Here's an argument. Experts need to be in leadership positions (for example in administrative agencies) because they are the best at governing us. The very best of the experts can be found in academia. Therefore, decisions by governing bodies in academia should be among the best decisions that we as a society make. Right? Wrong - academic governance is awful.
I would be the first to agree that, if I am going to have my car fixed, I want a good mechanic. The same for surgery. But governance (and social sciences like economics) are more complex. Do we need to understand this complexity with greater precision, or do we need to be able to intervene for some kind of collective action and be able to sense how it will play out?
Arguably the Republican party, the party now of dummies, is better at collective action than Democrats, who seem committed to in-fighting and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I wish we could take that collective discipline from Republicans and put the experts on the left in its service...
1
I’ve worked off and on at Fox News/Business over the last 5 years. I was happy to see this unmitigated fool leave their employ a little while ago. Imagine my surprise to see him seamlessly move to a new job at CNN. He is an economist with little understanding of economics, but apparently a really good ability to suck up to those willing to hire a pathetic partisan hack who would be laughed out of any job requiring actual insight. He’ll fit in perfectly in the Trump administration.
12
Puts me in mind of the statisticians in Stalin’s USSR who announced that the population per the census was lower than the figures announced by Stalin. Off to the gulag with them.
In Trump’s America, the standard used is agreement with him, not professional competence. Anyone smarter than him or who dares speak the truth is a threat, so eventually all his advisors end up being at his intellectual level.
Which those of us from New York have always known to be somewhere between moron and buffoon.
6
Krugman you have been wrong on so many things that I don't believe a word you write.
5
It’s like Caligula’s giving the rank of commander to his horse.
3
"All the best people," right? Anyone tired of winning yet?
2
I offer no brief for Moore, but I would point out, Prof. Krugman, that your professional work as an economist is rather different from your scribbling on politics.
2
We need less of Moore. At least he isn't a math illiterate historian in a position of responsibility.
1
No. 1 Hack is in the White House, surrounded by many hacks..
why would that be a surprise to us?
1
Economists are neither good nor bad, qualified or unqualified, any more than astrologers are. They are lobbyists for their chosen constituency: wall street, the idle rich, the working rich, the middle class, the working poor, the nonworking poor...
There will always be winners and losers no matter what economic policies the government adopts, despite the economists who represent the winners telling us otherwise.
There are no economic theories that make reliable predictions, even though they all can give explanations of the past. Sort of like astrology.
4
@kbaa
That's absurd.
Economics is part of the human sciences because there's a lot of science in it. Astrology is not because there is no science in it. It's as simple as that.
That's why when the non partisan CBO for instance calculates the outcome of a new bill (Obamacare, Recovery Act, ...), in an overwhelming number of times their predictions turn out to be largely right.
Check it out for yourself and you'll see ... ;-)
4
Way back when the Taliban took over Afghanistan, they removed a generation of skilled managers from government and replaced them with people that had great skill in the Koran.
At least they were skilled in that. The anti-governance religion of the Trump Administration seems to be the compelling skill-set for leadership positions.... no actual skill required, just the ability to break things.
9
Yes, the goal is to loot - the 30% "rock-ribbed" Republican base can buy that. "Greed is good", after all.
For the remainder 20% needed to win an election, there has to be a populist appeal. For that portion there must be "populists" and when that's not enough there must be "populist hucksters". The xenophobe slice of the electorate have their Nielsen (populist); the idiots who bought into the debt boom in the Bush years (all of us) have their "professor" Moore who stands prepared at the Fed to bail out Wall St. at the slightest hint of bad weather while scolding the populace for its profligate ways ( if it isn't enough to have right wing radio do the job through a personage like Dave Ramsey who seemed to be omnipresent in the post Bush global financial meltdown.)
The latter group of demagogues would qualify as candidates for the post of Regent or Emeritus Professor of Trump University.
1
"Ross’s department has reportedly prepared a report declaring that imports of European cars threaten U.S. national security."
I'm really disappointed that Krugman doesn't seethat this is Trump pandering to unions to get votes in 2020, in this case the Operating Engineers and Construction Trades. Think how many jobs will be created building a wall along the entire Atlantic Seabord.
To a large extent Trump's picks indicate an impressive ability to maintain his position of looking good (at least to those to whom he looks good) by being "the smart one in the dumb row."
2
@Steve Fankuchen I think you are right but I doubt Krugman does not see it - there are only so many inches allowed in a column and it is probably hard to edit down the anti-American things Trump does to just one theme each week. Ross is part of the kakistocracy/hackistocracy which this column is about.
4
@Steve Fankuchen
What makes you believe that a Trump trade war against Germany would be any different than his trade war against China?
In other words, what makes you believe that the US economy and jobs would NOT be hurt by such a new trade war?
The reason why unions reject his trade wars is precisely because they hurt American workers so much ...
3
@Ana Luisa
Ana, thank you for reading it and replying. My comment was meant to be humorously sarcastic. I am sorry if it did not come off as I intended.
2
Moore has been widely reported to be a very poor candidate for the Federal Reserve. One can only assume that Trump believes that he can control Moore. Otherwise, why nominate such a poor candidate for the position?
49
Nice going professor. I don’t always agree with you, but in this case you nailed it: Moore is less than qualified. With regards to the GOP, the cultivation of ignorance suits their aim of an undissenting world view. It’s instilled in most levels of their ‘education standards, as well the Liberty U’s. Unfortunately it’s just another case if humans defaulting to their self identified ‘tribe,’ when threatened, even when they control many of the levers of power. Fortunately for us all, eventually demography is destiny.
1
Condolences for your loss.
4
“There is no sin quite as offensive as challenging conventional wisdom early, and then being proved right.”
You are part of the problem Krugman
1
@hawk “However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing."
I love it when Krugman tries a take down based upon flawed predictions....
"By 2005, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s” - Paul Krugman
“There’s really no question about Trump/Putin collusion.” -Paul Krugman
"It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover? A first-pass answer is never… So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight." - Paul Krugman
5
@Mike, so has Trump or Rush or Sean or Fox News made any wrong predictions? My favorite remains Kansas where taxes were cut to the bone and there was a promise of an "economic miracle." How did that work out?
6
@EDH Ironically, Krugman wrote the quoted line in an article for Red Herring magazine called, “Why Most Economists’ Predictions Are Wrong.” He also did not deny the mistake or tell people he never wrote that. When Snopes asked him about it he responded, "I must have tossed it off quickly (at the time I was mainly focused on the Asian financial crisis!), then later conflated it in my memory with the NYT piece. Anyway, I was clearly trying to be provocative, and got it wrong, which happens to all of us sometimes."
1
@Mike No one is perfect including Krugman. The difference is, he loudly admits it and tries to learn from it.
2
Incompetent administration is the point. The goal is to loot. Competent governance hinders that.
12
It’s a good thing Al Capone is dead, because he’d be an excellent choice for Attorney General or Treasury Secretary.
7
The explanation is even simpler than anyone imagines. Trump literally cannot tell the difference between truth and fiction, between competence and utter ignorance.
4
Mr Krugman has been a valuable contributor to the national conversation during this century. That said, this sort of name-calling is beneath him.
3
@Mike Murray MD, name calling is perfectly justified in the case of calling out someone who will be in a position to directly affect the day to day economic lives of everyone in this country. If anything, Dr. Krugman is probably pulling his punches on this guy.
1
Hacks and grifters. Leaders tend to hire in their own image.
What else would you expect?
10
There is money to be made in Republican circles for any "expert" willing to repudiate reality. The core purpose of the Republican Party is to funnel more money to the rich, and a tremendous amount of dissembling is required to disguise that fact. To achieve this, Republicans have bought their own cable news network, they have harnessed previously credible conservative think tanks to spout nonsense in support of pre-ordained policies, and now they are in the process of buying research from universities. It only takes a single "expert" analysis, cycled endlessly through the right wing blogosphere so that many sources can be cited even though they are all traceable to that one original piece, to create the impression of a preponderance of evidence in minds conditioned to believe.
6
"Ross’s department has reportedly prepared a report declaring that imports of European cars threaten U.S. national security."
I'm really disappointed that Krugman doesn't see this is merely Trump pandering to unions, in this case the Operating Engineers and Construction Trades, to get votes in 2020. Think how many jobs will be created building a wall along the entire Atlantic Seabord.
1
It should come as no surprise that the Trump maladministration is populated with hacks (to the extent that their positions are filled at all). With the Trump brain and his long experience in fleecing the foolish, there is really no one else required to MAGA than a coterie of sycophants to carry out the great man's whims. The outcome will be the same as it has been in his past. Did he really say he would eliminate the national debt by declaring bankruptcy and getting America's creditors to settle for twenty cents on the dollar? I wouldn't be surprised.
7
If you hate the very idea of government, it is reasonable for you to turn the work of government over to the most inept or even maleficent people. Not unlike hiring a symphony conductor who hates music or a fire chief who is a pyromaniac.
14
To a large extent Trump's picks indicate an uncanny ability to maintain his position of looking good (at least to those to whom he looks good) by being "the smart one in the dumb row."
5
I agree, but I must ask how or why do the Republican establishment and Republican voters continue to see competence amidst such incompetence? To quote Juvenal: "Who's guarding the guardians?" It's as if a civil war on sanity, common sense, and common decency is taking place in this country.
7
@Steve
Quite right, though I think of it more as an uprising, with Trump as the Spartacus of Stupid.
1
good article. Thank you.
10
I keep thinking about the next recession...10 years of reasonable growth with low interest rates will eventually come to an end. The debt cannot grow forever and money has to move through the economy to service debt--govt and private, i.e., Corporate debt is twice what is was back in 2008.
Moore may be clueless, but it won't matter who is appointed to the Fed if defaults start hitting the world economy.
5
@glennmr: The panic of 2008 demonstrated that debt is easily monetized by the Federal Reserve Bank, when it buys federal debt instruments from banks in exchange for electronic credits. So, why worry?
@Steve Bolger
Past performance is no guarantee of future results...
My point is that there has to be an underlying economic base producing goods and keeping money flowing through people's lives to recover from a depression....I just happen to think that the tools to recover have been strained to limits that monetary policy cannot fix. Maybe not the next recession, but one within a couple decades.
1
There is a general groundswell of mediocrity in the US in this century. I can point to the vast wasteland that was Television programming and is now in every corner of the Internet x 10. I can point to how people think their own ideas are equivalent to expert understanding in Medicine, Science, and Education. Of course there is mediocrity VS expertise in Public Policy on every issue. I don't think it's a Republican phenom per se, but it sure is well represented by them.
Take that to the bank and how do we earn proper interest to understand the world better? It takes work. I am most grateful to Dr Krugman for taking his swings. But he's PhD when the country needs more elementary. The backlash against expertise is party platform to people who are not equipped to understand the world in any way. Let's make a way.
54
@larkspur: One can fit complex ideas into twitter-length essays, but it makes heavy demands on reader's vocabularies.
4
As Steve Bannon candidly admitted, the purpose of the Trump administration was the deconstruction of the administrative state. You are watching it happen before your eyes, and are presently feel helpless to stop it.
Whether in future, Democrats will be able to regain enough control over the Congress and the White House to begin to repair some of the damage remains an open question.
37
@Jack Shultz What is their end game? I seriously do not understand Republicans. We breathe the same air, drink the same water and eat the same food but they seem hell bent on destroying everything. Their followers vote against their own interests. It's bizarre.
11
The present regime is what decaying capitalism spits as spins towards collapse. Additionally, since at least 2003 the US empire is on the well worn road taken by the previous 69 historical empires,all ended in collapse!
10
@Science rules
Indeed. Americans seem to think that this democracy is on autopilot, that we have created a perfect union that can survive all abuse. Just like a company or a family, a nation needs to be ever vigilant as all entities do in fact end.
I was hoping our run could be long and inspirational to those who followed. But maybe we are just another historical flash in the pan.
We have traded education, excellence and effort for the ease of fakery, falsehoods and flippancy.
6
Share Mr. Krugman's misgivings about the impact of Republican fecklessness either filling management positions with fools and knaves, or simply not filling them at all on the net quality of the civil service. We've been blessed by generations of professionals taking their places in the nation's administrative apparatus, observing the disciplines and training they've pursued with diligence. Now we're having those folks punished or ignored by this weird need of Republicans to end "Big Government" by either starving it or deconstructing the "ugly" bureaucracy which all they see when they observe the work of government actually being done responsibly. This is something we should all be very afraid of. It's perverse and stupid. It's what you get when you allow really stupid people access to the reins of government.
14
God Save the Bureaucracy!
2
The use of factually useless Apparatchiks is a key part of the right wing playbook, as you've written. many times. Moore possessing a worse track record than most is just a big yawn. And the beat goes on.
8
In the late Austrian empire, pre WWI, referred to itself as kaiserlich und königlich, imperiall and royal. which was abbreviated to KuK.
A common joke at the time was that many Austrians referred to Austria, with all its corrupt government, as kakania i.e. shitland.
It seems that Trump, is trying to imitate the pre-WWI Austrian model.
My source is the late philosopher Steven Toulmin's wonderful book [written with Alan Janik"Wittgenstein's Vienna". [1999]
10
Krugman the fake economist is at it once again—with an ad-hominem attack on yet another Trump official.
It’s almost humorous—that the economist who predicted on the eve of Trump’s victory, the stock market would “crash and never recover”, has the audacity to think his theories are relevant.
After all, Krugman is the guy who;
—rises each day to preach the primacy of Socialism over Capitalism—when the results are historically obvious to anyone.
—urged the Japanese to stimulate their economy for 2 decades—leading to national debt double ours, and 2 “Lost Decades”.
—urged us for several years to give Obama’s $900 billion stimulus “more time to work”. And when it didn’t, even Obama famously had to admit, “”those shovel-ready jobs weren’t as shovel-ready as we thought”. Yet Krugman has urged no such time for Trump’s tax cut plan to fully kick in—and can’t even bring himself to acknowledge the economy is roaring because of it. He somehow ignores record low unemployment, the return of manufacturing jobs, economic and wage growth above 3% and the soaring stock market. Remember election night, Mr Krugman?
And let’s not forget Krugman’s “Lib-splaining” of Obama’s record on our national debt. “Don’t worry”, he said, we print our own currency, and as long as we don’t see inflation—we can borrow, spend and print forever. Those who disagreed, he labeled “Debt Scolds”. Well...there’s still no inflation, so who’s the Debt Scold now?
Yet he criticizes Stephen Moore?
9
@Jesse The Conservative
Conservatives always leave out the ballooning trade deficit and the ballooning fiscal deficit and debt. Also, when trump took office, the unemployment rate was 4.8 % and trending down--so the Obama plans worked and continued with lower deficits as the economy grew.
When the short term effect of the tax cut regresses to the mean, and it seems it already has, the deficits will balloon more and there will be no ability to provide any fiscal stimulus--if Trump continues his trade wars, it will exasperate the problems--the next recession will be a whopper and the GOP does not care at all.
16
@Jesse The Conservative Here's the GDP rates by President: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-08-01/ranking-presidents-economic-records-by-gdp-growth
@Jesse The Conservative Here's the GDP rates by President: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-08-01/ranking-presidents-economic-records-by-gdp-growth
Also this one showing Obama had several quarters where GDP was higher than Trumps - https://www.statista.com/statistics/188185/percent-chance-from-preceding-period-in-real-gdp-in-the-us/
Having had the distinct displeasure of seeing and listening to Stephen Moore's "my voice is louder than yours" ranting on CNN, I find new fodder for depressed outrage just when it seemed as though my outrage tank was running on empty.
But here we are, with miles to go before we sleep -- or self-destruct, knowing now that Robert Mueller's fire hose is pumping kerosene. Somewhere Ray Bradbury is smiling.
9
@John LeBaron
And George Orwell is laughing his head off. It is "1984" isn't it?
I’m old, and will die soon, and I won’t have to continue watching Trump and the Republicans destroy my nation and my world.
That is the thought that gives me comfort. Along with with my pipe full of legal pot.
Though the thought of just being in the crowd that burns down the White House when we just can’t take it anymore almost motivates me to get another cup of tea.
Bring on the revolution!
15
If Moore were to become a board member, the energy produced by the eye rolling and polite coughing caused by his ignorant rhetoric would be enough to power a small city.
8
Dear Mr. Krugman.
Sorry, but it takes a true genius to recognize another genius.
Love, DT (pointing at own head)
5
"Even now — as I can attest from personal interactions — a great majority of those working for the Treasury Department, the State Department and so on are competent, hard-working people trying to do the best they can for their country."
You can attest - that's supposed to mean something?
3
@Jp Seems pretty clear to me. A Nobel laureate in economics says the people he deals with at Treasury "are competent, hard-working people." If you're trying to imply that his word is suspect, then say so. And then back it up.
22
@Jp
He affirms it is true. What an odd comment. You either don't know the word or you are claiming that Dr. K's attestation is worthless to you.
5
@Jp
The onus is on you, the accuser, to back up your claims not on K to defend his.
I rather doubt that Trump knows this guy from a groundskeeper, so who within the GOP is behind this nomination? All that anybody had to tell Trump is that this guy will do his best to make the administration look successful.
8
@maggie 125 I think he probably would since most of his laborers are brown.
1
Regarding Trump's latest pick from "the bottom of the barrel", it is clear that the "president's" behavior, at every turn, is reflective of a long-held tenet in the field of psychology and human behavior.
When, at the core, an individual feels himself to be less than genuinely competent...less than genuinely worthy...despite an outward presentation which appears to be exactly opposite to those personality characteristics, that person will often strive to elevate his sense of self by A.) surrounding himself with "inferiors" (see Trump's entire administration and circle of minions), and B.) engaging in bullying/belittling anyone with whom he can get away with such repugnant behavior.
Rather than having had faux-copies of Time Magazine fabricated, with his countenance on the cover, issues of "Personality Disorder Digest" would have been much more appropriate.
29
No "inferiors" in the Trump administration. The whole sorry lot operates on a level plane of incompetence, venality, greed and corruption.
5
we have just the government the populous - or at least, the voters our unbalanced system most values - seems to want: reactionary, incompetent, and withering away, especially in categories that pertain to economic fairness or the well-being of individuals.
9
Both Presidents Clinton and Obama appointed Wall Street lobbyists (e.g. Larry Summers) and CEOs (e.g. Bob Rubin) to positions of enormous economic influence, and the damage they did to the American economy and society as a whole dwarf any the Trump administration has achieved so far.
4
@kbaa: but yet somehow the crashed economy that Obama inherited was turned around under his tenure. I believe Clinton's tenure ended with a solid economy as well.
27
@kbaa
Really? Cite examples, please. The actual facts don't bear that out. Under Clinton, the economy roared, and under Obama, the economy got dragged out of the ditch that Bush junior put it in.
12
@kbaa: Also - I don't understand your claim that both Obama and Clinton did "damage" to the American economy and society. They both left office with a strong economy and stock market; Obama gave us health care and regulations to protect us and our environment (to cite but a few from his tenure). Please tell me what I'm missing.
12
I agree that the Trump government is a kakistocracy, but that does not mean government by the worst. I'm pretty sure you know what it means, so why don't you say it?
4
@Cassandra
Kakistocracy
noun, plural kak·is·toc·ra·cies.
1. Government by the worst persons; a form of government in which the worst persons are in power.
Maybe I just didn't get your meaning. Was there some other point you were trying to make?
2
@Cassandra No need: we get it.
Trump's staffing of political hacks into powerful government agencies will eventually result in a dysfunctional government. The Trump/GOP tax cut for the rich and powerful will create another financial collapse like 2008 ,deregulating will hurt the poor and middle class allowing corporations/financial institutions to run roughshod over consumers. Favoring fossil fuel interests and allowing polluters to run amok in the interest of profits will create health hazards for Americans and will earn the contempt of the world for our lack of concern about climate change.
12
"It goes almost without saying that he has been wrong about everything. ..... And, of course, never an acknowledgment of error or reflection on why he got it wrong ..... Beyond that, Moore has a problem with facts."
Why should anyone be surprised that Mr. Trump likes him? He is simply Mr. Trump's reflection in the mirror.
15
Although we should be shocked that Trump wants Moore on Fed’s Board of Governors, we also should not be surprised, and we can likely expect more appointments of incompetents in various positions, unfortunately.
How do we know that we can expect more of the same? Trump's past modus operandi and his disregard for doing the right thing for ALL the American people, as recently came to light in his new war on the ACA.
You are certainly right in referencing the Republican Party as the "a party of apparatchiks." We can expect no pushback from them when Trump appoints incompetents now or in the future. Used to think that there were only apparatchiks in Russia, toadies that always bowed to the wishes of Putin, Trump's buddy, and his predecessors, but was obviously wrong about that.
10
@Robert Stewart the only upside is Trumps's incredible fecklessness and inertia. This is a guy who "works" at most two hours a day. That's the good news, that and the fact that so many positions remain unfilled--covered by veteran staffers, who keep their heads down and hope they can "hang in there" for another 18 months or so.
