Experts predicted economic Armageddon under Trump — where are they now? Those who can do...those who can't either teach or become journalists

Experts predicted economic Armageddon under Trump — where are they now?

The economy is strong, unemployment is low and wages are rising, according to the latest economic data released Friday, which is in stark contrast to what the vast majority of elite economic opinion predicted just a few years ago from a Trump presidency.

The latest unemployment report has joblessness at 3.6%. Where is the Trump Armageddon Squad now?

What’s even more egregious is that the same folks predicting the end of the world refuse to provide sane analysis of radical proposals dribbling out of the mouths of the Democrats. They report on Medicare-for-All, the Green New Deal and college debt forgiveness as if these cockamamie ideas will have no impact on the economy.

First some full disclosure: While I was never a naysayer in the camp of Paul Krugman, I was never fully aboard the Trump economic train. I worried about his occasional dumb, offhand remarks on finance — he once blurted out he could renegotiate debt payments without understanding it was a form of default, which would lead to massively higher interest rates and lots of bad stuff to follow.

I continue to worry about his trade policies; while it’s fine to call out China for its bad behavior, going to trade war with the world as Trump sometimes suggests will lead to higher unemployment and inflation. Sometimes it seems Trump doesn’t understand that US manufacturers need Chinese buyers.

But I have read enough economics from the likes of Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek (and yes, those great economists who put it to practical use such as Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan) to know there was plenty good in the Trump plan that he ran on back in 2016 and continues to propose today.

That’s why unemployment is where it is: Cutting taxes on individuals and businesses often propels economic growth because people — not inefficient governments — make the best decisions about where to allocate capital. And I said as much on these pages both before and after Trumps presidency.

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Job growth surged in April, unemployment rate falls to 49-year low

Not so for many of my fellow pundits. For example, if you relied on the Washington Post just a month before Election Day 2016, you would think the economy was on the brink of disaster. “A President Trump Could Destroy the World,” screamed one headline from its editorial page, which predicted economic collapse because of Trump’s nationalist trade policies, ignoring, of course, he was proposing one of the largest fiscal stimuluses in years though his tax plan and deregulation.

Politico wrote that “Wall Street is set up for a major crash if Donald Trump shocks the world on Election Day and wins the White House,” in a piece citing various economists.

These geniuses believed a day of market volatility when it seemed like Trump might beat Hillary Clinton was evidence that stocks wouldn’t recover once the massive corporate tax cut from a Trump presidency kicked in (which is exactly what happened after futures sold off on election night).

No list of bad calls on the Trump economy would be complete without mentioning the not-so-sage words of The New York Times in-house economist and columnist Krugman.

It wasn’t too long ago that Krugman won the Noble prize in economics, which is startling given this bizarre post-Trump election prediction: “So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight. I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened.”

What school of economics was he following? Krugman doesn’t really say even as he continues to spew dreck predicting a severe economic collapse that never seems to come.

Again, we all make mistakes, and even a few of the Trump doubters such as entrepreneur Mark Cuban (famous for tweeting, “In the event that @realDonaldTrump wins, I have no doubt in my mind that the market tanks”) have more recently owned up to theirs.

The vast majority haven’t. Even worse they have ignored the revolutionary dumb economics of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and other Democratic candidates, who if in the driver’s seat, would really steer the economy and the markets over the cliff.

Krugman's comeuppance

SARAH SANDERS SLAPS PAUL KRUGMAN FOR ‘GREAT RECESSION’ PREDICTION UNDER TRUMP

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders once again took aim at New York Times columnist Paul Krugman for predicting global recession under the Trump administration.

The White House frequently has made fun of Krugman for his November 2016 prediction that “if the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.”

The Nobel Prize-winning economist continued: “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.”

Sanders linked to a New York Times article with the headline “We Ran Out of Words to Describe How Good the Jobs Numbers Are” and referenced the significant drop in the unemployment rate under the Trump presidency.

Remember this Paul Krugman prediction about Trump's election? Reality bites Krugman!

Sarah Huckabee Sanders slays NY Times columnist with award mocking his failed Trump prediction

2 hours

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders honored the NYT's Paul Krugman with "worst prediction for the year" award. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) 

Chris EnloeWEEKEND EDITOR

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders handed out an impromptu award on Friday to a New York Times columnist — but it wasn’t for impeccable reporting.

