Borrowing Some Krugman Cash
Paul Krugman, the chief disciple of John Maynard Keynes, repeated talking points from the Counterfeit News Network and claimed that President Donald Trump and his supporters want to reopen the economy and kill people to save the Dow Jones Industrial Average. This is the same specious reasoning uttered by leftists who think that proposing to dismantle the one-size-fits-all shutdown and allow the public to start earning a living again is comparable to murdering senior citizens.
Why Liberty Nation’s James Fite has yet to cover this nauseating thought process in his entertaining Leftist Lunacy column is befuddling!
Krugman made several disputable arguments in a blog post for The New York Times, titled, “How Many Will Die for the Dow?” This is par for the course for the longest-running romance serials for Keynesian worshippers. His first supposition is that Trump and the Republicans believe "that thousands of Americans must die for the Dow."
First of all, does Krugman not know that the Dow is your grandfather's stock index? Today's whippersnappers pay more attention to the S&P 500 than the Dow. Come on, Mr. Krugman. Get with it!
Second, the president and his GOP buddies do not need to hit the reboot button to rescue the Dow. The country could ostensibly remain closed for another year, and the stock market would still rally 600 points in a single session. The Federal Reserve is rescuing financial markets from the vestiges of the abyss by pumping trillions of dollars into the system, and investors are still praying for a magical vaccine.
Third, trying to get Main Street back to work by allowing small business owners to avoid devastation further is not rescuing the Dow. It is preventing households and entrepreneurs from going bust. Plus, how is allowing Biloxi, MS to restart its economy going to slay anybody in New York or California?
He then put on his Festivus hat and aired his grievances over Republicans wanting to lift the safety net in the coming months gradually. Krugman opined that the White House and the GOP leadership have railed against additional aid to the unemployed and assistance to state and local governments. He is perturbed because many on the right believe that the U.S. cannot afford these astronomical spending schemes, an argument he thinks is "bad economics and disingenuous." The Republican Party can hardly be considered an entity that adheres to fiscal conservatism, but many of the elephant faithful do have a point. The budget deficit is forecast to top $4 trillion, and the national debt will soon hit $30 trillion. Where is the money going to come from?
He disproved their contention by alluding to tax cuts, but two things can be correct at the same time. You can agree that the federal government is out of money, and you can also think that taxes should not be cut unless spending reductions follow. As the famous line from The Mikado goes: “Your notions, though many, are not worth a penny.”
Krugman also had the temerity to refer to Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) in glowing terms. You know, the same governor who transferred sick COVID-19 patients to nursing homes!
Save Us, Federal Reserve!
The head of the Keynes fan club treehouse penned another piece, titled "Crashing Economy, Rising Stocks: What’s Going On?" Krugman attempted to explain why equities are rallying while the “real economy is weak” – the latter part is precisely why the administration is trying to reopen the country.
In the blog post, he celebrated the U.S. central bank for averting a “bigger economic catastrophe.” If you disagree with its destructive actions, then you are an “unqualified loyalist” and someone who supports “crank economic doctrines.” He linked to a Bloomberg article that referenced Judy Shelton’s past stances that championed the gold standard and slammed the Federal Reserve System, two major sins in the Book of Krugman. While Shelton has seemingly dismissed her past views, that does not mean they were incorrect.
Nobody will dispute the fact that the Eccles Building prevented a more dire market meltdown. By flying a helicopter over Wall Street and dropping off bags of money, the Fed stopped the hemorrhaging and staved off a severe liquidity crisis. At the same time, the Fed has produced a tsunami of long-term problems that will do more harm than good in the U.S. economy. Like a good Keynesian, Krugman adheres to the philosophy that the future does not matter because “we are all dead in the long run.” But for any American who cares about America’s tomorrow, what the Fed is doing is concerning.
Not only has the Powell Putsch produced a moral hazard on The Street, but its aggressive actions are also going to trigger a spike in price inflation. Krugman denies the fact that expansionary policies can lead to inflation but possessing a $10 trillion balance sheet can suggest a devaluation in the dollar. Krugman patted himself on the back by noting that there has been no inflation since the Great Recession. He is correct. The cost of living has not gone up if you do not live under a roof, attend a post-secondary institution, or receive health care.
It is typical Keynesian logic to depict the Fed as a benevolent institution that does not print unintended consequences from the vaults inside the Eccles Building.
Genius! Employment Will Create Unemployment
In what will undoubtedly win him another Nobel Prize, Krugman thinks sending people back to work will create more unemployment. Huh? You have just entered the Krugman Zone, and the only way to understand is to speak Krugmanism.
In another tirade against reopening the economy, the Krugster posited that allowing the nearly 40 million Americans to return to work will ignite a depression. In his tour de force piece, “How to Create a Pandemic Depression,” Krugman avers that “the Trump administration and its allies are doing all they can to make a full-scale depression more likely.”
Is Krugman a Karen Corona who thinks everybody should seek shelter until a vaccine is developed? Yes! But this can only be done if – get this – the government just spends, prints, and borrows more money. As the Mises Institute’s William Anderson points out: “Like all Keynesians, Krugman commits the fallacy of composition, believing that what might be good for one person (or a few persons) thus is good for everyone.”
Recently, Liberty Nation spoke to business owner Zach Pendleton, who runs Pendleton’s Pub and Pizza King. He is not an entrepreneur who wants to hide inside his establishment for the next two years and wait for the Coronavirus to absquatulate from American society or for a vaccine to cure our woes. Sure, there are probably a lot of leftist doomers who are enjoying house arrest and receiving government money. Still, many Americans would prefer to return to some semblance of normalcy and earn a living.
In the end, summarizing Krugman’s position is like navigating the labyrinth in The Shining. At the risk of shouting, “Here’s Johnny,” let’s try to translate Krugman-speak into plain English: Since the U.S. economy was ordered under lockdown, we have witnessed historic levels of unemployment. By permitting the labor force to go back to work, the country will experience even more infections than before, which will exacerbate the jobless rate. Congress and the Fed need to spend and print trillions more to fight COVID-19 and ensure people hide in their panic rooms.
You may need a prescription for Dramamine because you probably got vertigo after reading that supposed panacea. Paul Krugman is tired of reasoning with you people!
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Read more from Andrew Moran.
