, he looks cool as a cucumber. I'd say he looks like a guy who's about to easily win yet another victory given an extremely weak Democratic field. In this case, looks are not deceiving.
In general, however, perception equals reality. Even if the economy tanks, you presume American voters are going to (a) know the economy has tanked (and even well read folk like those who comment on these boards don't really have much by way of a grasp as to where things stand right now economically speaking, so that's unlikely), and (b) attribute any decline to Trump. I'm sure news organizations such as this one will try their hardest to make sure if the economy so much as hesitates to tear the cover off the ball everyone thinks it's Trump's fault, but I'm thinking he'll figure out a way to spin whatever the facts are and wind up triumphant all the better to keep this great land great!
1
Your perception contrasts with the leaks from insiders actually working with him, who report clearly panic-stricken behavior- yelling at the TV set, demanding written loyalty oaths, not being able to stay on topic for any amount of time, stomping out of meetings and sending out dozens of defensive and attacking tweets every day. That isn’t the behavior of someone in control.
9
The entire 2020 election is in China’s hands. If they like the instability of Trump for their long-term goals, they’ll make a deal with him about six months before the election. The market will react positively and dramatically and Trump will crow about his success endlessly. It will win him four more years.
On the other hand, if they believe Trump is a detriment to their long-term success they will let the tariffs work their evil on American farmers, consumers, and producers, and the stock market will show little if any growth until November 2020. Their will be no chance for Trump in the election.
It’s all in China’s hands.
16
@Paul Sharpe
I thought this also. And they’ll give the workers their second XMAS bonus and win again.
1
You could just as well say Trump did not win by much in 16, only a technical squeak in the EC despite losing the popular vote by millions, and he is not doing any better this time so far, just trying to hold on by his fingernails to the tiniest regional advantage that may win him the EC again. In that regard, the election could as well be in the hands of Russia.
1
In today's news:
U.S. Takes Next Step Toward Sale of Drilling Leases in Arctic Refuge
Trump Administration Rolls Back Clean Water Protections
Extreme Weather Displaced a Record 7 Million in First Half of 2019
Now that's cause for panic. What are we doing about it? Thus far, nothing. We're all busy watching the Donald Trump Traveling Snake Oil Medicine Show. Some love it, some hate it, all are distracted by it.
25
@chambolle
The quiet truth is often ignored.
1
Readers are forgetting that the tax cuts that have put is in this mess, with little reward to anyone but corporate CEO's and shareholders and the incredibly wealthy, is all on the GOP.
The fact that the GOP validates and supports Trump should be remembered when you go to vote on anyone, for any office.
Trump is supported by the GOP. Most of his policies come from the GOP.
Panic button? You, the GOP really should be feeling very very lonely and ashamed: Most of the people in this country and the world will never forgive you for the damage you have done, and that you are, to our disgust, proud of having done.
18
It's funny when the rest of the country raises a collective eyebrow every time Trump says something repulsive or lies. If you are from New York you already knew what you were getting from him. Before he ran for office in 2016, he was one of the individuals bidding to buy the Buffalo Bills. His finances were a topic of conversation then...we all knew he did not have any where near the kind of funding to purchase a NFL team (even the Buffalo Bills). It was simply a publicity stunt. Now this con man is the President of the United States...God help us
23
@Don: native New Yorker here. I still think about Michael Bloomberg's statement at the Democrat's convention: "I'm from New York. I know a con when I see one."
2
The fact that Trump stated that the government should "refinance" our national debt and there was no blow back or correction from congressional leaders or financial "experts" in his administration tells me the WH has become nothing more than a parody of that story about the emperor wearing no clothes.
9
Instead of trying to buy Greenland, Trump could sell Alaska back to Russia or the Louisiana Purchase back to France, something only a wise and bold real estate mogul could pull off, thereby being The One to Fix It All. Hurry hurry hurry, right into the tent...
2
Trump is not panicking. With unemployment, especially for minorities, at near all time lows and manufacturing job creation at or higher than anything since 2008, the economy is fine. The trade war, which would have been unthinkable with Democratic policies and regulations, is having an impact but the impact is manageable; hence, the "no recession in sight.", to which Krugman grudgingly admits.
No, Trump sees what Reserve banks are doing in the EU and he knows that taking the same action here would give the economy yet another boost. The boost might be short-term but it would still be a boost and buy still more time to make a real agreement with China. That is Trump's real goal. Maintain our economic growth while economically stagnating China and forcing them to come to the negotiating table.
Just as Trump's deal with Mexico was a real change, a 50% decrease in illegal entry attempts since its implementation, he wants our trade relations with China to be balanced and respectful to both parties. Despite the Left's wishful thinking that Trump is stupid and Crazy, neither is true and when he is elected in 2024 all be clear. :)
1
When he is elected in 2024? Are you supporting his dreams of dictatorship?
3
trump's malice and ignorance are so thorough and wide, deep and tall, that I'm losing the strength -- even, perhaps, the ability -- to 'recommend' his faults and disgraces.
4
Well let's see....anyone that calls them self a stable genius should not be surprised how little Trump seems to know about anything.
6
And here it starts with the DNC plan . 6.5 Million more jobs in the states .GDP up in numbers we have not seen for years .Low unemployment .Nafta scraped .
They have jedi mind trick you to not see this .
People leaving California and New York because the Democrats have made it too expensive to live there .
The Democrats have lost thier minds !!
The California economy is doing fine and the net population of New York is increasing (plus it’s the most visited place in the United States). Meanwhile, new job numbers are decreasing, so is the GDP rate, and Midwest farmers are suffering. Your hero knows this, it’s not all a pot of gold. And he doesn’t know what to do, except dig in and yell at the TV set because even Fox doesn’t love him any more.
3
You heard it hear first, I believe Mike Pence wants to be president, he is running out of time and the democrats aren't impeaching fast enough. I believe in the next few weeks Pence will bring down the 25th amendment on Trump, saying he is unfit for office. I think the republicans will support this. On a side note, if the democrats don't impeach soon and something happens to RBG, and Trump gets another supreme court pick, you all are going to lose a lot of votes...
3
Just watch, we're only a week or so away from Trump mounting a full-scale shifting of blame for a slowing economy onto 'socialist, America-hating Democrats'. Despots hemmed in by their own incompetence and failures inevitably find scapegoats, and nothing would serve Trump's political interests more than pretending the nation's economy - all his winning! - is being undermined and sabotaged by 'them'.
And as long as he has willing propagandists at Fox and the GOP, he has no impediment to deepening, and darkening, his lies.
383
@Neander - No offense but he's been doing this since the beginning. The volume coincides with his desperation, and both will increase. That is to be expected. It's the degree to which his facilitators are willing to go along that is most concerning to me. If "sharpiegate" is any indication, there are no limits.
60
@Neander
Agree on all. Your "he has no impediment to deepening and darkening, his lies." --yes, so true...
20
Unfortunately, almost all of the comments here deal with reality, while the Trump Faithful believe in whatever his machine tells them. He could easily declare victory in any of his battles and Fox, etc, would immediately begin praising his great accomplishment. MAGA-heads would cheer. The real disaster is something that goes well beyond Trump -- it is the somewhat successful campaign to disparage all fact-based information disclosure.
6
He has now created the situation where he can't negotiate with China because the don't trust him. They know they could sign an agreement with him on anything at all only to have him do the opposite next week.
That puts the country in a disastrous position.
5
This is a guy who disputed the election results - when he won! If you don't expect him to act more and more like a wounded badger as we get closer and closer to 2020, you're fooling yourself. He will destroy anything he can to survive. And the rest of us will pay the consequences.
22
Trump declared that “we should then start to refinance our debt,” because “the USA should always be paying the lowest rate.”
Why is Trump panicking? Because he's been using the royal "we" and equating the USA with himself. L'etat c'est lui.
I realize Deutsche Bank has an appetite for risk both reputational and financial. But when it comes to loaning $300 million to Donald Trump, I doubt even they'd do anything so stupid as to add interest rate risk. No way they gave him a fixed, low-interest loan which would leave them holding the bag in a rising rate environment: keeping their interest income down while their own interest expenses increase. If interest rates rise, Trump will be on the hook for more interest payments, and if they fall, he'll be responsible for less. Negative interest rates are probably about what Trump can afford.
12
Dear Mr. Krugman,
"Trump Hits the Panic Button"? Really? This type of hyperbole only shows how out of touch you and and other Trump-Hating commentators are, and I'm a registered Democrat who voted Third Party in 2016.
Believe me this type of hyperbole and the sycophancy I saw after last night's debate is not going to endear me and like minded Democrats and Independents to vote Democrat in 2020.
You and they need to get out of your bubbles and realize President Trump is playing YOU, all of YOU. All presidents of both political parties complain about the things you cite in your article!
2
“…reaching a deal with China that more or less restores the status quo. But that would be a de facto admission of defeat…”
Not really.
He could blame Peter Navarro for advising him that “trade wars are easy to win” and give him the Bolton treatment.
4
"-- and at this point it’s not clear why the Chinese would trust him to honor any such deal past Election Day."
Not only would the Chinese not trust him, they are probably actively working to get rid of him, by making sure he loses his bid for re-election.
The Russian disinformation/fake news efforts in 2016, while effective, also probably caught the attention of the Chinese. Now the Chinese are fed up with Trump and his insanity, and are probably thinking, we are just adept at this stuff as the Russians, if not more so -- why don't we pull the same stuff against Trump in 2020, that the Russians pulled against Hillary in 2016?
And they should! It will have the net effect of neutralizing the certain efforts of the Russians, and we end up with a level playing field that the Democratic candidate can win on.
2
Soon the American elections will become digital proxy wars between China and Russia, making America a big new Lebanon.
Or perhaps he wants interest rates down below 0 so they can refinance the Trump Org in the face of a slowing economy and falling profits???? Occam’s Razor and all....If they can find a new lender???
8
@Ali
Wonder if the Russians will renegotiate interest rates for trump? Wonder what Vlad would say if trump took bankruptcy on them?
2
Trump lacks intelligence, period. He's a shyster who's running out of excuses and cover.
14
Panic.
Dam right. If the economy isn’t rolling he loses. And if he loses he goes to jail ( maybe with his sons). That is a heck of a motivator. So I’d say we haven’t even begun to see full panic mode.
16
Disagree that it would be a "de facto admission of defeat." Just like the rejiggering of NAFTA, Trump will say that his actions have created the greatest trade deal anyone has ever seen. The reality will be, he screwed things up, but couldn't pull off a real deal, so instead will flap his jaws, while patting himself on the back. His voters will fall for it, as the always do.
10
@Walter Ingram
Yes that is his MO. Per trump, Korea is not testing missiles or nukes anymore, the wall is almost built, etc.
3
Paul Krugman fails to recognize President Trump's economic strategy. Simply put, he wants a short term bump that will get him re-elected. Longterm economic growth be damned. Equitable or fair economy be damned as well. If someone told him that if he sold Federal lands that would result in a quick influx of cash where he could give low and middle class Americans a big tax break, he would do it. It is all about the here and now.
12
Please allow me to elaborate.
As you say, Trump knows little (nothing?) about economic policy. He also knows nothing about foreign policy. And, lastly, he knows nothing about the interaction between the two.
He is a poseur. In fact, his picture is next to the dictionary word or should be.
He is the "in" president:
He is incompetent and inconsistent, and this makes him ineffective. And, of course, he is insufferable. His base seems to still like him cause he appears "strong" to them and he sticks it in everyone's face. He is not strong. He is a coward who would hold up a baby to protect himself if he felt threatened and a baby was the only potential shield. My friends get mad at his base, but I tell them that all administrations that preceded this charlatan set this up by failing to address the needs of the middle class and allowing plutocrats to run the country and take most of the wealth. And, of course, having the traitor, Rupert Murdoch, allowed into this country to sell propaganda to these folks and deflect them from the middle class rip off doesn't exactly help. The same propaganda sunk Hilary Clinton long before she even ran.
We can only hope that one of the democratic candidates rises to the occasion and beats this bullying braggart. Four more years of tweets, TV and chaos will destroy whatever is left.
641
@Lewis Waldman An incisive analysis; thank you.
60
@Barbara
I fully agree with you. But from an outside view: It's been the American people (well, not the majority) that elected him president and - many are afraid of - will elect him again in 2020, so the rest of the world - and of course the American people - will have to suffer his "whips and scorns" for another four years. It's up to the American electors, and only to them, to change this outrageous fortune and by opposing end his presidency.
48
@Michael Ott
Bitte, Willkommen in den USA.
Perhaps you and others will visit the USA esp. in the summer and fall of 2020, sure to be warmer still. Help our tourist economies, spread your good words and wishes, and help get out the vote with your good will.
I was in Germany on 9/11/2001. The good will was palpable and very much appreciated.
21
Trump's "mediocre" economy performance is actually the best area of performance across the whole Trump presidency. Instead of fearing the "mediocre" economic performance, Trump should be shouting it up... to distract from the shambles of his foreign policy, his 'global suicidal' environmental policy, his 'neo-Nazi' immigration policy, and his 'no low is too low' ethical performance.
355
@Jim Brokaw
Please! The economy was steady when Trump inherited it (unlike the economy Obama inherited.) Sure, there were things that could have been improved, but not by going into massive debt for a sugar rush.
Trump took the easy and reckless route--something to which he is not a stranger...
93
@Susan You're not giving the Republicans enough credit. Republican congressmen and lobbyists designed and passed the tax cut. Trump merely signed it.
49
@Jim Brokaw If all we got was a mediocre economy Americans deserved to have that Ryan Tax Break renegotiated. Billionaires got s=windfalls all the rest of us got was exploding debt and a mediocre economy.
Trump lied
MAGA Mediocre American Growth Assured.
37
Trumpers seem to revel in the chaos. From my observations of Trumpers I know, they don't care if he fails as long as he disrupts. I continue to hear "At least he is trying something" with total disregard to the consequences and facts. I've said over a year ago, they are purely anarchists. Burn the system down and hope that something better somehow springs from the ashes. We will have difficulty moving forward until they capitulate, which seems unlikely.
1768
@Dave Calder
Yes, that has been my observation too.
But likely another reason for him wanting to cut interest rates is to lower the interest rate he pays on his own massive debts. It has been estimated that he would personally save $8 million.
652
@E
That's it, in a nutshell.
Sure, Trump may be trying to get the Fed to lower rates to enhance his admittedly sketchy re-election chances and thereby stay out of an orange jumpsuit (though it would match the hair). But fundamentally it's all about him, and if the Fed lowers interest rates, his loan rates eventually reduce, too.
(One wonders how much time and effort it takes to become that preternaturally selfish; is it natural, or does one have to work at it?)
234
@Glenn Ribotsky It's natural. He was always a selfish miscreant, from the time he was sent to military school because his parents couldn't handle the bully. It's all about him; even his son with the third wife is called "her son" - he can't see beyond his own disheveled thinking. Ignorant, dishonorable man.
438
You mean, Paul, that Trump is upsetting the Confidence Fairy? I thought grown-up economists didn't believe in such myths.
1
Trump is using the power of his office to rig the election in his favor after his trillion $ tax cut to the rich and powerful he claims the economy has never been better but interest rates need to be cut to zero to help him win re-election. US banks would not deal with Trump due to his bankruptcies and chaotic biz record and over 3000 lawsuits to avoid paying contractors. Trump lies about everything alters weather maps with his sharpie and tweets about companies that affects the market. Trump's chaotic trade war with China and allies points to the need to take some powers away from the president as he has abused them for his personal interests. Trump's reputation for lying ,fraud and backing out of deals makes him unfit to steward our economy as his only interests seems to be himself and his family financial well being.
7
We can talk about Trump and His administration actions but one thing is really not going to change : Crassness of this administration , the emptiness , incompetency none of these going to change.
We are in a nightmare in the swamp .
5
Okay, the congregation here seems mostly convinced of the national betrayal by Malefactor-in-Chief.
That leaves only a threatening 40% or so of Donald's diehard base yet to convince, in order that the Yellow Bellow be rendered a one-term error.
As some Presidential candidate, when told that intelligent people would vote for him, astutely replied, "Perhaps, but they're not enough if I'm to get elected."
How is Krugman - or any like-minded public spokesperson for reason - running missionary programs into darkest (no pun intended) Trumpistan?
1
My expectation is that Trump, as the next election nears, will manipulate the economy and international markets to his own advantage with his self serving his fat gut decisions.
In his mind..., "We the People" should read "Me,Myself and I" with a little wiggle room for Don Jr, Eric, Ivanky and maybe Jared to name a few others
4
Nothing reveals the cowardice in a bully, like an oncoming punch in the nose. That's why there's Trump panic.
While an actual punch would be welcomed by most, the rhetorical punch of a failing economy has the unwanted side effect of harming everyone.
While the marketes race to new heights at every hope of improvement, one must wonder what will happen when the market fall hits and all those margin accounts have to be made whole. In a hurry.
Maybe 2008 was just a warm-up.
1
“Trump has trapped himself...”
The potential or actual joys of experiencing a wee bit
or more of schadenfreude are a bit too early.
His out of control judgment and decision making
results in his BEING a national threat to selected people,
systems, the planet, and values, norms and ethics
which underpin civility. Mutual trust. Mutual respect.
Compassion. Caringness. Mutual help, when and if needed.
Whatever Trump’s “trappings” in his entrapment,
more concern is merited for the ongoing, toxic
entrapment of so many in complacency and complicity.
The entrapment which derives from choosing to BE
willfully blind, deaf, indifferent,ignorant and SILENT about
what IS, and should not BE! Ever. Then. Now. Tomorrow?
All too many enable self-entrapment.
For all too many “equitable” is just a word,
or a group of letters; one after the other.
For all too many “menschlichkeit” is a foreign
term, concept, value to be walled out
in daily MAGA living.
For all too many, mantras, paced, and presented
to large crowds of conditioned responders, allow
for generalizable facts, fictions and fantasies to BE
goulashed in a semantic surrealism in which transmitted
certitudes become prayers for people
transmuted into preyers.
THE PEOPLE- We, They, and US, feel trapped
even as an opportunity to contribute to making a
difference that can result in sustainable needed
wellbeing for ALL awaits. Just a choice away.
2
Trump's Economic Policy? Folks, there is none. All he's been doing is coasting on the Obama Economic train as it slows down to a stall between stations and bragging about 'How Great he is'.
The Tax cut was purely the Republicans serving their Donor class. All Trump did was sign it. Most of all he signed it NOT because of any 'supposed good' it would do for us ordinary citizens...but because he was told that TRUMP INC would directly benefit. I'm certain Paul Ryan smiled like sunshine when he said this sotto Voce to Donald.
Remember the only word that keeps Donald's attention focused when there's too much legal verbiage is the word 'TRUMP'. And you can't be too subtle. You need to be painfully out front with Donald.
Signing a Tax Bill that he had no idea what was in the details and not a care besides...that's not 'Economic Policy'. That's just serving his function as the GOP Auto-Signature machine.
Economic Policy as in How will the Administration deal with and Moderate any coming recession?
Folks we ARE seeing Trump's Economic Policy: He calls the Fed Chairman Nasty Names.
That's it!
Economic Council? There is none. Council carries the notion that the President will listen and act on their advice.
Donald Listens to No-One. And if anyone tells him Do 'A'... he'll reflexively do 'D' just for spite. Because No-one tells him what to do.
Donald follows his Gut. Remember? Our Economic Policy is being guided by a 73 yr old digestive tract. Someone call the Plumber!
5
How did 45 ever run his businesses?
2
@Rose, he did: into the ground.
7
He ran them right into the ground.
1
Once again, thank you Paul for hitting the nail (trump) in the head.
4
Another reason Trump must go. Everything he meddles in bad. Tax cuts favoring the rich and corporations. Tarrifs wrecking the economy while breaking the farmers. Repealing EPA rules on air and water pollution. Climate denial. The Iran Deal. The list is never ending.
How can his core keep supporting him? One man has managed to ruin us world wide. It will take years to regain the trust we have lost with this nut job. 2020 can only come too soon. Make America worse again.
2
"A drowning man still grasps in vain, for he can see a nearing death...........he senses doom, he feels the pain, but still he clings to one last breath".
Trump clearly hears the footsteps of New York Prosecutors getting closer and closer.
3
Here in Oklahoma we have a saying:
"You can always tell when a politician is lying...because if you look really, really close, you will see their lips moving."
I guess that we need to update that to "see that he just Tweeted something."
3
The puffiness around Trumps eyes reveal a man bereft of sleep and under stress.
2
You say bonds can’t be prepaid. Really? What would prevent the Treasury from recalling its bonds, as corporations often do with their own debt when its pricing becomes unfavorable?
The law. Most Treasury issues are not callable. One exception is the 30-year bond which is callable at approximately 23 years. Otherwise, the Treasury can not call and pay off bonds. There is a chunk of the debt financed very short term (4, 8, 13, 26 and 52 weeks). These of course would be rapidly rolled into lower rate, bills and notes.
4
Since Trump is so focused on the economy without any apparent understanding or knowledge, having this very informative and clear article is to me and I believe many very helpful.
I am a Buddhist Priest without a background in economics as they are played out in politics.
In these uncertain times having articles that educate and inspire further discussion provide the support lacking in our leadership.
WIth gratitude
Kanjin ABrahamson
3
Mr. Krugman is a brilliant writer and economist.
Unfortunately he makes the common mistake of calling anything the Reality Show Con Artist does a "policy".
He has neither the capacity or the interest to govern and has no "agenda" other to enrich himself with money and attention. Everything he does or says - which often changes mid-sentence - is only for effect (distract/deflect) and to satisfy a narcissists desire to be liked.
There is nothing substantive in this fraud and to think otherwise is to underestimate the depths of the fraud we have elected President.
7
Even IF the Fed were to cut rates to below zero that for all intents and purposes means they'll pay borrowers to borrow instead of charging them.
Wanna bet who might get those great under zero rates? Not you nor me. ONLY those who don't even need it.
At NO point would the Fed nor any banks call any of us up on the phone to say, "Hey, we'll PAY you to borrow money from us."
It's a scam idea first and foremost.
