Awaiting Mr. Krugman’s Insights…

 

On the day Donald Trump was elected president three years ago, Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel Prize for economics, wrote this in his New York Times column:

It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover?

Frankly, I find it hard to care much, even though this is my specialty. The disaster for America and the world has so many aspects that the economic ramifications are way down my list of things to fear.

Still, I guess people want an answer: If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.

Golly. Donald Trump is elected, and the stock market will never recover. That’s quite a prediction, but then again, he is a winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. And this is his specialty. So there you go.

Ok. Fast-forward three years. I have not yet seen Mr. Krugman’s column discussing today’s stock market:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed 28,332.74 on Monday, meaning it has rallied 10,000 points, or more than 54 percent, since Trump’s election victory on November 8, 2016. The benchmark S&P 500 has gained more than 46 percent.

As a winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, I would value Mr. Krugman’s insight into this development. After all, as he says, “this is my specialty.” I suspect he’ll point to Trump’s success in international trade agreements, success in deregulation, and his success in getting the Fed to lower interest rates. Mr. Krugman will probably also comment on the remarkable gains in jobs, and reduction in unemployment (particularly among blacks and other minorities) during Trump’s time in office. I suspect Krugman will also discuss how optimistic the forecasts are for next year’s economy, under Trump’s leadership.

Of course, I didn’t win the Nobel Prize in economics, so I know little of such things.

So I very much look forward to reading Mr. Krugman’s column discussing all this. It’s not in the New York Times today.

Perhaps tomorrow.

I’ll be watching.

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  1. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    cdor (View Comment):

    @drbastiat, you can watch for Krugman’s backtrack all you want, just please, PLEASE, do not hold your breath.

    I just checked The New York Times again today.  Still not there.  I’ll keep checking…

    • #31
  2. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    cdor (View Comment):

    @drbastiat, you can watch for Krugman’s backtrack all you want, just please, PLEASE, do not hold your breath.

    I just checked The New York Times again today. Still not there. I’ll keep checking…

    Be sure to let me know. I await with bated breath.

    • #32
  3. rgbact Inactive
    rgbact
    @romanblichar

    cdor (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    cdor (View Comment):

    @drbastiat, you can watch for Krugman’s backtrack all you want, just please, PLEASE, do not hold your breath.

    I just checked The New York Times again today. Still not there. I’ll keep checking…

    Be sure to let me know. I await with bated breath.

    He doesn’t outright admit to liking Trumpenomics….but he increasingly touts things like this:

    “For a long period of time, elites thought that debt was the greatest threat to the US economy. Now, I think we’ve largely come around to the correct view, which is that debt is just not a serious problem”

    Thats basically an admission that Trump agrees with him, even though he’d rather run up deficits on things like green energy or child care subsidies. He also isn’t a fan of Trump’s trade war incompetence.

    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/13/21011742/paul-krugman-the-ezra-klein-show-democrats-green-new-deal-payment

     

    • #33
  4. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    rgbact (View Comment):
    He also isn’t a fan of Trump’s trade war incompetence.

    You did say “trade war [in]competence”, correct?

    • #34
  5. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Franco (View Comment):

    I suspect the Nobel Prize PR team preemptively give a few awards to people who will return the favor to the status of the esteemed Nobel Prize. A life-long reporter of the New York Times, the first African American President of the US…

    Its like what Rolling Stone does with films. Peter Travers gives glowing blurbs to films that other critics pan, these movies put the clip on their movie posters and other ads and trailers: Heartstopping action! – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

    Rolling Stone gets free advertising.

    There was a reviewing magazine that called these kinds of reviewers ‘quote whores’. 

    • #35
  6. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Samuel Block (View Comment):
    Doc’s mentioning Krugman’s Nobel Prize was obviously respectfully deferential

    Oh, absolutely…

     

    Samuel Block (View Comment):

    but you might be surprised to find out that some people don’t think much of him as an economist.

    People have gone cah-razy!

    My God. Those people. I swear…

    Maybe if we repeat. ‘respected NYT Nobel Prize-winning economist’ a few more times they will understand.  

    • #36
  7. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Unsk (View Comment):

    rgbact : “Krugman should actually be a big Trump fan since Trump is running up massive debt to boost the economy…..thats exactly what Krugman always supports. He probably even loves perpetually low interest rates….just like Trump. So, maybe Trump has become more “Krugmanish” than Krugman could’ve imagined in 2016?”

     

    The biggest impediments to cutting government spending are the RINO’s in Congress. They have not even given the slightest inclination to cutting the massive increases in Welfare spending unleashed by Buraq Hussein or the incredible pork so larded regularly in the budget. Look at all these budget “continuing resolutions”- there is a built-in incentive to increase spending year to year without any attempt to rein it in, and there is no serious opposition to the present budgeting by continuing resolution track we have been on the last decade.

    Trump has done a masterful job with a very difficult hand. Some key issues to cut spending are cutting the Administrative State back down to it’s authorized Constitutional size which a tiny fraction of what it is now and getting rid of the illegal Public Employee Unions which are the primary driver for the incredibly outsized government salaries and their outsized pensions which place a huge spending demand load on all government budgets across the country.

    It’s ok to make the perfect the enemy of the good if it results in Trump getting killed in the crossfire. 

    • #37
  8. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    I just checked the New York Times again.  Still not there.

    I imagine that writing an article compiling all the successes of President Trump is no small task, so this enormous undertaking may take Mr. Krugman a while to complete.  Perfectly understandable, I suppose.

    I’ll check again tomorrow.

    • #38
  9. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    I just checked the New York Times again. Still not there.

    I imagine that writing an article compiling all the successes of President Trump is no small task, so this enormous undertaking may take Mr. Krugman a while to complete. Perfectly understandable, I suppose.

    I’ll check again tomorrow.

    You won’t find that compilation at the National Review either. I just read an article by Ramesh Ponnuru that blasted the USMCA as being simply NAFTA light. I thought it was pretty insulting until I read the comments. If Trump has 90% Republican support, the NR must be read by 100% of the remaining 10%. 

    • #39
  10. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    cdor (View Comment):

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    I just checked the New York Times again. Still not there.

    I imagine that writing an article compiling all the successes of President Trump is no small task, so this enormous undertaking may take Mr. Krugman a while to complete. Perfectly understandable, I suppose.

    I’ll check again tomorrow.

    You won’t find that compilation at the National Review either. I just read an article by Ramesh Ponnuru that blasted the USMCA as being simply NAFTA light. I thought it was pretty insulting until I read the comments. If Trump has 90% Republican support, the NR must be read by 100% of the remaining 10%.

    Well, they might have picked up some Trump haters from the other side too. 

    • #40
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