Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

RT @TBPInvictus: .@seanhannity made at least two mentions of "record high gas prices" last night. It's an alternate universe over there. — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

RT @nytopinion: Columnist @PaulKrugman responded to readers commenting on "Can Inflation Reduction Save the Planet?" Read their exchanges a… — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

One thing I haven't seen mentioned in discussions of the Inflation Reduction Act: In general, reducing greenhouse gases also reduces other air pollution, which has huge adverse health effects, mainly falling on the less well off. So an additional, strongly progressive benefit — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Remember this moment: The sheer amount of obscenity-laced hatred directed at anyone saying we aren't (yet?) in a recession was like nothing I've seen, and I've seen a lot. And yet ... https://t.co/XaekCtTc2I — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

The economic war, like the battlefield war, has developed not necessarily to Russia's advantage https://t.co/vFNcQvTqHz — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

I'll probably write more about corporate tax incidence soon. But the claim that Biden is somehow violating a no-tax-hike pledge is obvious nonsense without even getting into the details 4/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

The Act might, might indirectly reduce the incomes of a few middle class families (while helping many more). But that's true of almost any government policy. If you label any policy that changes anything a tax increase, that's a recipe for paralysis 3/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

The big claim is that the Act would raise taxes on middle-class Americans. It wouldn't. Nobody making, say, 75K a year will see a bigger number on their 1099 2/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

The debate over the Inflation Reduction Act has me feeling as if we've returned to a simpler, more innocent time — a time when Republicans mainly lied about economic policy, rather than stolen elections and "grooming" of students 1/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

RT @GasBuddyGuy: #GasPrices have dropped for 47 days in a row, falling to $4.168/gal. Twenty states have an average of $3.99 or less, the t… — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

RT @nytopinion: “The Inflation Reduction Act won’t deliver everything climate activists want,” @paulkrugman writes. “But if it happens, it… — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

it's much worse than that. Bitcoin is supposed to make fiat money irrelevant, right? Yet we're supposed to define inflation by the q of something made irrelevant by the magic of the blockchain? — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

One way to think about gas prices: 10 years ago 10 gallons of gas cost about 1.5 hours' wages for the average worker 3 years ago (pre-pandemic) that was down to only about 1 hour, but that was because of an unsustainable fracking bubble Today the number is about 1.3 — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

And yes, I know that there are all kinds of issues about different starting points, the role of federal policy, etc. But the basic fact is that so far the Biden economy has added 9 million jobs. So it has been a jobs boom, whatever else you may say 3/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

The problem may be that the Biden economy boomed *too much*, feeding inflation, and that it now needs to cool off, which may involve a recession (but hasn't yet) 2/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Since I get lots of mockery for having talked about a "Biden boom", I thought I'd share a chart 1/ https://t.co/zA9NqM4jzd — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

There are really two separate discussions here. There's the Fed policy discussion: is underlying inflation slowing in a way that would justify policy easing? (Not so far) But the political discussion has been all about headline numbers, likely to be good for several months 4/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

It's not unfortunate. It was inevitable that the right would seize on any opportunity to make Biden look bad. — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Looking forward to politicians who went for the cheapest, dumbest shots to try explaining to their base that core inflation is the right number to look at 3/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Surveys also pointing to sharp slowdown in inflation 2/ https://t.co/4RNnTFUZJN — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Republicans went all in on "gas is $5 a gallon! (pay no attention to Jan. 6 and Roe)" as their election theme. Not looking like a great bet 1/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

And at that point all the people who responded with insults, obscenities and threats to those of us who said this isn't a recession (yet?) will apologize and resolve to engage in less motivated reasoning in the future. See, I made a joke 8/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

But there's a pretty good chance that we'll eventually conclude that the economy, while slowing, actually grew in 2022H1. 7/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Klein does a deep dive into possible sources of error right now, such as misclassifying investment (which adds to GDP) as purchases of intermediate goods (which don't). Time will tell if he's right. 6/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

This kind of noise in the data explains why the NBER doesn't rush to make recession calls, and relies on multiple indicators, not just GDP 5/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

The inconsistencies have been especially large lately: GDP falling but GDI, which should be exactly the same, rising along with employment; industrial production up when the economy is supposedly down; etc 4/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

But because all economic statistics are estimates, not direct observations, they can be inconsistent with each other and are often revised, sometimes by a lot 3/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

This is *not* a critique of the BEA, which has to make estimates based on incomplete data and imputations; America is not a total surveillance state in which every transaction is observed by the government 2/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

A characteristically informative deep dive by Matt Klein, suggesting that GDP may not actually have declined in the first half of 2022 1/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Of course grocery consumption is being eaten away. Eating is what it's for! Sorry, couldn't help myself — PolitiTweet.org