Last summer, New York Times economist Paul Krugman declared it “morning in Joe Biden’s America”:
The sun was rising and a new day was dawning, but it seems like that morning barely lasted long enough to finish a cup of coffee:
Wow, it didn't stay "morning" for very long. pic.twitter.com/1cRCbvM4iK
— Doug Powers (@ThePowersThatBe) January 1, 2022
If last summer was “morning” in Biden’s America, what time of day is it now?
Do you share my sense of dread about the year ahead? If not, why not? 1/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) January 1, 2022
Change that NYT headline to “mourning in Joe Biden’s America” — at least for Krugman:
At this point I'm not personally all that afraid of Covid. I do know vaxxed/boosted people who've had breakthrough cases, but both anecdotes and the available data say that these cases are usually mild. For those acting responsibly, we're down to normal-risks-of-life levels 2/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) January 1, 2022
Covid’s still around? Didn’t Biden promise to “shut down the virus”? In any case, we like to stay as optimistic as possible, but being a liberal like Krugman means there’s never a shortage of things to completely freak out about:
Longer term I'm terrified of climate change. But at this point that fear has been overtaken by the near-term risk of political catastrophe right here in America 3/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) January 1, 2022
The good news for Krugman is that he’s almost never right about anything. For example, on election night 2016, Krugman wrote the following:
If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never. Under any circumstances, putting an irresponsible, ignorant man who takes his advice from all the wrong people in charge of the nation with the world’s most important economy would be very bad news. What makes it especially bad right now, however, is the fundamentally fragile state much of the world is still in, eight years after the great financial crisis.
Nailed it! Wait, no he didn’t.
We've always had ideological conflict, and these conflicts have often been won by people with bad ideas and sometimes by people with bad motives. But now half our political spectrum is controlled by a faction that is ruled not by ideology but by the will to power 4/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) January 1, 2022
After nearly two years that included forced shutdowns, lockdowns, mandates that didn’t work, ridiculous regulations and unconstitutional edicts, the power-hungry people with bad ideas aren’t in the political party Krugman thinks they are.
We had an attempted coup a year ago; the GOP has now essentially endorsed that attempt and is preparing the ground for future cancelation of democracy. GOP policy on vaccines is a combination of bottomless cynicism and deep crazy 5/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) January 1, 2022
But in spite of all this despair, don’t despair:
Despair is not a plan. Nobody should give up. But if you aren't extremely worried, you aren't lying attention 6/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) January 1, 2022
"paying" attention 7/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) January 1, 2022
Krugman left something out:
Curious how you have no dread of inflation. Then again you said the internet would have same impact on modern life as the fax machine so your predictions don’t hold merit
— Paulie Nye (@nye_paulie) January 1, 2022
Inflation (aka “transitory price blips“) seems to be one thing that Krugman doesn’t think is worth panicking about.
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Related:
Bloomberg @Business challenges Paul Krugman for the hottest take on inflation this weekend