1
It's human history in the making all over again. Sinking so low as to wake up the mass to steer the ship into the right direction. I would like to tell my american friends that your foundation is strong (as oppose to my parliamentary system) and with time and some hardship, you will again show the way to the rest of the world. Nov 2020 is not far!
9
Republican politicians and their donors probably like Moore because he say tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations are good.
12
Anyone who supported the disaster that was/is Kansas under our current ‘religious ambassador’ Brownback, has no business running the Fed. The complete disintegration of a once strong economy and school system should be a lesson in what not to do with economic policies, but the GOP, and the president in particular, do not heed reality in the quest for total control.
20
@Jsbliv Exactly!!! Lets ask a Kansan how that went!
It's beginning to look like Attorney General Barr will soon join the list of Trump enablers who have dragged at least one wacko political opinion into a government position of authority which is meant to be non-political. Moore spews his nonsense under the cover of an economic rubric which has been proven, PROVEN, to run counter to the laws of economics, i.e., economic rationality; Barr's far more dangerous actions are couched in an absurd legal interpretation which, in the end and given his newfound authority, places the president above the law.
17
I love all this word play on "...ocracies." Of course the Greeks would have a word that is the opposite of "aristo" for the best...and now Professor Krugman invents hackistoscray for the rule by the "ignorant."
But I think we need to invent a word that goes to the core of what the Professor is really talking about...and it's a word that suggests "trickery," "deception," "dissembling" and flat out making false and illogical arguments because the people running our country are not ignorant nor are they the worst (well maybe they are that), but if we settle for them being the "worst" then we miss the important point that we have been hoodwinked. And continue to be tricked into accepting policies that are not what they are claimed to be.
Really, we are talking about a fallacracy (or fallocracy sp?); a rule by deceivers, tricksters, a class of Orwellian operators that use the lie to claim the truth.
13
I am completely baffled by all the respect accorded in the US to the notion that it is worthwhile to adhere to beliefs that defy proof and disproof.
12
Ego, power, money.
see: religion. what many, especially on the right, most highly value is blind acceptance, on faith and out of habit, of that which makes no sense on its face, and cannot be tested, proven, or examined in any way. the best than can be said about it is that you already believe it. once you bite that side of the mushroom, you will happily swallow anything. couple that with a reward system that values the shortest term thinking and you have a recipe for disaster, but with quarterly bonuses.
1
@Pottree
Personally, I would define that as "religiosity"which, to my mind, corrupts the true impulses of humanity towards a transcendent experience of reality to that which you have so accurately defined.
Another key element in this rush to the bottom is that Republicans, as former George W. Bush speechwriter David Jeffrey Frum concluded, simply do not like democracy. They spout the word when it sounds good but dislike the messy business of debate and compromise. The GOP's relentless efforts to suppress voting support that observation. This is not about democracy and good governance, but about minority power over an ever-increasing, ever more diverse and progressive populace.
25
Every Trump cabinet appointee was placed there as a political maneuver to make the federal bureaucracy as incompetent as possible and to make it easier for unscrupulous toadys to loot as much as possible. We have two years of success and more coming thanks to this administration.
15
Long after the fires die down, the flood waters recede, the winds abate, climate change reversed and terrorism vanished, people will still be talking about the most terrible disaster the United States of America ever experienced:
Donald J Trump
21
You may be overthinking this. Trump picks people he sees on TV who say nice things about him. Nothing more to it.
26
President Trump's "worst cabinet member" I thought was Scott Pruitt.
Since Stephen Moore's voice would be diluted by other sensible board members, if Moore indeed becomes a Federal Reserve Board member, it need not be all that bad.
2
"We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training."
--Archilochus
4
I can’t imagine how Krugman ever got a Nobel Prize. I figure the none of the Nobel committee members ever read his columns. I have no need to read them anymore, since I know from the opening sentence what they are going to tell me. Nonsense.
4
@Joe Gagen The demonstrable conclusion that Moore gets virtually everything wrong is not nonsense. It is a fact. I know you don't like facts, but they don't go away.
5
@Joe Gagen
Read, or don't read, what you like, but Krugman's Nobel Prize was based on his research on global trade, not his op-ed columns.
See https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/paul-krugman-wins-economics-nobel/
4
@Joe Gagen,
Not to speak out of school but what makes you an expert on economics? I am an engineer and an expert in my field. I am a dilettante in economics. Perhaps you should pay attention to Fox News as they will continue to whisper sweet nothings in your ear instead of hard truths.
5
Words or deeds? Words are weeds. Some of you please act by deeds. Fly like eagles. Together we can be lions. Or we can chatter in the weeds.
Another trump hack? At least he won't have to worry about keeping up intellectually with the others.
4
When you have a narcissistic personality disorder, you believe that you are special, unique, and the only person that can get the job done. Having a few compliant dumbies around provides comfortable reinforcement of your belief.
14
"Why do hacks rule on the right?" I posit it's because Vichy Republicans will take whoever is in their theological camp so that they can continue their seeming enjoyment of inflicting a harsh cruelty on others, the upward shift of wealth to the detriment of the peasants, and the disenfranchisement of the masses while consolidating limitless power for themselves. I truly believe they're collective group of psychopaths.
22
@Sara G.
Sounds like the current Democrat President wanna bees to me.
You pretty much knew where this was going after they replaced Al Muniz with Rick “What’s The Name of My Agency, Again?” Perry.
15
The clown car rides on. Trump's "very best people" will go down in history as the greatest collection of morons, buffoons, snake oil salesmen, charlatans and preachers of the trickle-down prosperity hoax. Overseas stock markets have already decided we're heading for a recession while Trump's economic bozos have their heads in the sand.
13
To feed the immense ego of the Buffoon in Chief why not add Trumpistocracy as a synonym for kakistocracy? It would completely cover his love of seeing his name in lights while attaching his ineptitude directly to his name. All of his unimpressive children can also enjoy it as we have many more years to deal with them. Unless the Southern Disctrict U.S. Attorneys Office gets them properly outfitted in orange jumpsuits.
8
Moore requires Senate approval. Lets hope at a few Republicans decline to approve him because they are Americans first & Republicans second.
7
That might be too much of a stretch for them.
4
@Bob in Pennsyltucky
Americans first? Good luck with that.
2
Seems like all this stems from Murdoch. Without the WSJ and Fox, these people would have no oxygen. Their illgetimacy is astounding.
16
Another depressing factual article about the present thru the lens of the Trump administration. I would like to know more about Alan Krueger and his points v-a-v the latest hackster nominated by Trump for the Federal Reserve. It is disgraceful and I suppose one can feel better about the lack of legal contraints as put out by the Mueller Report and the Barr interpretation by knowing that it is all rather bad.
4
A timely reminder that facts don't matter for Trump Appointees and that incompetence is equated with virtue in Trump's world of alternate truths. In the end Trump will ruin the economy and make nearly all Americans worse off - with the exception, perhaps, of the top 0.1% who will live well no matter what. Voters need to keep this in mind.
2
excellent, paul. the partisan right enjoys villifying any policy that obama endorsed. even as the 2008-2009 economy was shedding jobs at 700, 000 to 800,000 per month, they decried his economic stimulus. why? because they hated everything that obama was. they hated his skin color, his youth, his articulate acumen, and most significant, his intellect. how could an african american be elected to our highest office? now, sadly, we have an occupant in the white house with zero knowledge, or even more disappointing, zero inclination to work to learn how to effectively govern to enhance our collective well being. all policies trump advocates are quick fix, sugar highs, that can be summed up in a sentence, so not to confuse his attention deficit disordered base. we are living in a time of the 'empire of the senseless'. 'party on barth' is the mentality that accurately sums up this group of cretins that are / is the gop, and their fox media propogandists.
11
Paul Krugman writes, "Many people have described the Trump administration as a kakistocracy — rule by the worst — which it is. But it’s also a hackistocracy — rule by the ignorant and incompetent. And in this Trump is just following standard G.O.P. practice."
If Krugman is stating a true view of Republicans, not merely playing partisan politics, what does that tell us about democracy, which produced 19 Republican presidents who then appointed 56 SCOTUS judges, including Gorsuch and Kavanaugh?
In addition to their kakistocracy or hackistocracy, when we consider the millions of innocent people annihilated by their blood-thirsty government, how can an ethical person consent to it?
What rational assurance do we have that the Republicans won't take power ever again, then give us more rulers such as McConnell, Trump, Bush or Kavanaugh; that it will be politically disinfected, rescinding all their actions and laws?
We must never again allow oppressive, illegitimate and evil government.
13
@Terry M Give the rule of the government back to the people, one person, one vote. Get big money out of politics by offering an option to take only small donations from real people and matching funds sufficient to mount a competitive campaign for a bona fide candidate. Demand full transparency of the sources of all contributions that seek to influence politics. Close the revolving lobbyist door.
Rule by the wealthy, powerful and apparently stupid doesn't work.
3
The present occupant of the White House is simply world's best example of The Peter Principle in action. What's that? He doesn't know what that means? That's part of the problem!
8
I have a GOP-loving partisan friend who is just the type to laud someone like Moore (or Wilbur Ross, John Bolton, etc.) by repeating tidbits about them she saw someone else post online--without having any actual facts about their expertise or any knowledge of the topic whatsoever. Some people are all party, no principle, no knowledge. Everything they do to support Trump is of the knee-jerk variety. They're told to salute and they do.
6
The preference for giving power to incompetent people is closely related to what passes for education around here. The eroding of educational standards and the hatred of well-educated people helps loosen the grasp the people have on governing. Without understanding the function of the Treasury the Great Fleecing is so much easier. As the racist white "Christians" become more separatist by creating "schools and colleges" to shelter propagandized classes and books we will see the GOP appointees get worse. Therefore, expect more conniving shills whose brilliant behavior will be filtered to the masses by such as truth challenged Sara Sanders from Ouachita Baptist "University."
12
"And the people in charge of dealing with those disasters will be the worst of the worst."
I worry about the coming day when "you're doing a heckuva job, Brownie" becomes passé.
6
I don't get it. Why do Republicans hate democratic institutions and do anything to prevent government from doing their job of serving it's citizens. They seem to be willing to do anything to keep in power and are oblivious to the damage done to democratic institutions. Blindly allowing the Trump administration to prove that government is bad and inefficient by allowing the most incompetent group of cabinet officials and administrators in American history to decimate the work of dedicated government workers. I am a retired government employ with 25 years of government service, and I am ashamed of this administration. Republicans "WAKE UP"! The United States I served as a veteran in Vietnam is going down the drain. Bring the Republican Party back to the mainstream of American democracy. Return to the party of Reagan and Eisenhower and stop this mad decent into autocracy.
4
Sorry, but you can trace some of this kleptocracy back to Reagan.
2
"Why do hacks rule on the right?"
Hacks always rule in authoritarian regimes, Right or Left, although one could argue that authoritarian regimes, regardless of ideological trappings are universally right-wing, for a simple reason - reality-based experts are politically unreliable.
The hackistocracy is a group of mediocrities who wouldn't have anything like their current status in a competitive system, so they tell those with the power what they want to hear, real world be damned.
6
The article reminds me of my experiences in college. I got out of the service in '69 and went back to college at CCNY's School of Engineering. As graduation approached in '71 there was this program that was passed down from the brilliant people up in Albany....OPEN ENROLLMENT.....now I think that everyone should be given a shot at education - maybe not free, but almost (there was a tuition at all State/City schools, but it was nominal), but I don't think that college level courses should be given to people who aren't prepared to take them. It just doesn't work.
But this was far worse than simply having students in the engineering school who weren't prepared for the coursework. The new rules were that you COULDN'T GIVE A D OR F TO ANY STUDENT UNTIL THEY WERE JUNIORS. I know this is going to sound snobbish, but that's ok with me if your decree is in the arts. But to let someone get passed calculus, physics, structural and all the other engineering courses without accepting the fact that they shouldn't "be here".....well....it was too much for many of the professors to accept....and so some of the best engineering teachers, left for other schools.....only a matter of time for good people to walk out on morons like Kudlow and Moore....of course that's just my opinion....and thanks Dr. Krugman for my vocabulary lesson - "kakistocracy."
10
@Larry Beck
I agree: Everybody should get a shot at post-secondary education but not a free pass.
To get into the top state universities, you still need grades, scores, accomplishments. To get into community college, you usually need a GED and a few bucks for the nominal tuition; basically open enrollment; and that's not a bad idea for CCNY and similar (i.e. municipal) institutions.
But getting in doesn't mean getting a passing grade. I never heard of this "No D or F" rule before, but it's not OK in the arts or social sciences, either.
1
At this point, I basically expect competence from Democrats when appointing officials and a lack thereof from Republicans. I really wish that I could trust Republicans to appoint solid civil servants, but their track record hasn't been very good. I delight in those uncommon circumstances of Republican competence because it is so novel to me.
I do have a tangent I must address: While I very much appreciate the author's perspective, I am not sure I can continue to categorize the US as a peaceful country. We are consistently sending our troops to fight in various places, sometimes on very flimsy pretexts. Many people from different walks of life feel threatened or even terrorized by police and local government. We have a very high rate of homicide, suicide, violence and imprisonment compared to most other informationalized countries.
Yes, we've gotten less violent over time, and there is more sunlight, but we stand in very stark contrast to other countries responding to violence. They take steps to prevent recurrence of dangerous events.
For the most part, we just give "thoughts and prayers" to the humans and otherwise effectively say, "Well, guns will be guns."
12
Make no mistake. We are a militaristic nation.
4
is the selection of william barr as attorney general an example of "hackistocracy"? we do know that his pre-appointment writing about "obstruction of justice" bears little relationship to the case law and presumably was an audition for his appointment.
let's hope journalists suspend disbelief for a few months and continue asking, daily, for the release of mueller's full report. let's also hope mueller responds to an expected congressional subpoena and testifies fully.
5
lots of us disagree with AG Barr's monarchic opinions, but he is clearly much better qualified than the rest of Trump's appointees - in fact, in a class of his own. so what's the lowest common denominator that got him the gig? loyalty as a willing vassal. in that regard, he is not much superior to any other of Trump's sycophants, Rick Perry included.
3
Top salespeople make more than anyone else outside the executive suite in big corporations, because demand is almost always harder to create than supply.
1
Let me make a good faith retort: Krugman is far too wedded to the existing monetary policy (and how it is made) to understand the appeal of a Fed skeptic like Moore.
Very few NYT readers would agree that the Fed’s actions since Volker have been long-term successes.
In fact, it’s because the Keynesians totally dominate Econ departments that competing ideas, MMT (an AOC platform) and the “audit the fed” Ron Paul diatribes, come from the fringes.
Moore is a supply-slider but not like the UChicago folks; he thinks that Fed policy is irrelevant rather than dangerous.
Capital will flow to the most POTENTIALLY productive no matter what the Fed does. There’s a reason QE didn’t save GM - it went to the unicorn tech wizards who promised 100x ROI, not the 4% dividends of boring industries.
Even if Bernie wins, Fed policy will simply readjust where banks and PE park their investments. Maybe less dramatic policy can encourage more sustainable (in its original definition) investment.
2
@Arturo
Why no response to Krugman"s factual claims of the incompetence of Moore and the specific instances of Moore being consistently wrong and consistently relying on incorrect facts?
Merely a vague defense of supply side side economics.
31
@Arturo He was not discussing Fed policy changes that would ensue if Moore were to be placed on the board. He is noting that this administration has placed completely incompetent people in the roles of leadership and decision makers. You need to watch a program on HBO. Done by Vice. It's called Panic. Please look up the piece. Education is important.
5
Simple. That’s all he’s got, and all Moore’s got.
Not to mention that five seconds of watching Moore talk will tell any competent adult that he’s a fool. All you need to add to get the sitch is the understanding that Trump wants weak people who’ll do what he tells them to do, no matter how nuts.
7
The problem we face on what to do next to stop Trump depends on the definition of executive privilege and how it applies to a President. Firing people he appointed cause they have not supported him, talking to leaders of autocratic countries about our politics, and making intimidating statements at political rallies against people he doesn't like are probably considered Presidential privilege. The only option left is to beat him at the ballot box, assuming there is an election that is not rigged in his favor.
10
The external forces that have seeming squeezed the very worst of the western world out of their dark corners and into power - overwhelming the inadequate political systems that were based on a more understandable world that used to be - are world over-population, (consequent) climate change, and the mass migration caused by both.
7
What Krugman seems to be implying, without quite saying it, is that ideological commitment is stronger than partisan group loyalty. You can be loyal to a group without being on board with the group's ideology.
For ideologues, that's cold comfort. Loyalists are odd birds who don't quite fit in. They don't wear the same rose colored glasses, and sometimes forget to suppress their perception that the group's kings aren't wearing clothes.
In short, when a group's membership passes a tipping point where ideologues outnumber cogent inquirers, the group nominates hacks. They're safer for the core group's self image. We used to call it capture by those who self-censure.
6
If Trump gives positions to people who merit them, then those people can be independent. If he gives positions to people who do not (and who know they do not) merit them, then they are beholden to him. I believe this one-sided loyalty is the primary requirement for being part of the Trump Administration.
40
Well Paul, you are right that Obama's policies didn't lead to runaway inflation. They barely lead to growth of any kind. How could there have been inflation of any kind under his (Obama's) regime?
1
@Norm
1. It's the exact same growth we're having today, remember?
2. It's not Krugman but GOP economists who constantly claimed that there would be inflation - just because in their imagination, as soon as you invest taxpayer dollars in the American people rather than in the wealthiest citizens, then somehow that will lead to inflation ...
39
@Norm
Add into that fact that the republicans fought Obama at every turn to ensure that his policies had minimal effect, while promoting their own agendas which resulted in the near total crash of ‘08.
12
@Norm Obama saved us from runaway inflation. And Trump benefited from it. Yet Trump also has increased our deficit by trillions. Until the next slump? IT happened whenever a republican president is at his last term. Just before he leaves the burden of getting it straight is on the one after him. So don't blame Obama. Blame the wan-a-be dictator in the white house in a few years you will see the fruit of his rotten labor.
6
This is one more article telling us how everything is falling apart. I guess the people who run the world have enough money for themselves and can afford to be wrong about everything. People without enough for themselves just don't count for anything. They
are the statistics we talk about and nothing more. That used to be a cliche but it's so true now that to even notice it doesn't matter.
3
@Robert McKee
Those who have been "left behind" have every reason to be angry. But history is full of people, who have been denied the opportunities that should be available to them, then strike out and support a cause or demagogue who takes advantage of them, further harming their lives.
Take a country somewhat in the news today, Iran, whose people were oppressed by Shah Reza Pahlavi. Their rage led them to support a religious cleric, the Ayatollah Khomeini, who turned a monarchy into a theocracy. Many might say that there was not that much difference, except the names of the oppressors.
That is why the American Revolution was such an exception: a revolution that did not just lead to a new form of oppression, but to a form of liberty where the citizens could choose their government, not just submit to it.
But that takes a well-educated citizenry, where the people take time to think about how their government came to be the way it is. What Professor Krugman is trying to tell us all is that it is the Republican Party that has come to so desire power (to cut taxes for their paying benefactors) that they use focus-group tested slogans about "freedom," "small government" and "low taxes" to keep the government off the backs of the most wealthy, while actually also ensuring that the rest of the populace does not have the money necessary to really enjoy any freedom that they might have.
I hope you will reexamine the assumptions that you have adopted which support your beliefs.
18
@DonB So are you saying that the people who have no say so asked for it?
1
@DonB: Theocracy is the worst of all forms of government. It empowers people who claim to know what God thinks, and I've never seen anyone do that who wasn't just projecting themselves.
4
The reason hacks rule on the right is that Republicans do not believe in Government or Government service or actually doing good for anyone but themselves. That is Republicans view Government service thru a cynical lens as they do not really believe in Government or doing good for someone else and therefore are only in Government as a means of enriching themselves. Think Ann Ryan.
31
I do hope that those working for the Treasury and State Department etc. and who are competent, will have the strength and moral courage to sit this out, as within two years everything might be better again.
I've seen top-down corrosion at work in my own university. Highly competent professors in philosophy started to pick highly incompetent people to follow them up when they retired. Those people then start forming an entire generation of students who don't have any idea about what philosophy is anymore. And then those researchers who still are competent and see this all happen, start to feel so isolated at work that they either get a burnout or depression, or decide to leave.
What triggers such corrosive process?
Imho, it happens each time when highly competent people start to ignore WHAT it is that made them so competent, and then don't transmit this when picking other people anymore. Often there's some intermediary phase, where they start to loose interest in their own field of expertise, and jump to another one, where by definition they are less competent.
Plato himself already warned about this: philosophy will always have to invent ways to fight back against anti-philosophy periods in history.
The same clearly goes for democracy.
