Krugman Recants, Sort Of

For John, BLUF:  The election of Donald John Trump, Representative Adam Schiff notwithstanding, is not the end of the world.  I am not even sure you can see the end of the world from here.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Over Three Years After His Doomsday Prediction, Paul Krugman Makes Reluctant Admission About the Trump Economy

From Red State, by Sister Toldjah, 3 February 2020.

Back in 2016 (9 November 2016) Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman wrote, in The New York Times, that the markets were going down, for a very long time.

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

Dr Krugman has his PhD in Economics and his Nobel Prize in the same area.

So, recently he had to reevaluate his prediction.  He was being interviewed by PBS's “The Firing Line” host Margaret Hoover:

“The economy is doing pretty well at the moment.  Do you agree?” Hoover asked.

“Yeah,” Krugman admitted.  “I mean… there’s a lot of stuff that we’re not taking care of that we should be taking care of, but look — best estimate is that Trump has added about $300 billion at an annual rate to the budget deficit.  That’s a big stimulus.  That’s almost as big as the Obama stimulus at its peak.  So, sure.”

He then claimed that the results of the stimulus were “little bang for the buck” considering the size of the deficit.

“So the Trump economy hasn’t been all bad?” Hoover pressed.

“No,” Krugman replied.  “I mean, full employment is good. Those of us who were screaming for more stimulus back in the days when unemployment was nine percent still think that some stimulus is good even now.”

Now, if the Democrats can see this and adjust their their arguments, we might make some progress.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff