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New York Times Economist Paul Krugman Admits He Was Wrong About Inflation

New York Times Economist Paul Krugman Admits He Was Wrong About Inflation

“mentioned how he originally didn’t see the massive government spending bill as that dangerous for the economy”

https://youtu.be/HTwWDbWQCfM

Liberal New York Times economist Paul Krugman has apparently figured out that he was wrong about inflation.

He shouldn’t feel too badly about it. He has plenty of company, within the Biden administration alone.

Gabriel Hayes reports at FOX News:

With inflation worse than he predicted, NY Times’ Krugman admits: ‘I was wrong’, a ‘lesson in humility’

The New York Times opinion columnist Paul Krugman published a mea culpa in column form on Thursday, flat out admitting he was wrong for thinking inflation wouldn’t be that bad.

In his piece, titled, “I Was Wrong About Inflation,” the economics professor noted that he was on “Team Relaxed” when it came to fears of inflation and acknowledged that was a “very bad call.”

Krugman began by recounting the “intense debate among economists about the likely consequences of the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion package enacted by a new Democratic president and a (barely) Democratic Congress.” He mentioned how he originally didn’t see the massive government spending bill as that dangerous for the economy.

“Some warned that the package would be dangerously inflationary; others were fairly relaxed. I was Team Relaxed. As it turned out, of course, that was a very bad call,” he confessed.

Of course the columnist, who once insisted that President Biden would oversee a “soaring, ‘morning in America’-type recovery,” claimed that he couldn’t see how bad inflation would be because the “debate and the way things have played out were more complicated than I suspect more people realize.”

This is a real headline from 2020:

Watch his comments on Morning Joe below:

He still comes off as clueless.

Krugman has a history of being not only wrong, but stunningly so. Remember what he said about the internet in 1998?

The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in “Metcalfe’s law”–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.

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Comments

2smartforlibs | July 22, 2022 at 3:04 pm

Tells you exactly what the noble prize was worth. He couldn’t see what every other not in the regime economist could.

    ConradCA in reply to 2smartforlibs. | July 24, 2022 at 1:40 pm

    Biden wouldn’t have been able to do anything if he worried about inflation and that’s why he ignored it. What he should do now to cut inflation is stop spending the trillions he is wasting now. Cancel everyone of the trillions of deficit spending bills he has signed.

Krugman (spit) is nothing more than a paid deep state liar.

The government owns these people and the CEO’s at all the financial institutions.

Here, a primer for the dreaded nuthouse:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/07/21/what-exactly-do-the-officials-mean-by-managing-the-transition-here-is-what-they-will-not-say-openly/

He was actually right with respect to inflation. This is just a shortage with prices allocating scarce supplies to the most efficient uses. So long as the Fed doesn’t accommodate wage increases, it will wear itself out when the shortages end. There’s lots of profit to be made at these prices, which brings out supply faster than anything else could.

If the Fed accommodates “cost of living” wage increases, then it the price allocation of shortage goods doesn’t work and prices have to achieve it at a higher level yet, supported by newly printed money from the Fed. That would be inflation.

    DSHornet in reply to rhhardin. | July 22, 2022 at 4:34 pm

    Oh, really? And if the shortages don’t end because those scarce supplies can’t make it to market due to the developing transportation problems we all can clearly see, what then?

    Stock up on everything while you can.
    .

      rhhardin in reply to DSHornet. | July 22, 2022 at 4:57 pm

      Price allocates any shortage. You buy less of whatever it is because you “can’t afford it.” Which means you have a better use for that money and substitute.

      Most of the shortage will disappear once the dems are out of the White House.

        DSHornet in reply to rhhardin. | July 22, 2022 at 5:40 pm

        If there were no transportation problems, I’d agree with you, but there’s more at play. The fact that the ports are backed up the way they are and the trucking industry is going through a “period of uncertainty” makes the issue even more complicated than normal.

        When you go grocery shopping, buy a few extra staples with a long shelf life. You know the water filter you thought about getting at Lowe’s? Buy one of those, too, with a spare cartridge. Even if nothing bad happens to our infrastructure, it will get used eventually.
        .

        henrybowman in reply to rhhardin. | July 22, 2022 at 9:28 pm

        Are you not seeing the trial balloon ads for “Should Joe Biden control gas prices?”
        Wage increases is only one of the two possible bombs — here come price controls.

    CommoChief in reply to rhhardin. | July 22, 2022 at 5:13 pm

    ‘Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon…’ Milton Friedman

    Creating an additional $6 Trillion and injecting it into the economy is obviously going to raise prices. To paraphrase M Friedman, inflation is more dollars chasing fewer goods.

    Sure, eventually demand destruction occurs when people can’t pay the increase in price but that’s a journey not a destination. A guy wants to eat a T-Bone on Saturday so he pays up until he can’t. Then he substitutes a NY Strip until he he can’t afford that. Then he buys ground chuck until he he can’t afford that.

    As to wages…real wages for the working class have been stagnant or declining for decades with very brief blips of relief. It’s the credentialed, professional and puedo professional class who have had the lion’s share of wage gains. Bloated admin staffers in govt, academia and corp.

    The only way out, due to massive govt and Corp debt is to raise rates until the asset bubble bursts and debtors go bankrupt. When savers are able to make a positive real return they can have a true alternative to manipulated equities instead of the TINA (there is no alternative) phenomenon we have seen for two decades plus.

    Then the mal investment might just stop. If a Corp couldn’t borrow cheap money to fund a stock share buyback to artificially raise the share price to hit management’s stock performance benchmark for their big bonuses they would actually have to perform instead of the performance art manipulative BS they have been doing.

    geronl in reply to rhhardin. | July 22, 2022 at 5:54 pm

    No. they nearly doubled the money supply during lockdowns. Far more dollars chasing far fewer goods. Obviously this was going to cause massive inflation.

    Jazzizhep in reply to rhhardin. | July 22, 2022 at 7:37 pm

    You defend him by giving a definition of inflation????? He said the Biden stimulus would not impact inflation, and when it did happen he said it would transitory.

    Being a fanboy shouldn’t change facts.

    Barry in reply to rhhardin. | July 22, 2022 at 9:00 pm

    “He was actually right…”

    He’s a deep state mouthpiece, nothing more. He is never right. He is always a liar.

    MAJack in reply to rhhardin. | July 23, 2022 at 10:36 am

    Pointy headed intellectual who couldn’t park a bicycle straight.

    Frezz in the hizzy in reply to rhhardin. | July 24, 2022 at 12:55 pm

    The feds “accommodate wage increase” ….. ? LOL – who are you?

    It doesn’t work that way, central planning kook.

    Wages were completely stagnate during ALL of Obamas 8 years, and then when “orange man” took over and implemented basic sound policies, wages took off, most notably in minority communities.

Wrong in writing about what his is purported expertise. For years.

Maintains job.

Progressive prices forced by single/central/monopolistic solutions, sociopolitical scientific myths, and liberal fiscal policies.

Krugman was the winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to New Trade Theory and New Economic Geography.

Both of these, New Trade Theory and New Economic Geography are all about international global business. Just how can you study these fields and forget to leave out things like logistic supply chains ?

TheOldZombie | July 22, 2022 at 3:22 pm

How can this guy go through life and be wrong on everything and not ever reflect on that fact?

This guy has never been right about anything.

SeiteiSouther | July 22, 2022 at 3:22 pm

He was also the one who said, in so many words, that “Yeah, illegal immigrants overburden public services, but they more than make up for it…. Somehow.”

Never took anything this guy said seriously again.

    nordic prince in reply to SeiteiSouther. | July 22, 2022 at 4:11 pm

    Yeah, because all the illegal immigrants are brain surgeons and rocket scientists…”contributing to the economy” my foot. Mexico and the other South/Central American states are just exporting their poor to us.