What the GOP leadership has given up is the belief that democracy is a means to get to a better future. You need competent people to make a democracy function. So now they need propagandists. Even though that implies sacrificing science
15
@Ana Luisa I witnessed a horrible top down situation at an embassy in the Balkans for two years in the 90's. The ambassador was a self serving tyrant and the whole place suffered horribly. It was right before the tech bubble burst and we were bleeding every level up to section heads to the private sector. Our next ambassador was one of the best I've met, but many of us were soured on the place and just waiting to rotate out.
5
I should really stop reading the Times every morning. I’m beyond the age of worrying about tomorrow for myself...late 80’s...but, I do have children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, so never-the-less, the future is important to me. What I can’t understand is why so many people think Donald Trump cares what happens to them...and why people like Trump believe they won’t have to live in the horror they seem determined to create. There are an awfully lot of people on this one tiny planet...and limited resources.
37
@Carole
That's precisely why the GOP is doing what it is doing today.
Yes, there will be scarcity of resources in the future. Knowing this, there are two options: you try to entire reform the economy, and our way of working and living, so that next century all humans beings can have equal access to a happy, comfortable, meaningful life, OR you're too afraid that this won't be possible, and then you have to start here and now to accumulate as much wealth as you can, all while keeping as many citizens as ignorant (and as a consequence manipulable) as possible, so that you can buy yourself a comfortable life inside the cocoon that you will have built for yourself.
Democrats take the first road, Republicans the second.
4
@Carole I'm with you. in the 70s I also have grandchildren and fear for their future with someone like this present President. Have we become so selfish that only the $ has any power? My 17 year old said "I can not wait to be 18 and vote this terrible man out of office". Young people show interest in what is going on and will, that is my hope. become the new Stewarts of democracy.
5
Why do people vote for hacks, they do because they feel close to them and accept as dogma their fallacious promesses
Why do they voter for billionaires. Because they believe that they may also become billionaires. All of them...
7
@Max Lewy
Many people like the idea of the "strong man" who can cut through all the "bull" and "fix things."
The ONLY bright spot of this entire dog and pony show is that we all get to eventually die and forget it ever happened.
5
I always confuse Moore with the guy with all the question marks on his jacket that tells me the government has free money for me.
7
agree on all except the US is not a peaceful country. Been at war for the last 70 yrs since WWII
8
Putin won. He was helped by an archaic electoral college, white supremacy politics, and old people who distrust everyone with an advanced degree.
14
It’s a win-win for anti government Republicans. By making the government look inept and incompetent, they further weaken it and strengthen Corporate government, which fills the vacuum.
As to their followers, the more the masters kick them in the teeth, the more they lick their boots.
11
You've been dead wrong on every economic prediction since Trump was elected. Why change now, LOL?
1
@M
Did you read the article? Its Moore who has been wrong on every economic prediction.
5
These 2 positions are not mutually exclusive.
@M
Give us some examples where Prof. Krugman was wrong in economic predictions since Trump was elected. Come on, just one will do.
2
The last paragraph of this piece points out one of the less obvious impacts of Trump's hackocracy: the flight of qualified lower-level people who don't want to report to a bozo. And this particular bozo wouldn't leave with Trump; Fed terms are 14 years.
9
By and large a great article, but one phrase stumps me in the third-to-last paragraph: We're a peaceful country? Did anyone tell that to our longest wars ever, which are still ongoing? Or to our gun-fetish sub-culture?
12
This really made me feel so much better after the calamity of disingenuous recent events. Are we doomed for a future we can rely on or are we slipping back to the eras when the United States really stood for nothing. Are we headed toward the days before FDR made the biggest changes in promotion of the welfare of our population or are we doomed to destroy everything the folk rely on from the Government. This is an ominous sign from an Administration vast in it's corruption and led by an IDIOT.
4
I miss the competence of the Obama Administration. I miss the lack of scandals and chest thumping. I miss having a man in charge who had a vision for a better America.
41
@hen3ry
Me, too! Who knew that a "Kenyan" would make such an exemplary president?
2
I didn't know that America was a great "peaceful country." I wonder in what universe Paul lives.
2
When you start with a ideology so completely out of touch with reality to begin with (one that places ancient religious texts above verifiable science; relies on revisionist history to avoid addressing modern American problems such as gun violence; etc.), it is only a matter of time before you realize that facts, reason, education, critical thinking and most of all experts, are dangerous risks to that ideology.
Although it took 40 years to get this bad, the GOP decided to make its bed with the religious right to gain a reliable voting block outside of the very wealthy, or small business owner. They figured out back then that these groups of the electorate were too small in of themselves to compete with '70s era Democrats (whom of which by that time have rid themselves of their worst characters), hence the unholy alliance (pun intended). The cost of that marriage is now due, and this means facts and reason are not acceptable in the new world of Republicanism.
There is no other way for the modern GOP. Did anyone even hear the lunacy spouted at CPAC? Talk about clapping seals...ugh.
8
@Jason Vanrell
It's not that they put ancient religious texts above verifiable science, it's that in order to read and understand the meaning of those texts, they refuse to use one of the many scientifically valid methods of exegesis.
This isn't the work of anti-science people. It's the work of ignorant people, who don't have any idea of what science is and does, and as a consequence, don't question the interpretation methods of religious texts that their religious leaders are proposing ..
1
I just feel badly for the competent members of the Fed, who’re now stuck with years of having to try and sit in meetings and endure this fool. Otherwise, the question is:
How far down the road will these clowns be able to get before the card-house comes crashing down?
And as for who’ll be held responsible, that’s easy. It’ll never be the shabby likes of Moore, the Jerry Lewis of economics, so far as anybody on the Right is concerned.
11
Moore is the perfect example of the individual who though not very thoughtful, thorough or bright, manages good position because of his usefulness as he is, to the Kakistocracy currently running this Nation. Incompetence begets more incompetence, the byline of the Trump administration.
9
Speaking of inaccurate predictions I believe that Mr. Krugman predicted that Trump's election meant doom, destruction and the end of life as we know it. If Moore is a false prophet then Krugman is ??? I think there are proverbs about throwing rocks in glass houses, and the pot calling the kettle black. Mr. Krugman should: 1) refresh his literary studies, and 2) try to avoid hubris.
@qazmuncheck out our new deficit - +$2 trillion added.
7
@qazmun
You'd do well to do some reading yourself as the treasury yield curve (10 yr minus 3 mo) inverted last week:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-22/u-s-treasury-yield-curve-inverts-for-first-time-since-2007
Does Stephen Moore have a Nobel medal, or even a doctorate in Economics (or any other field for that matter)? Hint: No. And No.
2
Trump's ignorance, incompetence and hatred of expertise is reflected in his cabinet, his federal appointees, and the critical jobs he never bothered to filled. And once the G.O.P. decided to collectively make believe Trump was even remotely capable of being President, a full fledged "Hackistocracy" was inevitable.
So what are the consequences if the people given control over our government have no idea how it works, no interest in learning, an incompetent's distrust of those who have expertise, and a con man's fear of oversight?
Much of it plays out daily in public. The actions of a hack running the Fed will be damaging but not a secret. What is truly terrifying though is what goes on outside of the public's view.
Michael Lewis in "The Fifth Risk" describes, among other disasters waiting to happen, what Trump and his minions have done to the Department of Energy, the agency with responsibility of managing the risk of nuclear disaster globally and other serious and technical work. Who's running the show? Rick Perry and an itinerant group of ignorant Trump loyalists you wouldn't trust to watch over a lemonade stand never mind radioactive material with a half-life measured in thousands of years.
The economy is not the only thing that may go boom in the night.
6
I've watched Moore and Kudlow on the television news for some years already. And their incompetence is without peer, compared to many, if not most of the other economists who are Fed members. Their economic statements are at times absurd.
And Ross' stupidity and sleaze is incredible for a billionaire, except that it was reported that he eventually finally paid an SEC fine. However, he key hallmark is his specially made to order slippers which are marked as the cabinet secretary of the Department of Commerce!
Perhaps the three of them, will eventually make it to SNL, if the Prez with the orange hair takes a few weeks off.
7
As the blind lead the blind, the corrupt lead the corrupt.
7
did dr krugman just write that america is 'a peaceful country'?
not sure where that came from?
1
If you cannot convince them confuse them by coining new words. How about simple words like we have a sky high national debt left behind by the Bush and Obama. I don't want to hear that debt is not bad and we should be spending more. We don't need to coin more words just deal with it before the propped up house of cards comes tumbling down.and we have a great depression on our doors.
1
@Girish Kotwal
We have a sky high national debt left behind BY BUSH, not by Obama.
Obama inherited Bush's structural $1.4 trillion deficit. "Structural" means that even when new presidents wouldn't pass any new, unpaid for spending bill, there will still be a deficit, and for years and years to come.
The only thing you can do with structural deficits, IF you're truly passionate about lowering the debt, is to make sure to cut them as much as possible.
And that's exactly what Obama did: he cut Bush's deficit by two thirds already.
One of the main tools that Democracts have been using systematically for decades now, in order to tackle the high debt problem, is to install the "pay-as-you-go" rule, which means that no new bill can be signed into law if it doesn't have a way to pay for it included in that bill. In other words: only bills that don't add a dime to the deficit, can be passed and signed into law (except for emergency situations, of course, when one-time deficit spending is necessary precisely to avoid new structural deficits).
The GOP systematically eliminates that rule each time "we the people" allow them to control DC. As Cheney famously said, for the GOP "deficits don't matter".
So WHAT is the only major legislative achievement of the Trump administration until now? A bill that DOUBLES the deficit once again, adding about two trillion to the debt, ON TOP of what the remains of the Bush deficit would have added anyhow.
So it's up to us to choose now, in 2020.
5
@Ana Luisa from Belgium. I don't know which was a source of your numbers. Here is the source of the numbers I believe are fairly accurate. Not a fan of Bush but he left lesser debt than Obama did. In conclusion, the debt left by Bush and Obama is the higher than the combined debt of all previous presidents in history. Trump has to pay the interest on the debt and the tax cuts to the tax payers something that will get him elected in 2020.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-much-each-us-president-has-contributed-to-the-national-debt-2018-10-29
1
@Girish Kotwal Clinton's last total budget was in surplus. But, the operating budget was not. The surplus was entirely in the Social Security Trust Fund. The Bush tax cuts eliminated the surplus and then some relative to spending.
At the end of the Bush term, we saw job losses of around 700k per month and quarterly GDP declines of 6 to 7% annualized. Obama enacted a stimulus package to get us out of our economic morass.
After the stimulus went away, the amount the deficits which are added to the debt results from the tax structure put in place by Bush.
If you put in Clinton tax rates the deficit goes away.
Step back a moment and sit quietly. Can you hear the music playing?
“It’s the end of the world as we know it,
It’s the end of the world as we know it...”
God, I hate this century; it started with a disaster on 9/11 and has just kept on going. Save for the brief interregnum of the Obama years, not one single thing has gone right. It feels that we are careening towards the abyss.
7
Stephen Moore is a total clown, and it is a disgrace that he has been nominated for the Federal Reserve. Having said that, Krugman should have stayed focused on Trump's clownocracy. The quote from Buchanan was in 1996. Krugman made it sound like Buchanan was speaking today about Alan Krueger (not everyone knows that Buchanan died in 2013). I am no fan of conservative economics, but you can't tar someone with something they said in 1996 because the economist who did the work they were dismissive of met a tragic end in 2019.
1
I'm not qualified to reject Moore on the basis of his laughable record of bad economic calls. I'll leave that to an expert like Paul Krugman. But I am qualified to reject him on the basis of who is nominating him. That would be serial bumbler and incompetent, Donald Trump. Aside from James Mattis (and remember what happened to him), I can't think of even one person who Trump has hired who seemed remotely qualified. Trump may be feeling his oats in the aftermath of Mueller, but he won't ever receive "TOTAL EXONERATION" for being a perpetual, corrupt boob - that's an incurable genetic problem.
7
The extremely sad thing is all of this is because a minority of voters could not stand that a black man was president and decided to take it out on the rest of America. America will pay a steep price for its racism, likely the ultimate price of failed state.
7
Paul, in all fairness the only really independent Fed Head in memory was Paul Volker, the rest from Greenspan on have been little more than Wall Street shills doing what they’re told until they leave office for the lucrative position at Goldman Sachs or giving richly paid speech’s; no more so than since the financial crisis which “no one saw coming” to today when an era of artificially low interest rates, punishing small savers, have kept the party going for Wall Street. Rather than spending money on infrastructure and programs that might actually help our citizens the Fed chose to bail out bankers at public expense.The justice department, completely inept at jailing the perps who blew up our economy have been going after small fry for headlines ever since. They are all pathetic but that is merely symptomatic of America today, a nation that has lost its way as it’s been taken over by the “ hucksters” you refer to, but sorry Paul, they were around along time before Trump.
3
This whole thing is right out of the 2017 drama/comedy The Death Of Stalin. We can’t make this stuff up. It’s so real and ridiculous at the same time. I’m sure we’ll survive but when does this all end. And you know it will end badly. We didn’t want The Clintons because they drag you through a Shawshank Redemption sewer to freedom, so we took The Trumps instead. Crazy beyond belief.
2
Trump has a singular talent for hiring - he only picks people who 'play' experts on right-wing crank TV, despite their supreme lack of expertise. With each passing day, our democracy dies a little bit more.
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In Trumpworld reality is inverted. The meaning of words uttered by the president must be understood as antonyms. When the president proclaimed that he would be naming only "the best" people to government positions, he actually meant "the worst" people. Republicans are happily embracing the upside-down anti-reality of Trumpworld, but, as the Donald tweeted during his shutdown, "Just calm down and enjoy the ride...".
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China has the problem of ideological purity vs professional competence. It is called the Red and expert problem. Now we have it.
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Remind me again. Why was Peter Diamond not seated on the FRB?
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Flamboyantly unqualified hucksters are the invaders that require an emergency wall to keep them out. They are quite literally a new type of social parasite. They communicate and organize with each other as a new species of
exotic invasive would. They’re goal is your money. It’s a softer target than making it through honest work.
Any ideas on what to do? It’s a bit late for education to make a difference. A Citizens United delete or financial regs aren’t riding in to the rescue.
1
For openers, there is something very wrong with anyone who agrees to work for Donald Trump.
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Why? Why do these GOP loyalist feel so strongly that they willingly prostitute themselves? What makes them side reflexively with the wealthy? Wealth is a badge of success. The wealthy deserve it.
This is nothing new. The great English historian, R.H. Tawney, in his magisterial work, “Religion and the Rise of Capitalism" (1926), tells us that by the mid 1600’s, most English Puritans saw in poverty "not a misfortune to be pitied and relieved, but a moral failing to be condemned, and in riches, not an object of suspicion ... but the blessing which rewards the triumph of energy and will.”
This ideal of individual morality, derived from Calvin, has been with us ever since. But it has surfaced with renewed zeal in our time, with men like the Koch bothers, Robert Mercer, Art Pope and Sheldon Adelson determined to spend whatever it takes to replace democracy as we know it—a leveling force—with a fascistic, plutocratic model of government, one that benefits them, the worthy, and denies the rest of us, the unworthy.
For these billionaires, however, religion is not the motivator. Rather, it's how they see themselves, their self-image, that drives their need for more. They are the "makers," deserving, while the rest of us—poor and middle-class, alike—are "takers," undeserving and cadging off their efforts. Identity politics isn’t just for Democrats anymore.
For a penetrating interpretation, see George Monbiot’s short but defining piece in The Guardian: http://tinyurl.com/p5dg6b5
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@Ron Cohen: A thought provoking comment Ron, I plan to read Tawney; in the case of Adelson however, I believe his considerable influence is not done to benefit himself but to benefit his cause whether we agree with that cause or not. Thank you for expanding on the narrative.
2
I have long been dismayed by the platform CNN has given this hack, with no fact checking the things he spouts. No push back against the ridiculous things he asserts. No asking about how Kansas fared after he got a chance to influence policy.
The same false equivalency that enabled Trump to get elected in the first place.
5
The GOP has lost its way as a credible political force focused on fiscal conservatism. The now completely corrupt Republican Party engaged in massive voter suppression and gerrymandering and was quite willing to profit from Russian subversion of our electoral system without batting an eyelash. That is how they placed their mascot Trump in the White House. The Republican Party has become immersed in a sea of dark corporate money. Republicans now willingly stand behind the most ignorant, vulgar and greedy person, Donald Trump, to ever occupy the Oval Office.
As long as taxes for the GOP's super-rich masters are slashed, Republicans are willing to let the poor and the weak die in the streets for lack of healthcare. They are willing to deny climate change and destroy the future of this planet. They are willing to allow Donald Trump to fill our government administration with an endless array of incompetent corporate lackeys and to make a laughing stock of our nation before the entire world.
The Republicans have abandoned Constitutional law, democracy and everything this country has stood for. They are destroying our two-party system and every American shop cares about the future of the United States must vote the current Republicans out of power or we shall sink further into the amoral GOP/Trumpian abyss.
4
First off, Dr. Krugman, a great article! The first thing I read this morning over coffee and it got me thinking because I also have wondered about the infestation of vulgar, often quite stupid hacks on the political right. And the phrase "water seeks its own level" seems to make sense. The thing about these hacks is that they have no actual fixed position on ideas. It is clear they are ready to serve their masters which is why they are hired. Really, a mafia family description comes to mind. Except, the mafia has principles (mostly bad ones but principles none the less).
3
When you lower the standards for the presidency, you must expect this.
4
The appointment of a hack like Moore to a serious job on the Federal Reserve board is disturbing, to be sure, but it should not be a shock. Donald Trump has routinely appointed unqualified cartoon characters to otherwise important jobs in his administration.
But this appointment is particularly offensive given Moore's propensity to bloviate recklessly, aimlessly and incoherently as a television talking head. That doesn't distinguish him, particularly, from Donald Trump, but the impact of a longer term Fed position should trouble us.
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@Quoth The Raven This is all of a piece with Trump's anti-environment picks to head Interior and the EPA. Maybe Trump doesn't want any experts in top jobs. He might feel jealous of their expertise and professionalism.
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@Quoth The Raven
completely agree with your comments. But, tell me you always go by "Quoth the Raven" and didn't just choose as it goes so well with never Moore. Tres tres clever. I salute you.
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@audrey ford Brilliant, Audrey, but sadly, I am undeserving of your salute! Wish I could claim that I invited the moniker for this reason alone, but alas, I've been using it for a long time.
3
My economics background is limited to some college level courses and reading a modest amount on the subject. Everything I have learned has taught me that Stephen Moore knows little to nothing about economics, despite his background. As a know nothing he may fit in with the present administration, but no good can come from allowing this man to fulfill the Peter principle and thus rise to his highest level of incompetence. Thanks to Paul Krugman for articulating this so well.
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Well, a significant % of Republicans think that higher education is bad for the country, so being educated is apparently not a real plus for the GOP. Then we have a POTUS who is uninterested in learning anything, mentally lazy, and thinks his "gut" knows more than the experts in any field mentioned (never mind that "tariff man" doesn't even understand how tariffs actually work). So, then qualifications, such as they are, will be toeing the party line - and for this POTUS, loyalty to him and whatever his gut thinks at the moment.
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@Anne-Marie Hislop
With the current Republicans in charge, we are becoming little more than a corrupt banana republic with a strong man running the show. He has incompetent family members in positions of power and only those ready to pledge loyalty - or hefty donations - can get in the door.
How did this country fall so far?
54
@Anne-Marie Hislop
"for this POTUS, loyalty to him and whatever his gut thinks at the moment."
Surprised the very stable genius hasn't yet nominated the big mac he ate for lunch yesterday to sit on the Federal Reserve Board, though I am not sure his choice of Stephen Moore is any better.
10
@Anne-Marie Hislop
That's is because unfortunately these days 99.5% of college graduates are uneducated!
2
We are inching step by step closer to anarchy and rebellion,because I don’t believe that younger generations will accept that their future will be jeopardize by gerontocrats and will be much bleaker than their parents.
4
@inter nos: With all due respect inter nos I seriously doubt there will be anarchy and revolution in our future, that would require giving up computer time and manning the barricades or at least hitting the streets and highways to participate in protests and marches as we did in the sixties: BTW, the majority of us oldsters were not participants in the forms of vulture capitalism that is destroying our nation.
I generally agree with(and enjoy) everything Mr. Krugman writes, but this time there is one little point that I feel I must disagree with him on.
He writes; " America isn’t just an immensely powerful, wealthy, technologically advanced, peaceful country."
All these properties are true, except for the last one. America has been in an unending war since 2003, and since world war II has been at war many, many times. Korea and Vietnam come to mind, but also many tiny countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Perhaps Mr. Krugman meant that America is peaceful within its own borders, but, given the number of mass shootings, shootings of people of color (with those doing the shooting being acquitted), spite and hate being spouted on all sides, and top politicians, inciting to violence (and occasionally participating in it), I wonder
7
@Thomas True. The intent of the Krugman comment probably refers to peaceful at home. But, that has become increasingly untrue with the deep political divide in the U.S. /s/ Military Veteran
4
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." Carl Rove to NYT reporter Ron Suskind, October 2004.