4
The uncertainty is killing the capital equipment part of the economy. I'm sitting in a half empty plant with no new orders and 6 months of work left. Our customers have have a dozen big new projects ready to go and they're just sitting on them waiting for a sign of stability. It's not interest rates holding us back.
We make world leading equipment with real American know-how and the whole enterprise is creeping towards closure. Might as well let the Europeans and Asians have the market.
9
Trump's M.O. is to smash something, then rush into to repair it as though he is the unique savior. Maybe he can reverse course with the Chinese, but that's not remotely possible in any total sense, not now, after the Chinese have been busy cultivating other producers and suppliers, who word on a fairly large scale--like, say, Brazilian soy bean growers. We'll see what he can do with the Iranians. Meanwhile, a very large, and perhaps permanent, damage has been done for perhaps a generation or two to U.S. credibility in foreign policy and economics. The mass of his supporters, of course, comprehend even less of all of this than he does. I can't believe, however, that he is going to retain the support of all or most farmers he's hade in the past. They know their immediate economic situation, very carefully and cautiously, and they just are not happy about what's happened to them.
5
So, what happens to millions of Americans who spend all their meager savings instead of paying to park it in a bank?
Declare bankruptcy? Like the president has often done?
5
Trump was likely referencing the need to refinance his own debt/"our debt". I can virtually guarantee that Donnie and Eric Trump are regularly on the phone to Don Don giving updates about the Trump Organization and its declining revenues and high debt payments. Daddy please help!
In 2015 Trump claimed that unemployment was as high as 42%! Now, with Trump at the helm, it is magically the "lowest ever"?!? We are living in Trump World.
5
Professor Krugman analysis of why all Presidents since Truman and Eisenhower seek monetary and fiscal stimulus to accelerate the US economy in an election year hits the bullseye.
The distinction he does not make forcefully enough is that Trump and Kudlow are unique. Kudlow is a TV personality whose track record predicting our economic future is simply awful.
Trump, as Krugman suggests, isn’’t just a rational man using his power to improve or stabilize GDP and a low unemployment rate. Rather, he is a president whose only goal is re-election. If he must risk destabilizing the economy to help his re-election, so be it.
The scandal is that he is incompetent to understand or implement sound policy and he is incapable of listening to skilled economists and accepting their advise. Expecting Trump to change course is to predict genetic engineering can create a flying pig.
Ironically, the best strategy to take the economic revolver away from our irrational president is to let Trump be Trump. Yes, we will endure a year of pain and a possible recession. But the final result may be Trump’s defeat and the salvation of the Party of Lincoln (GOP).
4
Taking Trump's dictate to the Weather Bureau as a presage to his coming economic explanation, we are about to see a barrage of lies and misdirection from the treasury and the council of economic advisors.
2
China plays the long game, or at least a longer game than the erratic and erroneous US president. The zigzagging Trump looks like a scrambling quarterback about to be sacked for a large and humiliating loss. Perhaps the Chinese have decided that it is in their interests to be rid of Trump in 2021 and this larger objective will govern their actions.
4
Same guy who keeps pretending that tariffs are paid by China...
11
The other 'stimulus' measure that the thing wants credit for is deregulation. I guess one could argue that it will take time to finish poisoning our water, despoiling our wild areas, and fouling our air (to mention only the ecological deregulation). Still, you would think that the confidence factor of our nation's corporate titans would be pretty high and be somehow reflected in current prosperity, Maybe they could trickle a little something down on us!
4
Putin is winning!
6
The Chinese are just stringing him along.
They can plainly read the polls, like everyone else, and see Trump is more desperate than they are.
By doing nothing, they'll either get a folding Trump or they'll get rid of Trump. Both those results will happen on or before November, 2020, which isn't too far away.
Trade wars are easy to win. Just like Mexico is going to pay for that wall.
Face palm.
14
@Bobby Clobber
I think you're right about China inadvertently gaining leverage over Trump in his "trade war."
Uncertainty in world economics is bad for everyone, and, though China could likely strike a favorable deal with Trump as he becomes ever more desperate, I'm thinking that they believe they will be better off in the long term with Trump gone.
So, they will do just enough to avoid additional tariffs, but not enough to raise Trump's ratings in the polls.
1
@Bobby Clobber
The Chinese have been around for 5,000 years, give or take. They play the longest game of all. A year to us is but 10 minutes to them. We've a fool for a president.
1
Why the panic? I'm sure I heard a certain someone (who I cannot bring myself to name...) tell us that “We’re bringing it [the GDP] from 1% to 4%. And I actually think we can go higher than 4%. I think you can go to 5% or 6%.” OK, great! But when? Or was that just another lie?
3
It is obvious Trump knows nothing about economics. More troubling is that he doesn't seem to know anything about anything.
17
panic , desperate, trusted by no one, tell me this isn't the start of a horror movie. better get a generator and some fuel storage.
6
In my mind the GOP had forfeited any moral authority to lead in the US based upon the fact that they willingly blocked and delayed economic stimulus during Obama's re-election campaign to quote Moscow Mitch" "We're going to make sure 'this' president is a one term president". Their "cover" was they were standing firm on not raising the US debt - holding the line.
That cynical action deliberately harmed their own constituency in the same manner that Nixon's secret deal with the S. Vietnamese to scuttle peace talks during his election delayed the end of the war and resulted in another 23,000 soldiers deaths.
Now we have Trump doing the same thing in essence by trying to game the economy for his benefit, a foolish action which could plunge the country into deep depression rivaling the 1930's if allowed to proceed.
Holding the line on the debt? Since Trump has taken office, we've blown through budgetary constraints, the deficit is now 1Trillion over when we bring in and we've added 2 Trillion to the national debt. Outrage and constraint by they GOP...the so-called "fiscal hawks"?
Perhaps the epithet for the GOP will be..."They once stood for something".
12
Maybe Trump wants interest rates to be as low as possible so he can personally benefit from them.
I figure it is always, always about him.
12
Ya think? Guy who ran numerous business ventures on borrowed money, risk and loss was on lenders with each bankruptcy. How many people do you know who are concerned about a fraction of a percentage point on interest rates because they’re currently operating, again, with several hundred million dollars’ worth of debt? Of course he’s thinking of his own private debt service!
2
Trump's little roll back re latest tariffs does nothing for businesses who need certainty to make plans/investments. One could argue that this stopping/starting of trump's only makes things more uncertain for businesses.
6
A question for Donnie "Boy" Trump: According to you, the economy is doing great. So why would you need a stimulus? You only need a stimulus when the economy is doing poorly. So which is it? Is the economy doing great or not? I won't hold my breath waiting for an answer.
20
All true about Trump's thought processes, if indeed they even exist. But what should be of concern is how the electorate perceives them: will his bluster and re-writes of history garner enough votes to win in the Electoral College? No way for the popular vote but that as we know doesn't count.
Let's keep separate the actual consequences of his economic (and social and environmental and immigration and...) policies from his election results. We are pretty much assured that he will not have all those tariffs in place a year from now, just in time for the election. We are pretty much assured that he will tell the world that his "tough" policies brought everyone else to heel and that he emerged victorious. Remind you of how he crawled out from bankruptcy?
7
One sign of insanity is to do something over and over expecting different results each time. This is what the Republicans have been doing for at least the time of Reagan. Trump seems unusually vulnerable to doing this either in his businesses or as president of the USA.
In his businesses he bought multiple casinos when he could not turn a profit on even one and has done the same with golf resorts and hotels, with only a few of the ones he has bought being able to earn more than it spends.
Trump's top down approach to the economy is almost certain to end in disaster just as it did under Baby Bush and during previous attempts to implement it. It would seem simple that opening business and factory would be a failure if there are no customers for your products, this just seems beyond what Trump and way too many Republicans can understand. If money is hoarded by the top few percent and the mass of working Americans lack money to more than barely get by, then there will not be customers for manufacturers and merchants to sell too.
18
The uncertainty is becoming a huge drag on the economy. Even if victory is declared and all tariffs dropped, business leaders can't trust that a misinterpreted remark or rough handshake will not trigger some other economic policy disaster. The economy will not expand until sanity returns to the White House on 01/20/2021.
17
Republicans don't deserve to be taken seriously about anything until they abandon the long-disproven myth that tax cuts for the wealthy provide any sort of benefit to the economy.
35
@Wayne: They’re not going to abandon that belief as long as their donors demand it and their supporters believe it (and continue to re-elect them).
10
Perhaps it is not "panic' but it is someone who is in the real estate business who is especially sensitive to high interest rates?
6
I’m still trying to recover from the stock market’s plunge after Trump’s election. Oh, wait!
@Nobis Miserere The Stock Market likely could be above 30,000 now except for the Trade War. And why is Trump asking for unprecedented negative interest rates if the economy is doing so great? Please explain.
17
I’m trying to recover from the last tax day and my $15k tax increase (-$13.5k usual refund $1.5k tax bill. My accountant has told me that the majority of his clients had to pay this year. I imagine that people like myself which would normally spend our refunds on paying down bills and vacations will contribute to a further decline in the economy.
40
True enough. However, Dr. Krugman has admitted that he was incorrect and spoke in haste. Two things the current president has never done...
5
Liberals like Dr. Krugman constantly attack Trump for using simple language to sum up complex issues usually calling him stupid or a liar.
However, Dr. Krugman never criticized FDR for selling social security as insurance which it clearly is not. Liberals, in fact, brag about FDR's deceptions since it was for a good cause.
I guess it all comes down to whose side you are on and not any objective standards.
2
Krugman wasn’t even born when FDR was President. And as far as SS being an insurance, I believe it was meant this way, “President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Bill into law on August 14, 1935, only 14 months after sending a special message to Congress on June 8, 1934, that promised a plan for social insurance as a safeguard "against the hazards and vicissitudes of life." .
Which it is functioning as even today. For many people, it is the only money they have in retirement.
25
@Eric . Do you mean simple language as in "we'll see what happens"?
2
@Eric I dunno, a savings plan would have been more accurate as a simple description. But did FDR call Social Security “insurance”? I wasn’t there, were you? No, I didn’t think so.
2
I remember the day I realized I knew more about economics than Donald Trump. And I've only done Economics 101. It was an interview during the 2016 campaign. When asked about the federal debt, Trump said he would call creditors and tell them they had to accept a reduced amount on their debt holdings. That was his solution. Yep, he thought the federal debt was like a business loan then, he thinks the same now.
37
@DJY Wow. That would have been like Argentina.
Trump's lack of understanding of why we have a central bank (aka the Federal Reserve Bank) is monumental. The Fed is focused primarily, as its principal mission, on the stability of the financial system and monetary policies that strike a balance between inflation and economic growth objectives. Any signal that the Fed's independence is under undue political pressure, especially from a sitting president, is a threat to financial stability. Basic Macroeconomics 101 courses teach the importance of the independence of central banks. Trump loves to say that he went to "Wharton." Actually, he only got a B.A. at UPenn (I think in business administration), which is not to be confused with a grad school Wharton MBA degree. Maybe some macroeconomics was covered in one of his B.A. courses, but he was apparently a poor student and probably cut a lot of classes. More to the point, he doesn't care or want to know anyway.
23
His B.A. degree from U. Penn was in Real Estate management. It was not a B.B.A.
Initially, he was a student at Fordham, where he reportedly had “respectable” grades, but got into Wharton as a transfer student mainly because of an admissions officer who had gone to high school with his older brother. Wondering if his dad made some donations too!
2
Krugman's "Trump Hits the Panic Button" article is excellent. Especially this passage:
"In reality, however, the tax cut delivered at most a couple of quarters of higher growth. More specifically, huge tax breaks for corporations haven’t delivered the promised surge in wages and business investment; instead, corporations used the windfall to buy back stocks and pay higher dividends."
Good job.
24
Besides Trumps caprice making agreements worthless, there's also the problem of the new NAFTA not being approved by Congress. I worked on getting the original NAFTA passed and it was a big struggle. Many Democrats opposed it and so did some Republicans. Everyone knew that it would hurt U.S. manufacturing laborers since they were already being profoundly hurt by trade with Mexico before NAFTA. In those days though, the winners, namely businesses, consumers, exporters and workers other than manufacturing laborers, barely carried the day. Trade bills are hard to pass even if they're very beneficial overall because the losers know who they are and lose big. This is even more true now than before. While for most of the winners, the benefits are not as transparent.
4
In response to David Doney's wonderful list of very illuminating facts, both CitizenTM in NYC and Susan in Paris have hit the nail on the head!
Where is the Democratic party's voice on these things? Nary a whisper...
Get the word out! Where is the messaging from the media?
It's not just our economy that's at risk here: our democracy is being challenged as well.
6
Without a major drag on the economy -- a recession which finally shows clearly all of the unfairness, the laws that privilege real estate, the consumer buying less and wisely instead of latest fad, the need for regulating drug prices via a Single Payer System.... that reveal the US to be a "Third-World" country with rich and poor -- but we are so rich that even the poor by actual third world standards are rich -- any way you get the argument... We do not have what First World countries have: significant taxes on the rich, gun control, decent pension plans, single payer health insurance, free education for those who deserve it.
IMO Trump makes noise as a smoke screen for all his and his friends' shabby dealings.. and I want to know why Obama decided it was a good idea for military planes to refuel at Prestwick airport. Sometimes it's smarter to just give the money and not expect any return. Giving someone a job might end up costing a lot more in the end. Yang understands this.
Another great photo by Doug Mills.
I am ashamed to say it, but #45, like any train wreck, offers great material for visual artists of all stripes. From Barry Blitt, John Cuneo and Jesse DuQuette to Anna Moneymaker, Erin Schaff and Jabin Botsford, it's a visual "feast" of images that eloquently speak volumes.
5
@Sally
Great as a photo, and unbearable to view.
I always like your columns and look forward to them. For the rest of you here is all you need to know about the economy. In the early sixties my Grandfather worked for the Republic Steel corporation mining iron ore. His salary allowed him and my Grandmother to own thier house, a pickup truck and a small summer camp on a lake in the Adirondacks. And all of that on a miners salary. Wage growth my friends, wage growth is what the problem is not jobs, thier are enough of them around(three or four for some people). The only wage growth I have seen in the last 40 years of work has been at the top.
26
Xi is less of a danger to the United States than Donald Trump and his gang.
30
If only the fly on the wall in the Oval Office could broadcast live.
20
Trump wants interest rates lowered so he can refinance HIS personal debt.
The media should shout it from the rooftops about his crazy idea of "refinancing the national debt."
This needs to be done starting TODAY. Because, Trump will bray this to his base, who will buy it hook, line and sinker because they only know what HE tells them, and then they will vote for him because mean old Powell is a bonehead and the only one keeping Donald from refinancing his debt.
He tells this to people who think payday loans, buy here/finance here car lots, and refinancing the 10 year old hoopdee to get money to buy more meth and opiates are the way to go.
His base, who elected a TeeVee personality, believe he is an astute businessman because he played on TeeVee, and will NOT question Trump assertion about "refinancing the debt".
ONce again, loudly blaming Powell and China for all the problems HIS bonehead "policies" have caused will be the ticket to re-election.
"I can consider a partial deal with China...."???????
Riiiight. They will buy some soybeans and corn, Trump will bray "Success" and we all live happily ever after.
11
how could we elect someone so
dense? hopefully just once.
16
don't be fooled Trump marketed his 2017 tax cut
as a middle clas tax cut but it wan't. he is now
claiming he will introduce a middle clas tax
cut net yer
press faithfully repeats this even thought we know his
wrrd is worthless
by they bye this tradeware has cost 300,000 jobs
and job growth is 15 percent less than Obama's.
Trump faces House committees that do not
trust or believe him.
hearings are going to lay out the massive
corruption. sharpie that eh?
6
I believe the dear leader is speaking of his own business debts when he says "we should then start to refinance our debt." He has again conflated his personal business dealings with the affairs of the country.
Dude gotta go. Vote blue 2020.
21
@Hattie Ogden in every position and every race. It's time for the Republicans to be consigned to history. If they had any worth remaining they would have acted like the Tory's who stood up to Boris Johnson, instead of pickpockets who work the streets.
3
How do you convince the 40% plus of the American people that trump is by far the worst president since Warren G. Harding? Everything dumb thing he does is lionized on Fox News
18
@Bob Convincing is rarely an option. People come to it on their own. Best you can do is listen to them, at least for a time, as judgement free as possible. That actually gives impetus for them to listen to you. Seems like most cross-tribe communication goes straight to reactive/inflammatory.
11
Listen to them for a few minutes, and the racism comes through loud and clear. Hatred of black and brown people trumps everything else. They would rather hand the keys to Vladimir Putin than ever have another black person become President.
Trump needs to pull-out the Sharpie on this gathering storm.
5
Our president may have "trapped himself in a bad place" but he has sucked many into the moral and economic quicksand he stands in, slowly sinking. Chief among his co-victims are the bulk of the Republican party and many of his base on whose shoulders he stands pushing them first into the depths.
Nice job, sir.
His only survivors are those who foresaw the future and cast him off like something unpleasant you step on in the street.
Now we must cast him off as well.
11
When a man has to inject himself on every tragedy that befalls us that's about as low as you can go. It's right up there with people who say they saw combat or served their country when they sat at home. Disgusting.
You know what's news? The day Bone Spurs doesn't lie.
Vote blue, no matter who.
13
@Margo Channing . Do you think he drew in those bone spurs with a Sharpie?
To me, his attacks on the Federal Reserve is an outgrowth of his racism and his delight in appealing to his core followers.
There are lots of conspiracy theories out there that link the federal reserve as “globalists” or other obvious euphemisms used by racists.
This isn’t at all about economics; this is dog-whistle stuff.
He will use every opportunity to criticize the Federal Reserve because it agitates his base for very different reasons that it agitates everybody else.
This is Bannon re-election playbook stuff, you know, the man who likes to breax-it all down.
7
Imagine the damage he can do in a second four-year term when he wouldn't have to spend most of it campaigning. At least now when he juts out his chin to exhort a crowd of his ecstatic worshippers, we know where he is.
8
Trump is bankrupting the economy like he bankrupts his businesses. He will bankrupt the US so he and his billionaire cronies can suck all the value out of the markets and leave the rest of us in the radioactive dust.
15
Let him eat coal.
15
Well Paul I can sum up what you spent your whole column saying:
"Stupid is as stupid does".
And it's because his base is as willfully ignorant as he is that he retains their support. But his problem is that those in power behind the scenes will not tolerate him screwing up their wealth portfolios, and so we'll begin seeing his support from Republicans dropping. The oligarchy can tolerate almost anything: racism, criminal behavior, even treasonous bargains with the Russians, as long as they make money. But if the money slows, then so will their support.
Trump's self-inflicted ignorance will finally cost him.
14
@Kingfish52
I think of what motivated the Nazis as some kind of force that works its way through history. Call it pure hatred, though it's a lot of things. It works through the cultural forms like Oligarchy, though to different degrees. Love and compassion for self and others (someone in Judea mentioned that once) combats it.
Borrow and spend Republicans are ruining America.
13
Early in this piece Mr. Krugman points out the President's lack of economic (or __________) prowess to understand economics and the function there of. So how is this same president smart enough to understand and short-term measure to reboot the economy? This is the same president who does not trust his own team and care to hear an honest opinion. I guess the essence of the opinion his President Trump is 5 year old trapped in older mans body. Not to insult a 5 year old.
Its a rare thing but i agree with Krugman on the reason Trump wants rate cuts. That said, his economy is far better than Obama's but may not be enough to beat back the Dems in 2020
@RJPost : That’s not a realistic comparison to say that the economy is far better than Obama’s.
When Obama was sworn in, we were just entering the worst recession since the 30’s. Obama had to try to turn that around, without Democrat House and Senate. (Remember #MoscowMitch ‘s pledge to do everything he could to make sure Obama was a one-term president?)
By comparison, trump came into a growing (admittedly glowing slowly) economy, and had control of both House and Senate.
5
Was meeting today with some professionals about real estate sales. Live in an area which is affected by the farm economy. Surprise, surprise, properties are selling for substantially less than they are valued for. 2008 all over again. The fire sale begins.
9
It's like clockwork - when the Dow is high (27 000!) Krugman's columns are about Trump; when it drops by a few hundred points, the prize winner goes wonkish and economish. Every morning seems to be an unpleasant morning, which is sad.
3
In order to be able to run on Obama’s economy, republicans have to fend off the coming downturn. So, another infusion of government borrowed cash is needed. But, with America’s bank at odds with Trump, a democratically controlled house, and not many brain cells, Trump is stuck. Darn it!
2
Trump's panic regarding the economy is easily explained. An impending recession spells doom for his re-election chances. Losing the election means that at 12:01 PM on January 20, 2021, Federal Marshals could read him his Miranda Rights, slap cuffs on him, and take him to jail.
His only protection from such a spectacle is winning re-election...and he is only too aware of that.
7
The overt stupidity of this president, is almost overwhelming . Meanwhile you have candidates in the Democratic debate , while not always thoroughly convincing are informed, intelligent and insightful politicians who are going beyond the fact that we need to rid ourselves of Donald Trump. They’re thinking about how we can repair the country that the current occupant of the Oval Office has begun to do so much damage to...
So let Donald Trump press the panic button - let him do it all the way to his very cozy jail cell .
8
As if more proof was needed that "Donald in Wonderland" is a story of a fantasyland where reality plays no part in Trump`s incompetent know nothing brand of leadership. Now it is taking America into a bizarre misadventure where he is desperately demanding the kind of stimulus Republicans condemned the Obama administration for; when America was in a real crises in 2008; thanks largely to the greed of Wall Street. You know; the guys Trump loved to hang out with. He is in so far over his head it is pathetic; and yet many still see him as some kind of wizard who experts are not able to understand because of his "stable genius." RIGHT! Any more of that kind of genius and America`s days of global leadership are really going to be toast!
5
Way back in 1996, Mr. Krugman, in the Harvard Business Review, pointed out that a country is not a company and can't be run like one. (https://hbr.org/1996/01/a-country-is-not-a-company)
He posited that a business man isn't necessarily fit to be a president. Consider George W. Bush, whom many favored to be president because of his (alleged) business acumen. He failed miserably as president. And now we have Donald Trump, a businessman with multiple failed enterprises who doesn't know the first thing about government and doesn't care to get advice from anyone, be they his unqualified appointees or non-governmental experts.
