Making fun of liberal economist Paul Krugman is almost too easy. I'm sure there are plenty of other celebrated people on the left who have been as epically wrong as Krugman, but he often manages to be the most fun to poke fun at. This Nobel Prize-winning economy famously predicted in 1998 that “by 2005, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”
Ouch.
Of course, that is the most famous example of his idiocy, but his failed predictions haven't exactly stopped. Another classic is his failed prediction that Trump's election would trigger a global economic recession. "So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight,” he predicted. "I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened."
When he wasn't predicting an economic apocalypse under Trump, he was calling for the opposite under Joe Biden. In November 2020, he predicted that there would be an economic boom under Biden. We're still waiting for that to happen. After Biden took office, he insisted that there was no reason to worry about inflation in 2022. I'm pretty sure I don't have to tell you how wrong he was.
Krugman rewrote history to pretend that the boom he predicted happened. In 2022, he wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times arguing that “2021 was pretty amazing,” and it wasn't satire. Even more recently, he declared that “the war on inflation is over. We won, at very little cost” by citing a graph so deceptive that his tweet was flagged with a community note.
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In short, Krugman is just a partisan hack whose economic philosophy can be boiled down to "Democrats good, Republicans bad."
You know how bad things must be when the liberal media is telling us to listen to Paul Krugman, ignore the higher prices at the gas station or the supermarket, and forget about how your bank account is struggling to stay in the black because your wages aren't keeping up with inflation. Krugman, who always manages to be wrong about everything, is the voice we should trust at this moment, a mere six months before the presidential election.
"Paul Krugman Is Right About the Economy, and the Polls Are Wrong," insists Jonathan Chait of New York magazine. "Sometimes experts are wrong, but not this time."
Do I need to point out the high prices of pretty much everything people have to buy while wages aren't keeping up with inflation? Apparently, we're just supposed to take Paul Krugman's word for it.
"One of the most uncomfortable arguments to make in America is that the people are wrong," writes Chait. "It’s especially uncomfortable when the subject is something you experience in a more comfortable, privileged way than most people. And so when liberal economic elites insist the economy, which opinion polls consistently find the public considers terrible, is actually very good, it makes liberal economic elites come off badly."
You think?
In January, a Gallup poll found that 63% of Americans say that the high prices caused by inflation have caused them moderate to severe financial hardship. I guess they didn't get the memo from Krugman and Chait that they're wrong. Everything is fine; the Biden economy is the bee's knees!
This messaging strategy didn't exactly work for Biden when he tried to make "Bidenomics" a good thing, did it? Now, even Biden has stopped using "Bidenomics" in his messaging. Somehow, telling people to believe Paul Krugman feels like a step backward. Telling people the economy is great when it's not only makes you sound out of touch.