Even Orwell couldn't have envisioned where we are now. Reality? How quaint.
6
Dr. Krugman what would be your opinion of the competency of a member of the intelligentsia who predicted not only a Clinton victory but crashing of the stock market should Trump ascend to the Presidency?
1
Yeah, but what about...
I think it is fair to assume that the intention of putting "hacks" in high places is so that instructions from elsewhere will be executed without disruption. They all have one thing in common: They don't care about facts, truth or ethics. They are prefect placeholder for the powers that does not want to be seen.
6
There is an anti-intelletual streak a mile wide in the alt-right conservative/reactionary demographic. If it does not accord with their subjective and reflexive value judgments then it cannot be true. Demonizing scientists, experts, researchers as "eggheads" while substituting superstitions, myths and long-disproved paranoid conspiracy theories is part of this agenda.
The Russians know this and contribute to our divisiveness (divide & conquer) by exacerbating tweets, misinformation and propaganda focused upon the opposite sides of every issue in facebook, google, fox news, designed to pit us one against another.
Pity that our culture is based upon spectator sports & illiteracy.
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@Ed Athay
I made this point in a comment on Ross Douthat's essay today, but the historian Richard Hofstadter wrote an excellent and penetrating book titled "Anti-intellectualism and American Life in 1963, in response to McCarthyism. It's been years since I've read it, but the points he makes about anti-intellectualism being baked into the fabric of American democracy have stayed with me. Unfortunately, as you rightly suggest, we are in a period now when anti-intellectualism (or pseudo-intellectualism) is embraced by far too many Americans, including the President.
14
The only positive thing about Moore’s appointment is that he is a weathervane that always points the wrong direction. He will provide great guidance to other Fed Members on what not to do.
2
One admittedly disquieting possibility is that Trump's picks are a genuine bellwether of the times in America, and those times, economically at least, are quite good.
Love that word, kakistocracy. Now I have a
While many on the Right rail about AOC's lack of credentials, she has a BA in International Relations and Economics. Larry Kudlow, the Trump Administration's Chief Economist has a BA in History.
7
The late, great George HW Bush pronounced Ronald Reagan’s “trickle down economics” as “Voodoo economics”. This was the last time a prominent Republican spoke truth and of course he lost in the Republican primary. His “ Read my lips, no new taxes” pledge needed up his undoing with Republican voters when he had to agree to raise taxes in order to halt soaring deficits. A lesson potential Republican leaders have not forgotten. So, really it is the Republican Party responding to it’s base that has made it what it is today with regard to economics, the environment, social and foreign policy. Only when the Republican base shrinks so much or gerrymandering is controlled will you see a change in leadership behavior. Let’s hope in the mean time we survive as a nation.
3
LaFayette sought to model the transition from Louis XVI to a republic on the American Revolution. He was instead nearly beheaded by Jacobins who valued "partisan loyalty above professional competence".
Stalin, who valued "partisan loyalty above professional competence", purged and executed many of his best generals before WWII.
In China's 'Cultural Revolution' the Party valued "partisan loyalty above professional competence" as they brutally purged their intelligentsia and set their economy back 20 years.
Experts are wrong sometimes, but the most wrong are those who do not and will not admit they are, ever.
2
I think that Barack Obama said it best: elections have consequences. Electing Trump has had some very unfortunate consequences that are going to reverberate down the decades even if the man serves only one term in office. He has turned every position in his administration over to incompetent hacks and people of the lowest possible competence. He has forced out anyone with any integrity. There is no one left to restrain him or to caution him against any hazardous or foolish or dangerous actions against others. In other words we have put into office a man and a party that is threatening the existence of our country.
America is a strange country when it comes to selecting its leaders. We want our leaders to be folksy, down to earth, the sort we can have a beer with. We don't like elitists. But we want to send our children to Ivy League schools where the elites come from. We disparage experts whose opinions disagree with ours but they are the first ones we ask for an opinion. We deride science as being too difficult but we push people to major in STEM fields.
A competent government requires intelligent, well educated people who are open minded and willing to take chances to see what can succeed. We have a shallow unqualified president, his equally unqualified family members, a power hungry senate majority leader, and a cabinet of rich people running America into the ground. Not a one has ethics or morals beyond money. However, they aren't paying the price; we are.
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I have been trying to figure out why Trump wants the most unlikely, unqualified, misfits, in positions of major importance in our government. You are right that the G.O.P., and certainly Trump, have a strong preference for hucksters over experts in government. My conclusion is that they want to destroy our government from within by placing the most incompetent, ineffective, people in key positions. They will make their old right-wing claim that, 'government is bad and doesn't work' come true. That sets them up for the autocratic oligarchy that they admire and are striving for. I hope we can get these destroyers out of our government before they succeed.
6
Each day the USS Trump Titanic keeps running into the iceberg and sinking lower and lower into the waters of corruption and incompetence. There are no hands on deck. No one to hand out the life vests or lower the boats to save us. One fine morning, we'll hit the iceberg for the last time and disappear.
3
The tongue in cheek suggestions that officeholders be chosen at random from the population, is starting to not look as silly as it once did.
2
Paul Krugman's editorial is brilliantly spot on as always, except for one glaring factual error: Trump's appointees are not "the worst of the worst". They are actually "the worst of the worst of the worst".
3
Stephen Moore is not a hack in the sense that he has some competence. He is a total fraud. He has always been the employee of right-wing political groups ultimately funded by a few billionaires like the Koch's and Mercer's who care much more about money than anything else. Th concept of duty to country or personal integrity do not matter if your employment is dependent upon spouting nonsense economic ideas proven wrong by the observable outcomes of the last 40 years. Supply side economics is just the cover for the policies that have brought us the new gilded age that has hollowed out the middle class of America. To do it, the Koch's and Mercers need guys like Moore and Kudlow who couldn't get a job at Goldman Sachs if their lives depended on it because they simply are incompetent. That's why they don't work on Wall Street. Kudlow was shall we say, let go at Bear Stearns because well he had a drug problem. Yes, too much money and cocaine don't really contribute to competence on the trading floor. As late as December 2007 he was still postulating that all was well. And people wonder why Bear crumbled? It was because they were led by people who were not that bright, just greedy. Moore is just a paid salesman, paid to lie and deceive and that's why facts don't matter. His job is to repeat nonsense that accrues benefits only to his paymasters. Unfortunately for our country, the entire Republican party is also on the take. Just follow the money, the truth is plain to see.
2
It’s obvious why so many hacks are put in place. They will always agree with those in power and will cower when confronted. If something bad happens they wait for word from above, even if that word is to lie down on the grenade.
2
Prof. Krugman,
Since I saw the news of Moore's appointment last week I have eagerly awaited your thoughts on the matter. It goes without saying that a huckster for ALEC ("American Legislative Exchange Counsel," aka "Koch for Dummies) would not get a favorable review. I really appreciate and enjoy reading your views.
Is there any way for you to get a speaking gig on (say) Sirius XM or even Fox or the equivalent? We all know the Colbert quote so it would be magnificent if you could somehow get such a voice.
Yeah, like all those "hacks" appointed by both Republican and Democratic Presidents who were running The Fed in 2008. Yep, those guys REALLY knew what they were doing!
That crash started in 2006, actually, and not because of the Fed. Seems to me that one would want to get the simplest things straight before shrieking about competence.
1
Agree about Moore, but the biggest difference between him and those "respected" economists is they're smoother and more sophisticated in concealing their thorough incompetence than he is, which makes them even more dangerous, and able to inflict even more damage on humanity.
But then again Moore really is in a league all his own.
Too bad economists hadn't noticed the fundamental flaws in their silly, utterly useless academic theories earlier, because if they had Trump would not be in the White House.
Wages are up and unemployment is down. Most citizens are doing great. When the economy is doing well the left xsnymt stand it because it reduces the need for socialistic policies.
More wisdom from the man who tossed around the phrase "the Trump-Putin administration" and who predicted a stock market meltdown and economic crash if Trump were elected.
Keep your pearls of wisdom coming, Paul. It's hard finding reruns of Abbott & Costello these days.
With every Trump appointment, every Trump announcement, every Trump action I am ashamed that I was ever associated with the Republican party.
Even though I quit the party during Bush Jr's second term, I feel that I was complicit in helping to underpin a party that has turned out to be thoroughly and completely rotten to the core.
3
In the 1990 film "Hunt for Red October" the USSR installed a competent captain to actually run the ship and a political officer (read: an apparatchick, a hack) with equal authority to do, well, political things.
In that respect the old USSR system was superior to the current American one, in which apparatchicks actually run the ship.
1
We're traveling on a sinking ship, water rising above our knees; those at the helm have never navigated, and for what?
1
Re : Fed and Stephen Moore
Mr. Moore may or may not be qualified for the Fed, but Mr. Krugman has such a distorted reality perception of all events connected to Trump
"There’s really no question about Trump/Putin collusion, and Trump in fact continues to act like Putin’s puppet. The only question is how high the indictments will reach,"
Paul Krugman , NY Times, 11/17/2017
that is it hard to be sure.
@Lars You completely elide the meeting at Trump Tower and the associated emails. They most certainly colluded, but, maybe not criminally.
You are also passing over the fawning praise heaped on Putin that bordered on treason.
Plus, there were indictments. You must have forgotten.
1
Some people think Trump is the illness afflicting America. The truth is the G.O.P. is the pestilence that debilitates America, Trump is just it's latest scourge.
Keep in mind, presidential appointments like Ross, DeVos, Nielsen, McMahon and so many other hacks, would be quashed if not for Republicans in Congress. Instead of rejecting such hacks, Republicans celebrate them. Why?
The G.O.P. has for decades waged war on the federal government. The war precedes the Republican Party, having its roots in the former slave states, which since before the Constitution was ratified, fought for a weak federal government and near autonomous state's rights. Republicans want states to rule as they see fit; such as the Confederate States of America sought to do.
With the objective of weakening the federal government, Republicans first work to make it fail from within. They appoint hacks to head federal agencies and they cut their funding to a barely functioning level (consider the underfunded I.R.S., even the Social Security Administration - have you tried calling their 800#?). Then Republicans search for failures (like constituent complaints about long call wait times), highlight any issues, blame the agencies (government can't do anything right) and propagandize to turn the public against the federal government.
The G.O.P. war has been going on since the 1970's. Understanding who Republicans are, why they hate the federal government and what their objective is, explains Donald Trump.
5
You have to wonder if the right-wingers, who show such disdain for education, research and science, also argue about medical advice provided by their physicians and money management counsel from their financial planners.
1
So conservatives could, if they wanted, turn for advice to highly partisan economists with at least some idea of what they’re doing. Yet these economists, despite what often seem like pathetic attempts to curry favor with politicians, are routinely passed over for key positions, which go to almost surreally unqualified figures like Moore or Larry Kudlow, the Trump administration’s chief economist.
How would it be different if a "competent" even "brilliant" currying favor hack was chosen over an incompetent compulsively lying currying favor hack. Is there is something about the former that would prevent them from doing what the latter are doing?
1
1. Mr. Moore is not qualified.
He does not have the intellectual gravitas for this important job,” Greg Mankiw, a Harvard professor who was chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush. I agree
2. But then again, Mr. Bernanke , a Princeton colleague of Paul, although qualified proved to be asleep at the switch - and can with justification be blamed for being for the great
recession
The case is a bit technical, but readers who want to learn monetary policy should read Foreign Affairs
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-04-18/fed-and-great-recession
3. The Fed policy, under Powell, has been unprecedented oscillatory. In October 2018, it announced two rate increases for 2019, this month it announced that there would be none.
Given the Feds recent history it hard to see how Mr. Moore could make the Fed policy significantly worse
I do not know anything about this particular nominee, but in general we should stop responding to conservative shills as if they reach their opinions earnestly, or based on any kind of expert analysis. These are actors, acting out a necessary part in a cause that provides them a living. And these actors are effective, as are their producers and directors.
Don’t flatter the opposing “expert” by demanding they admit they were wrong when they read their lines ten years ago, or last month, or yesterday. You would no more do that than go up to Tom Hanks and demand that he admit he was wrong when he said, over and over again in the 1990s, that life is like a box of chocolates, when it clearly has turned out not to be the case for most of us.
If you are faced with an actor who won’t admit he’s acting, unmask him, rebut him, and never stop reminding the public that the shill is an actor, only to be listened to so you know what the lie is.
2
Let's face it: Trump is the worst ruler of America since King George III. That crazy monarch prized loyalty above all: Lord Bute, his avid supporter and friend, oversaw the initial collapse of the British Empire's thirteen American colonies. He was followed by a succession of equally incompetent prime ministers and generals. I suppose Adam Smith was referring to this disaster when he opined that there is a lot of ruin in a nation. But why must we go through this?
2
Kansas is still reeling from the damage caused by Moore and Brownback. They bankrupted the place. It will take years for state finances to even out. All of the damage was caused by this hackster's bogus economic theories. And you know what? Doesn't phase him a bit.
This is the danger of Moore and his fellow tax cut fanatics. They do their damage and do not see the damage they have wrought. They are oblivious to the results. (They are just like the voter fraud people who are still chasing millions of illegal voters that don't exist).
Putting a guy like Moore on the Federal Reserve Board would be a travesty. That board is comprised of some of the most level headed people on the planet. Some lean to the left and some to the right. But they all are grounded in reality. They all are professionals trying to do a job.
Not this guy. His profession has nothing to do with reality.
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These alleged " experts" who promote the GOP agenda as if it's a proven formula for runaway success for the economy, the environment and how to live by the " golden rule" are simply motivated by greed! NO surprise here because aiding and abetting the special interests has always been an elected GOP's quest and they need huckster's to rely upon to promote the research and " facts" behind those interests which are diametrically opposed to what their constituents want and need. Fools gold that Americans keep buying!
1
Lest we forget, Mr. Moore called for President Trump to get the Nobel Prize in Economics. That is probably his most important qualification.
6
GOP plan. They don't believe government can do anything well. So the answer is to hire fools and knaves thus proving their belief. They are also working over the VA. Instead of boosting the system they are turning over to private hands where vets will have worse outcomes at a greater tax payer cost. Then they will slash benefits because helping people who put their lives on the line for the country aren't worth it now....
3
Let me try to answer the question about why the GOP prefers hacks.
Simply put, there are no -- no, not one -- ideas on the right that are actual ideas with any integrity. Every single one of them is a front for the GOP's true mission: Government for the wealthy, with no regulation for businesses and no social welfare for losers who are poor.
Imagine what it must be like to actually work in a think tank where you have to come up with reasonable-sounding prose to justify a tax cut whose purpose was to gut Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare; to actually argue that cranking up coal plants is a great idea; to have to be persuasive arguing that keeping out immigrants, the literal lifeblood of the USA and the English colonies for 400 years, is exactly what we should be doing.
Imagine what it must be like to be a young buck, eager for intellectual stimulation, and sampling the work of people like Moore and Kudlow and saying to yourself: my God, you can't be serious.
The Republicans have no ideas, and have had none for at least 40 years. All their ideas are stalking horses, and that's why all their evangelists are the worst people in the country. A right wing with honest ideas that had integrity would give us much better people. That they don't is why we have this parade of crooks and scam artists.
3
Moore has an MA in economics - from George Mason U. (which for me is a disqualifier right there). But he's not an economist, or a mathematician, or a statistician. Wikipedia calls him a "writer." So I'm with Krugman on this.
But he lost me when he describes the United States as a "peaceful" country. In reality, we're about the most warlike and certainly most warring nation on the planet, sending our armies to fight anywhere we feel like it. The last figure I saw was from 2015, when we had our Special Operation Forces engaged in 135 countries, either fighting or "advising" or "supporting." And of course we bomb and send in missiles with abandon.
Peaceful? Yeah - in the Newspeak language of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" maybe. In real English? No.
2
I think the prize for the most incompetence would go to the "Commerce Secretary" that doesn't understand credit ratings. During the government shutdown he thought that anybody who needed a loan to get by would be able to obtain one.
2
'a blizzard of factual errors is standard practice in his writing and speaking. It’s actually hard to find cases where Moore got a fact right.'
wow - nice reporting.
so this is how the world ends - not with a bang - but with manifestly, flamboyantly unqualified hucksters installed at the Federal Reserve.
when the US is wondering in 20 years how it got to be a corrupt dictatorship like Venezuala - here's a set piece.
1
no collusion; after two long years of intense investigation
keep moving the goalposts
keep deflecting
keep up the negative propaganda and muck raking.
howz it working out so far?
meanwhile, the original dossier paid for by Clinton and DNC, that is the real scandal.
1
Democracy is a messy business - it always has been. It is the hardest thing to keep safe from corruption.
We are facing a new American Revolution. The true believers in the Constitution will now have to fight a battle as hard as any known.
That revolution will require every person of conscience to vote out of office the now completely corrupt Republican party.
Stephen Moore is another nobody bought and paid for you to believe otherwise.
1
It's not just the degradation of public service and criminal incompetence of hacks when the next disaster strikes. There's the greater threat not of incompetence but malevolence in the service of special interests that actively aids and abets, if not causes, the catastrophes to come.
Not just denying climate change but aggressively exacerbating it with the roll back of renewal energy and car fuel efficiency. Plus the expansion of carbon production through renewed development of coal and oil drilling.
Not just denying healthcare access but deregulating toxic polluters, purveyors of junk food and obesity, blocking reasonable safe gun measures, flooding the country with new and more potent opiates, coddling anti-vaxers and patent extensions for proprietary drugs.
Incompetents are one thing. Ideologues bent on imposing their wacko notions and cynical whimsy on all of us using the instruments of government are of an immoral magnitude beyond just stupidity and ineptitude.
It's more than just the tyranny of dunces. It's the rise of the political undead, the reign of economic vampires who thrive on the suffering of those unable to fight back or stand for themselves. This is the invasion of the nation-snatchers, the time of the unconscionable and uncaring.
In 2020, every vote must be a wooden stake through Trump's heart of darkness.
1
Stephen Moore is more Stuart Varney than Milton Freidman. That's why he got the nod. Keep it simple Donald, don't think too much.
Similar to what we see in our universities’ admissions process - just call this GOP’s version of “diversity” in government.
This isn't going to be a popular opinion, but I want Trump to get everything he asks for - to be in total control. Because he is going to run the country straight into the ground. And when he does, I don't want Republicans to use the Democrats as a crutch. Just like Governor Brownback in Kansas, claiming it all would have worked had he been able to go even farther in his dismantling of that state.
Trump is the dumb rich kid whose daddy bought his way through life. He's never had to answer for his behavior. He's never had to be held accountable for his decisions. And he's doing his level best to destroy (what did Bannon call it?) the "administrative state." Somehow tearing down the administrative bureaucracy necessary for a nation of 320 million people is going to make it better. And I can't wait, because there will be no excuses this time.
Well, Mr. Krugman - you sure ain't on your way to a Trump appointment in any department of government let alone the Federal Reserve...not that you'd want to - but boy could they ever do with a thorn in their pants or a pea under the bed sheet. And now you've got me wondering just how Stephen Moore will characterize China's €30 billion purchase of airplanes from Airbus in France - a positive sign perhaps that Trump's 'easy to win trade war' is working? And will the possible loss of sales of GE and Pratt & Whitney motors to Rolls Royce shore up national security by denying China access to advanced American technology?
It seems President Trump's defining opus, 'The Art of the Deal', has succumbed to President Xi Jinping's yet to be published 'Zen and the Art of Winning a Trade War'. Boeing (a truly great American company) must be brushing up on their Mandarin after this mess.
It's not just the degradation of public service and criminal incompetence of hacks when the next disaster strikes (outside of Mississippi). There's the greater threat not of incompetence but malevolence in the service of special interests that actively aids and abets, if not causes, the catastrophes to come.
Not just denying climate change but aggressively exacerbating it with the stranding of renewal energy and de-carbonization and renewed development of coal and oil. Not just denying healthcare access but deregulating toxic polluters, purveyors of junk food and obesity, blocking reasonable safe gun measures, flooding the country with new and more potent opiates, coddling anti-vaxers.
Incompetents are one thing. Ideologues bent on imposing their wacko notions and cynical whimsy on all of us using the instruments of government are a moral magnitude beyond just stupidity and ineptitude.
It's more than the tyranny of dunces. It's the rise of the political anti-christs, the reign of vampires who thrive on the suffering of those unable to fight back or stand for themselves.
This is the invasion of the nation-snatchers, the day of the unconscionable dead.
Wood stakes in 2020.
2
It is a kind of madness perplexingly agglutinating 'birds of a feather'.