Mr. Krugman called it 23 years ago. A businessman doesn't necessarily have the chops to sit behind the desk in the Oval Office. Trump's hitting the panic button -- again -- is yet more proof of that.
9
Not sure who plays fast and loose with “the truth” more, Trump or Krugman. The characterization of “mediocre” growth (when poverty just hit a low last seen in 2001) and boldfaced lie that wages are not rising (especially for the lower and middle class), as clearly contradicted by stories on the front page of this very newspaper this week, suggest that the President is not the only public figure who feels that just saying something makes it true and that the political ends justify the demagogic means. Trump denigrates the office of the Presidency when he lies outright and so does this author when he diminishes the reputation of this paper by writing falsehoods and clear misstatements of facts. Yes, it is printed under the tittle “opinion”, but this column should be more under the title fantasy. Professor, you have a right to your opinions but not the facts if you wish to be taken seriously.
3
Growth rates are not poverty rates, and the Trump administration changed the FPL calculation.
3
@Robert Poverty went down BECAUSE of growth which has been consistent throughout the administration. The stock market is at a record high and long term rates low indicating low fear of inflation. Unemployment with minorities also at a record low and wages growing in the middle and lower class segments. Keep denying the truth of the economic situation as much as you want but it does not change the truth which is that Krugman's analysis has been consistent from the beginning of Trump's administration and dead wrong.
3
@michaelf - Wages aren't growing enough to overcome rising health care costs and the increased cost of goods brought about by the orange oaf's tariffs.
1
Considering that Trump drove the company he inherited from daddy (worth half a billion in today's dollars) into multiple bankruptcies, why would anyone ever think he was good at business?
This is the same guy who went bankrupt running a casino. Bankrupt. Running. A. Casino.
11
Like the old joke:
Know how to make a small fortune?
Start with a large fortune....
Our brilliant business man's business record:
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 (airline failure)
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
Trump on history:
"The Continental Army suffered a bitter winner at Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown,” Trump said in his July 4, 2019 speech. “Our Army manned the air, it ran the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do."
There's our stable genius, folks.
19
@Bill
Trump might have added two sentences to the end of his “Our Army...” nonsense — “It did the hokey pokey and it turned itself around. That’s what it’s all about.”
For 2 1/2 years I’ve felt like I’ve fallen into a very poorly-written imitation of a Dr. Seuss book, narrated by D.J. Trump. It gets more difficult to take with each passing day.
1
@Bill
BRILLIANT!
Trump is panicking because someone, probably Fox News Business, has convinced him we might slip into recession or something resembling a recession and he will be blamed for it. Why? Because he has been taking credit for something over which he has absolutely no control.
Bottom line, he doesn't know what he is talking about, only that he needs to be out front blaming someone else if there is a recession. And refinancing the public debt? How many more stupid and childish things must he say before we admit in public what is painfully obvious....he is severely cognitively challenged and what he says, mostly superlatives, pronouns, and adjectives; has no intellectual content. None. You thought Trump's warning of Dorian's imminent destruction of Alabama an aberration? Get real.
4
The problem with your article, Paul, is you are preaching to the choir, and it doesn't matter. The people who will vote for Trump are either his base, who ask themselves the question Reagan told them to, do you feel you are better off than 4 years ago, and say yes, but for the wrong reasons. Trump nation feels better, not because they have better paying jobs, not because small town America is thriving, not because they have better benefits and health care, by any measure the low unemployment rate has not meant an economic boom for most people.
So why do they feel better? For many of them, it is that a white man is in the white house again, for almost all of them it is having a president who is as angry and as much of a bully as they are. The religious right loves that he is trying to set the country back to the dark ages of their mean, ugly 'faith', the racists love him demonize non whites while supporting white nationalism and neo nazis as 'good people', he has made it okay again to hate.
The other group voting for Trump will do so because as much as they claim to dislike him, worry about what he has done with the US in the world, worry about his crazy trade war, they are more worried that 'socialism' is gonna come, that their nice little suburban fantasy of driving big SUV's and the tract mansion (and the debt that finances it) will come to an end, or the tax cut they think they have gotten.
5
Face it....Trump has already lost to China.They outmaneuvered him by targeting soybeans in the Midwest.All you have to do with the great negotiator is to scare him.He folds like the proverbial house of cards.Those who thought he’d “make a few cosmetic changes to existing arrangements,claim victory,and move on” are probably right.Along these same lines,the stock market may be going up because big investors are betting that they may be rid of Trump in 2020.Let’s hope they’re right.
5
How can so many American be so ignorant as to actually believe what trump says and cheer at what he does? How can virtually all Congressional Repubs be so vile, dishonest and spineless at this time in history? Do we love our families, our children, the future - or not?
11
When you can’t play the game, play the refs. That’s the GOP in a nutshell these days, and Trump is just an extreme example. McConnell, McCarthy and the rest are no different: play the media, play the fact checkers, play the game of both-sides, play the Biden Rule game until everyone’s blue in the face. Then go for the throat.
3
I am concerned however that the Chinese will bail him out on trade, the Fed will bail out his now $1 trillion plus deficits, and Wall Street will bail him out with their debt and low interest rate fueled bull market once he ends his trade war. The Fed may be scared of him, the Chinese and Wall Street might actually prefer him as he keeps America fighting with itself and bogged down by internal insanity.
2
Absolutely true! Trump is just plain "CLUELESS". Not just about economic policy but about almost everything else. Nevertheless he still maintains a ~90% approval rating from Republican voters. How can anyone explain that? Can so many millions of voters also be so clueless?
5
I can only imagine this guy's inner monologue: "I know better than anyone and I have the guts to act on what I know."
There isn't a hint of self doubt.
The pathological liar must delude himself first. This guy has deluded himself beyond his own comprehension.
His followers believe him only because they desperately want what he says to be true. (Hint: it isn't!)
Calling all responsible adults: We need to take our country back.
6
To assume that Trump has even the most basic understanding of global economics is a waste of time.
Or of anything else for that matter that is outside his self-made and proclaimed Trumpian fantasy world.
He does not have the intellectual ability, mental capacity, ability to concentrate or personal inclination to learn anything on any level and cannot even read off a teleprompter wthout making mistakes.
What does this say about the understanding of the people who have elected him and will probably elect him again and what does this say about the GOP that still supports him?
5
During the 2016 campaign the issue of Trump's multiple bankruptcies (6) and his scam businesses (University, Steak, Airlines, etc.) were presented as examples of his "moral" failure, same as his adultery, and predatory sexual behavior.
What did not get communicated is that he is incompetent, and someone with that economic success should not be in charge of the U.S. Economy.
5
I don't disagree with anything Dr Krugman says on the issue, and agree with most commenters. But..... Trump didn't get elected based on a faltering economy. He got was elected based on his appeal to cultural issues. Realistically, this is how he's positioning his re-election. The economy is secondary as long as it doesn't totally tank.
His constant belittling of the Fed is more an attack on "the elites" than any real policy stance. "They" are holding back the economy. "They" can easily be replaced with: Immigrants, The Fed, China, Environmentalists, etc...
I really hope the Dem's understand this. Trump is more about giving the finger to "the man" than any policy agenda.
The Dem's need to focus on defusing the anger so that the instant gratification of telling off "the elites" even if it means self-immolation.
Let's not have another "deplorables" moment in 2020.
@Scott - Well yes, if by cultural issues you mean blatant racism.
“But while there’s no economic emergency, Trump apparently feels that he’s facing a political emergency.”
Although Trump’s demeanor is consistently arrogant and self-aggrandizing, it stands to reason that, in the privacy of the president’s thoughts, reality and doubt have crept in. Despite all of the deceitful claims of executive accomplishments, diplomatic achievements and campaign promises kept, could it be that Mr. Trump is beginning to finally realize that his bragging and his lies are not going to get him reelected? That the wild cheering and chanting of his most ardent red-hatted supporters in attendence at carefully orchestrated rallies, in no way reflect the opinions of a majority of the electorate about Trump and his administration?
Donald Trump is panicking at the idea of being a one-term failure of a president. He is likely to thrash about wildly, seeking victories to hold up as presidential accomplishments during the upcoming 2020 election. Wildly. This panic will make our irrational, erratic president more unpredictable and less reasonable than what we’ve seen to date.
Hang on. It’s going to br a bumpy ride.
8
I don't understand this attraction to rock bottom interest rates. It certainly hasn't helped Europe. They increase inequality, kill savers, damage banks, and make investors even more willing to take big risks. I'm not surprised our so-called President loves the idea since he only cares about himself and his election prospects.
2
@ToddG The attraction is Trump is in real estate. He would love negative interest rates, i.e., being paid to borrow money to buy. You are right he only cares about himself.
4
Trump is all about himself. Always.
He reacts to protect himself. Always.
Trump needs reelection to avoid the big legal hurt he (imagines?) will greet him after he is no longer President. He's trying to beat the train, hoping it hits whoever is chasing him instead of him.
The car he's driving is our economy. It doesn't matter if the engine seizes and the wheels fall off if he gets across the tracks in time.
The rest of us really don't matter (other than having enough clueless serfs continuing to support him at rallies and in the voting booth).
7
Since the Chinese are moving their agricultural supply chain to South America in response to the tariffs - the reason the Brazilians are now burning down their rain-forests - why would they ever restore them back to the U.S.? When it comes to food, why risk a radical change in American trade policy with every four year election cycle?
I wonder exactly when it's going to dawn on the folks in the mid-western farm belt, still drying out from this year's massive flooding, that they've permanently lost their once vast Chinese market. It's just pathetic listening to farmers on the TV news insist that Trump's tariffs will benefit them in the long run. Once the welfare payments peter out, they'll go belly up and be left with nothing but a silo of rotting soybeans with no one to buy them.
8
Dr. Krugman, as usual is right on. So are many people who are responding by saying that Trump's supporters, or "base" must therefore be anarchists, or nihilists, or racists, or just be terribly ignorant of the way government or economies work. All are true in some combination or another. This is however, why we need to stop courting them and instead court the 100 million or so registered voters who did not bother to vote in 2016. These are the people who might need some persuading, many of whom are quite probably intelligent, and discerning but who might simply have been apathetic, or who assumed Hillary had it in the bag, or who just didn't like her enough to bother to vote, but who now stand back and see the nightmare that is Trump and realize their vote really did matter. We need to forget the hopeless, disruption-loving, clueless base and encourage everyone else to vote like our lives and the future of our country, maybe the entire earth, depend on it--because they very well might.
8
Trump saw the stunt of outgoing ECB President Mario Draghi cutting the rate to -0.5% and announcing QE amounting to $22 billion a month.
Now of course he thinks the Fed can do a lot more too.
Let's see if Jerome Powell has a spine or if he gets his sharpie out.
2
Who would have thought that a 6 time bankrupt, the destroyer of the usfl, the proud holder of many failed businesses, and the grifter who defrauded thousands with a fake University would have a limited understanding of economics? Well, just about anybody who wanted to take the time in 2016 to read about Trump. Trump is an economic illiterate, and he knows nothing about trade and how it works. Trump doesn't understand, nor do most people, that he economics exists in a separate world from business management. Government exists within the framework of economics particular macroeconomics, and does not adhere to the business management rules that most businesses operate under. So it is no surprise that Trump is making these ridiculous statements with regard to the Fed and the economy.
7
Trump shouts how wonderfully he has managed the economy and what gains for the average American, minorities, women and farmers. But. if he did such as great job, why is he demanding extraordinary actions from the Federal Reserve, corporations and other countries. Trump's smoke & mirror charade is burning.Even borrowing a record $ trillion iant going to made it so. Once a con man always a cheat.
3
you mean he is hitting the same panic button that you hit, when you predicted an economic and stock market meltdown when trump was elected? pray, tell me more.
2
@Ari Weitzner
Prognosticators always make fools of themselves. So, not really a critique of the ideas he's putting out here. A wonder if you disagree with all of them?
Trump has trapped himself in a bad place...Never would have expected it from a guy who went bankrupt repeatedly.
6
Prepare yourself America...
We have grossly underestimated the ignorance of the American electorate, Trump has NOT.
Trumps ignorance and incompetence means nothing to almost half of America.
We are now looking in the mirror at a monster.
I wish I believed in god... so I could pray.
Wake up America
7
Trump has always been a failure at business. He knows nothing of economics or world trade. He only plays to his adoring, mindless MAGA-hatters ..so what else is new?
4
I cannot help but wonder why people ever supported this failed human being, failed entrepreneur and generally evil man.
What he has done to the rule of law, to our national pride is so destructive, but what is even worse is the support the Republican Party gives.
It speaks to how dumbed down parts of the nation are BUT ALSO to how badly both parties ignored the needs of those folks brought down by the new digital world, the internet economy and modern technology that replaces jobs and pride. We need to get a “New Deal” going!
5
A common refrain among Trump supporters: Oh he'll be great because he will run the country like a business!!! Yes, like a Trump business: bankrupt and centered around his inflated ego.
12
Wharton? huh.
8
@MAA Maybe his family donated a building or something?
Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but it seems like the country is finally getting it. Trump is a con man. He's all talk and no action. He needs "emergency stimulus" money so that he can perpetuate the myth that he's helping America until after the next election.
4
It is great to be the king – no regrets, no reflection, no consistency, no accountability, and no compassion.
Tax cuts that bankrupt the state and hurt the subjects - no problem, the king must appease his court.
Zero or negative interest rates that distort markets - no problem, the king must maintain his throne.
Economic and foreign policies with no clear endgame - no problem, the subjects are expendable.
Incompetent, reckless, and selfish leadership - no problem, the monarch is subject to no earthly authority.
A minority of voters elected a king and the consequences will haunt us for a very long time.
7
Mr. Krugman,
Great analysis that we can understand to explain some of trumps erratic and irrational behavior and demands and statements.
His policies with the complicity of the republicans have been unconscionable -- benefit to the rich corporations, his cronies and detrimental to the rest of Americans.
The Treasury should not be his piggy bank but he and his family have turned our taxpayer dollars into their income.
These and so many other of his behaviors and policies have been dangerous-
Are you planning to drink your glass of water with chemicals he is now allowing into our water supply?
Will you happily breath our polluted air when his regulation rollbacks poison us?
We do not need more reasons or examples to know that trump, his cabinet, advisers and family MUST BE REMOVED from any positions of power in our government. And the
complicit republicans MUST BE REMOVED from office.
Must have Democratic Tsunami in 2020 - All positions of government must have intelligent people with compassionate policies to stabilize our economy, reestablish trust with our allies and regain our respected place in the world.
7
Chinas best policy bet would be to let Trump ease up on the trade war but not stop it. The candidates who were asked in last night's debate would keep tariff generally as they are to maintain leverage in negotiations that have an actual goal.
Letting Trump off the hook for the trade war would allow him to claim a victory, accelerate the economy and give his campaign a boost. That boost might be just enough to win another 4 years and restart the was in 2021 as a lame duck.
1
Impulsive self-interest, combined with ignorance and anxiety, does tend to cause foolish action.
4
From my reading of various news outlets and political opinions it seems that Trump is on their minds while the average American isn't paying much attention.
And the Democrats surely are not doing anything to capture the hearts and minds of Americans. Same ol' politics as usual. Same ol' players. Same ol' nonsense about this and that.
The truth lies in what is happening before our noses and what I see in front of my nose is a traitor in the White House and people in Congress who could care less.
I wonder what other Americans are seeing in front of their noses. Or maybe they aren't "seeing" anything but rather they are "holding" their nose and trying to focus on something worth living for and going to work to achieve.
2
Your article exposes the fallacy in believing that Trump's business success, assuming this is true, could translate to the government especially the comment on the difference between government bonds and bank loans. Nora Ephron said that Trump knew nothing and she was so right. How could we elect someone one dumber that "W"?
2
I am so tired of Trump being the source for all media outlets. This guy MUST go! Period. Hopefully never to be heard or thought of again. He is amongst one of the biggest disasters to ever confront humanity. And this isnt fear mongering. This is fact. Period!
5
I hate to disappoint you, but Trump is never going away. He will be spewing his hatred till the day he dies.
Historians and pundits will be debating his damage for decades.
Insiders will be publishing best seller accounts for years.
DT junior will be yapping like his dad and running for office.
Trump has won in the ONLY contest he ever cared about.....everyone talking about HIM...for ever.
Do all the voters understand this? This what the Democrats ought to be hammering on.
2
He would hit the panic button if:
-- he understood economics and
-- he knew where the panic button was.
2
@Bob He will only hit the panic button when he is truly responsible for his debts. He's very good at scamming other people to avoid this.
It always has to be remembered that Trump isn't just facing reelection. If he isn't reelected there is a reasonable possibility that he could be tried on numerous felonies and sent to prison. For an individual of such privilege and such narcissism that is a terrifying proposition. That makes Trump especially dangerous to the health of America. He will bring the country down around him to avoid his fate.
5
The hair gets more haywire reflecting the internal state.
1
This column is accurate and I totally agree with the final line.
I don't want to see another recession so I hope that the President, his advisers and the GOP leadership understand that the goal, now, is greater stability.
I believe they have lost any opportunity to develop better trade relations with China. So, now, the only chance we have to develop better trade relations is to change Administrations.
So, I hope that you and your community of macro economic thinkers are working away on developing policy guidance papers for the next Administration. Considering the huge issue of catastrophic global warming, we have a lot at stake. I am doing what I can to share your work with my grandchildren in hopes of creating a better World for our great grandchildren.
This is the profound insightful paragraph:
"Even actions that look like a slight policy softening, like his announcement of a two-week delay in implementing some China tariffs, betray a deep incomprehension of the problem — which has as much to do with his capriciousness as with the tariffs per se. Policy zigzags, even if they involve delaying tariffs, just add to the will-he-or-won’t-he uncertainty that’s causing companies to put investment on hold."
Hopefully, there will be sufficient stability from doing NOTHING and NOTHING happened climate and energy wise for our farmers to avoid the further pain of this Trade War with China. It has been an unnecessary loss to the economy which should NOT have ever happened.
2
I'm ready to take one for the team on my 401K
lets tank and get him out of office .
4
This is what happens when Donald Trump’s self-created fantasy world collides with reality. Trump’s combination of ignorance, arrogance, and ego has built an impenetrable barrier to the effective governing of this country. He’s no more suited to the presidency than a plumber would be to neurosurgery. In the 1980 debate between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, Reagan asked rhetorically: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago.” How will anyone be able to answer that question in the affirmative?
1
If only he would hit the eject button instead of the panic button, we would all feel better.
6
This dude Trump was capable of sending to bankruptcy none other than a Casino!! That is possibly, the only time a Casino has not made money due to mis management.
He used all the loopholes in the laws and government to get out of his 5-6 bankruptcies, but when he bankrupts the government, and therefore the country, who he is gonna call???
1
Trump is demanding "emergency" measures to stimulate the economy. But why should any such measures be needed if the economy is doing "great" as he likes to boast? He seems completely oblivious to the contradiction there. And meanwhile, Americans are growing more and more doubtful about how well the economy is actually doing.
2
Trump would no doubt want to do away with the U.S. Constitution and hire "experts" to rewrite it.
2
Why does the stock market keep going up then ?
1
Did you read the article,
Krugman states that A recession type economic crisis is highly UNLIKELY.
Like Trump or republicans or any body else Krugman is stating that a big economic crisis is not going to happen.
You are still objecting to him with why Stock market is going up ?
Are you for serious or just , for fun hanging out here.
2
Trump is the very definition of a poor man's idea of a rich man.
4
I always enjhoy Paul Krugman's articles and I'm so grateful for the NYT'S!
1
Trump creates a bad situation then says only he knows how to make it better..........
A true
"fool me once - shame on you"
"fool me twice - shame on me"
Situation
2
Don't underestimate Donald. He's going to refi our debt by offering to put up 4 large Democratic states as collateral. If we default - which he knows a thing or two about - its a win-win.
1
Under Yang's plan, my wife and I would stop paying $20,000 to the IRS and instead have the IRS deposit $4,000 into our bank account. To think about it, I could go for that! Especially now that professional athletes and entertainers are selling their Manhattan duplexes for $50,000,000.00
Yeah, Yang is on to something for the 90% of us. As in The Sound of Music, So long, Good-bye, Farewell Mr. Trump.
3
And yet, the Democrats will overreach and alienate the average Red State voter with proposals that will make them appear to those voters to be socialists and advocates of open borders. Many Democrats seem to fail to understand that this is not an opportunity to lean even more to the left to take advantage of what they see as Trump's vulnerabilities.
6
It is impossible to plan a political defense against a man who does not have a strategy that is planned out past his next tweet.
Honestly, i think his entire comment about 0% or negative interest rates was just something he said to make people forget about John Bolton. Just like his Trump 2024 campaign poster. He knows he can't defend himself against any serious policy inquisition and so he makes sure to run his mouth and tweet incoherently to keep people bogged down in a political quagmire.
3
My first thought was that this op-ed required no comment and that it was for all intents and purposes the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Then thought again about my comments over the years and especially from the time after Trump's election.
Paul Krugman is an economist and he is as good an economist as it gets. He knows macro and micro and even as he knows what he is talking about we criticize and correct his beliefs and understanding.
Donald Trump is no Paul Krugman, he knows very little, he understands nothing and is uninterested in learning. Donald Trump is America. America has no interest in reality. America just wants to feel good. Reagan was the biggest disaster in America's history. He was about feeling good and everything taking care of itself. Reagan was about Voodoo low taxes and small government but Reagan stuck to a carefully prepared script. Don't worry be happy, everything gonna be alright.
Trump is America it is too concerned with appearances to even memorize a script. Sad.
In July 1955 Reagan opened Disneyland and Trump seems about to finally close it.
9
@Montreal Moe
At Passover we read the story of the four sons and how to talk to them. Wise, simple and rebellious are easy but a son that doesn't know how to ask tries our souls because he most needs to ask.
