Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Jamelle Bouie and I are thinking along similar lines — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Is Trump's foreign policy driven by his personal financial interests, or by a general affection for murderous tyrants? Not a question one ever expected to ask about a US president https://t.co/WVxRP0ppKx — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

One crucial question about Democratic candidates is whether they understand what they're facing. Joe Biden doesn't seem to https://t.co/DrjG9IwQSE — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

This is unfair. Greenspan may have completely blown in on the housing bubble, but he also made terrible diagnoses and gave disastrous advice after the bubble burst https://t.co/ise98mHSsZ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

That's not what's happening in China, where money is being eased at the same time as stimulus. But I wouldn't stake my reputation on either optimism or pessimism here; the main point may be that China is consciously trying to offset the trade war, while the US basically isn't 3/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

This number doesn't come out of thin air; it's what you get if you look at the average effects of austerity programs pre-Great Recession. But it's a multiplier that reflects the usual tendency of monetary policy to move in the opposite direction of fiscal policy 2/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Fair enough. I'd say that China's stimulus is much less dysfunctional than the Trump tax cut, but it may be insufficient. I'm less convinced by the IMF estimate, which looks like the Fund's standard multiplier of 0.5 1/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

So basically China is doing what it has to to cope with the trade war, while Trump and co pandered to the ideological right, which doesn't do the trick — and now Trump is demanding that the Fed bail him out 6/ https://t.co/yVJFYVVbOl — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

The Trump stimulus, by contrast, consisted largely of giving corporations a big tax break and hoping that they would invest it and/or use it to raise wages. What they're using it for instead is dividends and stock buybacks. So bang for the buck much smaller 5/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

But the shape of the policies is different. China's stimulus is about half infrastructure spending, the other half cuts in taxes like VAT that affect ordinary families. So it's probably pretty effective stimulus 4/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

What about the US? We've also had a lot of fiscal stimulus from the Trump tax cut. Here's CBO's estimate of the cyclically adjusted budget balance, one widely used measure of stimulus 3/ https://t.co/jFDLHjRDQm — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

However, the Chinese are offsetting the drag from the trade war with fiscal stimulus and other measures 2/ https://t.co/aBWTS7HwOB — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Thinking some more about policy responses to the trade war. The trade war is having a depressing effect on both the US and Chinese economies. You might think this effect would be bigger on China, because it sells more to us than we do to them 1/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Trump thinks he has China on the ropes. But "the entire contractionary shock from the trade wars up to August 2019 has been comfortably offset by policy interventions in China." https://t.co/D1ng24gIl2 — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

RT @crampell: 7 years ago today https://t.co/AkjPEmLZcd — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

PPS: One reason California-hate may be a big thing right now 8/ https://t.co/EhIcojWFvL — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

PS: Lou Dobbs is the only full-on Trumper media figure I used to know when he was sane. I would go on his show in the early 2000s, and he seemed like a personally nice, sorta reasonable conservative. A mind is a terrible thing to lose 7/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

But expecting people to believe that CA in 2019 is a uniquely terrible place is an amazing case of "what are you going to believe — me or your own eyes?" Next thing they'll be saying that Trump is the only source of everything good. Oh, wait 6/ https://t.co/Uhuz6RMlp5 — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

OK, CA is hardly paradise. Aside from sharing many of America's social ills, it has seriously dysfunctional housing policy: NIMBYism has priced ordinary families out of housing in just about everywhere that offers opportunity 5/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Job creation has been awful ... ly high 4/ https://t.co/cV0YbSqrWr — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

That's for non elderly adults -- the people targeted by Obamacare, which CA has enthusiastically adopted. But anyway, CA also has scarily high life expectancy, up there with northern Europe (TX is 2 years less, NC, where the GOP took power, 3 yrs less) 3/ https://t.co/uudHpaaOwk https://t.co/tmh8CfGxpI — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

How much of a hellhole has CA become since early this decade, when Dems achieved a supermajority and became able to make real policy changes? Well, for one thing, it has had a horrifying decline in the number of uninsured 2/ https://t.co/fKNLIUZrMD — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Without trying to, I've found myself on a lot of right-wing mailing lists. This one, warning that Democrats are trying to turn America into [scary music] California had me doing a bit of research. 1/ https://t.co/A22PFdOvGh — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

The interview doesn't seem to have been conducted in a diner, so it doesn't count https://t.co/FrPEdzBhbF — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

One thing the Trump years have brought is an insight into the sheer level of corruption, financial and personal, at the top — especially on the political and religious right https://t.co/hC2vkzfazi — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

OK, that's an analogy I hadn't thought of https://t.co/aDq2O5p4XF — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

In Baltimore, Trump said energy-saving bulbs make him look orange. Experts say probably not. - The Washington Post https://t.co/87iaABOInS — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Indeed. Right at the beginning I wrote that the case for austerity meant believing in the confidence fairy; it was fantasy economics from day one. — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

So blaming "old economics" for austerity is really unjust to the economics profession, and too complimentary to policymakers. If policy had followed professional orthodoxy, the world would be in much better shape 5/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Instead, policymakers rushed to embrace Alesina and Ardagna, with their doctrine of expansionary austerity, and Reinhart-Rogoff, with their claim of a critical debt threshold at 90% of GDP. These were unorthodox, innovative ideas — and totally wrong 4/ — PolitiTweet.org