Friday, March 4, 2011

Paul Krugman, A Fish Floating in Jello

In a post today, Paul Krugman is bitching about the employment numbers:
My basic reaction to today’s jobs report was, been down so long it looks like up to me. Clearly, this was better than the kind of report we’ve grown accustomed to seeing. But for perspective, here are annual averages of monthly job gains going back to Clinton:


Perspective? What the hell is Krugman talking about? That chart sure looks like a major turn around in the employment situation to me. Remember, as recently as December 2010, Krugman was calling for more Keynesian stimulus because, in his view, the economy was headed nowhere but down. From an overall current view of the data, Krugman was clearly wrong.

The unemployment picture is turning around, the overall economic picture is turning around, the stock market is booming and serious consumer price inflation is only weeks away. To be sure, all this is the result of Krugman's Princeton buddy Ben Bernanke printing money in the latter part of 2010. In other words, a totally manipulated "recovery" that will lead to further crises down the road, but Krugman didn't even see this manipulated recovery. In late December 2010, he was calling for a huge stimulus package. I posted the clip of his telling Racahel Maddow his mad policy prescription and noted that by July 2011, it would be fun to look at.

Well, it is only early March 2011, and it is already fun to watch. Krugman simply doesn't understand business cycle theory or how the economy works and is like a fish floating in jello.  The man is stuck with nowhere to go.

Here's the clip.

2 comments:

  1. Surprised you have not commented yet on this morning's Weekly Peak.

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  2. You're giving Krugman a hard time over being pessimistic about the still extremely high unemployment rate? Seriously? Are you just looking for any minor thing to quibble about and making a big deal out of it?

    When are you going to call out Robert Murphy for predicting stagflation for the next several years then? He hasn't predicted a "manipulated recovery." Just pure inflation and high unemployment. This must obviously means he does not understand business cycle theory either.

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