1
I'm betting that the reason for Trump's panic is that his businesses are not generating enough cash (even with his self dealing emoluments) to pay his loans. The irony is that his incompetent trade and economic policy may lead to rate cuts made necessary by those very policies. Getting rid of Trump is just a start. Flushing the the Republicans who support and enable him will be a monumental challenge.
5
@Steve Scarymouche Normally Trump would declare bankruptcy at this point and leave his employees in the lurch. He's done this all his life. But when you're president you can't declare bamkruptcy and walk away.
1
What I continue to be confused by is why the Market continues to rise and luminaries such as Dr. K now seem to concede we are out of the woods with respect to what had been predicted as an eminent recession of catastrophic proportions after a Trumps election, that was preceded by two years of hedge funds giving money back to investors claiming everything was overvalued to the point of there was no place left to invest: four years on people are still making out their credit cards and the market is setting new records and the once middle class schlubs like me are still watching our remaining few bucks being eaten up by inflation that supposedly doesn’t exist along with miserly returns on our savings. Either everyone’s wrong about the economy or everyone’s wrong about how badly Trumps handling of it is, we can’t have it both ways. There is of course the third option which I believe to be true and that is our voodoo economics predicated 70% on people having cheap, easy credit and cheap goods from China continues to keep the asset bubbles inflated and at some point there will be the mother of all recessions possibly ending in a Weimar Republic type reckoning considering our levels of debt and propensity to print money.
1
Trump exemplifies Americans' inability to look beyond their own experience and apply different contexts. Why shouldn't he manage the government's finances like a business when that's what those who elected him expect him to do?
Political success comes from promising simple solutions to complex problems. But delivering on those promises is never so simple.
2
"... he’s in full-blown panic over the failure of his economic policies to deliver the promised results."
Respectfully, I disagree. Yes, he is in panic mode, but that is not because of his economic policy failures. Even if the country would enter into an economic depression, we know how he will react to that. As in the case of his other failures, he would simply deny that is the case, blaming the "fake news media" for spreading lies.
What Trump is now panicking about is the realization that he has put himself at the mercy of his enemies. As recently as July 26, he was worrying that China may be delaying the trade deal with the US in a bid to wait him out, hoping the next POTUS will be a Democrat.
Another area of worry for Trump is that he has unwittingly changed the rules of international diplomacy. It may have downed on him that since the US withdrew unilaterally from a number of international treaties (e.g. NAFTA, INF Treaty, JCPOA, etc.), it has enabled other countries to do the same vis-à-vis any treaty they have with the US.
So, understandably, he must be sick worried that even if the US negotiators succeed to reach an agreement with, say, China, Russia, or Iran, these countries may decide to withdraw from the signed agreement just a few days before the 2020 election, for the sake of delivering a "coup de grâce" to his re-election chances.
3
Evidently Trump should have payed more attention to economics while at Wharton. He seems to be thinking with his gut again and it isn't nice thoughts.
6
I'm not an economist, but I think it's pretty likely Trump can continue to make the economy appear to be booming right through the election, and it's therefore pretty likely he'll be re-elected. What will the economy look like in the four years after that?
6
@Peter, The only way the economy can continue booming--and it's not guaranteed--is to continue having the booming deficit underwrite it.
7
Nobody in America thinks that far ahead-- from all indications.
1
@DrexelDragon
You are correct. As I said, "appear" to be booming. Trump can (and I suspect will) keep swiping the national credit card right up until the election, so it will seem like there is a lot of easy money flowing. @Darkler is correct in that nobody (his supporters) are going to go to the trouble of figuring that out what that does in the future. So where does that leave us in 2021? Is Trump just trying to get re-elected so he won't have to go on trial for his misdeeds when ousted, and never mind what happens to the rest of the country? (I think I might have just answered my own question...)
It strikes me that this "businessman" is not really much of a capitalist. For all its many difficulties, one of the best features of capitalism generally is the vast amounts of feedback it offers to economic actors--i.e. all of us. Sure this feedback can be hard to interpret, and there are many inequities in how much power different types of individuals have to act upon it, but Trump, and many of his minions, don't recognize truth as an operative concept in their world view, so they just meander around trying to rearrange their symbols while systematically disregarding reality.
9
Trump says on the one hand that the US economy is the strongest it's ever been, the strongest in the world, blah, blah, blah.
Then he simultaneously demands emergency-type measures from the Fed to stimulate the economy.
Doesn't really match up, does it?
21
@StatBoy Neither Trump, nor Republicans generally, have any problem with cognitive dissonance.
2
Whether or not Trump wins re-election, his panicky decisions on the economy are bequeathing a deeper recession to whoever will be running the country in 2021.
With this in mind, it makes it all the more important that Trump is defeated next year. After all, if this is how he behaves when the economy is still growing, just imagine what stupidities he will invent if the economy really begins to falter.
In past years, Trump joked about not repaying the national debt if it got too high. It's a natural impulse for him since that's what he did in private business -- he's the original bad credit risk.
We are headed for tougher times that will require competent and selfless leadership, not a deadbeat. If Trump is in charge, he might not just impoverish millions of Americans -- he could crash the international economic system.
17
We need to see all his transcripts from JK through college. The average American knows how government works, how the fed works, how the economy works. Trump has been running his organization for decades and doesn't know the basics. It really is strange, unless all his business is done overseas under foreign laws.
8
"Actually, however, it’s fairly obvious. "
Great column by Mr. Krugman. I'd just add if you take interest rates down to zero, or go negative, who's going to buy U.S. Treasuries to finance our astronomical, growing debt? Trump only cared about the federal deficit when Obama was President.
14
That’s the whole GOP that ignores deficits when in power. The actual goal is the elimination of all social safety nets put in place during the Johnson administration.
2
@Paul P
Clever strategy, cut taxes claiming that it will put more money in the average Americans pocket. Give them a small cut, big cuts go to wealthy donors.
Then, claim that we can't afford social programs and use the budget defecits (that were created via tax cut) as an excuse to cut those. Then cut taxes again etc.
3
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania needs to answer some questions, like: How did Donald Trump graduate with a degree in economics while knowing less economics than a junior high school student? Did Trump ever attend one class or read an economics text book?
Trump believes that trade deals are easy to fix; that Chinese exporters will pay the tariffs imposed on American importers; and now he believes that the U.S. government can refinance its debts.
I suppose that when he said that he alone can fix our economy, he was playing on the word "fix". What he really meant was that "fix" included throwing sand in the economic engine of America. Yup; he is fixing it alright.
28
Adding to the list of depredations is counterproductive. This was my suggestion, posted yesterday
-----------
Rather than the impeachment hearing being of complex legal breaches such as Russian influence, and personal enrichment, it should be of a single count based on this corruption of a Federal agency.--NOAA
It would be similar to that of President Clinton. His crime was trivial, lying about his affair with another adult, yet it may have made the difference in Republicans winning the next election. My point is simple, that Trump's warning to the people of Alabama to prepare for a catastrophe constituted a high crime, as it diverted resources from actually saving the lives of those who were in the path of this hurricane. And now he has exacerbated this by attempting to punish those who disclosed his distortion.
This approach is based on action by the President that irrefutably did occur, just as Clinton's did. This is In contrast to a full array of accusations against the President, which is certain be challenged at every turn, drawing this out to become a sideshow in the election campaign. In a matter of weeks this single count impeachment could be before the Senate for trial. The facts will be aired, and then the Republican senators will have to go on record for either ignoring this malfeasance, or acknowledging that if reflects innumerable actions that are antithetical to the office of President.
This could, and should, be the straw that breaks this camel's back.
12
Plus, I suspect he has a boatload of debt he'd love to refinance. Remember, he was never expecting to win the election and it's unlikely the Russian money train has been making any stops at 57th and Fifth lately.
12
Americans tragically accepted an imperial presidency that started long before Trump. Congress had the Constitutional power over international trade, but Republicans badly botched their responsibility before the Great Depression. FDR and Democrats came to power and liberalized trade policies with the Reciprocal Tariff Act of 1934 that gave the president the authority to negotiate negotiate bilateral, reciprocal trade agreements with other countries. Trump uses the act to unilaterally turn the USA into the supplier of last resort. Tragically, Trump has shown international businesses they must be leary of trade with the USA where supply chains and contracts can be unwound with a tweet. Congress should reclaim their authority over international trade and amend the Reciprocal Tariff Act of 1934, so they can override tariffs by tweet and sustain any potential veto with a simple majority.
6
Why would anyone loan money at less than 0% interest?
8
@jfdenver
That is the question.
I have seen negative interest rates described as a "tax on wealth." It may be how the invisible hand reduces the vast stockpile of wealth in the accounts of the 1%.
Think of it this way: I'm a wealthy plutocrat and want to protect my wealth by investing in a sure thing. I buy a 30-year Treasury bond for safety. But so do all the other wealthy plutocrats. There is so much demand for this "security" that it will cost the investors, not the lenders. Think of it as a storage fee for wealth. Commercial banks have fees on checking accounts. Under the new paradigm, there are no more "savings accounts." If you want to see a return on investment, you have to take some risks.
I think the insiders KNOW the stock market is rigged and that the music could stop at any moment when corporations are no longer able to buy back shares. That's why they're rushing for the exits, buying Treasuries. Instead of saying: "I will pay you interest if you'll lend me money," the sovereigns are saying: "You will have to pay me interest to protect your money."
5
@jfdenver
To reduce Trump's personal debt.
2
@jfdenver
I do not know why, But last 3-4 years people are loaning money to Germany and Japan with negative interest rate for treasury bods.
Do you think those billions euro managing people are clueless socialists.
Trump is clueless, but so is his base. When raises his fluttering hands and both Botoxed eyebrows and shouts garbled nonsense they can't understand a word of it, but they don't have to. He's rich, so he must be a financial genius. Why bother with facts?
20
Remember when the NYT published an open letter to the public written from someone close to Trump assuring us that they would protect us from Trump hitting the nuke button. Where is that person(s) now during this economic frenzy and who do we look to for leadership.
8
Trump will use his black Sharpie to "fix" the statistics, his followers will believe he's made them all millionaires (the check is in the mail!), and they'll vote for him in 2020--the last US election in history.
8
I have one word for his economic policies and how they are failing: well DUH!
5
Dow 30,000
You're welcome ...
@Marion Grace Merriweather
Problem is, the dow at 30,000 is not an important economic indicator for most people, and actually it works against the economic health of most people.
The dow indicates how 30 stocks are doing, and it is based on the stock prices of the individual firms along with a formula. In theory, if the stock price of firms is up, it means they are making a lot of money and that money is being spread around, it would have been in prior generations.
The problem is that high stock price benefits a small group of people, it helps corporate executives and the very well off who own most of the wealth. More importantly, the price of stocks is based on supply and demand more than what the company is doing. It is why the stock prices are soaring and yet the only people seeing their income go up is mostly the top .5%, wage gains have been pretty puny, running basically just a little above inflation. For all the low unemployment, despite a tight job market, wages are not rising, and that is no coincidence, wages not going up=stock prices going higher, stock analysts love low wages.
Want further proof? Corporations got a huge tax break, and they used it to buy back stock and raise dividends, they didn't use it to create new jobs or more importantly, give their workers raises.
12
@music observer
"Corporations got a huge tax break, and they used it to buy back stock and raise dividends, they didn't use it to create new jobs or more importantly, give their workers raises."
Amen to that. You'll never get through to the kool aid drinking crowd. A useless endeavor.
1
Where was the DJIA when Obama took office and left office, please?
And to make matters worse, he had no one in the Oval Office to turn to for advice---He has now made it clear to all advisors, he calls the shots, all the shots, all the time. Any hint of knowing more than our Dear Leader and you are gone.
11
If we thought Lil Kim played donald like a cheap drum set, just wait till the Chinese finish with him.
Even if the Chinese were fools, which they are far from, they'd be smart enough to understand the "lender/borrower" situation we have with China. Borrowers rarely win in negotiations with their bankers, and no donald, the U.S.A. can't default on their financial obligations. We aren't you.
Here's a thought, donald: Issue more junk bonds to unsuspecting older Americans like you did with your casino then bankrupt the entire nation, like you did with your casino.
Or better yet why don't we start a United States University and donald could be the Dean. Maybe we can con half a billion Chinese into enrolling and pay off our national debt? What do you think, donald? You ran the con on our Veterans and it worked like a sewing machine till you got caught and sued.
Oh, donald, international banking. It's a craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy business! Vlad confirmed that fact.
9
Usually, as we reach adulthood, we learn not to mention things we know little about. As it is, we have a fourth grader in the White House who leaves us all "scratching our heads" as this little boy proves he doesn't know how or why our government works or how it was written to serve us best. He has trouble with the truth and a complete disregard for his fellow human, including his own children and grandchildren by reversing environmental policy written by Pres. Obama. The bully-filled hatred of Obama is very fourth grade playground idiocy and we need to expel trump from the school district. He's been in trouble too much and we, the administration, must act to protect the rest of the schoolchildren.
13
I suspect there is no nation on this planet the believes Trump's word is worth anything. His real and lasting carnage will the reduction of Americas prestige and standing int he world. Why would anyone with half a brain believe anything he says. America's words are worthless and our paper treaties torn up and tossed. I think most Americans are embarrassed to death by this man and his moronic machinations. A 40% approval rating and it is dropping fast Donny. As he implodes the insanity explodes. Expect it to get much worse in the next 15 months.
12
With due respect, this analysis is all wrong!
1- Trump does not need any economic boon to win; he just needs to make his base feel good about his posturing and feel angry at the enemies (MSM, blacks, browns, Fed, Dems, Chinese, etc etc)
2- All he is doing is all he has been doing since he took office - stoking the fires that enrage his base.
3- Even if it is proven that his party is cheating (or doing any of the many despicable, ugly, bad, stupid, or dangerous things they do), he will win elections because there are just too many white Americans across too many districts who he is keeping on a boil. Witness NC-09
12
@ansuwanee - His base is shrinking and he hasn't gained any new supporters.
@DR Yes, that is true, but he just needs enough supporters in enough states to win the Electoral College. There are plenty of places like NC-09. And unlike 2018, the Dems' message is garbled and he is a master at lies, lies and more lies - enough to enrage his base and vilify Pocahontas or who ever his Dem opponent is
September 11th is a day to reflect on the actions of Donald Trump?
2
@Jtati September 11th is a day to call Federal Reserve officials "boneheads" by tweet?
1
Reality and Trump do not go together.
7
Two WSJ headlines from yesterday can explain the tweets. First; “US deficit tops $1 Trillion for first time in seven years.” Second; Mnuchin says US looking closely at issuing 50-year Bond.
It’s all about Trump’s tax cut and the VERY bad story it creates. Let’s call the story “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Kansas”.
Trump’s big tax cut doesn’t stimulate the economy or create jobs…promised revenue inflows and deficit reductions don’t materialize…national deficit spikes to highest in 7 years…the whole rationale for the policy is proven false…the Republicans become the “deficit party” one year before an election.
The tweets are a proactive deflection. Don’t blame me for my epic fail. Blame the fed for not giving me zero-percent financing on an extended loan for the massive debt I created.
On second thought, maybe we should call the story “A History of the Taj Mahal”?
10
Wharton business School has a lot of explaining to do. Wasn’t agent orange claiming to know everything? Didn’t he claim “tariff wars are easy to win”? Haven’t “his advisers” claimed the greatness of his “business intelligence”? Donald Trump is a 7 time bankruptcy winner enabled by a bunch of incompetents keen on destroying America while claiming their fake nationalistic love for country. Donald Trump loves Donald Trump. Donald Trump wants to save Donald Trump.
7
Dr. Krugman your columns are a breeze in this Trump swamp.
After all Trump is going to loose this election for one reason. His narcissistic neediness of me me me......
Trump is seriously underestimating American's patience about his spoiled rich child attitude ...
We are entirely worn out , he is dangerous for this country period.
9
There is a PR part to being an America President, which is the part most of us see in the media. Trump has taken this to be the primary part of his job which is why he seems to be constantly campaigning. But the job is really like an iceberg, we only see the tiny part sticking out of the water. Most of the job is work and the stress of immense responsibility (thus we see presidents age during their presidencies, often startlingly so). (and Trump will be the first president who doesn’t, his appearance is so artificial, contrived, plastic, superficial, inauthentic.)
But outside of the PR part of the job, Trump doesn’t seem to be interested in doing the work. Any stress he is experiencing is his narcissistic obsession with image/PR. Ie his entire absurd tap dancing around Dorian and Alabama for example.
You cannot do this job without putting in the work: reading hundreds of pages a day, perhaps more. And you need to surround yourself with a team of expert geniuses who are also reading hundreds of pages a day, and so on. THIS is the bulk of the job, or at least its supposed to be.
And Trump and the sycophants he has surrounded himself with aren’t doing it. So, most of the time, Trump sounds like an idiot. He’s like that kid in class who didn’t read the homework last night trying to talk intelligently about it in front of class, and failing farcically....
3
William Blake might have had Trump in mind when he wrote, “The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”
5
Could NYT not put Trump’s face everywhere? This opinion, by Mr Krugman, is about Trump’s reckless and idiotic policies. There’s no valid reason to promote the infant in chief reality show face. (I am referring to the online version)
5
Paul Krugman's 11/09/2016 prediction: "Trump will bring global recession"
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/krugman-trump-global-recession-2016-231055
"The economic fallout of a Donald Trump presidency will probably be severe and widespread enough to plunge the world into recession, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warned in a New York Times opinion piece published early Wednesday.
Calling Trump the "mother of all adverse effects," the Nobel Prize-winning economist predicted that the GOP nominee's administration could quickly undo the progress that the markets around the world have made in the eight years since the financial crisis."
3
Please don't forget that Donald Trump was hit with a $25 Million fraud charge for his Trump U scam just weeks before his inauguration in 2017. Trump was forced to cough up $25 Million for massive fraud, running a fake "university" and stealing people's money. He hasn't stopped.
8
Are the fascist forces taking hold? I chose to believe not.
But I have periods where I think this is a new dark age.
The only thing I'm certain of, is that the generally acceptable position of the Republican party will lead us into total destruction.
I have no idea how that plan is supposed to turn out. Maybe they don't care.
3
When you put a child behind the wheel, expect an accident!
5
Consider the source.
JOBS:
2011 2.09 million
2012 2.14 million
2013 2.30 million
2014 3.00 million
2015 2.71 million
2016 2.24 million
2017 2.06 million
2018 2.60 million – now revised to 2.4 million
And Obama did that without "tax cuts for the jobs creators" and with the "jobs killing" Obama-care.
14
In addition, Obama got us through the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Along with the Great Recession, W Bush gave Obama a whopping $1.4 Trillion deficit.
Obama cut that by almost 2/3 to $550 Billion.
And 20 million people got healthcare.
Now after eight years of Republicans relentlessly railing against the debt, the Ryan / McConnell / Trump tax bill will increase the deficit from $600 Billion to $1 Trillion.
All to be paid for by our children and grand children.
Every Republican senator voted for it. Not one Democratic senator voted for it.
4
Trump is beginning to sound like Netanyahu, or Netanyahu is beginning to sound like Trump. Both are in panic mode as they see the Exit sign flashing. Both are attacking the media. Both are pandering to racism and the extremist right. Both threaten to annex territory (West Bank? Greenland? Canada?) Both blame others for their own cluelessness.
2
It appears to me that Trump only tweets and talks about anything that will distract from the clear evidence that there are a lot of High Crimes (treason anyone) and Misdemeanors. Promising pardons for people who clearly have testimony that will harm Trump is one example. What does he have to hide? The 1500 characters allowed in the comment section would not allow for the list.
However we do have his actions and words and his 12,000 lies to remind us how bad this guy is. Let's pay attention people. The economy will not be his only down fall.
5
I recall the GOP mantra against any stimulus, "The government doesn't create jobs." The GOP, however, passes stimuli (without calling them that) whenever a GOP president needs them.
I have no doubt Trump's party will fall in line again this time around.
3
Does anyone remember the point of the dreams that Joseph shared with the Pharaoh? Save in the fat years and spend in the lean years. Still sound advice. But it seems like we have so often been doing the opposite, particularly under republicans. Tax cuts in the fat years, austerity in the lean years.
6
If you were a foreign power looking to destabilize America you could not have wished for a better president than Trump.
I respectfully disagree with Prof Krugman. The economy is in a mess. the national debt is piling up, private debt is piling up again, and corporate debt has been used to pay share buy backs and dividends. The sugar rush of tax giveaways has worn off and the real bite of trade tariffs has yet to be felt in the wider economy.
The Chinese and Russians can afford to play the long game and will out last Trump - even a Trump 2020 victory, by which time the USA will certainly be economically in a very hard place.
Trump has destabilized our international power by alienating our allies in every way possible. America first is a disastrous tag line. Tearing up trade agreements, walking out of international climate initiatives, disavowing NATO, threatening Iran and Korea, rolling back environmental protections, loading the supreme Court, etc. The list goes on. America has gone from being the leader of the free world, to the playground bully.
The national debt clock is ticking fast. The political clock is ticking faster and louder.
9
I'm not so sure he's in panic mode about the economy. It's not doing badly for the moment (in 18 montys, we'll see as his record-making deficit spending on crazy stuff must be accounted for).
I think he just really wants a BIG win in 2020 and to achieve that he will goose the economy shamelessly, recklessly, and catastrophically.
2
Trump threatened repeatedly to run the country like his business. In New York, his ineptitude and many failures in business are well known, but the fake tycoon scripted for The Apprentice had a wider reach. So there’s no surprise to us he remains clueless on economic matters (not to mention pretty much everything), but I do wonder whether Apprentice fans see it yet.
But no analysis of his thinking is complete without looking at how trump will benefit financially from whatever policy he’s pushing. You must ask how much the self-proclaimed King of Debt will save from an interest rate of zero. That number should be included in this piece.
3
How can someone who never takes responsibility for his mistakes panic? It's always someone else's fault. He has lived a consequence free life.
The only thing that would cause trump to panic is if people stopped coming to his ridiculous rallies. He lives in a fantasy world where he is smarter than everybody, and he can do no wrong.
4
The Chinese will play Trump like the fool he is. They know he will be desperate for a deal as the election grows closer or the economy falters. The Chinese will be the victors, while Trump will claim a fantastic victory, the best ever.