“New York Times Economist Paul Krugman Admits He Was Wrong About I̶n̶f̶l̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ Everything”

FIFY.

Maybe Krugman’s problem is that he himself does not take what he says seriously. In the very end of his article that you link to — after his prediction about the internet:

“Sometime in the next 20 years, maybe sooner, there will be another ’70s-style raw-material crunch: a disruption of oil supplies, a sharp run-up in agricultural prices, or both.”

His excuse for getting it wrong was that there were things no one could see coming. His actual excuse is that he forgot about his predictions after he wrote them.

A much shorter statement would list anything that the fool/tool that is Krugman correct about.

    DSHornet in reply to Romey. | July 22, 2022 at 4:36 pm

    My late father would occasionally opine about “educated fools.” Here’s the example.
    .

He’s about as credible as Don Adams who whenever he flubbed said “missed it by that much”.

MisterSadFaceMcGee | July 22, 2022 at 6:55 pm

Nothing to see here. This clown is almost always wrong. His Nobel prize is worth about as much as Obama’s peace prize.

There is no economic theory nor position you could propose that wouldn’t find several Ivy League PHDs to argue your case. Whatever your opinion, there is are plenty of “expert” economists who share your opinion.

“Put 10 economists in a room – get 11 opinions”

    CommoChief in reply to Pasadena Phil. | July 23, 2022 at 9:09 am

    More like 20+ opinions. All of them will give us the ‘on the one hand X but on the other hand Y’ routine. Then the more adventurous will provide an opinion that seeks to split the difference while being malleable enough to claim success no matter the eventual outcome.

healthguyfsu | July 22, 2022 at 8:21 pm

Modern monetary theory is total garbage and they know it….I don’t buy this guy’s “my bad” on this for a second

You cannot tax back the printed money spending sprees to hem in inflation because they will NEVER make fiscally reasonable decisions to save when money comes in to spend. Krugman is not stupid but he is evil.

henrybowman | July 22, 2022 at 9:25 pm

“He shouldn’t feel too badly about it. He has plenty of company, within the Biden administration alone.”
A professional economist shouldn’t feel too badly not to have out-thought a gaggle of whores?
No wonder people are Democrats. Life, unburdened by expectations.

Uncle Milton could have told us that was a very bad call 50 years ago.

Krugman is utterly vile. Yet another manifestly dishonest, hyper-partisan, water-carrying, Dumb-o-crat media shill/prostitute. He’s what happens when science (in this case, economics) is corrupted by, and, chained to, the wagon of Dumb-o-crat fanaticism and agenda.

Lack of “humility” is just the problem with the expert class and World Economic Forum types. They wantExpo to re-build the tower of babel, reduce population, and make us all energy and food dependent as a path to “a brighter future.” Brighter… for them.

ScottTheEngineer | July 23, 2022 at 11:46 am

I wish I got paid to suck at my job as much as he does to suck at his.

PersonofInterests | July 23, 2022 at 11:52 am

Just one question for this Marxist: Do you ever get tired of being wrong?

When was the first time the this Marxist has ever been right??

The question: How could someone who obviously never passed Econ 101 get a Nobel Prize in Economics?

Albigensian | July 23, 2022 at 5:44 pm

“Krugman has a history of being not only wrong, but stunningly so.”

That Krugman has often been spectacularly wrong is not news.

That Krugman actually admitted he had been wrong is.

Not that I’d expect any forthcoming humility. After all, “on the other hand” there’s Putin, supply chain, etc.

For economists always have lots and lots of hands (not the mere two most of us make do with).

This is unbelievable. Everyone who has anything to do with the real economy (folks who actually work in making and selling things) knew this was coming. I have clients that have told me that this will go on for a decade before anything will be back in balance. Ukraine had very little to do with this. Any fool should know that you do NOT dump money into a supply shocked economy.

Inflation is B a regressive tax of v everyone’s income. Biden’s only solution is to waste more money and thereby make inflation worse! It hurts the poor and minorities the most and is proof that Biden and the Dems are racists and only care about rich white Dems..