In an effort to drain the swamp, as a great business strategy, Mr. Trump has hired crocodiles to clean it. Because you know, they are preferred to alligators, the other amphibian, who live in the swamp.
1
I think we all know why Trump continues to appoint hacks and incompetents....no one with any expertise or self respect will work for him.
2
Donald Trump promised to nominated the best men (he did not said women) in government. Can you imagine the mess if he would have nominated the worst men?
Government is important; it's serious and it requires leaders who are in touch with reality.
Stephen Moore and the person appointing him are both professional Snake Oilers.
Moore wrote a 2014 Kansas City Star opinion piece that falsely claimed that job creation had been superior in low-taxation states during the five years ending June 2009 following the recession.
After errors were found in Moore's data, he 'corrected' the errors with different data that were also incorrect.
In 2015, Moore expressed support for a return to the gold standard, a monetary system rejected by mainstream economists.
Bruce Bartlett, a supply-side economist, stated that Moore knew "absolutely nothing about the Federal Reserve or monetary policy."
Jonathan Chait, a political commentator, stated "Moore opposes mainstream fiscal theories because he simply doesn’t understand them."
“He does not have the intellectual gravitas for this important job,” said Greg Mankiw, former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush.
The incompetent Moore himself said this to Bloomberg News about his own Fed appointment:
“I’m kind of new to this game, frankly, so I’m going to be on a steep learning curve myself about how the Fed operates, how the Federal Reserve makes its decisions. It’s hard for me to say even what my role will be there, assuming I get confirmed.”
Would you fly on a plane with this Grand Old Phony in the cockpit ?
"Only the worst possible people"
TRUMP 2019
1
Appointing incompetents and plain crooks to government posts has been a trademark of #45 - Ben Carson, Betty DeVos, Tom Price, Rick Perry, Scott Pruitt, Jeff Sessions, and many others that escape memory.
So, is it reasonable to expect anything different?
2
Ignorance is bliss to the science and facts-of-all-sorts denying Trumpistas.
1
The Republican Party has become government of the ignorant, by the incompetent, for the wealthy.
Putting political hacks in positions of influence and power is not new in American history. What is different now is that the ramifications are far more profound, and the space ffor error is shrinking. I'm thinking of global climate change most of all, but also infrastructure, education, and the growing dissolution of long-standing international relationships.
As they have in the past, this new Age of Ignorance will topple over from its own dead weight. The question is what will be left of any value.
145
The Republican Party's --and most certainly Donald Trump's--methodology is to, basically, make up your mind, then reject any and all facts that do not support the decision. This is their MO in all aspects of politics, governing and their willingness to impose their wishes on America's citizens.
It's very simple now. We are doomed.
54
When the Koch Brothers and their fellow billionaires are seeking "experts" to peddle their false claims that "trickle down economics" actually works, they have to rely on people like Moore. It takes a lot of money to turn factual evidence into fraud.
8
Prof. Krugman, I'm a fan of you and your writing.
This got my attention, though: The US is "an immensely powerful, wealthy, technologically advanced, peaceful country."
Peaceful? Please!
I want to note that we have nearly 40,000 people dying per year from gun violence -- and no other advanced country, powerful, wealthy, and technologically advanced -- has anything like that number.
And, we are still involved in wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East. These two are the longest-running wars in our entire history and through the drone program, killing civilians for absolutely no reason except to ensure that future haters of the US are made. Not peaceful.
14
@Lennerd: This line caught my eye too. Almost as much as the banner I read in the 1990s, disembarking at Boston's Logan International Airport: "WE ARE GREAT BECAUSE WE ARE GOOD!" So the reverse marks the rest of the world? My mind went back to the young Afghan hairdresser I met in Delhi at that time. She was a refugee with a Master's in Economics, unable as a woman, to work in her native country, owing to the regime of the feudal and feuding WarLords armed by the USA to topple the Communist/Russian supported regime in Kabul. To support herself the young academic had turned to hair-dressing in India. She and fellow educated Afghan women had been pushed back again into the Dark Ages in her country, she said.
The USA, viewing everything through the prism of its varying self-serving ideologies, didn't really care then, nor does it seem to care now, how many suffer in the lands that it zealously rushes into, no doubt with goodness and peace in its heart!
I love the country, but its national myths have a grip as powerful as have the ones in my own nation!
1
"But as top jobs systematically go to hacks, there is an inevitable process of corrosion. We’re already seeing a degradation of the way our government responds to things like natural disasters." A point that needs to be developed more fully.
5
Two more years of Trump is frightening. Six more years - and if we can believe Michael Cohen to the effect that Trump will never leave willingly - is unimaginable. Trump is tipping the scales. I don’t know if there is a way back for America.
17
"Why do hacks rule on the right? It may simply be that a party of apparatchiks feels uncomfortable with people who have any real expertise or independent reputation, no matter how loyal they may seem."
The answer lies a bit deeper, and has to do with Trump's background in Reality TV, where image and sensation are everything and reality is nowhere. Trump lives in a world that consists totally of image and hype, where lies defeat truth if they are shouted loudly enough. This also has to do with his unconcern for the future. As he has said, he is not worried about the looming debt crisis because it will happen when he is no longer president. With such a mentality, it is not surprising that expertise of any kind is taboo.
19
@davidp149
Yep.
Apart from the fact that Trump has NO expertise in anything except self promotion. Nor do his family of dunderheads.
Make a buck is all any of them think about. Decision making? Does it benefit them? Then yes it's a good idea.
They think their money will insulate them from any misadventure. While Republicans are in power they are correct.
16
The method of Trump and GOP governing is a function of the GOP philosophy of government: government is the problem, government is bad, government can’t be trusted, government is wasteful, etc. How else do we get a McConnell in the senate who will allow a show vote on the Green New Deal, but disallow a vote on a Supreme Court nominee or a vote on the release of the Mueller report, which took 2 years and hundreds of people to compile? A four page “report” by Barr is on the level of Stephen Moore’s “work.” The applicable term here is “Self Fulfilling Prophesy.” The GOP has control of government, and it intends to dismantle it before our eyes and replace it with rule of the wealthy by the wealthy for the wealthy.
33
Expertise is a form of power. Even when those who have it are mostly ignored or overruled, they can gum up the smooth working of anti-intellectual movements (the institutional Republican Party now is one, even though some registered Republicans aren't personally anti-intellectual) and their machinery. Experts divert the resources necessary to try to discredit or silence them. And people with expertise are much less likely to place personal loyalty to Donald Trump (or any other Great Leader) over all else than are the Moores whose positions depend entirely on pleasing their masters. So of course an ignoramus of a president and party donors some of whom have declared their opposition to democracy at times in the past have an incentive to appoint people like Mr. Moore, now that President Trump's earlier appointments show that their voters will accept unqualified people in high office.
12
"It’s actually hard to find cases where Moore got a fact right."
You just described Trump.
It's a Kakistocracy if ever there was one. And to think that before Trump's Presidency I didn't know the meaning of the word.
What has America done to itself?
30
The conservative economists that Dr. Krugman likes use facts and reason to come to their economic conclusions. (I know this because he would not like them otherwise.) This is why the modern GOP and especially Trump dislike and distrust them.
Trump and his allies use fact-free assertions (alternate facts) to support whatever they want to support at the moment. It is so much easier, and, unlike facts, is guaranteed to get the conclusion they want. And, as Stephen Colbert pointed out, facts tend to have a liberal bias.
27
Stephen Moore: "(Paul Krugman) has been wrong about everything."
To the casual observer, this would seem to be a case of 'I know you are but what am I', but, since most readers of this column believe Dr. Krugman is mostly right about economics (and is honest when he is not), Trump's picking his polar opposite is deadly serious.
And once again, we see the power of FOX News. Moore hasn't worked there since 2017 ( leaving the network to go to, bizarrely, CNN), but the President no doubt remembers his commentary and picked him over more competent conservatives. I know it's too much to expect FOX to wield their power for good, but at least they can decide to do no harm.
The silver lining is, that with the end of the Mueller probe, with this huge distraction gone, we can look more closely at the administration's governance. With less of a focus on Trump's corruption, maybe we focus more on his incompetence.
20
@Thucydides Unfortunately it's not just that Trump is incompetent but his follower, mostly Republicans in congress, are also incompetent or do not care about the future of our country or human society for that matter..
4
@Thucydides
We all had such high hopes for the Mueller report.
We wanted so badly for damning information that would rid us of the daily chipping away of American decency and valor.
The world is watching us and until Trump is gone, they are looking away from us.
I never thought I'd see it but there it is.
So, let's get busy finding the Dem that will beat Trump. There IS one out there, but who?
Biden most likely but not definitely. The Trumpistas will smear him and that is to be expected from the Kakistocracy. Great word! So apt in the Trump era.
But seriously, let's get busy working hard and harder than we've ever worked in our lives to STOP THE MADNESS!
1
American society in general has stopped being quality conscious and became more of a feudal society where people are more interested to please each and everyone else- starting from our own children at home to the boos in the office and also in our universities. We now actively discourage people who are data-minded (make decision based on data and not much on emotion or religious or political faith system), opinionated and bold enough to express the opinions in public (not like a coward expressing only to very close friends & relatives). That trend is worse in American academia, in universities, and in Government (public policy). That's the reason why people like Trump, Ross, Moore etc are so successful in private companies and now in Government.
We must change that habit to say "awesome" to our kids for jobs that need to be criticized, we must reduce influence of politics and religion in education (the worst source of sociopolitical degradation in the country too). Now about 40% of American graduates refute hard science of evolution and "strongly believe" in fairy-tales of religious mythology and "intelligent design"- that's worst among 35 developed countries surveyed. Evolution is taught in schools though.
12
After spending many years in Asia, I realized that tendency is far worse in developing countries like India. There emotion and sycophancy rules since last many centuries when the Muslims from Central Asia and then the Europeans (mainly the British) established its rule there. Many people in such countries, in fact, avoid drinking alcohol in public simply because they fear that they might say something that might offend people in power or friends. Everyone seem to be wearing a musk to hide and scared of losing that smiling musk and try his best to be a "nice guy". And the society degrades and disintegrate with very high (and growing) corruption, frustration, and also violence among common people. We now see the same trend in the US.
4
@bonku
Maybe we can get intelligent clergy to have a sermon each week on the marvels of science and scientific discovery. Surely there are enough marvels for 5 minutes in church each week.
We can forget the pseudo Christians, like the Fundamentalists and hard core Baptists, but maybe the rabbis and priests and ministers can do a bit of good.
It's a suggestion, but it'd make it harder to deny science if you hear it every week if religious leaders talk about it matter-of-factly.
1
@Butterfly
Unfortunately, religion actually started as a pursuit to search for truth and to improve lives of people and society through that. Many world famous scientists were members of Churches, Temples etc. One nice example would be- the founding father of Genetics- Gregor Johann Mendel. In fact, the person (connected to a churches) who "discovered" that Earth is static and sun revolves around it- had no great fascination to either earth or Sun. His calculation was simply wrong based on the technology he had in those days, as we encounter many times in scientific research even today.
As lives in the world became easier due to our growing knowledge and scientific innovation, religious became more polluted with criminals, idiots and selfish people who could not find any other profession than free food and shelter in the name of religion. Then politics was nicely mixed with it and we got the most destructive WMD in human history invented so far.
It isn't just the Federal Reserve that has been invaded by hucksters and frauds. Just take a look at other agencies as well.
Environmental protection is a thing of the past.
20
C'mon! This is America! All you need to look smart is a suit and tie. Trump wears them, right?
9
And get other people to say you are smart.
I may frame this article .. Paul admits he makes mistakes ... well ..." bad call"
I'll take it.
On the other hand, neither Moore nor Trump have admitted to making a bad call.
Unfortunately, I have to take that.
11
This sort of thing goes on in business as well as government. I remember a businessman who boasted to a reporter about his plans to make his company rich. He admitted some of the company officers ( who had been there far longer) were skeptical, but he ridiculed them to the reporter for their lack of "vision". Within a year the company went into bankruptcy and the board of directors kicked him out. The "skeptics" had understood the situation perfectly well. But who cares for expertise when you have "vision" ?
15
I love the word kakistocracy. Now I have a new one,hackistocrisy.
3
One small error: Krugman called Kudlow the Trump administration's chief economist. Well, maybe that's what the sign says on his office door.
Kudlow is not an economist, though he has played one on tv. To actually be an economist, you must ether have obtained appropriate credentials or have studied enough to have a good understanding of the field. Kudlow doesn't even have a bachelor's degree in economics, nor does he understand the field of study.
17
Trump has so many imaginary triumphs, and so many lackeys eager to parrot his lies, it's hard to keep track. This day Canada's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, said thanks to Trump's ongoing twenty five percent tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, (the first national emergency His Stable Genius detected once it was elevated to the presidency) are threatening ratification of the updated Nafta agreement. This reader would be very happy if the Canadian government stopped accommodating Trump's administration altogether. Canadians can handle the heat just as well as they can handle the cold. No new deal with any US government presided over by this dishonest excuse for a human being!
30
Just as the Fed is supposed to be independent from political hackery, so is the Justice Dept.
We now know that AG Barr can add his name to Moore, Ross, and the many others in Trump's hackistocracy.
Looks like it will continue to be tough competition in Gail's contest for worst.
11
A "process of corrosion" .... seems a perfect description of the Trump adminstration and its effect on our form of government and its institutions.
10
Did you write that we are a peaceful country? We are the most violent nation in human history, certainly now with endless wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan. And at home we are known for gun violence and the world's largest arms dealer.
19
Trumps election had nothing to do with issues. Everyone just needs to go talk to anyone that doesn't live in a city. They feel left behind. They want a past world. He WILL put tariffs on foreign cars. Which will close plants. He won't defend Americans working at foreign plants. I have no doubt this current carpetbagger will make these rural folks denounce medicare, medicaid and SS. They are socialistic ideals ya know.
11
@Boyd: The next chapter in, "What's the Matter With Kansas."
The degree to which the American electorate is now willing to reject facts and expert opinion, and vote for whoever will poke a stick in the eye of "those [liberal] elites" and protect us from "those people" is appalling.
The triumph of willful stupidity, and we all know what political quarter has been lovingly cultivating that trait for 40 plus years.
1
Yes Paul, you’ve been so right about the economic disaster the Trump Presidency would cause. Oh wait ... my real estate values, 401K, and salary are all doing better than ever.
2
@James: This week, darlin'. I, for one, don't feel comfortable losing a year's worth of stock market gains in a few short weeks and then gaining them back again a month or two later. The degree of instability Trump has brought to *everything* is not good for the economy nor any other aspect of the country's health.
An unstable narcissist and demagogue does not make for good governance in any role, and certainly not as POTUS.
3
@James We are living through the Obama boom. Do you really think two years of governance by this mob -- with only one tax break, mostly for the wealthy and corps -- is behind the current healthy economic state?
2
@James
Please explain how real estate values and 401K's going up have anything to do with Trump.
3
Trump, and Republicans in general, are not afraid to push the envelope.
They are out for themselves snd will put the worst of the swamp in positions of control and power. They are not afraid of how blatantly obvious that their intentions appear.
They know that there are weak, if any protections against, or ramifications of their criminal actions.
There was no accountability for the financial crash of 2008. That was the signal that the coast is clear - the rule of law is dead.
The American experiment suffered a mortal blow under Ronald Reagan.
The Republican assault has been relentless since that time, and they understand how easy that their path ahead appears.
Just ask Mitch McConnell.
18
Having suffered through many CNN talking heads segments featuring Mr Moore defending many ridiculously indefencible positions, my only reaction to his appointment is... what took Trump so long?
9
Trump may say he knows the art of the deal but the reality is he knows more about the value of the conservative narrative. He has systematically reached for the likes of Kudlow, Moore and Ross because the conservative narrative they espouse does not taint itself with economic facts but with political goals in the guise of economics.
The narrative always comes back around to discrediting the ability of the government to help the lives of people by way of entitlements, education , health care, air, water and climate safety. The solution according to the conservative narrative that will improve people's lives are tax cuts, reduced regulation and private sector initiatives.
the problem with the conservative narrative is that reduced regulations lead to irresponsible corporate behavior and private sector initiatives are about serving corporate bottom lines and as far as cutting taxes that helps stock buy-backs and does not find itself in higher wages. The conservative narrative rather than driven by fact is driven by an attempt to reduce facts to politics and fantasy...this it seems to be very good at...!
5
In Trump's defense, he probably figures that if he can get elected and run the executive office of the U.S. government, then pretty much anyone can vote to keep interest rates low and balloon the FED's balance sheet.
7
The last Presidential Election featured various groups of voters having tantrums. One group would not vote for her, others did not vote at all, some voted none of the above and went for a vanity vote that reflected their personal pet peeves..Super Delegates vetoed the popular vote, Electoral college trumped popular votes, The Democratic Party Machine showed the new kid on the block he was not as welcome in the new neighborhood. Comey tantrum. Wiki tantrum. Voters showing the Nation that their personal soap box was more important than anything else. We has the Tantrum voter.
And we got a Tantrum President. Obviously the voters got what they deserved.
6
I believe the term you are looking for is kakistocracy.
Trump has violated every norm of governance and its institutions and now the Federal Reserve is to be inducted into the realm of the ignorance of Trumpism. Trump is not an aberration but the culmination of Republican policies initiated by Reagan to Trump, a loathing of regulation, factual evidence and racial divisiveness with a fascist alliance with fundamentalist Christian evangelicals. The slippery slope brought us GOP leaders; Ralph Reed, David Duke, Newt Gingrich, Huckabee, Dick Cheney, the tea party, the alt-right fascists including Steve Bannon and Steve Miller. The Southern Evangelicals and the GOP unholy alliance have used coded dog whistles to incite fear, hate, and divisiveness, fueling a culture war embracing ignorance. Trump makes Nixon look honest and George W. Bush intelligent!
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
Isaac Asimov: (1920 -1992)
21
GOP has degenerated into a new Know Nothing Party, and they are a lot more dangerous in the 21st century than they were in the 19th.
God help us if they win again in 2020!
10
Dr. K. You're killing me. I believe you. Can we recover in 2020? I hope so.
2
Stephen Moore makes a complete fool out of himself every single time he opens his mouth. It’s sad. Now it’s even more tragic that he’s in decisionmaking capacity, only because he says nice things about our pathetically needy chief executive. We will all suffer because of it.
6
By deliberately and systematically appointing the worst of the worst, the Trump administration is undermining U.S. national security every day. Is he acting as a foreign agent, or is he that stupid? Either answer is unacceptable.
A third explanation is that his appointments are self-serving. Such as: His son-in-law including security clearances so that he could negotiate his way out of a failed real estate business with Arab oil sheiks; Tillerson where one appointment was nixed in favor of one pleasing to the Russians; and three high level appointments just to nix any investigation into his criminal wrong doing--Sessions, Kavanaugh, and Barr.
7
Addition to the lexicon: pukistocracy — the promotion of people whose absurd lack of qualification and views contrary to factual evidence make you want to throw up.
4
Speaking of political hacks, weren’t you trained as an economist and not a political scientist?
@Veritas: ummmm, this column is about economics, and the lack of expertise on the topic by Stephen Moore, along with others in the administration.
2
Trump believes himself “a one man marching band” of expertise on just about any subject you care to name i.e. healthcare, science, economics, history, the law, foreign relations - he’s got them all covered. He doesn’t want bona fide experts on anything. He wants sycophantic idealogues like Ross, DeVos, Pompeo, Pence etc. willing to provide “praise-fests” at a moment’s notice.
Some past presidents have given us “the best and the brightest” but Trump has given us “ the worst and the dumbest.”
5
First, they laughed at "latte-drinking, Prius-driving intellectuals" then they replaced them with hacks and hucksters who sound serious, but are only truly serious about themselves being a sycophant for the rich and powerful. This is how nations die.
7
So -- to summarize -- Mr. Moore is not quite the cream of the crop, eh?
3
We are just rapidly catching up with other 3rd world countries where position and power is dictated exclusively by loyalty to the dear leader.
13
I'm not sure what the predicament is here. Moore is simply following his leader. Trump wants to be surrounded by numskulls and twits, if only to make himself feel smarter. Trump wants to fill these positions with chronic liars and incompetents as these qualities mirror his own proclivities and abilities. At the end of the day--and what a long day it has been--Trump would rather put an outright idiot into a position of responsibility and influence, as long as he or she is loyal to him.
6
I don't think Trump likes to be the dumbest guy in the room. He knows he can't go toe to toe with with a collection of experts, but, being a heavyweight hack himself, he is comfortable with going at it with other hacks (whom he has carefully vetted to insure inferiority).
10
Repubs like Moore have the mindset of the Boeing designer who built the fatal flaw into the 737 Max 8...and thought they weren't doing anything wrong.
2
Paul Krugman, the words are
Amalthis
Anikanthis
In front of -tocracy.
Show off!
