Year 2024: Everyone Except Paul Krugman Is Wrong

Milk is still expensive? You’re wrong. Can’t afford long trips? You’re wrong. You’ve lost customers? You’re wrong. Your company went bankrupt? You’re wrong. Can’t find anyone to invest in your business because of economic uncertainty? You’re wrong. Paul Krugman, my favorite Bidenomics junkie, is back, bigger and better than ever after Christmas, and he has started the year by blaming Americans for not wanting to accept that they are actually much richer than they think they are. “Our economy and society have, in fact, healed remarkably well,” Krugman writes. “The big remaining question is when, if ever, the public will be ready to accept the good news.” Krugman also notes that “public perceptions” are “notoriously at odds with reality.” 

If you are an average guy, just another taxpayer, and you think your personal economy is not going well, now you can easily fix it: You just call Krugman and ask him, “Hey, Paul, how is my economy doing?” And he will tell you, “Like a ballistic missile.” And then you’ll be very happy, you’ll thank him, and all your problems will be over. 

The Left has undergone several transformations in recent decades. The most notorious is a pathological divorce from reality, precisely the same thing Krugman accuses normal Americans of. This dissociation is just as serious in scientific matters (they have problems understanding that human nature has only two sexes), in social matters (they believe that the demographic crisis is not related to the crisis of the family), and in purely economic matters (they will never accept the figures if they mess up their partisan narrative). 

Joe Biden’s friends are engaged in a preelection campaign to insist that the economy is doing well. In the polls, Americans say otherwise. The Bidens rely on a few economic indicators that could be considered positive, even without having smoked crack before glancing at them. Americans rely on the one economic indicator that never fails: their own pockets. Even if both were right, the only thing that really matters is your own economic reality, along with the sum of all of the individual economic realities throughout the nation. That’s what counts. 

The case of inflation is paradigmatic. The government can celebrate that inflation figures have improved; although this does not mean that prices have stopped rising, just that they are rising more slowly. Oh, thank you, we will not remove your testicle at full speed; we will do it slowly! 

Prices are rising on top of the immense swelling that had already risen before. The case of unemployment is also illustrative: The upturn in employment is just the normal consequence of the pandemic crash. Not even a president as bad as Joe Biden would be able to prevent some improvement in employment in the years following a global health pandemic.

It doesn’t bother me that Krugman is wrong. I would be very surprised if he were right. What really irritates me is to see that, once again, the big media loudspeakers of the left are blaming individual people for the evils caused by their damned government. 

No, Krugman, the U.S. economy is not doing well. Biden’s economic measures can never work because, if Joe Biden himself is not capable of governing himself, he cannot possibly govern others well. 

The one thing the Bidens and many of their media propagandists are right about is that the economy is a matter of perception. They think it’s going well. And maybe they are right from their point of view. Biden and his friends are probably making more money than ever, while American families cross an endless pitch-black tunnel through their bank accounts. 

And finally, Krugman should also mention the issue of spending. Biden’s anti-crisis measures are trying to put out a small match, while government spending is causing a wildfire. A Democratic fireman is sure to show up to put it out soon, hosing it with … more government spending.

Translated by Joel Dalmau.

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