What happened?

Sanders issued the “worst prediction for the year” award to Times columnist Paul Krugman on Friday for predicting President Donald Trump’s successful presidential election would sink the American economy to such a low point that it would never recover.

“If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never,” Krugman wrote on Election Day. “So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight. I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened.”

In reality, the economy is booming after Trump’s first year in office. The stock markets have soared since Inauguration Day, reaching new record after new record. Meanwhile, unemployment is at 4.1 percent — a 17-year low — and the housing market has regained everything it lost in the 2008 financial crisis and then some.

Cryto-currencies — especially Bitcoin — have found vitality this year as well. By all measures, the economy is booming and Trump’s promise to pass tax reform and deregulate the system is helping further the successes.

After Congress passed its tax reform bill last week, numerous major U.S. corporations announced how the bill would directly impact and help them — by providing bonuses for their employees and announcing new ventures.

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The Left just keeps making things up..NYT columnist slams Trump after cholera reported in Puerto Rico — except there’s just one problem. Now would you trust his economic analysis of anything?

NYT columnist slams Trump after cholera reported in Puerto Rico — except there’s just one problem

Oct 1, 2017 11:47 am

Paul Krugman spread a false rumor about cholera in Puerto Rico as a way to slam President Trump, but there was a major problem with his claim — it wasn't true. He later issued a correction, although it received significantly less attention. (Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for the New York Times) 

Chris Enloe

WEEKEND EDITOR

• New York Times columnist Paul Krugman slammed President Donald Trump in a tweet Saturday after reports surfaced of cholera in Puerto Rico — except there was just one huge problem with Krugman’s criticism.

What did he say?

Krugman tweeted: “Cholera. In a US territory. Among US citizens. In the 21st century. Heckuva job, Trumpie.”

Cholera is a bacterial disease that causes diarrhea, severe dehydration and can even lead to death. The disease hasn’t been a problem in the U.S. for more than a century, but is currently a major problem in third-world countries and impoverished communities.

Is there actually cholera in PR?

It’s not clear where Krugman got his information, or who confirmed there is cholera in Puerto Rico as a result of Hurricane Maria, but it certainly wasn’t the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the government agency that works to control and prevent infectious diseases.

Did he correct the record?

Krugman tweeted the claim as an obvious potshot at Trump, who liberals and many others have accused of not responding to the disaster in Puerto Rico in an adequate fashion. Slamming Trump over the island’s crisis is so popular right now, in fact, that Krugman’s original tweet garnered tens of thousands of retweets and “likes.”

He later issued a correction, although it received significantly less attention:

Was he the only one?

Another notable liberal, Kurt Eichenwald, also made the cholera claim. His tweet also garnered tens of thousands of retweets and “likes,” despite the information being untrue.

Krugman: proving liberalism is itself is a mental disorder. In the USSR to disagree with the government was considered a mental disease.

Liberal NY Times columnist: Trump ‘was obviously mentally ill the moment he took office’

Dave Urbanski  3 hours

President Donald Trump talks with reporters n the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2017, before signing an executive order on the Keystone XL pipeline. (AP/Evan Vucci) 

Paul Krugman — a well-known economist, liberal New York Times columnist and outspoken opponent of Republican President Donald Trump — called the new commander in chief “mentally ill.”

“An American first: a president who was obviously mentally ill the moment he took office,” Krugman tweeted Tuesday morning, accompanied by a link to a New York Times story saying Trump “used his first official meeting with congressional leaders on Monday to falsely claim that millions of unauthorized immigrants had robbed him of a popular vote majority.”

Krugman added a “Thanks, Comey” quip to his tweet, presumably a criticism of FBI Director James Comey over his disclosure to Congress shortly before the election about the restart of the investigation into then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

This was far from Krugman’s first salvo directed toward Trump.

In his Monday column for the Times, Krugman called Trump’s inauguration speech “ghastly” and criticized him over the economy, health care and crime.

“No, the insecure egomaniac-in-chief will almost surely deny awkward truths, and berate the media for reporting them,” Krugman wrote. “And — this is what worries me — it’s very likely that he’ll try to use his power to shoot the messengers.”

Last month Krugman suggested that Trump would allow terrorists to attack the U.S. on purpose.

A few years ago New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was frequently heralding the Veterans Health Administration as a model of medical improvement in America. Another example of liberal ideology crushed by reality.

