So the cite that an imminent recession is likely, is a guy in 2015 saying that we’ll probably see a recession in 2016 since we would already be overdue one by that time.
It’s not a great cite, and also I would say it’s not very convincing logic…except that of course at this point it’s impossible to be wrong. If the next recession hits in 2021, well, see, it was 6 years overdue!
I think you can forget about Trump wanting to provoke a mini-recession in order to create sustained growth later on; he’s already established as being anti-vax.
Conservatives in congress will fold and go along for Trump’s wild spending schemes. Paul Krugman will certainly applaud, right?
“Consider Trump’s stated intention to seek a $1 trillion dollar infrastructure package soon after taking office. At a conservative forum one week after the election, Labrador told reporters that any such bill “has to be paid for” with spending cuts or revenues from elsewhere, “and if Trump doesn’t find a way to pay for it, the majority of us, if not all of us, are going to vote against it.” Otherwise, conservatives reasoned, it would be no different than the Obama stimulus package they once railed against. But their thinking has shifted in the weeks since. According to several members, there has been informal talk of accepting a bill that’s only 50 percent paid for, with the rest of the borrowing being offset down the road by “economic growth.” It’s an arrangement Republicans would never have endorsed under a President Hillary Clinton, and a slippery slope to go down with Trump.”
Depends. Is the economy doing well? Are we still in a liquidity trap? Do we still need fiscal stimulus, and is it still reasonably possible to provide said fiscal stimulus without crowding others out of the market? I think Krugman’s approval will largely depend on those factors.
No. The only factor will be party membership. Krugman had called for massive infrastructure stimulus if Clinton won. She lost and Krugman immediately started bashing Trump for his spending plans.
The cite was there for the statistics, not the guy’s analysis.
[Rocky the Squirrel]
That trick never works!
[/Rocky the Squirrel]
Because Trump’s plan has no way to pay for it, and it will balloon the deficit. Clinton raised taxes so it was revenue neutral. Math is hard.
And if you look at his critique, the main problem he has with it is that it’s a massive giveaway of government property to private enterprise, not “Trump wants to spend a lot of money on infrastructure.” You do realize that even a good idea can fail miserably in the execution, right?
What is this? A preemptive defense? All right, so if Trump’s doings ruin the economy, it was “overdue” anyway.
(ETA: Hi there, Bryan Ekers from 11/14/2016!)
Here’s the extent of Donald Trump’s economic plan:
Step #1: Become President.
Step #2: ???
Step #3: Profit!
Ballooning the deficit was a feature, not a bug, of Krugman’s policy recommendations.
No he also laments the deficit growth. Please, defending Krugman is beneath your humanity.
No. The main point of the thread is to draw a distinction between what Trump does, which will almost certainly harm the economy, and a free market approach. I do not want the recession blamed on “free market fundamentalism”. I’ve seen that show before. GWB’s recession was blamed on the market and one look at his policies will tell you that is a partisan game.
What’s going to happen are huge tax cuts. This is because Obama’s successor wants to accrue some IOUs from his wealthy cronies and put himself in position to make more money. Whether it helps or hurts the economy, he could not possibly care less. Unemployment is something the little people worry about.
To the main points:
There aren’t going to be any vast spending schemes. Again, he could not possibly care less about creating jobs. There will be no complications on the debt ceiling, when the Congress and White House are controlled by the same party, they pass easily. There aren’t going to be any bipartisan bills passing, Democrats should and must vote “no” for every Republican scheme.
Looks like “harangue” is on your word of the day calendar. There aren’t going to be real cuts. There are no “hard money guys” other than the half-witted Ron Paul. Cutting spending would not and never has resulted in any growth, let alone huge.
I disagree on most points. Trump is the kind of guy who wants to build grand things. Trillions of dollars on stuff, and maybe like a huge bridge or something. Depending on the locations of these projects, some Democrats will tag along.
The tax cuts are probably just going to be a shuffling of chairs, but there may be actual cuts. Maybe you could link to a credible economist that believes tax cuts cause recessions.
