30 December, 2021

Battleswarm Blog Respects Paul Krugman as Much as I Do

In other words, not at all.

Paul Krugman Is Always Wrong: Inflation Edition « Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

If you’ve been reading this blog long enough, one recurring theme is that Nobel-prize winning leftwing economist and pundit Paul Krugman is always wrong. Back in the day, Larry Kudlow made a career pointing out Krugman’s errors, and you may remember such Krugman howlers as “the Internet is no more important than a fax machine” and “markets will never recover from Trump.”

Lately he’s been in the news for dismissing the idea that inflation is a problem.

Paul Krugman, May 7: “[Treasury secretary] Janet Yellen and I believe that the Fed can contain any inflationary risks.”

Paul Krugman, June 21: “For those paying closer attention to the flow of new information, inflation panic is, you know, so last week.”

Paul Krugman, July 23: “Overheating is still possible, and the Fed should keep its eye on that possibility. But the big numbers aren’t as scary as they seem.”

Paul Krugman, August 12: “Anxiety about the inflationary impact of public investment just doesn’t make sense if you work through the numbers.”

Paul Krugman, September 10: “Companies aren’t acting as if they expect lots of future inflation, where they can hike wages without losing competitive advantage. They’re acting, instead, as if they see current inflation as a blip.”

Paul Krugman, November 11: “So yes, that was an ugly inflation report, and we hope that future reports will look better. But people making knee-jerk comparisons with the 1970s and screaming about stagflation are looking at the wrong history. When you look at the right history, it tells you not to panic.”

The New York Times, this morning:

Inflation jumped to the highest level in nearly 40 years, fresh data released on Friday showed, as supply chain disruptions, rapid consumer demand and rising housing costs combined to fuel the strongest inflationary burst in a generation (emphasis added).

I am always amazed that anyone listens to Krugman. If I’m in an internet discussion and someone quotes him, I just tell the person to stop right there. There’s no point in continuing an argument if Krugman is your source, because I havef no respect for him at all.

Look, this is just complete idiocy:

Proving that some of the most basic facts of economic life for ordinary people elude some Nobel-prize winning economists, Krugman dismisses the idea that inflation hurts the poor worse than the rich.

Read the whole thing.

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