This Is Paul Krugman's Idea of Good Health Care Reform

BY JOHN MERLINE

06/10/2015 

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New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, shown here giving a lecture in Athens, Greece, has penned several op-eds praising the Veterans Health... View Enlarged Image

Afew years ago New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was frequently heralding the Veterans Health Administration as a model of medical improvement in America.

It is, he wrote, "a huge policy success story," that has "achieved a remarkable combination of rising quality and successful cost control."

One wonders if Krugman is aware of this story.

A decade ago, Veterans Affairs made plans to build a new hospital in the Denver area to serve nearly 400,000 veterans — for a relatively modest $328 million.

In the years since, the VA managed to spend $1.7 billion on the project — 418% more than promised — making it one of the most expensive hospitals in the world.

And still nowhere near finished, as NPR reports this week.

Unless Congress grants the VA more money soon, construction will halt, costing taxpayers still more money. Alternatively, the VA will have to squeeze its other programs.

The Denver hospital is hardly the only extravagantly bungled VA construction project. A Government Accountability Office audit found what the Washington Post described as "extravagant planning divorced from financial reality and bungled execution" at several projects.

This comes on top of the last year's scandal about deadly delays and active attempts to cover them up by VA administrators, which seems to undermine Krugman's other claim about the "rising quality."

The idea that the government can do things better and more efficiently than the private sector is a favorite claim of the single-payer crowd. Krugman said once the private insurance market "has huge administrative costs and has no demonstrated ability to reduce other costs."

He and others routinely compare Medicare's allegedly low overhead costs with the private sector's.

This claim ignores one inconvenient fact. Without the disciplining force of market competition, the government gets lazy, inefficient, careless and corrupt.

It's why the VA — despite huge increases in its budget in recent years — still forces veterans to wait months for treatment, and can blow $100 million on a hospital atrium with curving walls and huge glass windows.

It's why Britain's National Health Service and Canada's single-payer system are riddled with deadly delays. And why the federal government managed to blow $2 billion on the still unfinished Healthcare.gov.

It's also why public transportation projects are always late and over budget. Why public schools can't seem to accomplish the one job they're paid handsomely to do — educate children. And it's why the DMV is never heralded for its superior customer service.

When you include the cost of waste and fraud, you'd be hard pressed to find any government program that runs as well as its private sector counterpart.

Unless, that is, you simply ignore all the bad stuff.

"In Britain," Krugman once wrote, "the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We've all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false."

Just as false as the horror stories about the VA?

Hat tip Investors Business Daily

Ferguson vs Krugman

A fine smackdown of Krugman by Niall Ferguson:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The arrogance of self righteousness

Liberal Hypocrisy, Krugman-Style

Dan Joppich

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman's blog is titled "The Conscience of a Liberal."  Apparently, a liberal like Krugman has no conscience -- otherwise, he would recognize his own blatant hypocrisy.

He must be a super-smart economist if he can pack so much liberal hypocritical drivel in a 200 word NY Times blog post. 

July 6, 2013, 9:12 am

Lifestyles of the Rich and Something or Other

A very New York piece in today's Times about trendy, wealthy New Yorkers who have been acquiring pied-a-terres in newly fashionable Lower Manhattan. You have to read a bit carefully to realize that these are, for the most part, people with apartments on the Upper East Side; their downtown bolt-holes are to avoid the need to trek uptown after a night out. But then, who am I to talk? It's no secret that, courtesy of the Swedish Riksbank and Worth Publishers, we have a place in New York as well as a house in Princeton; and I find the arrangement immensely practical... And the truth is that of the various things the wealthy might spend on, this is one of the less offensive; it might even reduce externalities, if people walk back to their downtown hideaways instead of having a limo wait outside the restaurant for hours. Still, a nice reminder of the state of inequality.

"Still a nice reminder of the state of inequality"!

Let's point out a few obvious hypocrisies:

In his typically arrogant style, Mr. Krugman admits that he personally perpetuates this form of inequality and even justifies it as "immensely practical" in his case.  Not just practical, but immensely practical.  This strikes me as more than a little hypocritical.  It's okay for him, but not for those "other" rich people.