Didn’t say they did. But they don’t create jobs either.
Really? Maybe we just read different articles. Cite? (Emphasis mine in all cases)
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/infrastructure-build-or-privatization-scam/
Crucially, it’s not a plan to borrow $1 trillion and spend it on much-needed projects — which would be the straightforward, obvious thing to do.
Whoops, here he is advocating borrowing a trillion dollars.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/opinion/build-he-wont.html
To understand what’s going on, it may be helpful to start with what we should be doing. The federal government can indeed borrow very cheaply; meanwhile, we really need to spend money on everything from sewage treatment to transit. The indicated course of action, then, is simple: borrow at those low, low rates, and use the funds raised to fix what needs fixing.
[…]
Again, all of this is unnecessary. If you want to build infrastructure, build infrastructure. It’s hard to see any reason for a roundabout, indirect method that would offer a few people extremely sweet deals, and would therefore provide both the means and the motive for large-scale corruption. Or maybe I should say, it’s hard to see any reason for this scheme unless the inevitable corruption is a feature, not a bug.
So what I can tell from his columns on the subject, Krugman is not saying what you said he was saying. He’s saying exactly the opposite: it would be nice if this was financed by deficit spending, but the way Trump is doing it is fucking abhorrent.
So when you say this:
Clearly you are getting your information from other sources. I’m not sure which sources. Perhaps the NYT editorial board article (which may have had influence from Krugman but is not by Krugman), which has this to say:
He’s right that borrowing to invest in infrastructure makes sense in times like these when interest rates are low. But combined with his other plans, Mr. Trump’s proposed borrowing would do severe fiscal damage.
It then goes on to make its case for why Trump’s plan is bad, based largely on the fact that he plans for drastic tax cuts.
So where are you getting this from? Where did Krugman say that he opposes Trump running up the deficit? In his blog, he said exactly the opposite. In his column, he said exactly the opposite. His newspaper objected not to Trump running up the deficit, but Trump running up the deficit through massive tax cuts on the super-rich, which continue to be a terrible idea.
“Beneath my humanity”? Krugman’s an accomplished economist whose arguments make sense. You’re a libertarian keyboard warrior who can’t even accurately portray those arguments. Those in glass houses should not throw stones at people in M4 Sherman tanks.
It is clear that Trump isn’t an Austrian school adherent. He wants more infrastructure spending, more defense spending, higher tariffs, government officials to arm-twist business, etc. Option 2 frankly seems like an idea that would only get maybe 60 votes tops in all of Congress.
I think the most probable course - and I’m hedging a lot here - is an economic policy that looks like the best ideas of whomever talked to Trump most recently: cut spending by spending more on defense. Raise the debt ceiling only if taxes on the wealthy are cut. Raise the minimum wage and take away health care. Invest in new technologies by eliminating R&D programs.
What I can’t predict is if this mish-mash of incoherent policies will gain traction in Congress. I think Trump can threaten Republicans to go along with some of his proposals, but that isn’t going to work with Dems. Shoot, it’s still not clear to me that he actually wants to work with any Dems except for lip service. That’s his right, of course.
“Crucially, it’s not a plan to borrow $1 trillion and spend it on much-needed projects — which would be the straightforward, obvious thing to do. It is, instead, supposed to involve having private investors do the work both of raising money and building the projects — with the aid of a huge tax credit that gives them back 82 percent of the equity they put in. To compensate for the small sliver of additional equity and the interest on their borrowing, the private investors then have to somehow make profits on the assets they end up owning.”
He comes out against huge tax credits. Tax credits increase the deficit. Therefore Krugman is lamenting the increase in the deficit. It’s not hard to connect the dots with Krugman. He’s a party hack. A cunning party hack, but a hack nonetheless.
His whole argument against Trump’s plan rests on the assumption that borrowing a trillion dollars and building things with it will not involve handouts to the politically connected. This is either extreme naïveté, or hackery.
When he turns the spigots on, the Democrats will be right there in line with the rest of them.
What do you think happens with the money? Just curious.