Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

The big problem nervous Rs face is that Trump's recent behavior is just a continuation of what he's been doing since day one. So acting against him is an implicit admission that Democrats and Never Trumpers were right 1/ https://t.co/aMvqr2X6y8 — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

We have huge problems. Runaway automation isn't one of them — and people who insist it is often do so to avoid the real issues https://t.co/RsRNItH6Wx — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

RT @nytopinion: Harping on the dangers of automation is a sort of escapist fantasy for centrist politicians who don’t want to confront trul… — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

What a sad and terrifying article; it rings true given my limited association with the very rich. Our society has been raped and pillaged for the benefit of people who don't even get pleasure from their spoils https://t.co/BCFnoHHh9f — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

I'm not sure whether we should attribute any rationality to Trump at this point. But to some extent he's acting as if impeachment is a foregone conclusion, but Senate Rs are reliable cowards. So why not grab whatever he feels like grabbing? (When you're a star, they let you.) — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

I almost never watch cable news. But chyron on CNN right now is “White House admits to quid pro quo with Ukraine “. Amazing: grossly impeachable action no longer in dispute. — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Thread — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

What gets me isn't so much the audaciousness of the corruption as its sheer pettiness https://t.co/o61TsYv3JD — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Endorse. Private insurance *won't* be eliminated; a public option allowing Medicare buy-in might pass, but even that will be tough. But higher taxes on the rich funding things like child care might happen, and Warren would restore effective environmental and financial regulation — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Somehow, this seems like a good day to repost something I wrote last year https://t.co/5RRDxlC7yD — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Actually, I think that the persistent claim that the coming of robots is our biggest policy problem calls for a more forceful response https://t.co/Qdg4WNPLLG — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

PS: Just realized that Biden said "the fourth industrial revolution is costing jobs." Oh, dear. He's bought into the automation thing too. 8/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

I know that both the DC elite and Silicon Valley types are attracted to the idea that technological unemployment is our biggest problem. But it isn't; and in this case Sanders is the realist, Burnett and Yang engaged in fantasy economics 7/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

As advocated by Sanders, but also left-wing radicals like, um, Larry Summers. Meanwhile, Yang's suggestion that we give everyone $1,000 a month doesn't address the real problem — and it's not enough to live on 6/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

What we do have is a persistent problem of weak demand; yes, we have full employment now, but only with extremely low interest rates, which means little ability to respond to the next downturn. This makes a strong case for a big government investment program 5/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Here's labor productivity over the past 30 years. It's slowing down! Output per hour rose 36% from 1996 to 2007, only 15% from 2007 to 2018. If automation is replacing people, why aren't we producing more with fewer people? 4/ https://t.co/BkA0BE5NZJ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Of course there are always jobs being eliminated by technology somewhere. Remember when there were hundreds of thousands of longshoremen? But the idea that machines are replacing people en masse presumes that overall labor productivity is soaring, when the truth is the reverse 3/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Burnett's premise was that automation is about to eliminate large numbers of jobs. This could be true — predictions are hard, especially about the future — but at least so far nothing like that is happening 2/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

One of the more substantive moments of the debate came when Erin Burnett asked Sanders and Yang about how to respond to automation. So it's probably worth pointing out that (a) Burnett's premise was basically all wrong and (b) Sanders had a much better answer 1/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Well, I missed the debate. But one striking thing: this Times fact-check finds a couple of probably innocent misstatements over the course of three hours, nothing you would call a lie. Has Trump ever made it through 10 minutes without a brazen lie? https://t.co/rkOUj7gpM6 — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Some investors I've talked to say that there's no comparison between recent delusions and the dotcom bubble — the dotcoms were silly, but their losses were trivial. Uber, WeWork, etc. are burning serious cash https://t.co/YEhMMtlE32 — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

My friend Lumap Gurkan sees nothing wrong with what Navarro did here https://t.co/33f0msvIv6 — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

RT @joshtpm: The inequality debate systematically under examines the degree to which the ultra rich are terrible people. https://t.co/fDFYU… — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Saez and Zucman make this point brilliantly, and also tell us a lot about how that happened. So the important thing is not to get too hung up on the technical disputes. The core SZ insight is totally robust 11/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

And I don't think there's much question about the answer to that question. Overall, our fiscal system reduces inequality — a bit— largely thanks to transfer payments at the bottom. But it reduces inequality much less than it used to, thanks to tax cuts at the top 10/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

And the thing is that ultimately we shouldn't care about these definitional questions. What we want to know is how the whole tax-and-transfer system affects inequality. 9/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

I guess my point is that excluding transfers and consideration of incidence sound like rigorous criteria, but are actually more problematic, involving more judgement calls, than they seem 8/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

But they consider the employer share of the payroll tax a tax on workers, even though corporations pay it. I think everyone agrees that this is right in terms of the incidence — it gets passed thru into lower wages. But weren't we avoiding considering incidence? 7/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Second, they avoided any analysis of incidence, adhering to what we used to call the flypaper theory of taxes — they stay where they're put (maybe these days call it the Post-It Note theory) In particular, all corporate taxes are considered to fall on stockholders 6/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

And their definition of what counts as transfers and therefore doesn't enter their analysis is unusually broad. EITC and refundable credits are excluded from the analysis rather than deducted from working-class taxes, even if workers pay more in payroll tax than they receive 5/ — PolitiTweet.org