Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

And of course Scott also wants us to begin paying down debt. 3/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

This "Defund the IRS" call comes at a time when the agency is clearly starved for resources, resulting in a huge "tax gap" 2/ https://t.co/4LxgMdLNo2 — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Anyway, I'm dropping this subject. There are much more important things to argue about 4/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Obviously none of this would be happening if we didn't have an inflationary landscape to begin with — and I'm not suggesting at all that greed explains why I called this one wrong. But I do feel that Democratic-leaning economists have some tendency to be excessively purist 3/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

But the gas tax is probably a bad example for me to have chosen. I'm much more concerned with the haste to dismiss the idea that opportunistic exploitation of monopoly power is playing any role in inflation 2/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

I don't think this debate is worth continuing, if you think "bend over backwards to show independence" means "stupid and malicious." Fwiw, my guesstimate is that consumers would get most — 70 or 80 %? — of a gas tax cut right now, bc there seems to be spare capacity 1/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

I'm sure someone else has pointed this out, but Rick Scott's "Rescue America" plan doesn't just call for tax hikes on the majority of Americans, but for a big implicit cut for tax cheats; "We will immediately cut the IRS funding and workforce by 50%." https://t.co/GYjQ9XPvMn — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Again, the point is to think things through, and not assume that the results of a given policy are always the same regardless of what's going on in the world 6/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

For the same reason, I don't think you can use results from 2018-9 to assess the *immediate* impact of undoing the Trump tariffs. Normally consumers do pay those tariffs; but with imports constrained by supply-chain issues, not clear if they'd reap benefits of repeal 5/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Actually, to enlarge on this: since the state of supply varies, the short-run incidence of tax changes presumably does too. I had the same implicit model of gas prices in 2008 that I do now, but it's not the summer, and that matters 4/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

My views about the effects of temporary policies depend on the current situation. Scandal! 3/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Right now, as I argued the other day, capacity utilization doesn't look high, so supply is probably elastic. Yes, I understand incidence 2/ https://t.co/lXpwGTDr12 — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Read what I wrote. I said that the proposed tax cut wouldn't help consumers at that point because it was the summer and refineries were running flat out. 1/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

The iron law of 21st-century US politics seems to be that you can never be too cynical about the right; they will always be worse than you could have imagined 4/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

The thing is, while there were many (though not enough) people questioning the Iraq War and its motives, there were hardly any people in America praising Saddam Hussein. Now we have a whole party rapidly converging on the view that a foreign dictator is their hero 3/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Even at the time it was obvious that many of the "USA! USA!" types were using the War on Terror (TM) as a cudgel against liberals rather than because they were actual patriots. But for all my cynicism, I didn't expect things to go this far 2/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Watching Republicans rally around the flag — the Russian flag — brings back memories of 2002-3, when the US right constantly accused anyone who questioned the push for war in Iraq of being unpatriotic 1/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

RT @owenslindsay1: It feels really good to finally see some acceptance of this position by folks like @paulkrugman and @ezraklein. If yo… — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

RT @ezraklein: Sharp piece by Paul Krugman. https://t.co/ifdo5tugjw — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

RT @nytopinion: No, Joe Biden isn’t Hugo Chavez. He isn’t even Richard Nixon, writes @PaulKrugman. https://t.co/EJa1HhRx9q — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Whoa. There's been a consensus that major supply-chain problems will persist for many months. Maybe that consensus is as wrong as the view that unemployment would stay high for years? — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Not sure what I think — but couldn't help be reminded of an old Robert Heinlein story about a violent insurrection by workers operating "road towns", giant moving walkways 2/ https://t.co/I9cPA6UQy7 — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

So Canada has finally taken action against what amounted to a low-intensity insurrection; it wasn't really an uprising of working-class truckers. But Adam Tooze suggests that we might be learning something about transport links as pressure points 1/ https://t.co/4VfnvPPSBp — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

RT @MilesCorak: An American friend asked me about the consequences of the occupation of Ottawa. What did the protestors accomplish? Some m… — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Gotta admit that it took me a few minutes to realize why FRED is blogging about this now. Duh. 5/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Not that the wars were genteel — the Peninsular War was a nightmare of mass killing, with Britain very much involved. Interesting to ask why it left so little cultural mark in English lit (as opposed, say, to Spanish art) 4/ https://t.co/NPdwuwdbKy — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

On the other hand, literature, at least what I've read, gives little indication that, in England at least, these felt like total war. The Napoleonic Wars were huge as a share of GDP; Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice in 1813 3/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Two things strike me. First is how big those 18th-century wars were. Someone — Churchill? — called the Seven Years' War the first world war. Not an exaggeration 2/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

The FRED blog has an interesting chart on wartime deficit spending by the UK over the very long run 1/ https://t.co/NmHRiGzxL2 https://t.co/bY8lueOIsu — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Paper here. The "wage-price" line makes it seem as if we're in trouble if both wages and prices are rising, which isn't necessarily so 3/ https://t.co/oeYXqtO43k — PolitiTweet.org