More bad choosing by Trump was in "expert climate scientist" (who's never studied climate science) Patrick Moore. The guy is a moronic denier of facts and logic when it comes to climate change caused by fossil fuel combustion. Is Trump deliberately failing to provide America with the highest quality public servants, or is he just too dumb to know the difference?
5
Moore has admitted he has no idea what and how the Fed operates or is.
“I’m kind of new to this game, frankly, so I’m going to be on a steep learning curve myself about how the Fed operates, how the Federal Reserve makes its decisions,” Moore, 59, said on BTV. “It’s hard for me to say even what my role will be there, assuming I get confirmed.”
He also tweeted on Friday, thanking Trump “for the opportunity to serve & for your zealous commitment to freeing the American economic engine from government overreach & oppressive taxation!”
Moore does not have the typical qualifications of a Fed appointee, the vast majority of whom have a PhD in economics. Moore has a Master of Arts degree from the famously right-wing George Mason University and served as a fellow at the also famously right-wing Heritage Foundation. He has advised several GOP campaigns, including Trump’s, and co-wrote a book with conservative economist Art Laffer titled “Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive Our Economy.”
Just another Swamp creature add to the menagerie.
https://www.salon.com/2019/03/25/trump-nominee-admits-he-does-not-know-how-the-federal-reserve-works-a-steep-learning-curve_partner/
8
Why not go whole hog in the kaka department and make Sean Hannity Secretary of State and Jean Pirro Attorney General? Trump knows his base (40% of Americans, about the same percentage as Hitler's supporters in 1932--so 40% morons may be standard in human societies in general) inside out. He knows that their only source of information, like his, is TV. So they love it when Trump appoints idiotic snake-oil salesmen for the right like Moore. For Trump's base these ARE the "experts." How about Vanna White for Secretary of Labor?
9
In this column Paul Krugman asks (pasting in): "Why do hacks rule on the right? It may simply be that a party of apparatchiks feels uncomfortable with people who have any real expertise or independent reputation, no matter how loyal they may seem. After all, you never know when they might take a stand on principle."
Without attempting a fuller explanation, let's simply recall that Adolf Hitler also systematically surrounded himself with hacks and hatchetmen (the sole exception apparently having been Albert Speer and the verdict is still out on him), all the better both to cast himself in better light than otherwise might have graced him and to preclude any questions about legitimacy, progress or expertise. It seems to me that President Trump acts similarly and probably for similar reasons, though in his case it also seems possible that he knows no better because he knows nothing.
As always, thanks you, Paul Krugman!
6
Moore is less.
5
What all did the mueller investigation uncover ? Putin and the russians did undermine US democracy in 2016. They disparaged hillary and got trump elected. It was a huge victory for Putin and the russians. The man is a genius. He is too smart for mueller and US intelligence. 40 percent of america, and the entire republican party has surrendered to putin without firing a shot. The defense shield against soviet missiles was a complete waste. Putin's was a masterly move like hitler's when he invaded france through the ardenne's forest, making france's maginot line defenses useless and spreading chaos behind it, and france soon surrendered. He used social media to wreak chaos and havoc and the GOP surrendered america. At least 9 people close to trump-his inner circle, including jared kushner and fred trump, met with the russians. Fred Trump met with a russian to collect dirt on hillary clinton. Putin hacked her and the DNC and leaked a lot of damaging information that turned the 2016 election. Trump has done what Napolean's and Stalin's vassal state heads did in the past. He has denied russian interference in the 2016 US elections. He is the biggest traitor in US history.In lenin and stalin's or even brezhnev's russia, a trump would have disappeared at the receiving end of a firing squad, or been interned in siberia. Even the mueller report agrees that the russians interfered. We can be sure that in private putin has nothing but contempt for trump and the GOP.
2
Access to expertise in all areas is the one great aid for a President or any political leader. But said individual must have the basic knowledge and confidence in that knowledge to choose among those offering expertise. First rate leaders choose first rate experts; second rate leaders choose third rate experts.
We are learning who an unqualified President will choose. Not surprising, but upsetting.
7
I’ve followed politics for 40 years, and i spent 30 years working on and around Wall Street. What I’ve found is while reasonable people can disagree on an any particular issue, the scope of the differences will generally not be that great... until the participants start to bring their personal greed, avarice, resentments and personal ambitions into their analyses.
At that point, they check their intellects and sense of justice at the door, and embrace all sorts of ideas aimed at currying the favor required to obtain money and power. This whole sorry behavior has been enabled by the proliferation of news networks and social platforms, and it’s a slow-motion tragedy for America.
7
Wow. After two plus years of beating the Russia drum- Collusion! Treason!- your first column after release of the findings of the Mueller report is on...Fed politics?????
What a cop out.
1
My previous comment was intended for David Brooks, not Paul Krugman. Sorry for the slip.
Trump only knows conmen, hacks, incompetents, liars and lowlifes like himself which makes it no surprise when puts them in positions for which they are totally unfit.
6
@Amanda Bonner I think you overestimate Trump's knowledge of the people he's nominating, as opposed to letting longtime extremist ideologues call the shots.
1
With such stupid people at the top, there is the very real concern that the hard work and trust that has allowed us to become number one in the world over the past six decades will be rapidly reversed. In that case, the hyperinflation and economic turmoil the right-wingnuts have been preaching for so long will become reality.
Of course, the right-wingnuts will blame Obama and throw Hilary in jail to show how correct the God Offal Politicos were.
5
Republicans are shouting hosannas to the highest after the release of the Barr report and continuing their lockstep march down the road to unfettered exploitation and greed.
We are reaching a point of profound selfishness in which the mantra shifts from E Pluribus Unum to Privilege Makes Right.
But we do this at our very peril. It is axiomatic: people have their ups and downs and will fall on hard times even if it is only senescence and death. And, if I live in a world of vultures, who will care for me when I trip and fall?
Marriages work because two people can share a changing load. Societies work because groups of people can help one another. Nations work when we have cooperative engagement and assistance in national and international disasters. Failures in these balancing acts leads to divorce, a polarized nation and wars, respectively.
Reasonable people can disagree but reasonable people can and must negotiate accords which acknowledge and respect all parties.
Living in a world of Ins and Outs will ultimately have each of us alone in the Outs.
5
But he's an older white man, with a master's degree from somewhere in Virginia. He must be smart!
3
I hope that Moore studies how to compute an APR. The appointment of Trump’s CFPB nominee could not explain it and that is part of the job. It was embarrassing to watch the testimony.
4
“Remarkable in the seismic upheavals of 1933-4 was not how much, but how little, the new Chancellor needed to do to bring about the extension and consolidation of his power. Hitler’s dictatorship was made as much by others as by himself. As the “representative figure” of the “national renewal” Hitler could for the most part function as activator and enabler of the forces he had unleashed, authorizing and legitimating actions taken by others now rushing to implement what they took to be his wishes. Scarcely any of the transformations of Germany during the spring and summer of 1933 had followed direct orders from the Reich Chancellery. Hitler had rarely been personally involved. But he was the main beneficiary.”
--- Ian Kershaw, the noted biographer of Adolf Hitler and scholar of Hitlerism, who was instrumental in introducing the concept of “Working Toward the Führer."
Remind you of someone?
3
I was an average student that graduated with a degree in economics in 1982. And, that was the end of my career in economics. Yet, somehow I seem to have better insight into economic issues that the vast majority of these advisers. And, in no way is that meant a compliment to my own economic knowledge.
5
Mr Krugman, this line pretty much sums it all up "But as top jobs systematically go to hacks, there is an inevitable process of corrosion."
Elect an idiot for a President, expect more idiots to join the circus.
4
It appears that there is no stopping whatever is going on. While I vote Democratic, I had not thought the Republicans corrupt until the Obama administration, when winning worked against progress. Trump et al, want a different country, that I am trying to figure out, and it now seems they are prevailing, because they have fooled the angry blue collar guys. And the Dems have ceded them because of identity politics and demographics. However, the win has brought a cabal of moneyed, privileged and corrupt people into power, as though Pablo Escobar had become president of Columbia, and just like Putin in Russia. The bulwark against that has deviled democracy since our revolution and the bulwark is now breaking because of media, blurring the line between entertainment and serious discource, and corruption by the powers that we can't see. What did Devin Nunez mean by "all this" when he said: "if Trump gets impeached, all this will go away"?
5
The election of the man gave great comfort to all low intelligence sycophants, coattail surfers, self-dealing morons and narcissistic me-me-me greedsters that they too could actual rise without merit, based on want alone. Naturally some landed in his cabinet.
5
Moore is an idiot. I have seen him many times on the cable networks toe the Trump party line. He is affable and rarely angry when cornered. He could sell just about anything, and in fact he has. Too bad that MSNBC and CNN gave him so much airtime. Hopefully, his colleagues at the Federal Reserve will shun him and his impact will be limited.
4
Stephen Moore was a nightmare to watch on CNN. A Partisan Hack. He is loyal as a dog, dumb as rock, and poisonous as a snake.
6
Wilbur Ross? Geez I won! A complete hack. Although I do have to admit he does represent the most rigged section of Wall Street well! He’s Buffet, except not successful. Lots of money no ideals
1
Paul Krugman ---
Anikanos - tocracy
Amalthis - tocracy
Show off!
1
Garbage in; garbage out.
If they can make Government FAIL
then THEY Win.
If they can drown OUR Government in the bath,
or sewer or whatever's handiest, they'll know they've Really Accomplished Something.
And they like to call themselves the Partriots.
7
This is a problem with the far right in general. I have two brothers, both of them far right. One day we were discussing climate change. One of my brothers said he could rebut any argument I made that climate change is real and a threat. He received this "knowledge" by watching Bill O'Reilly on Fox News.
On the other hand, I earned a degree in meteorology. OK, that doesn't make me a climatologist, but I think it's fair to say I've studied a bit about atmospheric processes. Not to mention global temperature and precipitation data.
I got nowhere. Expertise is diminished and mocked in far right circles, which I discovered first hand.
This "Death of Expertise" fever will break eventually. But I have no idea when or how.
23
@Joe S.
I empathize with your statements. I am a tax attorney. I graduated top of my class both from law school and in my tax LLM (degree above JD). I practice corporate and tax law and have dedicated (so far) tens of thousands of hours and in the process have become a bit of an expert.
I am routinely told, by those on the right who have literally no tax background, that things like supply side economics, lowering corporate tax rates, allowing shareholder buy backs, etc. are all good things and that their knowledge is the equivalent of mine.
I'm not one to say my knowledge is the end all and be all. But, I think it should go without saying that someone who has not spent tens of thousands of hours and earned multiple degrees probably has less knowledge on the subject than someone who has.
5
@John Marshall Your humility disqualifies you from the ears of the right. Nothing less than 100% hubris is good enough for them.
4
@Joe S.
I hope it breaks but something will not that works against OUR wish. That is people simply believe what they like best like allowing children to choose vegetables OR donuts. They like donuts so they know that vegetable are not as good. It's simple! minded.
This is not a real government but a Russian and Fox News produced video simulation. Television shows don't use real doctors to appear in medical emergency shows, they use actors. That is the same story in politics in America right now.
We use to call it citizenship. Now it is a consumer choice in an entertainment menu.
17
I have been more than surprised at the lack of attention given by you and or all economists and or political pundits on this front.
Currently it look like the President is going to appoint either all five Fed Governors or at least 4 in his first term. If all five are appointed it will be the first time since the founding of the Federal reserve under Wilson that a single president appointed all five Fed Governors. That kind of makes these appointments pretty important, maybe more important than supreme court appointments.
You name calling of proposed candidates is interesting but you miss the biggest picture. Appointing all five Fed Governors creates more power and control than anyone can imagine, economically. Go easy on the name calling and identify the potential power being amassed. You, your academia elite and the media will not be able to change this.
Just imagine 5 appointed hacks, all by the same President. Interesting.
5
The more positions the GOP fills with hacks, the sooner they can declare that government doesn't work and it needs to be privatized.
Then, a long list of donors will magically be found to take them over for personal profit.
The quicker the GOP can cause institutions to fail, the quicker they can make a buck off them.
They can't stand piles of money they can't touch.
21
Being properly wrong actually allows certain things to happen. A different path rather than the correct one can be taken that benefits the few over the chagrin of the many. Stephen Moore might, for example, wrongly argue that tax cuts would be a boon to the economy of Kansas. The midwestern gentry might laud him as a visionary while the serfdom, suffering as they must, had never heard of him, thus not placing responsibility where it lies. In the meantime, Moore just blunders along. It’s the perfect antidote for equality and economic fairness.
5
The Republican Party has to be reformed from within-or we will be driven off the cliff where empires go to die. They will never accept what most sane, intelligent Americans see on a daily basis, that the seductive mantra of “rugged individualism “ and “unfettered capitalism “ is not a recipe for the good of the country, but rather an excuse to plunder the country. What I ask myself daily is whether we reaping what we had sowed in the last century or so? Even before that. We haven’t always behaved in a stellar manner in our affairs, domestically or outside the country. The average American, the poor, the powerless, the ignored, we will pay the price for the sins of past. Never mind that we are the victims of it as well.
22
@Maggie Sawyer, capitalism ain't perfect, but it is far superior to any alternative. the poor in the US have standards of living far better than 94% of other humans on the planet.
Perhaps studying the economic history of socialism, which always had sweet sounding jingo, and then slow steady removal of human rights, bigger government and government unlimited power., It wasn't pretty and always resulted in genocide, sadly, as govt grew and needed to stifle any threats to its power.
Examples include China (under Mao), Russia (under Stalin and Lenin), Vietnam (post our withdrawal), Cambodia (Pol Pot), Cuba, and more recently Venezuela.
Under Hugo's policies they slipped from prosperity to starvation in 20 short years.
And yet, Bernie's policies are remarkably similar to Hugo's. Fascinating that so many progressives don't know this. and, scary.
1
@Joe Yoh
Nowhere does Maggie Sawyer suggest socialism. There are other options to "unfettered capitalism". Let's take a breath and think this through, shall we?
11
@Joe Yoh (Examples include China (under Mao), Russia (under Stalin and Lenin), Vietnam (post our withdrawal), Cambodia (Pol Pot), Cuba, and more recently Venezuela. Under Hugo's policies they slipped from prosperity to starvation in 20 short years) Forgot to mention the us intervention in the Affairs of these countries.
2
Of course, this Kakistocracy/Hackistocracy state of the country goes with the territory since it reflects a President who even in his past life was the developer by chapter 11s and an artist cooking financial statements for the Dutch Bank. Nobody can cook a Michelin quality meal using 4th rate ingredients and rotten vegetables.
But Trump seems comfortable convincing his base that those meals are better than Michelin quality. Now, thanks to the spin of AG Barr's memo of the Mueller's report, we will have the Kakistocracy win by a landslide in 2020. There is the Muller report and, there is the propaganda that we will suffer for 2 years.
16
I believe you, Mr Krugman, when you speak of kaks and hacks; I see them everyday, as trade unionist, in my own industry. I have often mused, mostly bitterly, that crass incompetence is regarded as a form of a sublime enlightenment by those who practise it with impunity. In fact, the more incompetent, the more brilliant they appear. Somehow, it is the rest of us who have failed them when best laid plans go awry. The ability to make a deliberate mistake without ramifications is an ultimate expression of entitlement that only lowers the bar of societal expectations. The trouble is that society at large does not swiftly act to condemn the kaks and hacks for what they are. Instead, we afford them yet more status in the forlorn delusion that, because of the esteemed position they hold, they must be competent and the failure is in our inability to comprehend genius in our midst.
A tragic example of this occurred recently in my experience when four of my coworkers were killed in four months in horrific industrial accidents. The kakist hacks blamed the massacre on the weather, the murderous Canadian winter stalking innocent workers and family men, except that no one froze to death. It was an institutional failure to maintain safety and equipment to the required standard that did the assassin’s work, and now four families and a workplace are bereft and heartbroken, agonisingly frustrated by the blithe sophistry of those who fail to acknowledge their role in outrageous misfortune.
18
More and more it's become apparent that the two major parties are crystalizing into two competing visions of the future. As a society we are going to have to choose, soon.
On the one hand we have a cutthroat economic and political Darwinism; a belief that might makes right and the wiliest and strongest deserve to take as much as they can for themselves.
On the other hand we have a vision of a latticed society; the obvious notion that without cohesion and support, the whole Jenga tower of civilization collapses.
What we've seen over the past forty years is the practical ascendance of the first view. This has culminated in the Trump administration. Yes, it's a kakistocracy, but it's moreso a kleptocracy - those in Trump's circle are allowed to pillage for personal gain. They're pulling out the Jenga blocks from the bottom of the structure and pulling them on top, instead of making more blocks. This is why Trump's clear violation of emoluments, refusal to divest, and tax opaqueness are so devastating.
The whole thing is teetering.
43
@ Joe Yoh,
Kakistocracy and extreme socialism are obviously not the only two options.
@Dan
"On the one hand we have a cutthroat economic and political Darwinism;"
Except that the conservatives are always bashing Darwin in order to win votes from evangelicals.
This is all part of Trump's invisible genius. Appoint a cheerleader to an important national position requiring skills reserved to a select few. Moore like Trump has no pivot, unlikely to allow the nature of the task to alter his pledge of fidelity. If you are not by nature a conservative pretend to be one with appointments.
5
How did Wilbur Ross beat out Betsy DeVos and Kirstjen Nielsen?
The kakistocracy and hackistocracy that Paul Krugman describes is not unique to the Federal Reserve or the GOP. It is endemic in society, especially in academic and political cultures that promote mediocre loyalists and cast out truly free thinkers.
This is symptomatic of the gradual degradation of governance and society in general.
8
@MS Those supposed pillars of capitalism and the free enterprise system that we're supposed to worship - the business corporation - are also like this, in the worst way. Many plum management positions, promotions, and perks are given to loyalists and suckups, not people with the best skills.
2
Where voodoo economics is embraced, as it is in the Trump administration, surely there will be voodoo economic doctors.
12
So, the hucksters are just now reaching the Federal Reserve? How about Alan Greenspan? How about Henry Paulson? How about Timothy Geithner? And don't forget the President's Council of Economic Advisers. In fact, it seems that hucksters have invaded the entire "science" of "mainstream economics." When will it ever end? When will rationality replace "voodoo economics?"
11
@hestal Comparing the credentials of the trio that you mentioned is like comparing a high school student to a PhD in terms of pertinent experience. With the trio that you excoriated at least I would have known that they had a basic understanding of the subject that they were charged to manage. Moore admits that he has to learn how the Fed works.
Moore acts like a jacknape for conservatives. I often don’t agree with what they say but, at least, some conservatives are true to their beliefs. Moore has one principal and that is to keep the conservatives in power so that we can have a true plutocracy.
2
@hestal
Comparing Moore and Kudlow to Greenspan, Paulson and Geithner is a false equivalency.
1
@Mark Smith
You are comparing their credentials. Bad idea. It is far more sensible to compare the results of their actions when in power. They are all pretty much the same. Remember, Greenspan's final words to Waxman were that he did not know what he was doing. Really you can look it up. He helped wreck the economy and he admitted in public testimony that all he had learned and tried to apply was, in fact, wrong. I rest my case.
The people must contain the learning needed to recognize hacksters. Unfortunately, they seldom if ever do. It isn’t something easily placed in multiple choice tests.
10
i don't disagree with your main premise Paul, but economists are perhaps not the best choice. their most common traits are the temerity to think they can truly understand something so complex as "the economy" and the hubris to predict the future -- both of which they are generally very poor at.
3
I need to plan so I can fit it all this reality TV with the regularly scheduled reality TV on cable. I just wish for another reality. The one where it all just goes away like a bad dream.
11
@USNA73
While I can easily understand your reaction, I cannot support its resignation and maybe cynicism.
I suspect most thinking people get a bit of that feeling on learning each new unbelievable event created by the President or his enablers. But then they hopefully take a deep breath and muster some energy to think about ways to put things right, even if/when they know there is no quick fix.
7
@DonB: Cynicism here is simply the recognition of reality, neither emphasizing its better or worst aspects. Cynicism is honest recognition of the world as it is.
Something apparently foreign to many pundits and GOP operatives and elected.
I have no doubt Stephen Moore is the hack Mr. Krugman says he is. Moore's hack status is confirmed by Trump's impeccable record appointing hacks to important government posts.
But there's a key difference Mr. Krugman is too polite to mention. Moore joins a Federal Reserve System that's designed to fill its federal district Reserve boards with hacks, banking hacks or as they were known a few years ago as banksters. He'll be a hack among hacks.
The Federal Reserve System is among the most corrupt and conflicted government agencies if not the most. From its very conception as a cartel of banks presided over by bank agents or executives, headed by an appointed Chair who's usually an academic economist with conventional views about bankonomics that have baked in a high tolerance of income inequality and total fealty to the notion that great individual wealth signals economic success.
