Wednesday, November 28, 2018

22 Days in Paul Krugman's Masterclass (Day 10) (Gibberish)

Paul Krugman
Lesson 10 in Paul Krugman's Masterclass is 14 minutes and 43 seconds long.

In the first part of this lesson, Krugman discusses why inequality occurs and why it is bad.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to reproduce Krugman's arguments on the above because it was mostly gibberish, not making any sound theoretical points or facts.

And his habit of frequently appearing to just about burp while he talks throughout his lessons was even more annoying than usual during this gibberish.

In the second half of this lesson, he makes the absurd claim that FDR and government "created the middle class" and we have been moving away from that wonderful FDR model ever since.

He calls for increasing all kinds of safety net schemes, from more food stamps to universal government healthcare. "I am for policies that raise the safety net," he says.

And then he makes the remarkable claim that a larger safety net "makes society more productive."

He says making society more equal and "compressing inequality should be advanced on multiple fronts."

"You can't rely on markets to deliver justice," he says, "It has to be political intervention."

"We should be doing more redistribution," he adds.

He then calls for a higher minimum wage and says, "There is no evidence this costs jobs."

He also argues for more unions and says it should be made more difficult for employers to bust unions.

In short, the first part of this lecture is complete gibberish and the second half of the lecture is Lefty gibberish whose absurd proposals could be destroyed by a high school student who has a basic familiarity with free market principles.

-RW 

Links to discussions of all Krugman's Masterclass lessons are here.






1 comment:

  1. I seem to recall that back when Krugman was an economist, he actually recognized that incentives matter. As a political hack now, he only recognizes that power matters.

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