4
Evidently it hasn’t occurred to either Trump or his enablers that every time he speaks he reveals the depth of his ignorance. His comments about wind power alone are a complete embarrassment, to say nothing of the federal debt (does he think the country can just declare bankruptcy and move on? Probably) and the rest of his so-called “speech” borders on the incoherent, as usual. I am hopeful that when we retake the reins of government we can impose limits that will prevent any future president from exploiting the system of checks and balances and the policies a qualified president is expected to adhere to, plus prevent enriching him/herself at the expense of the people he/she is supposed to serve.
3
If Trump wants to retire the national debt, he could tell the Treasury to mint a few trillion dollar bills, deposit the bills in the Treasury, and use the proceeds to pay off the bonds as they come due, and cover each year's budget deficit.
Yeah, it would be that easy. That's the real reason the US pays the lowest interest rates on bonds. Because the federal gov't literally can create US$ at the stroke of a keyboard. They're the only one that can, which makes them not a golf course, not a casino, not a state gov't, and not a local gov't. Other than political intransigence, there's no possibility that the federal gov't could default.
Of course, it would also be stupid to retire the federal debt. The federal debt is critically important to the functioning of financial markets. And it gives the Fed control over the money supply through its balance sheet open market operations. Those are just the basics of why.
So let's see... retiring the federal debt would be easy, stupid, destructive to western civilization, and give Trump something to crow about to his base that he doesn't understand.
I guess we should expect it any week then.
6
Trump routinely gets confused by the facts. This is why he lies and creates his own alternate-narratives. Yet most Americans have no clue about economics even if they read your columns for the past ten years and 100 others, so, Trump, as usual, will get a free pass on the issue.
1
Trump had/has a policy? Wow!
I though the only policy he had and continue to have is to enrich himself and his cronies, most of whom are republicans and some in his cabinet. I am quite confident neither he nor his henchmen are capable of learning anything new after spending all thier lives on achieving mastery on cheating and corruption.
4
I have worked many fairly short term aerospace contract jobs that would have been fun except for that one guy that always exists. The pain in the but, stupid, make everyone miserable guy.
With the American voters, that guy is a trump supporter.
2
Trump knows, that on the economy at least, he has to pull a rabbit out of the that to save his worthless skin. What we see on a daily basis is the search for that "rabbit". It's a frenzied hunt that goes from tariffs and China to admonishing the Fed. Knowing Trump it will grow more frenzied the closer we get to the election. The lies, broadcast by early morning twitter storm ,will multiply. He reminds me of the guy who grabbed the checkbook from his wife and screamed..." what do you mean we're out of money..we have plenty of blank checks".
3
All that China needs to do to get a fair deal is do nothing until after the 2020 election. Trump is destroying Trump.
4
Trump may not understand fiscal or trade policy, but he is adept at gaslighting.
He will convince his base that the economy is roaring, that China lost the trade war, and that he is the almighty Wizard of 5th Avenue.
3
@Rita - It might be tough to convince people who are collecting unemployment.
Among other sycophants, Trump has Ken Starr out there spreading propaganda on his behalf. Starr just said: "Oh my! I can't imagine a President of the United States being a Russian Spy (paraphrasing)" while discussing accusations by Democrats. Starr is either losing it or has drunk Trump's Koolaid.
Trump has ALWAYS been a cheap crook and a grifter, a thief and a liar. Becoming a putative (although probably illegitimate) chief executive does NOT confer honesty, integrity or loyalty to this country, but his oath REQUIRES such. Trump's massive criminal faults have not changed and his Republican front men have refused to perform due diligence at any level.
YES, it is quite possible that Trump is, and has been, working on behalf of foreign powers - especially where graft and payback are concerned. This is one of the major reasons that full Impeachment Hearings are necessary - to do what should have been done prior to any election in 2016. If he is as innocent as he claims, why is he terrified? Why is he misusing the power of the Presidency to obstruct all information about him and his criminal dealings if he is innocent?
7
The trade war with China hangs over the Trump presidency like a storm cloud about to unleash a torrent of rain. Will it rain or blow over? It is unpredictable.
That cloud will be there for another year. Trump is going to have to either cave in on China to get a "deal" or stay the course and declare we're "winning" by about this time in 2020. The election will be on; the Democrats will be pounding him relentlessly on tariffs. He'll have to figure out what the "win" looks like by September 2020 or sink his chances in November.
5
His incompetence in all things will be on full display as his mental illness prevents him from doing anything less than pinballing from crisis to crisis over the next 14 months. Unable to admit error, unable to learn, unable to control himself, trump will have no choice buy to have all of his weaknesses, shortcomings, and failures on full display as he tries to continue playing the role of president in his personal reality show.
3
Trump is all about the grand gesture....hollow and worthless....it gets attention. Now that he’s president he is running our country like a reality show and the GOP is fine with that. It’s appalling.
5
Why, other than out of respect for the office, do writers continue to pretend that Trump might “think” as an adult? It is quite obvious by now that he reacts as a child. When one is totally uneducated, without the mental discipline that education demands, the failure of any “strategy” is foreordained.
2
@witm1991 It appears that almost every article that appears, even in the NYT and the Post, starts from the proposition that the office of POTUS is to be respected and that the president is a sane and competent person. Then, halfway through the writer seems to acknowledge that Trump is an incompetent sociopath, hellbent on destroying America and its allies and finally reports the self-evident truth that Trump is destructive imbecile in the pocket of foreign powers and corporate malfeasance.
But then, the next the day the articles begin again, as if somehow the past doesn't exist, the POTUS must be respected and the president is once more sane and competent. When will articles begin from the place that we all see - Trump is corrupt, mendacious, bigoted and utterly incompetent in all he does.
trump thinks it's like "a casino or a golf course", both of which the trumps ran into the ground and lost millions on. Casinos are basically licenses to print money, but these unintelligent, inept, corrupt people actually manage to lose money on casinos.
3
And who will be hurt the most by the President's proposed refinancing ( if that were even possible) of the national debt? The older people who depend upon the interest earned by their life's savings, and who use credit cards to stretch their budgets until the next Social Security check arrives. They'll be hit two ways: Close to zero interest on their savings, and continued double-digit rates on their credit cards. Do you think that the banks or finance companies will lower their credit rates proportionately with the projected Fed funds target? Heck no.
5
Trump will do the same thing to China as he did with Canada and Mexico. He'll do the shell game to distract, pull a rabbit out of a hat, talk gibberish, then claim victory. He is all about branding, there is nothing beyond that. He will claim victory with China, slap a name on the agreement, and presto-chango, it's on to the next thing.
By the way, Canadians will never refer to the new Nafta agreement as the USMCA, we know a grifting trickster when we see one.
6
The UPI reported for the first time in seven years, the U.S. national deficit for the year has surpassed the $1 trillion mark.
So much for the GOP's $1.5 Trillion Tax Cut paying for itself.
4
Living on Long Island, a deeply Republican place, I am constantly puzzled by the plethora of Trump bumper stickers MAGA hats, and even Trump 202 flags flying above boats in the marinas. Puzzled because I have to ask, "Exactly how did Trump make YOUR life better? In what way is MAGA actually working for YOU?" All I know is that my Federal income taxes went up by 20% and that's about it. So, tell me friends, how is this working for YOU and YOURS?
4
@leanguy I love on Long Island, and I don't see that many obvious MAGATS out and about, which is nice. You ask excellent questions, and I think that it all comes down to racism. These people will obey their leader as long as he remains a very high-profile member of their racist pep rally. Nothing else compares - the environment, humanity, healthcare, the lives of anyone who is NOT white..... it is obvious that these people are holding on to their racism for dear life - or so they think.
3
Good article by Mr. Krugman. I agree, its all politics with the Fed needling. Trump is doing the right thing with his fight with China but will he see it through to victory? To my disappointment, I would say that he folds like a cheap suit. That's unfortunate since we need major reform in our trade relationship with China.
Question: How is it possible that the NYT has no comment on the most egregious act of treason in our countries life-time? No mention of McCabe or the attempted coup of a sitting president by our corrupt FBI and justice department? I am stunned.
I wonder if Wharton will offer a course covering the material that Trump has forgotten or never learned in the first place.
5
Is someone keeping track of all the stuff Trump is rolling back so we have a list of what to reinstate?
6
@Peter Siemes
That's easy. The list should just read "every policy ever implemented by President Obama."
1
Perhaps Trump thinks that his usual option will work this time too.......bankruptcy. Or just a partial bankruptcy.....renege on the Chinese debt. For Trump, renegotiate is the same as renege.
3
As Danny Kaye once sang:"The king is in the altogether" and some of us have already noticed. But the sycophants surrounding the Great Leader are not going to say anything just yet. And Trump doesn't read Paul Krugman because the sentences are too long. When two people are trapped in a failed marriage, there is only one way out: divorce. And the American people will have to seek that final decree nisi next year...
1
Everything done by Trump can be summed up with his latest comment about energy efficient light bulbs;"People said what's with the light bulb? I said here’s the story, and I looked at it: The bulb that we're being forced to use — No. 1, to me, most importantly, the light's no good. I always look orange"
To Trump, it's all optics. Facts are meaningless.
And he really is Orange.
6
@Martin - I'm surprised the media isn't making more of the fact that Trump is basing public policy on his deluded notion of his own appearance.
Can we move the election to this year? Can't wait to 2020.
5
He is way over his head and totally unqualified. He is not an honest businessman. He ran as a PR ploy. Our strong economy, strong for now, is thanks to Obama. DT is a very dangerous guy.
5
I figured John Galt wants price controls.
Trump is everything but Galt. Thats an insult to Galt.
He is Wes Mouch or Jim Taggert...
One thing I learned long ago is:
“You can’t fix stupid”
This applies to POTUS and his minions who feel that chaos is a virtue, while simultaneously disparaging knowledge and critical thought as “elitist.”
Trump’s “panic button” of negative interest rates, while undoubtedly beneficial to his personal debts, would mire us in the present European muck that has necessitated Europe to dig their hole even deeper.
It is time for Trump to sleep in the bed he has made, and permit the rest of us to avoid the bedbugs he seems to enjoy.
3
Perhaps trump's and family personal debt is the problem. Perhaps his Russian underwriters want their money back. Perhaps the guy who went bankrupt six times, including casinos where people go to give the casino their last pennies, doesn't have any idea how to balance a checkbook while the tax payer pays for his clans' luxury travel and Melania and who knows who's beauty treatments. Maybe Pence raked up a bill on his personal trip to Ireland billed as the country's business while the rest of the pals eat at luxury restaurants as the common man tries to pay his cable bill. Maybe taking everyone who liked him to meet the Queen was expensive. Maybe MAGAs forgot to check whether the guy selling hats could add. Oh well.
4
Marvellous. Not just a conman and a grifter, but an ignorant and unsuccessful conman and grifter.
5
@GWPDA
I give thanks daily for his unbelievable stupidity. Just consider the damage he could do if he actually had two brain cells to rub together.
2
1. Create crisis
2. Blame someone else for crisis
3. Resolve crisis by stopping what you actually started
4. Declare victory
5. Goto step 1.
10
Trump has taken the idea of, fake it until you make, into fake it until you fail and then just keep on faking it because the Republicans don’t care as long as you can use a sharpie.
4
Trump gets second term, the Pax America coined by Janis Moores will be over.
1
“He [Trump] also spent part of the day writing a series of tweets excoriating Federal Reserve officials as “Boneheads” and demanding that they immediately put into effect emergency measures to stimulate the economy — emergency measures that are normally only implemented in the face of a severe crisis.”
Ironically, the US economy is in severe crisis for more than 80 percent of workers—the recession of 2009 never ended for most. This, and Hillary Clinton's horrid candidacy, is what elected Trump in 2016.
However further irony, now this crisis is costing Trump support, so he wants the easy credit of the 1980s, or 1990s for him, to save him. His desperation is at least honest.
“But while Trump realizes that he’s in trouble, there’s no indication that he understands why. He’s not the kind of person who ever admits, even to himself, that he made mistakes; his instinct is always to blame someone else while doubling down on his failed policies.“
This would all be much more credible if Krugman could admit the part his claims about the “good” US economy in 2015/16 played in electing Trump.
Submitted Sept. 13th 9:33 AM eastern
What Rex Tillerson said, in four words.
2
Why is trade deficit of 400b bad but a national debt of 22 trillion ok?
1
Handing the U.S. economy into the hands of a serial bankrupt was never a good idea.
Donald likes to feel important. Nothing is more satisfying than watching global markets lose trillions of dollars because of one tweet. And then watching them recover with another.
Congress needs to realign legislative authority with Article I and rein in presidential autonomy.
3
Much as I'd love to see Trump utterly repudiated in the next election, I'm not convinced that anything short of economic catastrophe would by itself land him in deep political trouble. His base is small, yes, but rock-solid; whoever we Dems nominate will have major baggage, and there's little in the current Democrats' campaign tactics that gives me reason for optimism. Once the GOP noise machine gets really cranked up, it will be tough going. An economic slump won't necessarily drive Trump voters away: most have been dealing with economic stress for thirty years already. And don't forget: Trump will still dislike and disrespect the same people his voters don't like. He didn't get elected, and he isn't running for re-election, on policy; he's a cheap demagogue, and makes the most of it.
7
Paul Krugman's analysis of the reasons behind Donald Trump's insistence that interest rates should be lower does indeed show his ignorance of economics. However, there's also a personal greed factor: the Trump organization's outstanding loans cost the business a whole lot less when the interest rate is lower. Trump has a financial interest in lower interest rates as well as a political interest.
9
During the 2016, it was clear that Trump did not understand government debt when he suggested the US default on its debt in order to get better interest rates - like he supposedly did with his multiple business bankruptcies. This incident alone said he would be clueless on how to steer the economy, if indeed a President can steer it.
Trump's erratic behavior also reveals that he was not the good businessman he professed to be. Businesses look for stability and a degree of predictability in order to make investment and hiring decisions. Trump's willy-nilly policy making is the antithesis of stability and predictability. Every day Trump gives clues as to why he has guarded his tax returns and financial statements - he's not as rich or as financially savvy as he has claimed to be. Once everyone sees that, the facade that is the House of Trump begins to crumble.
3
Dr. Krugman, I believe you're right. On the other hand, if the economy stays the way it is now, he'll be re-elected despite his obvious incomprehension and incompetence.
The feeling I sense in the air is one of -- if not contentment -- that things are OK (and would be better if you-know-who didn't tweet so much). It's not Morning in America (not that Morning in America was anything but a sham also funded with deficit spending), but he can probably get away with it.
2
Yes trump is in a panic. Spiraling down. Spinning so fast it's hard for him to grasp and hold a distraction. It was never his economy to begin with. he just kept pulling levers like he knew what he was doing and now he is discovering that he doesn't know what he is doing. It's not so much the personal awareness that has him in a panic as much as the awareness that everyone else is becoming aware. He's outing himself and doesn't know how to stop being himself. Unlike his financial cons of the past, as President he has no exit. As a con he really wasn't all that good, he always had an exit. Sell, bankruptcy or frame someone else . Now there is no exit and he has a long way to go before he has a chance to get a out of jail card, re-election. Going round and round and down and down, in a panic. Unfortunately now is when he is the most dangerous to us and the world.
8
Dump's counting on the fact that most of 'murcia that hasn't already made up its mind won't read the details of whatever he does, or remember it for more than 2 weeks, and the voters he's interested in watch Fox News who only give him positive spin. Dump has a rock solid 40% support--the same people who backed him from Day 1--and only needs about 8% more to get over the top. If he can convince enough people to stay home on Election Day, he wins. SCARY.
This continuing trade confrontation with China has all the trappings of ending very, very badly. If, as Dr. Krugman so accurately states, the Fake President has “hit the panic button”, there will be emotionally-driven escalations by him in a desperate attempt to create diversions from his failed economic ineptitude, culminating I fear in a direct military action against China, probably in the South China Sea. If “sane but dishonest” former Presidents, Johnson and Bush, were willing to create phony pretexts for war, the “insane and dishonest” Trump would not hesitate to do so if he felt cornered with his re-election at stake (and his exposure in defeat to criminal prosecution). Remember, that he truly believes that as President he answers to NO ONE.
4
At the same time as being determined to vote Trump out of office in 2020, we should also be determined to bring about a change in the Constitution that will prevent, once and for all, some one who is obviously unfit becoming President. The country can not afford to have a replay of this disaster. Once is enough.
5
@RHR
You're absolutely right. The Electoral College was supposed to be our last line of defense against a demagogue, but the one time in over 200 years they should have acted, they blew it. Dereliction of duty on a tragic scale.
5
But you don’t fully understand how electors are chosen. When you cast a vote for a Presidential candidate, you are actually voting for that candidate’s chosen slate of electors. Each candidate has filed with that state’s Secretary of State their chosen electors in advance, presumably chosen not for their ability to think independently, but for their unflinching loyalty.
So there really is no chance that those hand-picked electors which accrue to the candidate are going to suddenly have a crisis of confidence and decide to flip their votes.
Ironically, in 2016, it was a Clinton elector who pitched a little hissy fit in the College and decided that even though he was pledged to Clinton, that he would vote for John Kasich. Me, me, me, Look at Me! This so the history books will forever record that even though John Kasich was on the ballot in ZERO states in the 2016 election, he nonetheless received one electoral vote.
THAT is the Electoral College for you.
1
@Max
One thing that can remedy the Electoral College is do away with winner-take-all that most states have and go to prorated electoral votes.
1
The barometer for the S&P 500 or the DJIA is very simple. When the market thinks Trump is going to be re-elected these indexes go up. Trump favors anything that keeps the indexes "jammed up". 0 or negative interest rates on savings certainly does that as it provides no alternative to stock investment. TINA-There is no alternative. I thought that Krugman also favored 0 interest rates or thereabouts, and therefore in the same page as Trump- for different reasons. I think that money market funds should pay 2.75%. That way stocks have an alternative, and must show investors that stock ownership is worth the 6% or so return they offered when adding in the dividends. Keeping the indexes "jammed up" is good for the short term. In time all the suckers of 2009 will finally buy in...because they see TINA- just in time for the bottom to fall out again. In the meantime Trump and wall street are fattening up the hog.
"That is, he imagines that the government’s finances can be managed as if the U.S. were a casino or a golf course, and it never occurred to him to ask anyone at Treasury whether that’s how it works."
I'd like to believe that PK is wrong about that, but it is probably true.
7
It’s not just Trump’s economic polices aren’t working it’s everything he touches seems to die. There are no foreign policy issues that have succeeded,nothing in favor of a cleaner environment, etc. Unfortunately what the man seems most capable of is stirring up controversy and for a vast majority of his base that’s all they ever wanted from him.
David Axelrod is correct that Trump’s worst enemy is himself and we should take advantage of the Trump meltdown by simply ignoring him, and especially his tweets. Serious candidates like Warren should be dropping hints of possible cabinet picks or at least who she might consider and all the reversals of executive orders, EPA rollbacks as if Trump was certain to lose the election.
Watching Trump go down in flames as the lamest of lame ducks is going set off some fireworks the likes this country has never seen. When exactly will Trump hit the panic button is anyone’s guess, but I suspect it might happen as soon as we’re dating our checks with the number 2020.
5
The conversion of conservatives who were actually conservative into feckless extremists in my life has been alarming and discouraging. Any suggestion that you would shortchange US bonds - calling into question the 'full faith and credit' of the United States government - is unconstitutional and non-Republican who suggested that would hear impeachment calls. Instead, crickets from his greek chorus of enablers. Yesterday, he's illegally driving business to his FOREIGN golf courses, today, he wants to bankrupt the nation by breaking the Constitution, tomorrow his friends will be bribing the electoral college for a third term of tyranny. "Everyone does it" he'll say.
The most immoral President in history, and the hilarious thing is the conservative Christians were right - character matters! The nation is in serious jeopardy.
12
A cynic would point out the effect of lower interest rates on the cost of financing the Trump Organization's outstanding loans. But that would be unfair, given that Trump has never demonstrated any propensity for self-dealing.
8
Ah.... I love sarcasm!
Trump presents us with a blend of the worst personal habits and psychological troubles combined with profound ignorance about economics. It is almost as though someone selected him based on the likelihood that he could do more damage in a shorter period of time than any of the other candidates.
7
@T. Schultz
Your point is reasonable, considering that Republicans tend to want to prove that the federal government does not work.
2
A German Shepard would easily be a better president
Looking in from the outside, I have what may well be an ill-informed question.
Your president has been at least modestly successful in using personal financial techniques that allowed him to, at least in part, avoid the worst effects of his lack of financial knowledge. My understanding is that he has undergone six bankruptcies and even today has many law suites pending against him for defaulting on contracts. If this be so, why would he change now? Would he not be looking for similar techniques to enhance the nation's books? For instance, a default on several issues of federal bonds certainly would lower your national debt and offset somewhat your egregious deficit. Or do I completely misunderstand your president?
3
That's the way Trump seems to think, but that's not how national finances work, if you want to prevent hyperinflation and the attendant starvation and probable wotld war.
2
Wind turbines cause cancer. If a wind turbine stops then our houses go dark. And the light bulbs are dim. I beg to differ with that statement-Trump and his enablers are the dim objects.
Trump apparently is just grinding more red meat, more fiction as he knows many of his supporters will never question the truthfulness of what he brays.
Trump is not an economist, a frugal spender (the only time possibly that he was frugal was when the creditors had him on a monthly allowance after another of his bankruptcies).
But, Trump may see himself as the learned economist, the grand trade negotiator, the person who brought Kim to his knees (yup, more fiction) and our messiah, our savior.
As I think back at his grand campaign promises, one in particular stands out-the reduction of debt and deficit.
Then we see the numbers. And the lie that he bleats about those numbers.
But, apparently the GOP and the supporters are content with having a person as president that should be escorted out of the White House by men in dressed in white with a rubber-lined ambulance.
4
As a footnote to Trump’s tariff war, restaurant patrons here in Cape May NJ are now enjoying $19.99 full lobster dinners at the expense of the $100+ million in lost revenues from the Chinese market. No doubt Trump’s golf courses and hotels are reaping similar cost benefits, as well. Of course, Maine lobsterman are suffering the consequences along with other export businesses.