The Federal Reserve is little more than a commercial bank cabal wrapped in a powerful myth that it serves a higher moral purpose than just sustaining banks too big to fail and wealth too powerful to challenge.
It's fair to say its sole function is to insure big banks have access to very cheap money to lend out at usurious rates. Banks get money costing 1%, which is lent to high risk consumers at up to 30%. Total consumer credit debt now stands at over $1 trillion.
It's a den of thieves aiding and abetting legal thievery.
In that light, Stephen Moore is perfect.
53
I am at a loss as to why I continue to see Mr. Moore featured on credible news outlets such as CSPAN and NPR. The most compelling question regarding Mr. Moore seems to be to what extent he is merely incompetent or intentionally deceptive.
He does validate what the mission of the Heritage Foundation actually is though.
41
More of the Republican lack of knowledge or caring about science in any form, be it economics, climate change, or so many other issues where ideology overtakes science, no matter how wrong or dangerous.
27
Consider, after thoughtful analysis, whether or not it would be helpful to add to your "Kakistocracy" and "Hackistocracy," "Complacentocracy" and "Complicitocracy" by many, many good, hard-working folks. Kin, neighbors, friends and even strangers, whose physical, psychological, spiritual, social and a range of other energies, and capital, are being challenged, and depleted, daily, as personally-unaccountable elected and selected policymakers, at all levels, all over, and their advisors, are enabled to operate. Wilful blindness to what exists, deafness, ignorance, and silence are choices. Having made them, for whatever the reasons, one is accountable in order for necessary learning to take place. To be integrated into future needed awareness. Paying attention by not only looking but also seeing. By using our cognitive and emotional skills, abilities, and other relevant resources, internal and external ones, to adequately assess, derive reasonable implications and conclusions and to make relevant decisions. And carry them out, or decide not to do so,in ways which enable necessary learning. To "Fail better" is more than a literary quote. Or a mantra. It is an invitation to choosing to contribute to making, creating, needed differences which transmute harmful realities into sustainable changes which can, and do, make a much-needed difference! Thank you for your helpful and meaningful caveats; your focused reminders.
4
"Why do hacks rule on the right? It may simply be that a party of apparatchiks feels uncomfortable with people who have any real expertise or independent reputation, no matter how loyal they may seem. After all, you never know when they might take a stand on principle."
And they have good reason to worry: just look at what John Roberts has done: he will never be trusted again after his "betrayal" in the Obamacare case. And Reagan's Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, turned out to be far more practical and less partisan than had been intended. Koop's official positions on abortion, tobacco, AIDS, and many other important health issues were the opposite of what hard-right conservatives wanted.
McMaster, Mattis, Kelly, and Tillerson proved entirely unsatisfactory. All are gone. Even Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are capable of "betrayal", as their lifetime appointments make it no longer necessary for them to toe a party line.
So we should expect the appointment of many more unqualified hacks. With Barr's announcement that the Mueller investigation reached no conclusions, the days of pretending to choose qualified ministers are over. There's no need or value in maintaining any such pretense.
29
As if wearing a WIN (whip inflation now) button or festooning the Laffer curve as bunting were the panaceas.
9
Economics is the best field for kakistocrats and hucksters of all partisan political persuasions.
Economics is not a science. Economists are scientists.
There are too many variables and unknowns to craft the double-blind experimental controlled tests that provide predictable and repeatable results that are the essence of science.
Economics is gender, color aka race. ethnicity, national origin, faith, sociology, politics, education and history plus arithmetic.
There is no Nobel Prize in economics. There is the Swedish National Bank Prize in memory of Alfred Nobel.
America is not a business. Donald Trump is not a businessman.
America is a nation state. Donald Trump inherited his only successful business from his New York City real estate baron father. Trump played a businessman on reality TV.
16
@Blackmamba
If "double-blind experimental controlled tests" are the essence of science, I guess we have to cross off astronomy, geology, geography, climatology, much of psychology, and so on.
2
@Ben Miller
Science is not the only academic field.
Science provides the best current natural explanation for the best observed natural phenomena based upon the best available current natural data. Science is always provisional and refutable by better theoretical explanations, observations and data.
Geography is not a science.
Mathematics, physics and chemistry are the 'basic' sciences.
1
@Blackmamba
errata...Economists are not scientists.
1
"We’re already seeing a degradation of the way our government responds to things like natural disasters."
So true. Yet far more dangerous is that this presidency proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the U.S., if it has any hope of surviving long, must be able to parry threats to its existence much faster and much more effectively. The biggest threat is right now.
14
@polymath
Kushner, Kudlow, Moore, Carson, Mnuchin,..is this not a disaster in real time. Do we need to look for one in the future?
Samm, I'm not *looking for* a disaster.
We're in it already.
Paul Krugman, don’t you think it’s a little rich for you to call out other economists. Did You forget to include your own wrong prediction about what a Trump economy would look like when you, "It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover? A first-pass answer is never… So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight."
5
@David Keltz
If I remember correctly at the beginning of this column Dr. Krugman admitted he at times makes mistakes. What economist doesn't as someone noted there are too many variables for economics to be a hard science, it is about predictions. Bet you clipped your quote and have just been waiting for your chance to use it, too bad it doesn't apply.
29
David Keltz, Anyone who makes predictions (what economists do) will make a few bad ones at times.
The question is, How well and how often do they at least *try* to marshal accurate facts and apply valid reasoning?
That criterion puts Stephen Moore at the opposite end of the economic universe from the esteemed position Paul Krugman has earned for himself.
8
@David Keltz Seems to me that Dr. Krugman has owned up to that mistake. That of course is a sign of weakness to Trump and his supporters who seem to believe that along with the Pope, Trump is infallible.
2
Just to be contrarian, in most presidential elections, the state of the economy is a strong factor in determining if the incumbent is reelected or replaced. If the incumbent appoints enough incompetent people to make economic policy, the chances of reelection are simultaneously reduced. So joy. Unless of course you need your job.
15
"Why do hacks rule on the right?"
And why do the employers of these hacks keep getting elected? We will be pondering that problem for a long time, assuming it doesn't do us in, first.
27
Because we live in a mostly uneducated country, where simplicity of thought rules. Its evident on both sides, but the republicans need stupid to survive.
2
Ignorant born fear- drives a significant proton of the electorate.
1
Well, temporary damage by unqualified bosses is seemingly the norm
while good leaders are reportedly not exactly who interests our semi
great leader, but loyal lobbyists reportedly get hired.
But the damage accomplishment may not be repairable.
It is truly demoralizing to think he deliberately tends to employ hacks, and
of course that is actually scary as h and should be.
The first head of EPA was a Common Cause type, while an attorney who
reputedly sued EPA more than once apparently was DJTs infamous pick.
Such is unforgivable except by his 30% base.
The deaths caused by pollution is seemingly incalculable.
11
There is virtue in having an advisor who is always wrong, as the course of action to take is clear. I’m sure that’s what Trump was thinking, as any stable genius would.
9
@David Doney There are many wrong ways and just a few right ways. So just knowing one of the wrong ways doesn't do a leader any good.
4
It isn’t as though bad appointments are made inadvertently. It’s a deliberate plan, and part of the general thrust of the GOP and Trump’s billionaire backers. The explicit goal of all concerned is to “starve the beast” to emasculate government to the point of complete ineffectiveness so a few know-it-all Oligarchs can run the country “properly” themselves.
55
Leave it to Trump to further jeopardize the economic future of America. As if it was not enough to have appointed an unqualified person as chief economist (Larry Kudlow), now he doubles down by planning to appoint Stephen Moore.
17
It isn't only Trump. The hacks of the GOP include handpicked disasters by Nixon, Reagan, and the Bush family.
16
Dr. K,
Today's report By Chris Mooney and
Brady Dennis of the Washington Post, concerns me and I hope that you will get interested in the macroeconomics of energy policy. This is a very tough problem, but if we have any sense this will be given priority.
"Global energy experts released grim findings Monday, saying that not only are planet-warming carbon-dioxide emissions still increasing, but the world’s growing thirst for energy has led to higher emissions from coal-fired power plants than ever before.
Energy demand around the world grew by 2.3 percent over the past year, marking the most rapid increase in a decade, according to the report from the International Energy Agency. To meet that demand, largely fueled by a booming economy, countries turned to an array of sources, including renewables.
But nothing filled the void quite like fossil fuels, which satisfied nearly 70 percent of the skyrocketing electricity demand, according to the agency, which analyzes energy trends on behalf of 30 member countries, including the United States.
In particular, a fleet of relatively young coal plants located in Asia, with decades to go on their lifetimes, led the way toward a record for emissions from coal fired power plants — exceeding 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide “for the first time,” the agency said. In Asia, “average plants are only 12 years old, decades younger than their average economic lifetime of around 40 years,” the agency found.
15
Dr. K,
It seems to me that this appointment jeopardizes the idea that the Federal Reserve is independent. I think it is probably O.K. for the members of the FOMC to be aware of what both the views of the Congress and the President but this is one government authorized organization that must take its mission very seriously. It will be interesting to see how the staff reacts to this new board member and equally important it is a wonderful opportunity to educate Mr. Moore.
Actually, I am more concerned that the President may take an interest in monetary policy or that he may cause part of the World to believe that the has control over monetary policy. This would be a national security threat.
7
The problem with competent people is they are honest. But Trump wants loyal people who can formulate the theory that justifies his actions. If one asks Trump what he thinks of Dr. Krugman, he would say he doesn’t know economics and I deserve Nobel prize more than he does and follows it with a twitter attack. Moore is there primarily to help move the interest rates in the direction Trump wants and nothing more. For that, no competence is required.
64
@Kodali
"Moore is there primarily to help move the interest rates in the direction Trump wants and nothing more."
Exactly.
"The only problem our economy has is the Fed. They don’t have a feel for the Market, they don’t understand necessary Trade Wars or Strong Dollars or even Democrat Shutdowns over Borders. The Fed is like a powerful golfer who can’t score because he has no touch - he can’t putt!" (Trump tweet on December 24, 2018)
Trump sees gains in the stock market as a reflection of his fiscal policies, and his alone. He does not want interest rates to rise. And he also wants historically low unemployment to stay where it is as we head into next year's election. He cares only about getting re-elected. He couldn't care less about any collateral damage to the economy or to ordinary Americans.
This Fed appointment has been a foregone conclusion. Trump demands loyalty from people competent enough merely to follow his instructions. Nothing else matters to him. Other people are simply in his way. If he could appoint Ivanka and Jared to be in complete control of the Fed, and everything else for that matter, he would do so in a heartbeat. He wouldn't think twice about it, as long as he thought he could get away with it.
Voters elected Trump as the U.S. president. This is what our democracy has become.
12
@Blue Moon No, voters didn't do that, the Electoral College did.
The government just posted its largest monthly deficit ever and that deficit is largely the result of Trump's corporate tax cut, a boon to companies looking to do share buy backs or increase CEO compensation but largely meaningless to working Americans, whether those at the upper end of the income spectrum or at the bottom.
To push through this irresponsible tax cut, Trump needed the support of partisan hacks like Stephen Moore. Hacks like him were only too willing to cheerlead Trump's tax plan and wheel out the usual old clichés about 'trickle-down effect' and rising tides lifting all boats and so on. They don't care. All they want is for their side to be right. There isn't even a pretense at dealing in facts. If they cared about facts they would never have signed off on the tax plan last year.
And now here we are, facing into a materially worse future because of hacks on the right, the exact same people who will be crying deficit panic from the rooftops as soon as the next Democrat president gets in. They have no values or ethics. It's just about winning an argument through any means necessary.
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@MB
Except it wasn't Trump's tax plan, it was Paul Ryan's (aka Ayn Rand Wannabe).
Have to admit that Trump is doing a great job, that is if you think ruining the credibility of our most trusted institutions is his job.
22
@DSS
Remember, Stephen Bannon talked about Donald Trump’s goal of "deconstructing the administrative state"?
You just provided an explicit example of what that means.
2
Republicans at their best. Declaring national emergencies for whatever they want to achieve in order to justify and bypass any debate or congress.
36
I have personally seen this situation at the state level, where dedicated, competent civil service employees are directed and handicapped by political hacks appointed by conservative politicos.
43
This is an appropriate moment to recall that Dr. Krugman presciently warned us near the outset of the trump kakistocracy/hackistocracy that no one is coming to save us. We are all alone to save ourselves. March. Donate. VOTE.
158
Thank you Dr Krugman,
America is not alone in ignoring the experts and listening to the loudest voice. In our last Provincial election our conservatives (centrist democrats) were elected on a platform of decreasing unemployment and controlling immigration.
At 71 unemployment has always been a problem and immigrants may very well suppress wages and take up jobs we need there is no way immigration helps unemployment. The experts were saying there are no unemployment problems we have a permanent worker shortage and we are in desperate need of new citizens to fill the jobs. It is hard to believe that we have no unemployment even as every local business has a we are hiring sign outside. I wonder how they deal with the hordes of people applying for the jobs that are open I remember the picture , wasn't it just last week 300 people one opening. The experts of course are correct, we are looking at a generation with cyclical worker shortages and acute worker shortages.
We think with our guts and unfortunately our guts were not designed for thinking.
PS Alan Krueger's death is on all our minds these are dark times and we need to keep reminding each other we are not alone.
11
One hopes that if such a hack actually gets confirmed by the Senate, the other Federal Reserve board members will simply sideline him, ignore him. I imagine the Fed as a highly competent organization with a wealth of economic data. Facts as we used to call them. The Fed board successfully ignores Trump already. Hopefully they'll ignore one of his hacks.
24
"America [is] an immensely powerful, wealthy, technologically advanced, peaceful country. "
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peaceful? Surely you jest, Dr. K. The US has been at war for about 93% of its existence and has been waging war without a break for the last 18 years. (Google it.) Our country loves war, can't get along without it, is in fact addicted to it. But maybe you mean we enjoy relative domestic tranquility--except of course for when some homegrown terrorist is mowing down fellow citizens with a combat rifle (323 shootings in 2018--an average of almost one a day--with 50 so far in 2019). A peaceful country? Um, not exactly. Not by any definition.
92
Moore predicted that the massive increase in the money supply engineered by Bernanke would lead to runaway inflation. That was wrong. But Moore is an inflation hawk--and meanwhile, Trump had been disparaging Jerome Powell last year for being too much of an inflation hawk! So: Trump is an inflation dove, but he nominated Jay Powell and he's nominating Stephen Moore, both inflation hawks, to help determine monetary policy. That's not 5-dimensional chess; that's a president who is without a clue.
35
I'm sure Stephen Moore will be more than happy to drain the Federal Reserve and to help tank the economy and/or trigger a recession--Moore or less (and moral-less.)
26
Who would be "simple" enough to assume that someone like Donald Trump would ever hire, or promote, or appoint people who are honest and competent in their respective fields? Being "honest and competent" is the surest way not to be hired, or promoted, or appointed by President Trump.
125
As a mathematician who picked up a master's degree in administration on my to completing my formal training (which master's degree provided me an introduction to Institutional Economics), I would like to advise that until the social studies absorb the genetic observation (not theory, but observation in the sense of Galileo's use of the telescope to observe the phases of Jupiter and the distances between stars) that humans are primates (apes to be specific), they will not grasp the nature of humans and their speech (nor the irrational behavior of humans). The speech and writing of both "liberal" and "conservative" humans are for the most part nothing more than syntactically correct strings of symbols without semantic content (that is, without any signification). (Witness Paul Ryan who claimed to be an atheist Catholic, which The Church pointed out was inconsistent, or the idea of inherent humans rights that one wonders whether they came before or after splitting off from Chimps). That is to say, most of their writings and utterances are ape calls. But the Republicans have made an art of ape calls (as illustrated by the clowns you called out in this editorial). Trump, however, is a master ape caller, an ape caller since he began to speak. What is worrisome is that a lot of Americans love it. His ape calls will likely win him re-election.
19
@J Chaffee you should have your own column
Republicans persist in appointing hacks and incompetents because 'the requirement for the position' is adherence to ideology. Not performance to facts, nor educated and rational responses to situations. Every policy position is first decided by the ideology, then the 'facts' and 'evidence' are crafted to support the necessary conclusion.
"Tax cuts will pay for themselves." Then the rationale is created to support this necessary result, to justify the Trump "Tax Reform" that isn't. That subsequent events prove and show the fallacy of the rationale is not any problem, because the tax cuts have done what they were really supposed to do - steer money to wealthy donors, major corporations, and reward those who support the Republican politicians. The government's benefits are 'sold off' to those who fund the Republican politicians - and the ROI on these investments is huge.
"Cutting job-killing regulations". Nevermind the people-killing pollution, safety hazards, and centuries-lasting damage to the environment. Never mind sea level rise, droughts, forest fires, and hurricanes. The profits will flow -now- to those who fund the Republican politicians, and the future consequences as always will be blamed on Democrats. And the wealthy won't give any of the money back, through higher taxes to pay for dikes, sea walls, and flood controls either.
Trump is 100% correct - "The system is rigged." But he didn't finish the statement: "and the ordinary people have lost."
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@Jim Brokaw
"Republicans persist in appointing hacks and incompetents because 'the requirement for the position' is adherence to ideology."
No!
The requirement is adherence to the express wishes of the oligarchy. Those wishes are the undoing of every possible regulation, even those that protect the population from harm, in order for them to be able squeeze every last bit of profit from this nation, be it from you as a worker, the earth, the processes by which they extract metals, energy and other products, make chemicals, foods, medications, and the payment of the thing that makes them citizens: their taxes.
The FDA, just last week, allowed the makers of the Coozar generic, Losartan, to increase the presence of a contaminant that causes cancer. I happen to depend on that particular blood pressure drug. Back when he was EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt was fixing to relax a rule allowing the presence in products of a higher percentage of the substance that causes mesothilioma. Imagine that.
The wrapping of this dishonesty in "conservative dogma" is there to throw you off the scent and give the Republican base an alternative set of political talking points.
Take a look at all the Things Trump Did While You Weren't Looking. Some of that undoing was done with the votes of certain Democrats, which, the leadership is now trying to protect by disallowing primarying.
We need to elect people who still know the meaning of the word *democratic*
69
Tell more about disallowing primarying.
1
@CitizenTM
I curated at least two news items about it last week. Rep. Hakim Jeffries is spearheading the effort.
1
Agreed, Mr. Moore isn’t the right fit. Kudlow isn’t either. But I would not characterize them as ‘hacks’ either. A simple ‘unqualified’ with the reasons would do.
However, having been in academics for over 25 years, there clearly were those who chose to criticize and attack credibility as their way to be heard. It was particularly common among those who were not very busy— no skin in the game, so to speak. Whether a symptom indicating a lack of skill, position or just plain arrogance, they lost the respect of their peers.
2
Stephen Moore will undoubted be confirmed by the Senate. I am so discouraged that I no longer hold any hope that Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and a few other GOPers who have not totally lost there mind, will vote their intelligence, conscience and most of all country over the interest of their party leader, to turn down this clear unqualified hack.
Moore has a masters in economics. He has never done research or shown any competence at sound economic analysis. His is a faith based economics....which I guess fits in well with the rest of the anti-science Luddites of the GOP.
210
@JSW Wait, what? Susan Collins hasn't totally lost her mind? Vote with conscience? Hoo, boy, first laugh of the day.
3
I saw Stephen Moore on CNN argue the US was in a deflationary environment because commodities had a bad two months, thus the Fed was wrong to raise rates. Of course when Obama was POTUS he predicted the low rate environment would lead to runaway inflation, but now with Trump in office he makes the case for deflation, & based on something as ridiculous as a short term price movement in commodities which are volatile at the best of times. This was in January, & of the commodities he cites was lean hogs, which if you now look at the price on Nasdaq – has recovered from the dip that had Stephen fearing deflation, & is now trading at a 12 month high. So what would his contribution be at the roundtable? All these brilliant economists discussing inflation expectations & how to best fulfill the Fed mandate, & Stephen is going to what? Bring a chart showcasing the declining price of Coffee as evidence deflation is here, and rates must be cut? I don’t think any of the other board members would take him serious.
36
"You might say that the G.O.P. values partisan loyalty above professional competence." This sounds an awful lot like the old Soviet Communist Party. We all know how that worked out. So too will it be for the Trumpist GOP. Spot on Dr Krugman.
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@Steve Burton Yeah, it didn't work out so well for the Soviets, but consider how long they were in power before it all crumbled...70 years. God forbid that the Trumpist-GOP Party manages to consolidate their power to last anywhere near that long.
1
This goes well beyond Trump. Previous administrations also put partisan hacks in key cabinet positions (James Watt, Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, Hillary Clinton). While these people didn't exhibit the ghoulish incompetence of Trump's appointees, they supported and instituted poorly conceived policies that ultimately led to...well...the election of Donald Trump.