Is the reader supposed to infer that the "Rich and Something or Others" are conservative Republicans?  And when these supposed rich conservative Republicans typically spend their money on "various things," it is "offensive."  I seem to remember the Clintons spending five million dollars on a wedding a few years back.  I wonder if Krugman was offended then.

Krugman should rename his article "Lifestyles of the Rich and Me."

The area in New York he is talking about includes previously abandoned, crime-ridden, depressed neighborhoods that have been reclaimed as loft apartments.  These developments have increased the tax base, helped local businesses thrive, created good-paying jobs for construction companies, etc.  Limo drivers are losing work, though -- sorry, Paul.

Krugman thrives in a world where wealth or equality is a zero-sum proposition.  That is, if one man is rich and keeps a second home in town, somebody else (or many somebodies) must have ended up on the streets.

Lastly, these are predominantly the homes and second homes of wealthy New York liberals like Krugman himself, who voted for Obama.  As a matter of fact, they are the people who open up these very same homes to $35,000-a-plate Democrat fundraisers attended by Obama and liberal celebrity elites.

As I have stated many times, if liberals like Krugman didn't have double-standards, they would have no standards at all.

Krugman the pompous

Krugman Can't Admit He Was Wrong on Austerity: Latvia PM

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 Published: Friday, 15 Mar 2013 | 12:56 PM ET

By: Katy Barnato

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Krugman Is Wrong: Latvia PM

Friday, 15 Mar 2013 | 12:35 PM ET

Valdis Dombrovskis, prime minister of Latvia, said Paul Krugman is wrong in his criticism of Latvia's austerity measures and that his country will join the euro on January 1 next year.

Latvia's Prime Minister hit back on Friday at Paul Krugman's criticism of Latvia's austerity measures, saying the Nobel Prize-winning economist has "difficulty admitting his own mistake." 

"Krugman famously said back in December 2008 that Latvia is the new Argentina, it will inevitably go bankrupt, and now he has difficulty apparently admitting he was wrong and so he tries to seek some problems in how Latvia is recovering from the economic crisis," Latvian leader Valdis Dombrovskis told CNBC in an interview at the EU summit in Brussels.

"But I think that the mere fact that for the last two years we are enjoying rapid growth shows that it was probably the right strategy."

Latvia's government undertook a heavy dose of austerity after a credit boom led to an economic crash in 2008. The government undertook the biggest fiscal adjustment drive of any country in the European Union and gross domestic product (GDP) plunged 24 percent in 2009.

This commitment to fiscal prudence, and Latvia's subsequent growth of 5.5 percent in 2011 and 4.5 percent in 2012, has led the country to be feted by proponents of austerity, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

(Read More: Used to Hardship, Latvia Accepts Austerity, and Its Pain Eases)

However, Krugman, who is known for his strictly anti-austerity stance, has remained consistent in his criticism of the Baltic state.

"The adulation over Latvia really tells us more about what the European policy elite wants to believe than it does either about the realities of Latvian experience or the fundamentals of macroeconomics," Krugman wrote in a blog post for the New York Times on January 2, entitled Latvia, Once Again.

"We're looking at a Depression-level slump, and 5 years later only a partial bounceback; unemployment is down but still very high, and the decline has a lot to do with emigration. It's not what you'd call a triumphant success story," he continued.

Latvian unemployment stood at 14.3 percent in 2012, according to the CIA's World Factbook. Emigration from Latvia has increased by 13 percent in the last decade, a trend that increased markedly since austerity measures were introduced, particularly among the younger, better-educated generation.

Earlier this year, Dombrovskis said the success of his austerity drive meant there was now scope for some stimulus measures such as lowering labor taxes and increasing public sector wages.

(Read More: Role Model of European Austerity Turns to Stimulus)

In his interview with CNBC on Friday, Dombrovskis said the austerity versus growth debate was a false one.

"We need both. We need to regain our financial stability and we need to regain visibility vis-a-vis the financial markets. But at the same we need measures to stimulate economic growth, and actually, to grow out of those problems," he said.

Krugman, meanwhile, is a veteran of spats with Baltic States regarding austerity measures. Last June, his criticisms about Estonia provoked a spirited reply from the country's president.

"Yes, what do we know? We're just dumb and silly East Europeans. Unenlightened. Someday we too will understand," wrote Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilve on his Twitter account.

(Read More: Estonian Austerity, Paul Krugman, and Twitter: All the Elements of an Opera?)