5
So I think to myself, if the economy is doing so well then why is he panicking? And who threatens the Fed? How does the king of debt and bankruptcy have a say over people who do this for a living. And who gives a huge tax cut to the wealthiest among us and not expect us to not be able to pay our bills? I'm not even getting into tariffs and crooked deals. When do we get to see the checkbook people?
14
It’s finally seeping into His block head that his re-election Campaign is not going so well. Sure, it’s fun to gather the old gang at Loyalty Rallies and bask in the adulation and focused spite at others. But even his fans are getting bored, and restless.
Finally. Go for it, Donald. Tell people what you REALLY think.
11
Yeah, Trump is panicking. A record stock market, near record low unemployment, fewest American combat casualties in a quarter century and a massive war chest coupled with the power of incumbency.
@John D That may be true today, but that does not guarantee tomorrow.
5
You are right about the economy. Let’s all thank President Obama for the booming economy. As for mr trump his economy is leaving a trillion dollar deficit this year alone. And he wants more tax cuts to prop it up until the election. We will all pay a dear price for the trump years.
19
@John D
Plus separated families, kids in cages, overt racism, reversing clean air and clean water policies, and the power of having no foreign policy because of his every changing mood and fragile ego.
2
In spite of this convincing discussion, we still have at least 40% of the population that still strongly believes in Trump's capabilities as a businessman and his command of economics related to business. He even has books published on the subject after all and he claims to be a billionaire. (I attempted to read one of Trump's books and couldn't finish it. It was simply a wild unsupported rant on Trump's beliefs and practices.) There is also another 10 - 20% of the population who, while they couldn't actually vote for Trump for various reasons, still have a sneaking hunch that Trump must actually have viable economics skills. (Polls on his handling of the economy support this.)
Those poor trusting folks remain puzzled as to how anyone could criticize poor Donald. They'll actually trust Trump more than a Nobel Prize winning economist, who Trump wouldn't even listen to because he wouldn't grasp a word.
I remain convinced that it will take a cataclysm of some sort, probably a full recession, to change those attitudes. Without that cataclysm the 2020 election will be close. I suspect a Trump loss but with the electoral college rules, it will be close.
8
Actually, no country is likely to trust America on any treaty or deal from now on since it may be abandoned at whim after the next election. International relations just got a lot harder, and more short term, for every country.
21
@Gerard Do you trust China? Was international relations ever easy?
No just the US.
"Trump has trapped himself in a bad place."
And that should put all Americans on high alert. A cornered Trump is even more dangerous than a capricious Trump.
A strong economy or at least an economy that is not in recession is Trump's only, but rapidly unraveling, hope for reelection.
The danger is, he will make his desperation our desperation. Will he declare an economic emergency to claim personal control of the Federal Reserve? Will he reprogram more funds from the Department of Defense and spend domestically to stimulate the economy? Will he order Wall Street banks to suspend mortgage and credit debt payments until after the election? Will he start a war for the sole purpose of pumping money into the economy?
The point is, Trump will do anything to stay in power and tragically, Republicans in Congress will not stand up except to support him.
These are dark, dark dangerous days in America.
19
It's time to start recognizing that the Democrats running for president have worked themselves into a place where they can't say plainly that Pres. Trump's tariffs are illegal and harmful, both economically and strategically. Their China hysteria also supports Pres. Trump's comprehensive racism.
Prof. Krugman couldn't quite bring himself to support TPP, which Pres. Obama rationalized principally as an economic war on China (while soft-pedaling TPP's substance, which emphasized expanding U.S. monopolies). Now, once again, Prof. Krugman might aim some backgrounders at the candidates to help get things back on an economically and strategically beneficial track.
Actually, not what Krugman said at all.
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/tpp-take-two
I’d add that repudiating TPP was the worst thing Hillary Clinton did—she knew better, and pandered to the Leftish—and Sanders’ dumbest argument.
1
The Dems in the House should immediately come up with a bill repealing the Republican tax giveaway of 2017 and replacing it with a genuine tax break for working people. It would never pass the corrupt GOP Senate, but it would force Republicans to defend the cheat they pulled on regular people, and once Trump is out of here, the GOP Senate might just get enough of its senses back to realize such a bill is what they should have done in 2017 and pass it.
14
Yes. And while they are at it, return the corporate tax rate to its previous level.
The House Leadership needs to trumpet this tax cut as the real deal for working people. Then when the Senate refuses to consider the bill, exploit that indifference in the upcoming election.
With enough support, the Treasury could issue checks for say $5000 to every adult citizen. Now THAT would be an economic stimulus worth crowing about.
1
@Brookhawk When it comes to real estate and construction I suspect that Trump knows more - a lot more - than Dr. Krugman.
The emphasis in our culture on being noticed, on standing out, perhaps even becoming a celebrity promotes a subculture of people who know or understand little but pretend and may even believe that they know everything. It is the culture that promotes self confidence above competence.
Trump is a prominent example of this but he is not at all alone.
9
President Trump failed the economic version of pschologist Walter Mischel's famous marshmallow test, in which small children were told they could receive one marsmallow right away, or wait 15 minutes and receive two. To oversimplify, the children who used self control to wait for two marshmallows showed more positive individual outcomes as adults.
If economic growth is the marshmallow, President Trump went for all he could get as fast as he could get it and now is panicked that he's running out of sugar to feed the economy. As voters, it is our job to discourage this short term self-interest activity and reward prudent long term planning. We do this with our children. Surely we should do this with our elected officials, who are supposed to act like adults.
14
It boggled my mind before he was elected and ever since that anyone ever bought into his argument that he's a great businessman and therefore knows how to run a country. First, there is not and never has been any evidence that he's a businessman of any sort, not even on the bad end of the scale. He's always been a playboy living off scams and hot air. Second, a country is not a business. It needs to consider all its citizens' needs, not just those of its business interests. A government is more of a referee, expected to keep the game fair and not allow fouls from any of the players.
41
@Dana. The GOP has bullied and abused a good portion of the electorate over the past 40 years into believing that the USA is made up of "us" and "them," and only the GOP (and now Trump) can save "us" from "them." They've been so good at it that 80+% of republicans will never vote anything but R, even as the GOP and Trump throw them under the bus. They have been soundly abused into submission by lies and head tricks, just like an abused spouse or child. THAT's why they bought Trump's argument about how great a businessman he is. They've been well-prepped to do it for 40 years.
5
"That is, he imagines that the government’s finances can be managed as if the U.S. were a casino or a golf course, and it never occurred to him to ask anyone at Treasury whether that’s how it works."
I wonder if anyone at Treasury could actually tell him how our economy works. Mnuchin is a hedge fund guy, not an economist. and his other key advisers, Kudlow and trade guru Navarro are not respected for their economic acumen.
It's really striking how much Trump doesn't understand. I know exactly what I don't know--which is a lot-- but I know who does know and am never hesitant to ask.
My fear is he's doing long-term damage to the economy with bone-headed short-term decisions. But then again, I have no control over that--others do, but won't speak up. Until this man is seriously challenged/checked, the damage will continue.
26
@ChristineMcM
"I wonder if anyone at Treasury could actually tell him how our economy works."
I wonder this too, but for a different reason than you. I see no evidence that it's possible for anybody to tell him anything. He already knows it all.
18
@Laura: and therein lies the problem. the worst thing about Trump--aside from everything-- is that he understands nothing while assuming he understands everything better than anyone else.
6
In a recent Internet article, Trump contrasts "feke polls" ( that predict his losing the next election) with the "internal polls" which say that he is doing great. Of course, thanks to last week's weatherman scandal, we know now that Trump's underlings are under orders to cover up Trump's failures or lose their jobs. No wonder the "internal polls" show him looking good. And no wonder he is panicking over the real-world polls.
17
Even the fairly strong economy inherited from his predecessor can’t withstand his continued assaults. It was always just a matter of time.
12
@Martha M. Liar. The economy was anemic under Obame/Biden. The markets soared the moment Trump won.
"Trump’s diatribe was revealing in two ways. First, it’s now clear that he’s in full-blown panic over the failure of his economic policies to deliver the promised results. Second, he’s clueless about why his policies aren’t working, or about anything else involving economic policy.
He had economic policies? Who knew?
6
@Bob Laughlin
Tax cuts for the super-wealthy and the rollback of regulations that keep businesses from maximizing profits at the expense of every other consideration. These are his economic policies.
7
In 2016 over 60 million Americans traded the country’s and their own welfare for the grandiose plans of a bankrupt casino owner and a reality show star who promised to make America great again. One other person bought the flimflam as truth, and that person is now president.
24
@Rue So far so good with Trump. MAGA.
@Rue And yet unemployment is at an all time low. Trump must be doing something right. You would agree?
It has been interesting over the last few weeks and months to read, see on TV, hear on the commute to work so many stories about troubling economic indicators pointing to recession...in pretty stark terms...followed by reaction to stimulus ideas in the last few days in the form of “whoa, hold on now, we’re relatively stable in the US! We’re still seeing moderate expansion, spending and hiring is fine, it’s not clear recession is in the cards at all.”
Granted the stimulus ideas and how they’ve been raised are crazy, but many of the responses have not been limited to that point and have included a pretty big pivot on the way the overall economy is described. To me, it’s seemed like the negative economic news was getting over-hyped (a million stories about inverted yield curves as though that just happened recently) and it took a ridiculous tweet about negative interest rates to put a check on all of that.
Seems that Trump's understanding of the economy is on a par with that of the 1934 motion picture "Stand Up And Cheer," designed to lighten the national mood during the Great Depression.
In the film's rousing finale, hundreds of singing and dancing (well, marching) extras parade across the screen celebrating the end of the Depression by singing "We're Out Of The Red."
I'm pretty sure that's not how the economy works, but try telling that (or anything else) to Trump!
8
One leading indicator that has surfaced this summer in Salt Lake City? The once hot real estate market has gone slack, just in the last couple of months. Salt Lake County has been short on product, as late as last spring it was a seller's market. Prices may have gone too high as a result but buyers of existing houses are now wary, homes are seeing fewer offers and many sellers are dropping prices, this at a time when mortgage rates are low and bang for your housing buck is high. Hmmm
5
We’re seeing the same thing here in the hyperinflated Bay Area real estate market.
More inventory, longer market times, fewer overseas “investors”.
Reminds me of 2007 in some ways.
1
Trump isn't really a president - he is just playing one on TV. In Trump's world perception is reality, so instead of managing the country Trump tries to manage perception. Paddy Chaeyfsky's 1976 masterpiece, "Network", foretold our Trumpian tragicomedy. We have a natural weakness that characters like Beale and Trump exploit, and TV empowers them with access to every living room in the nation. We need to realize that the term "reality show" is ironic.
15
It's disturbing that P.K. feels the need to explain to the public that the debt cannot be refinanced, that Treasury Bonds cannot be repaid. That the electorate is largely illiterate on pubic policy is concerning and allows claims that "tax cuts will pay for themselves," privatization is better, climate change is no threat to misinform voters. Correcting this degree of ignorance is hard work and schools, news organizations and public servants need to be diligent, the work is increasingly important.
32
I agree, except it’s not the laxk of knowledge that worries me most—it’s the refusal to go find out, or to listen to anybody who does know.
See also the louder Medicare for All types.
1
@Roger Button Dr. Krugman also predicted the economy would collapse the moment Trump was elected. Yet, we are still humming along.
@Eric
"Humming along"? Please - name that tune.
I wonder if the American people would be better served by Congress issuing subpoenas to obtain, and then make public, Trump's academic transcripts rather than his tax returns.
I took Econ 101 pass/fail over 40 years ago as a "culture course" while majoring in one of the hard sciences (I passed). I feel as if I know _a lot_ more about the fundamentals of economics than the self-proclaimed Wizard of Wharton.
20
@A. Reader In an unbiased and fair academic world, transcripts could be a reliable indicator. However, educators at many institutions have been known to dole out a 'gentleman's C' to legacy and otherwise well-connected students. I feel fairly certain Trump was one of those students.
11
@A. Reader At first I wondered who wrote Trump's papers and took his exams in college.
I later realized that probably his father took the more efficient route and paid off his instructors to just give him good enough grades.
It is a very safe strategy. The instructors would be highly motivated to hide their actions, and now, many of them are probably deceased or very elderly.
13
@shar persen Ahh, yes. The fortunate son syndrome. One of the syndromes Trump used to evade the draft.
2
''Trump could reverse course, and do what most people expected a year ago, reaching a deal with China that more or less restores the status quo. But that would be a de facto admission of defeat ''
He will declare it a win, bash the fake news, 43% will believe it.
His ministries of truth will back him up.
It all rides on how China views it's long term interests.
With Trump in there will be a weapons race in Asia, perhaps world wide, monies diverted to defense spending that could instead grow economies. Money diverted from green initiatives.
12
@Lawrence Hmm,. a war on global warming. How did LBJ's war on poverty go?
Practically everything I know about Economics I learned from a Nobel Prize winner--Paul Krugman. And the rest I learned from my union-member husband and his colleagues at CCNY.
The main character in our current drama (I'm an English lit major) is the Confidence Fairy. The President's contrived Emergency script focuses on brand villains The Fed and the Chinese center on a theme of Panic and fear mongering. The supporting cast-- big corporations and the banks-- believe in the Confidence Fairy to protect their investments, while prudent retirees have put their trust in bond markets. Oh yes, even Santa Claus has a cameo role as tariffs are delayed until after a visit from St. Nicholas.
Stay tuned....
24
@Fran B.
Appears your efforts at learning economics have succeeded.
It's virtually impossible not to become helplessly cynical.
2
@Fran B. Prudent investors have portfolios.
Paul Krugman is rarely in error. I wonder though what he thinks about what I see as a deficit, and debt that could reach 30-45% of the American GDP!! Far more pushy as in big recession. So, Doc Krugman - tell us what might happen with the escalation in these two areas? Especially talk about what the interest payment fo bond buyers might be. Oh and Happy 13th, Friday, 2019!
6
@Jeff Koopersmith
Never fear. Munnchkin has it under control.. 50 year bonds, soon to become 100 year bonds.
10 year pick up loans soon matching home payments.
Party on people!!!
1
The rooster comes home to roost. This may be good karma for us in 2020.
6
Problem is, Paul, if Trump traps himself, he traps us along with him.
17
Less face it, Trump is drama queen of the highest order always has been and will always be.
He is playing monopoly with our lives and we will be the losers.
17
Trump has no credibility along with the rest of his administration. It appears to be as unruly as a frat party.
16
The word "policy" has no meaning in the Trump world. Substitute "whim" wherever you see "policy".
12
Let me summarize what Krugman and the vast majority of Americans are saying- Trump is a self serving know nothing two bit big city slicker politician.
21
Are TIPS a form of zero-coupon bond?
November 2020 can't come fast enough.
11
@Gord Lehmann
I'm increasingly concerned about the interval between November 3, 2020 and January 20, 2021. If (please God) Trump loses, we will have a loose cannon in the White House.
2
@Gord Lehmann Trump is on his way to reelection judging by last nights debate.
@Eric
I don't think debates do much. HRC mopped the floor with Trump during all their debates, and you see what happened.
Trump should stick with weather forecasting.
12
Mr. Krugman,
One of your best analyses on summarizing economics and politics into one written message.
Great reading and not only do I agree, but, I am certain your analysis is correct:
Trump wants to take "extraordinary measures" only to see himself elected again. At the moment, they are not needed.
However, I do fear that he will win again.
Having a 35-40%, hard core, adoring, fan base who thinks he might be "The One" spoken of by the nonsensical text in the Biblical Chapter ofRevelation, and/or "The King of Israel, is quite an accomplishment.
No Democrat can do that.......so........I suspect you will get four or more years of Trump.
Worse, so will I.
8
@Michael
Yes, I have come to expect a no-deal Brexit and the re-election of Trump. Seems like (at least some of) humanity is on a downturn right now.
4
Larry Kudlow, you had better get ready to return to your former employer.
4
Ever since his inauguration, the real “crisis” has been Trump and his GOP collaborators.
7
" He's not the kind of person who ever admits, even to himself, that he made mistakes;...". Trump, that is. What kind of person never admits he or she has made a mistake?! Don't
you wonder about such a person? Isn't he kind of creepy?
Our President, that is. Do you feel OK?
6
It’s still beyond me how we have a Treasury Secretary who made his riches off the 2008 housing downturn. He’s a bottom feeder, not a builder of America.
13
Prof. Krugman isn’t needed for that “earth shattering” conclusion.
"He’s clearly unaware that federal debt actually consists of bonds, which can’t be prepaid..."
He's borrowed billions and doesn't know this simple fact. Could it be that his real estate empire is wobbling and he needs some quick housing inflation to keep it solvent?
8
Trump has a personal stake in lowering interest rates. He will save millions in interest payments on the hundreds of millions in loans he has with Deutsche Bank. Whatever he proposes always has to be looked at through the lens of how he benefits.
11
@Ms. Pea You mean what's good for Donald Trump is also good for America?
It should be crystal clear to all that Trump simply does not do math. At all. Period. EOD.
Evidence? Start with bankruptcies by the score. One or two can easily be caused by other factors. But dozens and dozens and dozens? There's a pattern and a cause when that is the case.
7
Trump’s trade policy was based on two falsehoods that he repeats endlessly: the USA got nothing for the $500 billion annual trade deficit as opposed to the goods and services actually received and put to use. And that the exporter (China) pays the tariffs. It should be no surprise it’s failing.
Moreover, tariffs do not and cannot address the trio of China’s worst practices: technology transfer, theft of intellectual property and limited access to the market without a Chines partner.
Tariff man is and remains a pathetic joke that hurts the American people.
8
Dr. Krugman criticizes Trump for his goofy idea to "refinance our debt" because the idea shows a basic lack of understanding about economics. It is good to point out Trump's many errors but let's acknowledge his genius.
Trump knows that the truth has no bearing on the electorate. People do not understand the banking system at all. Therefore politicians can compare federal policy to folksy home economics and people just assume that those things are true and sensible.
Refinancing our federal debt is no different than politicians claiming that the federal budget is the same a balancing the family checkbook.
It is wrong, it is ridiculous to economists, and it makes perfect sense to 98% of the electorate.
12
Surely Krugman knows that the US is constantly refinancing its debt. With something like half of sovereign debt outside the US trading at negative rates, Trump wants to join the party! Japan has been refinancing at negative real rates for years. It really puts a dent in the national debt after a couple decades. The winners would be taxpayers paying negative interest, and the losers would be whoever holds the debt -- China, Japan, banks, and baby boomer pension funds. Make no mistake, Trump will make the opposite argument the minute it suits him, like when he was calling low rates a Democratic conspiracy. But the concept of refinancing at negative rates is not as crackpot as Krugman makes it out to be.
@JS - one good way to help with out debt problem is to repeal the GOP tax giveaway. After a huge recession, normal people would look at a strengthening economy and say "time to refill the revenue hole". Proving again that the GOP doesn't care about normal financial reasoning.
7
@b fagan True, and the reduced budget deficit will help reduce the trade deficit.
1
"...monetary policy has been looser..."
Not when it counted.
As the Dems took control of the House with their ideas for a 90% "marginal" tax rate and multi-trillion "green" new deal, the stock market tanked by $5.5 trillion. The shock wave from that hit caused capital investment to plunge from record levels, consumer confidence to fall ten percentage points and gdp growth to drop to 1.9%.
Now, Trump has things back under control, the stock market has completely recovered and is back to forecasting 4% growth for next year.
What did the Fed do while all of this was happening? It was increasing interest rates by over 50 percent and dropping money supply growth to its lowest level in 9 years.
Then in a second quarter panic, it slammed its foot on the accelerator pumping out an all-time record $700 billion in money supply, inverting interest rates. That inversion was not predictive at all, it was an artificial creation of Fed action in the marketplace.
Who won from this grotesque display of Fed incompetence? Speculators won big, walking away with trillions in gains at the expense of productive investment and the rich gaining at the expense of the poor. Gold alone went up $200 per ounce. How many poor people hold gold?
The economics profession has degenerated into a pitiful state.
Krugman's policies imprison billions of people in multi-dimensional poverty in shacks without water or electricity scraping through garbage for food.
2
If Trump believes "that the government’s finances can be managed as if the U.S. were a casino or a golf course," then we're doomed. His casinos are bankrupt and his golf courses can't make ends meet. Good op-ed, by the way.
8
"The fact is that when it comes to economic policy, Trump has trapped himself in a bad place."
If only it was just himself he trapped.
6
The question the concerns most is what will Trump do as election/indictment nears and his skies continue to darken. Mostly left out of the news lately are various congressional not-quite-impeachment-yet inquiries that Trump knows will not turn up anything likely to boost his singular obsession; his ratings.
Add to the mix Trump's deteriorating mental ability, his always tenuous emotional stability, and one easily imagines a ticking time bomb in the White House.
Dare we hope for mere self-destruction?
4
The trade war will kill Trump. Let's face it, people are addicted to cheap stuff and China is like a drug dealer with a never-ending supply. Trump is simply not qualified to handle an initiative of that magnitude and he's rubbish at taking advice that doesn't agree with his own viewpoint. It sounded good to begin with but its turning out to be his Vietnam War. He can't end it without seeming weak and if he keeps it going indefinitely, it's going to drag him under. China is also suffering (pork prices are climbing ever higher) but the Chinese are used to suffering, Americans are not. And they get to vote every four years. The Chinese don't.
5
The President doesn't seem to understand how anything else in government works. He thinks that the Attorney General should act like his personal attorney. He expects that his advisors tell him only what he wants to hear. He is furious when the FBI doesn't investigate his personal enemies for no reason other than being his perceived enemies. He gets mad at judges who rule against him. He expects the Federal Reserve to act like his personal broker. He does not understand NATO or the EU. He does not understand China. He does not understand the role of the media or the First Amendment. And if anything goes wrong, the inevitable answer is (where it is possible): fire the people who don't do his bidding, preferably via tweet. Or, at the very least, insult them. Sadly, he can't fire foreign heads of government, so insult it must be.