5
@Bob in the Jungles of Southeast Asia,
Robert Rubin pushed for more leverage being used in our financial system. $1 of assets backed up by $33 in debt. After being a big part of the crew to deregulate the financial system, the already rich Rubin then went to Citigroup at $20 million a year to cash in some more. Stephen Moore is in a class by himself. The man is just pathetically sad. My question is how and why has he been employed by CNN,FOX the WSJ and is a guest on many, many shows. The man must never leave a TV studio.
11
What about 22 million jobs added under Bill Clinton?@Bob in the Jungles of Southeast Asia
As a liberal Democrat, I always agree with Krugman. I would only point out that Trump was elected as populist partly because of the failings of Clinton and Obama to rein in Wall Street/Corporate America. People at the bottom and now the middle of the economic ladder could be forgiven for thinking there isn't much difference between parties when it comes to economics. Someone from Goldman Sachs is always at the helm, no matter the presiding administration.
71
Is that really true? Id say Trump was elected because his voters dont really care about policy or governance.
17
@BaadDonkey
No, absolutely no voter can be forgiven for thinking there isn't much difference between the parties when it comes to economics or just about any other policy. I am so sick and tired of reading this inane meme, spouted by Nader declaring there was no difference between Bush II and Gore. What an outrageous lie. Think there is no difference? I suggest you take a good look at the Supreme Court appointments, the right to work anti union anti worker laws passed by Republicans, the 2017 Republican Tax Scam, the Bush II Tax law, the Reagan tax giveaways, the position of all three on women's health rights (which profoundly affect the economic well being of women, their families, their communities and ultimately the tax payers and then tell me there is no difference. If you can not see a difference, then you are blind.
I am happy to entertain criticisms of Bill Clinton or Obama until the cows come home. Plenty I find justified. I have plenty of my own criticisms despite voting for Clinton, who I never liked, and supporting Obama, who I did, in a huge way. I was sorely disappointed with Geithner, Summers and many of Obama's economic appointments. But I will not suffer lightly any fools declaring that there is no real difference between the Democrats and the Republicans in the last several decades. It wasn't true when Nader ranted it and it still is not true. Maybe an argument could be made about Nixon's policies, but no argument can be made for Reagan forward.
11
@BaadDonkey
You make a good point that the greed of "Wall Street/Corporate America" was not reined-in, but do not forget that for the most time, during both the Clinton and Obama administrations, the GOP was in control of Congress. So, while the Democrats wanted to limit the greed of "Wall Street/Corporate America", they did not have the way to do that.
Unfortunately, the people that voted for Obama and then turned around and voted for the clown-in-charge only fooled themselves thinking that he would bring back the jobs they lost to low-cost markets.
1
I certainly agree with this article, but would add that it's "we the people" who are ultimately responsible for this...buffoonery. This has happened before and is commonplace for Republican administrations, they hand out cabinet posts with the scrutiny employed to hand out party favors. The Republican Party is simply testing the Constitution and revealing every weakness the Founding Fathers couldn't fathom in a bid to put self and party ahead of the government. They do this because it's very much a game to them and they wish to do for them and theirs to spite its ramifications to the strength, credibility and future of the government.
39
@David
I don't think it's as unthinking as that. Their appointments are made purely to reward their wealthy patrons, first with the appointment, secondly with the pocket-lining, oligarch-favoring policies they follow.
It may well be it is an advantage to the Republicans to have their people use "facts" they makeup and probably know to be false. Fox News and others have helped make this easy for them to do. They can use this to make their followers insist Republicans that know better, get in line or lose their job. This divide makes it so Republicans do not have to act like they are part of a democracy as the opposition is always wrong.
Of course this also means they can get enough of their voters to believe just about anything they want with scary results!
11
How many higher level officials — in DOJ, the State Department, Housing, and other departments — have left government service rather than work for a hack secretary?
That’s worrisome, too, I’d argue. We’re telling competent people that they aren’t welcome, that competence isn’t what’s valued. It’s blind partisanship that matters now.
90
@WestHartfordguy i just read that 65 career state and justice career officials have resigned or retired in 2019 alone.
1
I resent the misinformed adoption of the term "hack" when applied to the Trump administration. The word "hack" by definition means using a system in some way other than intended. You don't "hack" a system that is already working. You don't hack the subway emergency exit when you feel the subway is working properly. Furthermore, hacking implies an understanding of the systems you seek to disrupt and/or circumvent.
Clearly none of these conditions apply to the Trump administration. I suggest you find a different word.
2
@Andy Calling someone a "hack" certainly predates the computer age. I've heard it used since I was a kid in the late 1950's. Usually to describe shoddy work, especially concerning automotive repairs or modifications.
70
@Andy
Dr Krugman IS using at least one of the acceptable definitions of hack, as per Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition:
hack noun [short for hackney] (1672)
3a : a person who works solely for mercenary reasons : HIRELING
hack adjective (ca. 1734)
1 : working for hire especially with mediocre professional standards
2 : performed by or suited to a person who works or writes purely for the purpose of earning money : characteristic of a hack : MEDIOCRE
So please consult a good dictionary before taking people to task for their word usage.
63
@Andy look it up.
The hollowing out of the powers of federal agencies kicked in to high gear under Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately, as the Democratic Party drifted right, starting with Bill Clinton, the trend has continued in its own way. President Obama appointed a mostly Wall Street cabinet - one that helped Wall Street after the crash (caused by Wall Street), but forgot to help out Main Street. Where is the antidote the nation needs?
46
@Ellen
Certainly not in a Biden, Clinton, Booker, Klobuchar, or O'Rourke presidency.
The two candidates who were first and most consistently talking about the problems of increasing income inequality and making proposals to reverse the trend are Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
1
I understand there is a second opening on the Fed Board. Hold that one for Arthur Laffer.
43
@Craig Willison This is a very poor overused pun, but that's a real laugher. Professor Irwin Corey would be a better choice.
1
Well, when it hits the fan and there's little to no room to lower interests rates they'll blame the democrats, Obama, and Hillary Clinton.
It would be funny except this has been their line for almost a decade now yet some still believe them. Hillary has never even made policy, even when she was running the State Dept.
Then there's a small percentage, 5% or so, who just want to see other people hurt even if it means they sustain damage as well. Maybe it's more! The rest don't care past their next buck.
Trump will give us more than bread and circuses, he'll give us polluted water and air, a dying ocean, and he'll throw in more mass shootings too. But he will never accept the blame.
398
@lightscientist66. Blame+ trump = oxymoron
3
@lightscientist66 don’t forget they’ll also blame immigrants and poor people.
12
@lightscientist66
A lot of people know our systems are rigged for the wealthy. They want someone to "blow things up." It's not working for them, anyway.
It also explains a lot.
Historically, average monthly job creation has been 84% better under Democratic administrations and GDP growth has been 138% better under Democratic presidents. Using a sports analogy, that's like basketball games with scores of 92 to 50 and 119 to 50, epic blowouts for Democrats. Is that just a matter of luck? Or are greater inequality and less financial sector regulation, as we see under Republican administrations, bad for the health of the economy?
511
@JonYou may want add that stock markets also significantly do better under Democratic Administrations than Republican ones. You may look it up.
61
@piet hein
As a matter of fact, I already know that one. Over the last 90 years through last Friday, the S&P 500 index (and its predecessor, the S&P 90) has gone up 8,381% under the last 7 Democratic administrations (47.9 years) vs. 30% under the last 8 Republican administrations (42.1 years), including Trump's. Yes, 8,381% vs. 30%. It turns out that the negative performance under Bush Jr., Nixon and Hoover almost wiped out the gains under the other Republican presidents. My starting point for this calculation was the NY Times article from 2008, "Bulls, Bears, Donkeys and Elephants."
45
@Jon
Democratic administrations do not have a magic switch that boosts GDP growth and creates jobs. The main thing that affects these statistics is the more liberal conditions - and Democratic administrations - from 1933 to the 70's compared to conservative tax-cutting policies thereafter. In particular inequality grew through the Clinton and Obama administrations as conservative economic policies were still in force. If Democrats are going to turn things around major changes in the economic policies they have consented to over the last decades will be required.
6
We all of an educated life know that basically, Liberals learn as they are forward looking and embrace innovation, while Conservatives wish to live in a simpler less complex and less mentally challenging past. As a result, Conservatives follow a history of impediment while Liberals innovate and grow. There is then a crucial conflict between the growing economy and population being managed by Conservatives that desire the past. Those two realities just don't meld. Common wisdom has it that Conservatives inhibit the economy with bad policy or outright enabling of upper class profiteering that slows down the economy, and the Liberals later come in to repair the damage and get the economy going again. Conservative recessions and times of Liberal growth are simply facts of economic life. Consider not only your writing on Moore, but the sum of the Trump appointments that are riding the Liberal Obama wave to this day but seeding recession with traditional conservative policies, the biggest most long term harmful one being everything from the Tax Cuts and reform legislation to fossil fuels industry support, to green energy sabotage, and to environmental regulation elimination. Now we will be poorer, the rich richer, and our lungs really dirty.
138
Well they don’t care about our lungs—the sooner and faster we all drop dead, then the more easily they can divide up the country into kingdoms.
1
@PATRICK
You should had also mentioned that the conservatives long for the "gilded age" where the rich lived the life and the rest of the people were there to serve them.
The hackistocracy began with the Trump transition. Between Chris Christie and Mike Pence, the government was staffed with an assortment of Koch shills and hacks. The supply of corrupt individuals willing to do the Kochs' and other oligarchs' bidding is an endless one.
Since Scott Pruitt, many have had to step down, from all manner of government agencies, and they've all promptly been replaced, whether permanently or as interim officials.
This Trump presidency is the oligarchy's crowning achievement. It is their decades in the making revenge against FDR. It took them a long time, but they now own the government.
Stephen Moore is hardly Trump's first Fed appointment. He is, however, his most outrageous, if you don't count his economic advisers. It is a surprise that Jerome Powell was even picked and confirmed. But then again, Powell seems to have relented in the face of Trump's bullying.
Which brings me to the thing we should all be talking about and worrying about. The leading economic indicators and last Friday's events on Wall Street all point to an imminent recession - one for which we are neither ready from the point of view of the Fed or the occupants of the White House and cabinet. With a split Congress, how likely are this nation's citizens to be spared from hunger and homelessness?
That is where our heads should be. Moore is just another clown in the car.
--- Things Trump Did While You Weren’t Looking [2019]
344
@Rima Regas "...how likely are this nation's citizens to be spared from hunger and homelessness?" Another economic/financial crisis. Another opportunity for the plutocrats to blow holes in the social safety net, a la Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine.
Two can play the Shock Doctrine game, but unfortunately, the Democratic party is too beholden to the same plutocrats that are completely in control of the GOP. Still waiting for an Obama memoir with an honest account of Great Recession lost opportunities to fundamentally change the economic and power systems.
10
@Rima RegasIO I was going to send a comment, but after reading yours decided not to. Everything that could be said you said it.
6
@Rima Regas Those recession indicators should be highlighted further, but I understand why media types and politicians don't want to talk about it. They have a clown to re-elect.
46
The hackistocracy began with the Trump transition. Between Chris Christie and Mike Pence, the government was staffed with an assortment of Koch shills and hacks. The supply of corrupt individuals willing to do the Kochs' and other oligarchs' bidding is an endless one.
Since Scott Pruitt, many have had to step down, from all manner of government agencies, and they've all promptly been replaced, whether permanently or as interim officials.
This Trump presidency is the oligarchy's crowning achievement. It is their decades in the making revenge against FDR. It took them a long time, but they now own the government.
Stephen Moore is hardly Trump's first Fed appointment. He is, however, his most outrageous, if you don't count his economic advisers. It is a surprise that Jerome Powell was even picked and confirmed. But then again, Powell seems to have relented in the face of Trump's bullying.
Which brings me to the thing we should all be talking about and worrying about. The leading economic indicators and last Friday's events on Wall Street all point to an imminent recession - one for which we are neither ready from the point of view of the Fed or the occupants of the White House and cabinet. With a split Congress, how likely are this nation's citizens to be spared from hunger and homelessness?
That is where our heads should be. Moore is just another clown in the car.
--- Things Trump Did While You Weren’t Looking [2019] https://wp.me/p2KJ3H-3h2
9
Yes, it's all very sad. What are you planning to do to stop it? Hint: "Run Elizabeth Warren next year" is not a good answer. But the fact is, I honesty don't see a good answer, not so far at least. And that is not remotely Trump's fault.
12
Reading this, I was suddenly reminded of Hunter S. Thompson's manic characterization of people like Moore, and Republicans generally: "I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger, and just sick enough to feel Totally Confident."
12
Dr. K., the always-operative phrase with No Collusion 45*/Individual_1 'Everything Trump Touches Dies', hat tip Rick Wilson.
Nothing will be unscathed from the scourge, as people are reminded on a daily basis how much democracy depends on people of good character, who are not self-dealing, to hold political offices in a democracy.
Watchwords: It's never so bad but what things can't get (materially) worse.
7:32pm EDT
31
I don't quite see how the United States of America could be described as "peaceful".
91
@Sven Ortmann As an American, I am impressed by Mr Ortmann's politeness and circumspection here. Perhaps this is perhaps because (I assume) he is a citizen (lucky man!) of the FRG. Mr Ortmann was too polite to say, "the United States has been at war 222 out of 239 years of existence," which is true, and which amply demonstrates his point. We are about as "peaceful" as the Mongol Empire...
13
@Sven Ortmann
Agree. This totally destroys Krugman's credibility. Will never again read his columns .
1
@Sven Ortmann
yes it is not aa peaceful country when a significant portion of your school students are justifiably afraid of being killed at school. What a hideous way to struggle through your education.
4
Republicans do everything they can to make government incapable of solving problems. Then, they use their own incompetence to argue for limited government.
467
@Roger
There's even a book about that:
The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule
by Thomas Frank
11
@Roger
Bingo. This was at the heart of Mitch McConnell's "let's make Obama a one term President" strategy. Obfuscate and block everything he does or wants to do (including implementing Republican ideas like the ACA), and then claim he's incompetent and can't get anything done. When Obama turned to executive orders (which were fewer, by the way, than any two-term President since the 19th century), Republicans labeled him as acting like a "king."
11
@Roger
"Incompetence" implies the GOP creates a fascist government that is destroying the economy (and the planet) by accident. That is, horrifically, not true.
3
"And the people in charge of dealing with those disasters will be the worst of the worst."
I think it is attributed to Bismarck, that one does not want to watch sausage or the law being made. I think the US is experiencing the worst of the wurst.
59
Most Americans do not really know what the Fed does or how it does it. The Fed increases or decreases the money supply by buying the Treasury Bonds, and issuing money against them, that is why your bills are called Federal Reserve Notes. The interest on those treasuries are paid by the taxpayers. They are issued in $1K denominations and bid on by investors, banks, and funds. They are only paying about 2.5% depending on the time to be called.
Moore and Don the Swindler want to cut the rate on the Feds prime lending rate causing real estate rates to go lower, and savings rate to almost zero. More magic economics from this administration, the Fed was formed to be non political, if the senate confirms Moore it is tantamount to treachery.
"The Evolution of an Idea. Since 1977, the Federal Reserve has operated under a mandate from Congress to "promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long term interest rates" — what is now commonly referred to as the Fed's "dual mandate.""
Politics has no place in the Fed, and Moore as Dr. K points out, is not a respectable economist, he is a right wing ideologue, we have too many of them in government now, this is the road to penury.
233
@David Underwood
I learned more from your comment than the well written article, thank you for taking the time.
21
The writers of these comments are right. The Trump administration, along the president and his family, are corrupt and stupid. They like previous presidents, especially republican, only do policies that favor the mega rich, mega corporations and themselves. The middle class and poor are crushed by these policies. There are enough people who are greedy and ignorant/gullible enough to allow these crooks to get elected and stay in office to hurt their own interest.
3
@David Underwood right. Check out the dismal history of countries where central bank policies are determined by the politicians and not independent economists. You can start with Indonesia. US should be very afraid.
8
Hear, hear. This clownish appointment should not make it through the Senate, although I would not bet milk money on it.
65
Unfortunately, many people believe that the antidote to a hackistocracy is a government populated exclusively by Ivy League alums. Both systems have one thing in common: when things go spectacularly wrong, nobody ever pays a price, they just move on to the next, higher-paying gig. Just like Stephen Moore, rather than hiding their heads in shame for past mistakes and misdeeds, we'll continue being subjected to their "authoritative" comments in one venue or another for decades.
24
@stan continople
Don't forget, they *all* went to the Ivies together.
20
@stan continople
Why do you posit that that "many people" see the main alternative to an administration of hacks is that of Ivy League alumni. How do you know that? Trump and a number of his cabinet are "Ivy League" themselves but they are hacks nonetheless. Regardless of the colleges they attended, those who worked in previous administrations, both Democrat and Republican were usually competent, often brilliant public servants. Trump's swamp is unprecedented.
56
@Alan J. Shaw
Trump's swamp wasn't conjured out of thin air. It is made, for the most part, of "establishment" Republicans who've held office at state or federal level during at least the last two decades. Some are even Bushies.
43
Mathematically speaking, being wrong about everything is as hard as being right about everything. So for this talent alone, Moore deserves credit.
142
@PaulN, no, it isn't. That's like saying the number of possible wrong turns you could take on the shortest trip from A to B equals the number of possible correct turns. It's actually quite easy to be wrong all the time if you disdain evidence based reasoning. Why, I love evidence based reasoning, and I'm still wrong half the time.
34
He and compatriot Charlie Brown.
2
@Daniel And don't forget the "Costanza Conjecture" (as in George from Seinfeld):
"If every decision I make is wrong, the opposite must be right." So Moore's unique talent might be useful after all. Ask him what to do - then do the opposite.
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Politicization of the Fed is the most egregious action Don the Dishonest can possible make. He has already appointed secretaries to agencies they oppose, those are obvious to all. Those such as at the EPA have been working to overturn environmental laws that cost their business friends money. As for Wilbur Ross, he was on the Board of the Bank of Cypress that sent the money to Deutschbank to pay the Chicago Hotel mortgage, and prevented a default.
The swindler a creature that has no knowledge of how it operates and what is purpose is has been ranting against the Fed for its interest rate policies . He believes reducing the prime interest rate will juice the economy by making money cheaper increasing borrowing. This will also cut the interest rates on mortgages and savings. We are seeing retirees savings becoming worth less as it is, they are not keeping up with inflation. Lower rates lead to deflation and a worse outcome, Mr. Moore is a proponent of that, he is not qualified to be on the Fed. We hope his appointment will be rejected by the Senate. Lower interest rates will not increase employment, it will give issuers of corporate bonds the opportunity to call their bonds, which are loans, and refinance them at an even lower rate.
This will not change the rate on the Fed bonds that are used to finance the government, it will actually raise the cost as the lower those bonds sell for, the higher they yield as those buyers will fear the economy will shrink even more.
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Dr. Krugman, the Republican Party, we once knew it, died out around the middle 1970’s. That was when Richard Nixon was drinking himself into a stupor and was talking to the oil portraits of his predecessors in the White House. Watergate was rising to his lower lip and Republicans on The Hill, even those who backed him initially with ferocious zeal, made the common-sense call to abandon him and try their luck with Gerald Ford, a genuinely nice man but also a complete cipher when it came to motivation and policy.
Republicans since have abandoned bi-partisanship like they’ve turned their backs on anything that might serve the greater good. They staunchly maintain a laughably dishonest pose as the patriots and sentinels of our freedoms—all the while robbing the U.S. Treasury and defrauding the public of any measure meaningful policy that might benefit someone not in the six or seven-figure bracket.
A classic example would be the recently-departed Paul Ryan, the Wall Street “wonk” who scolded Democrats about the profound evils and sins of spending beyond our means, all the while pushing a tax cut for the gilded edge that he (and they) knew would certainly bring a financial catastrophe to the nation’s doorstep one day—long after he left, of course.
Stephen Moore is the quintessential Republican operative—mostly wrong about everything but fully confident in a majority-GOP House or Senate to sign off on something that will surely damage life for the ordinary American.
Why not?
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@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
It is a mistake to credit these people with being incorrect in their takes on things when, as you analyze the devastation caused by Trump's appointee, it is clear that the destruction is both targeted and intentional and it all benefits one group of people: the oligarchy.
This isn't about wrong-headedness. That is the appearance they want to give to the likes of us. To their ignorant base, those ideas are presented as conservative ideology and prosperity teachings when, in reality, what they're doing is robbing the nation.
The Trump presidency is nothing less than a robbery in progress by the oligarchy. That is where the biggest collusion has been taking place.
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Things Trump Did While You Weren't Looking
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@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18 There are any number of Sox players both past and present who would do a better job than any of the miscreants Trump has brought into his Administration. Go Sox, you guys have fun and a great year once more.
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@piet hein
For a baseball analogy for Trump's pick we need to go to the early New York Mets and to "Marvelous Marvin" Throneberry.
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