Why on earth would anybody expect the President to understand how the economy and/or the debt work?
6
This is what will happen.
Before the election trump will reach some sort of agreement with China and remove tariffs. The economy, or at least the Dow, will have an uptick. His base will cheer and re -elect him as president.
What a sad world this ignorant narcissist and his republican sycophants in Congress are creating.
6
He's reckless, ignorant, and exceptionally sensitive to the slightest criticism. His "business" past is littered with bankruptcies and turmoil. What did anyone expect?
5
It is hard to imagine picking someone so inept at a job. You could have gone to the phone book and randomly picked someone and I am sure he or she would have done better. He is a cartoon character in charge of one of the major economies in the world.
10
Trump only cares about himself. When can only hope that the folks that voted him in will come to their senses and not be fooled twice.
2
@USNA73 I need an editor. Meant to say "One", not "When"
What the author does not understand is that Trump is the smartest guy in the room. He does not need anyone giving him advice. Already he has built a wall, produced millions of miles of new roads and thousands of bridges. He has the unemployment rate down to 0% while raising wages higher than imaginable. He has brought China to its knees with his tariffs and increase US exports around the world. Any discussion that fails to include these basic facts are "fake news". Why, oh why do they keep telling lies about this man, the greatest president ever?
4
Krugman uses words Trump will have to have explained to him, i.e., I doubt he knows what "excoriate" means.
2
There's no one left at Treasury who isn't a know-nothing Trump sycophant, but since he says he knows more about economics than anybody, he doesn't feel the need to ask.
1
"... he imagines that the government’s finances can be managed as if the U.S. were a casino... "
Given that this dope managed to bankrupt multiple casinos--casinos! --this does not bode well.
2
It's not the economy, stupid. America is in a different place today. Social issues, not other matters such as trade, international affairs, defense and certainly not economic concerns, control the outcome of elections. Trump's core march behind him, as their financial condition continues to worsen, because of his rants on race, immigration, religion, science denial, LGBTQ rights, guns and religion.
4
The new mantra can be, "it's not the economy, stupid." Trump will win or lose in 2020 depending on whether people of moderate public opinions decide to vote for his racism ('cuz that's why his base loves him) or whether they decide they actually do have a moral backbone. Period.
2
A strange combination of power, stupidity, and greed have kept Trump going his whole life.
1. His so called business career required monied entities to look at his phony Fortune Magazine profile, decide he was a "stable (rich) genius," and continue to float him loans through bankruptcy after bankruptcy.
2. His biggest legitimate success (not worth billions to him), his reality TV career, depended on the previous lie to believed so he could launch and promote himself as a business tycoon; his chief talent was to point his finder and growl, "You're fired!" But credit where credit is due: He was a workplace mentor, and that was fine and selfless. Ask Billy Bush.
3. The presidency, his current scam, is doing the job propping up his failing properties with government and military reservations filling the void; enriching him and his buds with naked trade and tariff ploys to game Wall Street and reap ultra quick gains; his rallies and TV appearances fulfilling his nostalgia for the glory days of The Apprentice and allowing him the release of babbling incoherently to adoring fans, a sort of ESPN-N ("N" for nutso).
It's all working. Now, if he can just get himself reelected. Power, stupidity and greed, step up!
2
Does no one realize he is on track to destroy everything just to try and satisfy his ego and see how powerful he is over everything?
2
"Trump realizes that he’s in trouble" Perhaps, if so, it is always someone else's fault, as the Federal Reserve or Democrats. Of course, it is the U.S. that is in serious "trouble" with Trumpism and it is questionable that American democracy will survive. George Orwell (1903 –1950) “Totalitarianism demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.”
4
I'm wondering if the House can't put together a basic list of all his offenses that make him unfit for office, as an opening to the impeachment investigation.
It would have to have categories—failure in basic duties to enforce the law (telling people he'll pardon them if they break the law) and unify the country; egregious lying (hurricane path); corruption (recent plane fueling scandal); being subject or in hock to a hostile foreign power, and attempting to hide this from voters (refusal to release taxes, Helsinki, trying to remove Russian sanctions and restore it to the G7/8), obstruction of justice...
And I could go on.
No, I'm not sure that even then Repub lawmakers wouldn't stand by him. But I'd love to see them writhing and blabbering in the face of the entire list of it all.
3
He did trap himself in a bad place undeniably, all is sparing and showing off didn’t impress the Chinese, the guy is a showboat as he said so often of his opponents.
1
Trump's trouble with truth, his incompetence and crudeness have been well know for years in New Jersey. Most of my neighbors thought his candidacy was literally either a joke or a ploy to rip off more people.
I'm surprised he has made it this far without a catastrophe of such immense proportions the future of the world hangs in the balance. Notwithstanding his assault on our institutions and his failure to protect our environment he is destroying us every day....virtually death by 1,000 paper cuts.
This is the Donald Trump we know in New Jersey, the scorpion who bites the frog in the neck. Why? because he's Donald Trump.
Hold on .....our national emergency and embarrassment is winding down ...if we can outlast him.
1557
@John P.
“Most of my neighbors thought his candidacy was literally either a joke or a ploy to rip off more people.”
By most accounts it was both, but many Americans were as duped as his Trump university students and we are paying the price. He was completely surprised at winning, and, as we can see, has no idea how to do the job other than make it about him.
226
@John P. Triump was characterized by a genuine NY billionaire, my guess is Bloomberg, as "a clown who lives on credit." He is a poor businessman who was well on his way to being broke before he started leveraging his lust for the spotlight into licensing deals for the Trump name. He is an amoral incompetent.
Look for a nice little war some time before the election. He is not above spending American lives to further his egomaniacal ambitions. The man is a complete and utter waste of skin.
211
@John P.
I can only speak for myself, but down here in Texas, I have known what a con and horrible person trump is for years. All you had to do was read.
But, our collective necks are up to agitators, so not so sure about outlasting him.
94
This column, juxtaposed with last night's Democratic debate, show why any one of the Democrats onstage last night would be preferable to Trump. They all think, speak in complete sentences, appear to be sane, and actually spoke with the well-being of the American people and the country in mind.
Contrast that to Trump, who has never read a book, and who by his own admission is fundamentally the same person he was in the first grade. Trump actually told his biographer, Michael D'Antonio, the following:
"When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I’m basically the same. The temperament is not that different."
That should scare all of us. 2020 can't come soon enough.
4
Trump can't understand that an economy is one thing and a business is another. Business is the structure while the economy is the context within which the business exists. Trump is using a business strategy not an economics based one. His approach is destined to fail. His track record in business isn't particularly good, but his grasp of the ecology of finance (economics) is wanting.
754
@Max And Max
And yet somehow (Republican) voters have been convinced (even from the time of Romney) that a businessman is the best choice to run the economy.
trump is certainly the best example of the worst instincts of a businessman.
94
@Max And Max Comparing Business strategy and Economic policy is sort of like comparing the weather today with the climate.
Trump understands neither.
94
@Max And Max
"His track record in business isn't particularly good, but his grasp of the ecology of finance (economics) is wanting."
Not merely wanting but non-existent. He did not attend the Wharton MBA school but the undergrad program where he finished at the *bottom of his class* [prove otherwise Donald, show us your transcripts].
85
Sometimes it is hard to know whether Trump is in a new panic mode or just a continuation of the old on e. He seems never to know what he is doing. From his staff hiring to economic or foreign policies he lurches along. From one crisis to the next blaming others for his own ineptness. If bluster, tantrums and a scowl are great policy then he is a master, the only thing for which Trump will never take credit.
581
@just Robert - mr. trump needs to be taken back to
school and given a few more lessons about how the
economy works.
28
@just Robert
In his Victorian-era novel "The Way We Live Now", Anthony Trollope referred to his main character as a "vile City ruffian" (City man was the term for a businessman). I thought it was an odd image, but now I know what it means. Trollope was foreseeing Trump.
57
@jahnay
Would that such a path would yield results, but he is beyond learning anything along those lines. He can grasp polls and what people are saying on the "talk shows (e.g., FNC)," but nothing new to the experiences he had for his previous life.
28
And yet, there are still lots and lots of people, far more than the few who are actually benefiting, who approve of Trump not only overall, but specifically on the economy. SMH.
2
What galls me the most is Mr Trump taking credit for low unemployment and job creation - the former being a continuation of the trend started 8 or so years ago, and the latter lagging what happened under Pres Obama.
What confuses me is how there are people who believe him.
1102
@Mark Marks
Every politician would take credit of the positives but not mention the negatives.
22
@Mark Marks Many people, myself included, feared that the sheer incompetence embodied in a Trump presidency would crash the economy in short order. While the incompetence is rampant, and even greater than I feared, the economy has a life and a resilience of its own. If I were Trump, or a supporter, I'd claim credit for it too, because even if it's not true, that's an easy sell to voters. But Trump introduces stochastic destruction into the equation, through random tariffs and tweets, and then deliberate destruction through pointless tax cuts for billionaires; the resilience is shaken. Consumer confidence is one ingredient that's needed for a strong economy and that a president can really affect. This consumer has no confidence. I don't think I am alone. We'll see what happens, as our president frequently says.
91
@Mark Marks: The biggest problem to worry about is how Trump would handle a recession. If he is re-elected and one starts early in 2021, you can expect chaos on a level that dwarfs everything we've seen up til now. If the Senate also remains in Republican hands, you can expect drastic measures like scaling back Social Security, Medicare, federal aid to public schools, and myriad other rollbacks affecting us all.
91
Its not just business putting investments on hold because of the uncertainty caused by trump. It is also the average person. I've had so many conversations with people about their futures - retire? buy the house? more expensive or less expensive college for the kid? and the uncertainty, the inability to plan is making them crazy. Consumer confidence has be defined as the willingness to go into debt and nobody is willing to go into debt unless they have some confidence about their ability to predict the future. Even die hard trump supports are having the same conversations. They just haven't figured out yet who is responsible for them having these conversations.
562
Just as those diehard tRump fans fail to realize that our government isn’t the problem but rather the corporate and uber-wealthy interests that exert control over our government/leaders. The Tea Partiers never figured out the real target of its ire.
98
@sjs
"Even die hard trump supports are having the same conversations. They just haven't figured out yet who is responsible for them having these conversations."
Well, that is an easy question to answer; they are. Trump supporters voted for him, and continue to support him no matter what he does, no matter how many lies he tells. I am not convinced that Trump is in panic mode. I think it is very possible he is in stock market manipulation/profit mode. He has gotten the Fed Chair to cave on lowering interest rates, though they are contraindicated. The market goes up before Fed meetings. The market swings up or down following Trump's announcement about trade policies (e.g. I'm raising tariffs on China -market drops; I'm delaying implementation of tariffs on China - market rallies). This has been going on for long enough that any thinking person should be wondering: are the people close to the President, including the President himself, profiting from their advance knowledge of these announcements? I wonder if those who have supported this President would support this profit-taking at the expense of the rest of us.
138
Hmm. Very interesting point. Is the SEC looking into this? They have the means to find out.
73
I think Dr. Krugman giving more credit to Trump than he deserves. He says Trump is getting panicked over failure of his policies. The fact is there aren’t any Trump policies, they are oxymoron. The only thing in Trump’s mind is how to get re-elected. Admission of failure is not in his DNA and so blames others for failures or rephrases the failure and declares victory. Right now, Trump is stuck between rock and hard place. The clue to get out of that is provided by Elizabeth Warren in tonight’s democratic debate, go after our own corporations.
488
We need to remember that the Trump business model is bankruptcy. He does not know how to run an organization without debt and ultimately bankruptcy. Look at his current business. It is so leveraged that he needed the Russians to back his loans.
196
@Kodali
" The clue to get out of that is provided by Elizabeth Warren in tonight’s democratic debate, go after our own corporations."
Actually, the clue to get out of Trump's problem is to do research and think, things that Trump is incapable of doing.
33
@Rolf Almquist: He probably needs some quick housing inflation to jack up his balance of payments.
6
Going back decades and decades I have heard friends and family assert that government should be run like a business. I also have a friend who is a retired economist who noted that business people understand business economics very well but seldom have a clue about national economics. The difference between fiscal and monetary policy? What? Who creates our money that enables economic activity and flows back to government in the form of taxes? Hmm
6
In the last paragraph Mr. Krugman states the main way Trump has painted himself into a corner: "-- and at this point it’s not clear why the Chinese would trust him to honor any such deal past Election Day."
No one anywhere on this planet trusts anything this guy says. President of the USA though he be, he has zero credibility even within his own administration. How can anyone honestly call this guy a leader?
2122
@dave
Donald Trump may be integrity challenged, but you can count the trusted/trustworthy political leaders on this planet without running out of fingers. Xi Xin Ping is no better than Trump.
8
@dave
How can anyone honestly call this guy a leader?
Moscow Mitch I'm sure would have an answer to this.
97
@Philip Brown How far we;ve fallen, is kind of the theme.
36
The $1.5 Trillion Tax Cut legislation from Trump and the GOP added trillions to the deficit (didn't pay for itself) and did little to nothing for working Americans. Trump and the GOP work for the 1%, not the 99%.
25
If you think Trump's overt manipulations of the economy for personal/political gain are bad, imagine for a moment how those precedents established by our current Corrupter-in-Chief will be used by some future president. Someone who takes office prepared to exploit every possible financial benefit offered by the presidency, no matter how immoral or unethical.
Even if Trump is tossed from office in 2020, his rampant violations of political norms and ethics while president will resound through American culture for decades to come. Brace yourselves - you ain't seen nothing yet.
19
@Will especially if voters remain as uninformed and apathetic as they are currently.
1
Another point worth noting is that Trump has hundreds of millions of $$ taken out in business loans. As reports circulate in the press, he stands to save millions in interest payments when the Fed lowers interest rates.
47
I know the answer to the question but It needs to be asked anyways, doesn’t Congress have to approve implementing tariffs? The President can only use tariffs in a national emergency!
17
good points, all. looking at "business investment" a little deeper we find that while depressed or at least not "surging" such investment would never result in good, net job growth. the gold standard for ROI remains reducing labor content. the polite term is productivity improvement. bicycle economics demands that if you don't go forward you'll fall down. true enough. gov't not the private sector is required to save the victims of anti-labor incentives - be they machines or "socialist" hating union busters.
9
This just hasn't worked out and we've worked with people across party lines. It's one thing to change your opinion and policies based on evidence or knowledge. That's not really what "emergence economies" are about.
Maybe Trump is right to be afraid, very afraid. After all with unemployment at record low rates, an economic expansion and a Dow Jones at a record hight, he also has to his credit a deficit of a trillion dollars staring him in the face and no clear path to paying it down at a time when the deficit should have been much lower.
Trump is very aware that recessions are the cyclic counterpart to expansions and that deficits climb with lowered tax revenues and the need for government to engage in stimulus spending, However he seems to magically think that the fed can lower interest rates even into negative territories as they are doing in europe, in order to prevent recession.
Trump's magical thinking helped create his tax cuts for the rich...now he is engaged in looking for scapegoats to blame his economic failures on...The real danger now is not his magical thinking but rather the absence of real discussion about how to get someone to explain reality to the current president.
29
@Walter Nieves "Trump is very aware that recessions are the cyclic counterpart to expansions and that deficits climb with lowered tax revenues and the need for government to engage in stimulus spending"
With what evidence do you say this? There is not one shred of history that implies Trump has any knowledge whatsoever of these phenomena.
20
@Walter Nieves
Trump is simply following the first law of Disney:
"Wishing will make it so".
3
It's not so much a question of Trump not asking the Treasury or the Fed how interest rates work. I think rather that those who could and should enlighten him on how these things actually work have given up trying to enlighten him altogether, believing correctly that he will simply disregard opposing views and hold those views against those espousing them.
62
Whoever said that Trump was an economic genius beside Trump? There was a full blown record of Trump's business failures available to anyone who wanted to read it. Alas,not enough people did and preferred to believe in the smoke and mirrors that were offered. He's back again with his three card Monte show and all those who want dirtier air and water, oil ridden wilderness and beaches, musical chairs in government officeholders, chaotic policies at home and abroad and a con artist who lines his pocket with taxpayer
money seem more than willing to pick a card.
93
@Desmo
Surprised to read that someone from Trump Land USA sees through Trump's con job to America.
So, there is a 'bottom line' there somewhere. What may really get Trump in the 'end' is his debts to Russians and Putin. One does not default on the mob whether it is for money or promises. Trump's empire is, indeed, a 'House of Cards' held together with the help of other despots (MbS) and Putin. (I would include McConnell and Graham in that lot)
His history has been one of always milking his business to support his lifestyle and image. In one bankruptcy the court allowed him to have an allowance of several hundred thousand $$ a month so he could maintain his lifestyle, the all important lifestyle. He is actually broke and selling the assets and security of the US to support his lifestyle.
What we are left with is a POTUS with a weak personality, and an inferiority complex. And, at least 35% of the voting electorate that views him as entertainment, nothing more since there is no substance. He babbles at a rally and they love it.
On top of that we have Fox News that cuddles and supports Trump. Those that view Fox only do not know, for example, that Trump and Epstein had a relationship. Ignorance, then, is no excuse.
55
Announced yesterday the US deficit in past 11 months exceeded 1 trillion dollars. And Trump thinks more stimulus is needed? I truly feel sorely for all US children and grandkids because they are guaranteed with the debt Trump is running up to a lower standard of living.
54
He hasn’t just put himself in a bad place, he put us all there. The Chinese may hold Trumps missteps against the next president if were lucky enough to elect one.
55
There is a disconnect between terrible policy and low unemployment that Trump takes credit for.
Terrible policy doesn't mean most Americans won't get up in the morning and work very hard to make a living. It doesn't even mean that some people are so brilliant that they will come up with incredibly profitable ideas that benefit all of us.
What terrible policy does is creates uncertainty and reduces productive investment. Companies are actually borrowing huge amounts of money to buy back stock simply because it's cheap.
Good policy might actually stimulate companies to invest in future profitable returns instead of reducing the supply of stock. They aren't.
Personally I have taken a much more conservative position with both my business expenditures and personal saving since Trump was elected. It just feels risky to invest when you have a very unstable person, who acts like a con man changing policy in a very public way every time he gets up in the morning to go to the bathroom.
74
The President is plowing ground to rationalize the actual effects of his policies as opposed to the asserted benefits. The fact that he doesn't know what he's talking about is no surprise.
34
The President's lack of understanding of how government bonds work is an embarrassing display. Never one to back down, fully expect him to double-down on this gaffe by insisting that government bonds *should* work the way he thinks they do, and that he'll be the one to make it happen.
41
"Before I get to the economics, let’s talk about one indicator of Trump’s cluelessness: his remarks about federal debt."
Your article neglected a key campaign promise, namely, that he would reduce the federal debt in his first term. It has actually increased by over $2 trillion. Hopefully he won't have a second 'debt reduction term'.
135
Tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy while the working man gets 0% interest on his savings? That sounds like an uneven playing field even before you cut food stamps.
91
@james davisson Once upon a time, not so long ago, I remember Trump saying he'd like to see *higher* interest rates so the working man could see some sort of return on savings. I realize other policies and conditions need to come about before raising interest rates comes into play.
But I remember it because I couldn't think of any other politician highlighting the interest rates in terms of benefiting small savers.
Just one more lie, down in the bottom of the heap.
16
I would like to see an article from Mr. Krugman about the cumulative effect o af near 0% federal reserve rate, while companies push up the value of stocks via buy backs, and little to no interest accumulation for depositors in traditional bank accounts, and now looking at negative rates. IMHO, these conditions could become the biggest bubble ever.
41
@michael
Your comment is insightful. If I understand it correctly (and I may not), it is most fundamentally related to the difference between rate of return on capital versus saving from labor. While it is true that the 1% (CEOs, Supreme Court Justices, the Epsteins of this world, etc.) own most of the wealth, also the rate of return on that wealth is meaningfully higher than say savings for the other part of humanity. Thomas Piketty in Capital in the Twenty-first Century addresses this. See for example Chapter 8, p 271, "Two Worlds", and other references therein and in the other writings of Piketty and his collaborators.
The interesting question is, what do the Chinese want?
Apparently they are now moving to reciprocate Trump's move by increasing purchases of some ag goods. This will help Trump's political fortunes. Will the Chinese continue to pursue a "tit-for-tat" liberalizing of trade through 2020? Would they welcome Trump's re-election? They aren't dumb, right? Do they prefer Trump to Biden (or Warren or Sanders, etc)?
7
@donald.richards It's difficult to imagine why the Chinese would want to prop up Trump's reelection bid.
7
@donald.richards
Do they prefer Trump to Yang?
The Chinese would love a second Trump term. His grasp of geo-politics is so neanderthal, they will have complete freedom of action for another four years. Abetted by the ignorance of Trump, China will deepen their economic and political reach everywhere, challenging American hegemony everywhere, while he and Jared play fake peacemakers with Israel and Saudi Arabia.
His record of business acumen speaks for itself. He many failed enterprises under his leadership, how many poor decisions. He used tax dodges and serial bankruptcy to protect his personal lifestyle.
Going back in time, he hired experts in various fields, like when he purchased the Eastern Airlines Shuttle. He refused to take the advice of the man he recruited to run TrumpAir and the results were disastrous. We see the same pattern with his cabinet members who disagree with him.
He should just go back to hawking his egocentric blather on third rate TV, where less harm is possible
87
Yep. He got himself in a fix like he always does. He makes his uninformed decisions by listening to his “gut” and this is what has always gotten him into trouble. It’s why he went bankrupt so many times.
Trouble is, there’s no Daddy to bail him out now. Sad.
52
@Kathryn he expects Putin will bail him out. Or Kim, or Netanyahu. Someone to give him an international triumph, a “deal” he can claim is a win for America, or a safe place to run to if indicted following an election defeat ( Though I still believe he will try to suspend or otherwise hamper the presidential election).
4
Trump has already detailed his great idea to cut the national debt by threatening lenders with default in order to get them to accept better terms. Which means yes, Trump wants to operate the US in the same bad faith method that blacklisted him with lenders globally.
39
What's worse than Reaganomics? Trumponomics. He simply has no clue how things work, believes what he likes, no need for expert advise. The real problem is that a sizable portion of the electorate buys everything he says, so it doesn't matter if there is any sense to it.
The only saving grace here is that he was elected by very slim margins, and a slippage of just a few percent of his avid followers would swing the vote away from him.
29
@PT or an increase in D turnout in critical states would do it, too. Crossing fingers.
25
The real problem is corporate capture of Washington, so government works for wealthy corporations and not us. And the root of that problem is campaign finance. Public funding of elections is necessary for the democracy we want. It is the foundational fix we desperately need.
21
@PT: Nothing is worse than Reaganomics. W's economic policies have all but been disgraced including his scheme to privatize Social Security. Same thing will become of Trump's economic balderdash. Unfortunately the myth of St. Ronnie will will live on ad infinitum as the republicans will never abandon the false prophecy of their perceived economic messiah. I'm 55 and will never see the end of the damage caused by Reagan.
2
The economy, like healthcare and immigration and national security and infrastructure, is a topic of which Trump is clueless. He's a NYC real estate wheeler and dealer. He's never been a public servant, never held elective office, never shown any desire to try to enrich anyone but himself. But more than half of Americans knew that in 2016.
The question now is, are you better off now than you were three years ago? And if not, why would you vote for Trump again?
24
Thank you Mr. Krugman. This article is fantastic.
19
Krugman, we’re in trouble if you do not know what he meant by refinancing high interest debt with lower interest longer term debt. Get it together.
@Scott K - what did he mean? Because this is *not* how bond markets work. This is how private debt works. Krugman is correct.
18
@Scott K - Our debt is mostly bonds, not bank loans.
11
@Ryan C
The government floats bonds, they can do whatever the market bears. And this is a market in which very long bonds are being floated. The best credit in the world, that of the great USA, is the most marketable of bonds. That, is how the bond market works. Period.
China is capable of both conceiving of and also playing the long game.
12
I agree with everything until the last paragraph. I think Trump has gotten some movement from the Chinese. He'll get a little more, THEN end the trade war, call it a big victory (biggest ever in the history of the US), Fox News will repeat Trump's exaggerated version and all those Fox News fans out there who don't realize they're not getting actual news, will buy it. Then they'll attend a red hat rally and stupidly scream Lock her Up! Send her back! because they seem to hate women as much as immigrants.
20
@Andy Yes, you're correct. Declare victory non-stop. Next year will be a blizzard of victory declarations.
11
So if you store money in a bank, they charge you for the service. Whereas the bank used to pay me to loan them money, now I pay them to loan them money. I take all the risk but earn nothing. Republicans will say: "But at least he's trying".
Welcome to Trump world where trying to make things worse usually succeeds.
Obama pulled America out of the financial toilet Bush created, Trump flushed us back down. If that's not bad enough, we have no way to fire the "genius" in the WH.
35
"....Trump has trapped himself in a bad place." For the sake of our country, indeed the world, I hope he has.
12
All his administration has done aside from robbing the taxpayers is run and keep running for president. That seems to be enough for his base, and he may actually win again on zero accomplishments. Trump may realize he's in trouble and spin, spin, spin, but his rally sheep and Fox News friends don't. He's been really successful at lying, propaganda, and name calling, and to the great chagrin of the educated classes, it seemed to work, thus making a mockery of everything decent people believe in. How could anyone go along with rolling back clean air and water regulations in the face of climate change? How could anyone so hate immigrants and refugees? How could anyone imagine they could run the economy by themselves? Clearly, the U.S. has a cancerous case of festering ignorance and selfishness. Yahoos rule and make America far worse. That's his legacy. What will ours be?
22
By himself, Trump is powerless. However, he has the backing of the Republican Party and according to them he can do wrong. When he is defeated, which I pray is soon, they will have destroyed their own legacy. In the meantime we the people will suffer while he wrecks havoc in all of America.
2
Trump is not only clueless on economics, he’s clueless Period. Thanks again middle America. Hey, At least we don’t have Hillary, because emails or something, right?
23
@JeffI I wonder if he has learned where Alabama is or if even that is too challenging.
1
Benghazi! The server!!! It wasn’t plugged in but it was in the room.
1
"....Trump has trapped himself in a bad place." For the sake of our country, indeed the world, I hope he has.
3
Trump thinks that macroeconomics is something you make with pasta and cheese.
18
In order for Trump to admit he made a mistake, he’d have to have some clue as to what he is doing, and why it didn’t work.
He doesn’t, and he won’t.
Hard to believe, still, we put the greatest country in the world in the hands of this nimrod.
20
I shall never make the mistake again, of trusting another without direct contact.
Good luck.
We had eight years of an Obama recovery and boom, from which we climbed out of the deep Bush - Cheney recession.
Now we are in the 3rd year of the Trump - Pence demolition of the US economy, led by a minor league UC Irvine professor (Peter Navarro), a right wing China hating protectionist (Robert Lighthizer) and a silly old Fox News curmudgeon and announcer (Larry Kudlow). Rank amateurs all, without a plan, a rhyme or a reason. All reporting to Donald Trump, aka the "King of Debt", who has had a lifetime of bankruptcies and failed businesses to his credit.
The Constitution (the Commerce Clause) gives the US Congress the power to regulate trade among nations. Ask yourself. Why isn't the US Congress doing its job?
48
It’s a tired argument to say a president brought us out of or pushed us into a recession. They are cyclical and the president has no control of the cycle other than a few months /-.
When you hit the bottom the o my move is up and when you reach the top the only move is down. Anyone could have gotten us out of the recession by just being patient.
trump can paint himself into a corner in a circular room.
Or Oval Office, as the case maybe.
No wonder he's always angry.
13
If the "president" is re-elected and the Senate retained by Republicans they will work to pass legislation to:
> become a government of one man and a cabal;
> continue to maintain male oriented politics;
> continue to refuse to pass bipartisan gun legislation;
> slash spending including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid;
> continue to imprison innocent children and their parents;
> continue to increase the deficit;
> allow Russian oligarch "trojan horse" investments in American companies;
> continue to destroy the Affordable Care Act.
19
Trapped in a bad place, our pugnacious president will come out swinging, in tweets and in clipped phrases shouted to reporters over the roar of a helicopter rotor. He will blame everyone but himself and pile scorn on any Democrat who thinks he or she can better handle the terrible problems dumped on him by Obama. He will send his loyalists to TV interviews to explain how wisely the president is acting and to clean up some of his garbled but misunderstood statements. The Donald Show is about to get zanier.
11
The one good thing that Trump might yet do is to complete the destruction of the Republican Party.
18
"The best defense is a good offense "
VOTE him out
14
What do you call someone who has a billion dollars in assets and two billion in debts ? Trump !
11
Mr. Krugman, a more accurate ending to your article is Trump has put “us” and not “him” in a bad place. Unfortunately, his lack of intelligence is a trait shared by many republicans. That trait, combined with a short term insatiable appetites for money cause great harm to our nation. Our deficit has increased exponentially with nothing to show for it. Not better health care, not infrastructure work, not improvement in our military capabilities, not better education. “Trump, what is he good for, absolutely NOTHING!”
14
The stock market has been yo-yoing with every Trump pronouncement on Chinese tariffs. When he announces another rise in tariffs, the market plunges. When he tweets that the two sides are closer to making a deal, the market surges. God forbid I would ever imply nefarious intent on Trump's part, but I hope the SEC, FBI, Fed, or whoever else should be keeping an eye on things, are on the lookout for people who are going long or short on the market just before Trump tweets out his latest Tariff Man tweets. It would be so easy for Trump to let a few friends and family that he's about to drop another tariff bomb and to buy or sell or short accordingly and make a fortune. I know its hard to believe something like that would actually happen, but perhaps I'm a cynic!
14
Donald J Trump wishes to declare the United States of America bankrupt. He wishes to stiff creditors and emerge from bankruptcy personally enriched through extraction of America's wealth during the chaos of America's economic demise. This is how Donald J Trump has always done business. This is how Donald J Trump "governs". This is also the "quality" and "patriotism" of Republican "governance".
26
Perhaps the real issue prompting trump is the losses at his properties, both Ireland and Scotland, Doral, and others. The places appear almost empty, but with just enough people to keep the locations open and draining money from trump inc. He may be looking at further bankruptcy with the two fools of sons "running the business (into the ground?)", a large interest rate cut may help him maintain his fantasy that he is a successful businessman.
He is starting to babble in his speeches, he contradicts himself sometimes within minutes, and he is becoming less tolerant of advice and advisors. Dementia is rapidly approaching...and could it happen to a more deserving person?
23
@Warren Courtney
actually death would be a more patriotic move on his part- his death. Immediatley if not sooner
3
" . . . he imagines that the government’s finances can be managed as if the U.S. were a casino or a golf course . . . "
Unfortunately, the U.S. does seem like a casino now, with the majority of its citizens on the losing end.
17
I love the delicious irony the President begging the Fed to lower interest rates below zero, while at the same time boasting that the economy under his stewardship is the best in history? Incoherence, thy name is Trump.
Perhaps he should start doing those memorable info ads . . . the ones that proclaim "but wait, there's more," and offer every household that buys whatever it is he is selling a set of steak knives that can cut tomatoes and drain pipes. Then it would all make sense.
16
According to Moody's, we've already lost 300k jobs due to Trump's trade wars and they project we'll lose as many as 900k by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the manufacturing sector is in recession and farmers are hurting. There's been record numbers of bankruptcies among farmers.
Good thing trade wars are easy! Winning!
16
Hoe do you spell 'rampant demagoguery'? T-R-U-M-P !
5
I doubt Trump sees it as a 'panic button'; he just sees it as another lever to try. Damn the consequences.
6
I have seen many comments speculate that Trump is motivated by personal financial self-interest even more than political self-interest. That should surprise no one. But we tend to forget the Putin factor that should be included in every Trump action. I believe that he, too, will benefit personally from low U.S. interest rates, and politically from a weakened U.S. economy.
18
Democracy has failed and Trump is the proof. Corporate America bought and paid for this government and the Average American must consume to keep it
Healthy Economic change is glacial in its movement. It creeps slowly along moving up and down. But when equilibrium is off large pieces start to go and the glacier eventually dies. We're seeing that now.
We know what the economy did from 1980 though 1992 when the "limited" government exploded the national deficit while slashing social programs. A huge recession by 1991.
After the debt was vanquished in 1998, it followed in 2001 with a tax cut combined with a slowing economy and unregulated investing in mortgages. Another huge recession by 2007.
By 2008 it was back to tax payer backed "government bailouts," in 2009 to get the economy going again.
This time it is a horrible businessman to become President and by 2017 a GOP mandate to cut taxes, giving Corporate America a huge handout.
As usual, none of the premises about boosting the economy aside from the initial "sugar rush" surge, has panned out.
Now the economy is going sluggish on top of the idiotic trade war.
The pattern is clear. Over the last 40 years as pensions have been replaced with self-funded 401k; health care and insurance has gone from affordable the choice between dying and bankruptcy; Social Security is going to pay less and less.
Inversely, Corporate America has grown.
14
The tax cuts are old GOP ideology that pre-dates Trump's presidency. Since the Republicans controlled Congress, signing the cuts into law took no genius on the part of Trump. The tariffs are another thing. Since Trump is attracted to oppositional positions like flies are to horse manure, he sides enthusiastically with the tiny minority of economists who think that tariffs are the way to deal with China.
The fact that tariffs act like a tax burden on a consumer-driven economy and would naturally stifle consumption seems completely lost on him: most likely because Trump has always lived an opulent lifestyle that is completely divorced from economic reality.
So when our economy starts tanking, remember this--the tariffs are Trump's. Trump owns them.
4
I know it sounds loony-tunes but Trump really did the Nation and perhaps the World a valuable service.
His clarifying performance so emphatic and definitive - so top-notch - so stellar - so beyond effective that few could have better staged/presented it.
No I am not from Bizzaro World and yes I am being serious!
What Trump has done - what his valuable (SINCERELY!) service to his Country is is this:
He exposed the phoniness, selfishness, shallowness, and darkness that lurks in us the electorate
He revealed the social vacuity, hypocrisy. and amorality of the GOP
He laid bear how fragile our social egalitarian liberal democratic pact with each other is
How easily in danger truth and reason can be
How unimportant rationally, secular government, and uplifting principles can be to many of us.
He inadvertently gave us a morality play to rival all morality plays.
Not all will get it at all - too much profundity for them.
And some will get it totally but willfully and skillfully pervert the exposed message relishing what would seem a dire or evil outcome.
Others will just plain old honestly misinterpret it - easy enough - the authors did not make it easy.
And sadly some will down deep get it but ignore it and its importance to ride some good fortune or tangential objective like crushing abortion legality.
About 42% of us fall in the above.
It is up to 58% that really get it and recognize the point of the lesson to VOTE and VOTE D - sort out paradigms down the road!
17
Here's the thing. Trump hits the panic button when he thinks it will do him some good politically.
He doesn't focus on the well-being of Americans generally, or on what he can do for the country. He focuses on what the country can do for him. He is selfish, not selfless.
Trump is a panderer and a promoter, but decidedly not a policy wonk. He promised that when elected, he would be "so presidential," but he is instead like the kid who skated through school by doing just the minimal amount of work necessary in order to just get by, barely.
Presidential or not, the problem with Trump is that he isn't prudential, and that, alone, repeatedly offers reasons for Americans generally, and not just Trump, to panic.
5
The basic problem with Trump is that he considers only himself “real” and everyone else in the world a stage prop for his personal vanity show.
1
What is truly depressing about this accurate assessment of Trump’s economic ignorance is that so many Republicans seem to be willing to compromise their long-standing principles (aversion to debt, support for free trade, central bank independence) to indulge it.
8
Put aside the obvious (albeit, shocking) ignorance of Donald Trump of how the national debt works. If someone knows nothing about a subject, he does not know what it is that he does not know.
The more harmful dynamic at play right now is also reflective of the Trump ignorance and personality. It is the unpredictability of Donald Trump. He has spent his adult life making decisions quickly and impulsively, trusting that with some noisy bluster he can make people and situations bend to his will.
There is no plan for the American economy, because Donald Trump has never made a long-term plan for anything. Trump’s repeated business failures, requiring bailouts by his father, reflected the Trump distaste for planning.
Corporate executives and boards – even those whose treatment of consumers and employees and small shareholders is atrocious – cannot make essential decisions on guesswork. All Donald Trump has to offer is seat-of-the-pants, spur-of-the-moment action.
2
Trump is not the only GOP president who has benefited personally by running and winning the WH. He is the most egregious, not even bothering to pretend otherwise.
The truth is that almost every GOP candidate for public office since Reagan has run for the sole purpose of cutting his tax bill.
3
@David Henry They also are motivated by cutting environmental and safety regulations.
1
Now that he's hit the panic button, he should run for the hills.
Hopefully impeachment is just around the corner and no one deserves it more than this guy. He's inflicted a great deal of damage to our country; hopefully not irreparable. Not only has he been the worst President in history, he has brought us to an unbelievable deficit. What a relief it will be to get rid of him and his cohorts. We will have to win back our allies and renew all the agreements he took us out of. Tonights Democratic debate has given us hope.
2
Trump has often claimed that he is "the master of debt" despite multiple bankruptcies. Ok, some were engineered to actually create a profit for Trump after he dumped all his holdings and his key backers paid off.
The real problem is that he is showing all of the classical signs of a sociopath losing control and flailing around to regain the perceived control.
The weird part is that he could have been a good ceremonial president by allowing his team of experts to do the actual work and take all the credit. Sociopathy just doesn't allow that. And then there all those sycophants that attempt to justify and explain everything as "normal."
I still have to wonder what group is backing Trump that is keeping main line Republicans from taking a stand against the idiotic behavior. Somebody has the RNC leadership really frightened. Where are the Manly-Men when you need them? They aren't in the RNC that is certain.
3
@George N. Wells
What group is backing Trump ? The same group that backed Mike Dunleavy (and before him, Sarah Palin)
for governor of Alaska. I really wish the NYT would do an article on Dunleavy and his state-wrecking Budget Whisperer Donna Arduin. In the meantime, interested readers can go to dermotcole.com for an illuminating serious of posts by a longtime Alaskan journalist.
Thankfully, Alaska has a direct recall process, and we're actively engaged in it at the moment. The recall movement is headed by Vic Fisher, at age 95 the 'last man standing' of the original drafters of Alaska's state constitution in 1955.
Let's not forget that he's probably leveraged up to his ears, and a lower interest rate would help him with those pesky variable-rate loans.
5
The bad place that Krugman is referring to is that it is becoming obvious that Trump is over his head when trying to manage our economy. He just does not get it.
As a real estate investor, you build a hotel expecting prices to slowly rise along with revenues, borrow to the hilt counting on inflation, growth and leverage to make you a fortune. If it does not work out you declare bankruptcy.
It just does not work that way when overseeing a country with a big economy. Financial leverage is not a friend when you are overseeing a country.
His plan is if worse comes to worse you blame your economic advisers and if nothing else works blame Obama. I am 73 years old and in good health. I will be dead before this country recovers from this disaster called Trump. Shame on us
5
Sooner or later, something bad is going to happen and Americans will have to determine if Trump is telling us the truth. And most of us won't believe him. And why would we? Criminal Trump has polluted and corrupted the DOJ, the FBI, the CIA, the NOAA, the State Department, and our Military. We are in uncharted waters. It's all downhill from here.
4
Many European and Asian central banks are offering negative interest rates to savers. So what Trump is doing -- and it looks myopic, selfish, and counterproductive -- others are at it also.
If China had a secret weapon that crippled America's economy, poisoned democracy, provoked deep divisions and alienated global support of American hegemony, why wouldn't it keep that weapon in place for as long as possible?
Say, another four years?
If China were truly sinister, it would give Trump a neon-lit trade victory and combine their efforts with Putin's to re-elect Trump by a landslide.
Like Lenin sent from the Finland Station back to Russia by the Germans in 1917 to foment unrest and lead the insurrection against the Czar, China sees how Trump wreaks havoc among Americans while destroying America's global goodwill.
Why wouldn't China do everything it can to keep their secret weapon in place for another 4 years?
6
I hate to say this but I really hope the president fails on the trade thing and on everything else he does. As it is our country will probably never recover from the damage already done. We are seriously compromised as a super power and you don't just get that back overnight. In my wanting him to fail is my hope that then, maybe even his most ardent supporters will see nothing more than a crazy old real estate sales guy turned pathetic TV character who morphed into a lawbreaking treasonous US president. If they don't like the Democrat running maybe they will skip the next election.
3
Trump could "refinance" the debt with piggy banks. Ask every American to take on part of the Federal debt, a piece of paper from the treasury, that they would put in the piggy bank. And periodically put in their spare change to pay the interest on their share of the debt, collected every quarter.
And the Chinese could make the piggy banks--see, another problem solved. But no pinyadas.
Trump has always been clueless about everything except brand marketing, his own, of course. Even that hasn't gone well for him since he became president. He has lost 3 Trump Hotels, one in Panama City, Panama; one in Toronto and one in NY's Soho. Most of his golf courses are bleeding money. Pretty soon he is going to start taking his presidential salary.
2
It doesn't matter what Donald thinks the problem with Economy is, he is throwing spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks. That is, what excuses stick with his supporters.
The other side of the coin is that whatever he demanded and somehow there is a change in economy, he will immediately take credit for it and hope his supporter are not smart enough to realize it.
This is the classical con man's approach to the problem, and he is counting on not-so-smart supporters, and he knows there are a lot of them out there.
So sad, a super power country such as U.S. has a president like Donald, but we are not alone, Brits have Boris. What a pair of twins.
2
I think business interests, national and international including governments, will bring Trump down, regardless of what voters want. He is starting to hurt the bottom line for many big fish. The powers that be won't stand for that, even if some few powerful interests (Koch f.ex) are benefiting under the Trump regime.
Trump's complete misunderstanding of how the federal debt works should be getting way more attention, but it is getting lost in the usual deluge of idiocy from this president.
5
Trump obviously does not have a clue. He has tried every play in his book and all he gets is more grief. Now he will throw more at the wall hoping something sticks. Nothing will stick because he never knew how to manage or delegate and has learned nothing in his time in Washington but he will go down trying.
2
Trump toolbox.....what’s to be left when things really hit the fan? Stiffing creditors and bankruptcy. Yup, running the country just like his business.
Meanwhile he is openly filling the family coffers by breaking the emoluments clause with his properties.
Thankful I don’t have children to pass along this disastrous legacy to.
While I want him and the Republicans our of Office, it’s grossly unfair that they would then escape dealing with and paying for the disasters they created.
Sadly, the public will not be kind to those who wind up holding the bag and having to clean this horrific mess if we vote these scoundrels out in 2020.
We also have here in Aus a government claiming the economy is just fine while pushing the central bank to cut rates to stimulate the economy. Which is it guys?
And while I'm here why do we expect a system as complicated as the economy to be controllable by only one knob (ie money supply). My toaster has more controls! Obviously governments have to do more. But the "government is the problem" crowd has one trick only; kiss up and kick down, ie tax cuts for the rich and bash welfare recipients. Thus they fulfill their own credo of being the problem.
2
Trump, the serial tax cheat, is blaming the Feds - what a surprise. Trump's only experience in how to get rich is by way of fraud, deception and bankruptcy.
I guess the real "fake news" to come out of all of this is that the Donald does not a have a "good brain", as he claims, and is really just a dull-witted egomaniac with an ill-gotten fortune who throws tantrums when his lies are revealed to be just that - lies.
4
The problem we face in health care is really hard to face. It's akin to facing that your parents are going to die because your salary is not high enough.
If you just work a little harder, your parents will live longer, and you must be the devil if you don't contemplate, value and decide what God has already ordained, in a most reasonable fashion.
Did I post this in the wrong place?
1
“we should then start to refinance our debt,..."
This is all the man knows. Take out debt, refinance the debt- take out more debt and when the business deal isn't "a deal"- file bankruptcy. There is no surprise.
4
Crazy as it sounds, Trump's "thought bubbles" are not completely out of line with orthodox economic dogma. Which, unfortunately, is a major contributor to the mess the world is in.
1