New York Times Opinion columnist Paul Krugman has just published another installment in what I call his “Your Lying Eyes” series.
As soon as it became apparent that the Biden administration’s profligate post-COVID spending plans were placing an economic burden on regular Americans, Professor Krugman began running interference. At this point, he’s carried so much water for the Biden economy that I’m surprised he hasn’t gotten a hernia.
Krugman’s m.o. when covering for Biden is to offer a macroeconomics lecture that will hopefully numb readers to the point where they don’t notice that prices still stink. Yes, even the ones that have gone down a little. The lecture description was my way of conveying my thoughts about Krugman’s writing style. In this latest column, Prof. K. mentions homework, which I took as confirmation that I’ve been right all along.
So people saying that lived experience contradicts the official data haven’t really done their homework. To the extent we can measure Americans’ personal experiences, as opposed to what they say about the economy, it seems to be quite positive and more or less in line with the macroeconomic indicators.
Translation: The rubes just don’t know how good they’ve got it.
Paul Krugman lives in New York, works in Academia, and writes for the largest left-wing propaganda media organization in the United States. The only way he could be more insulated from the lives of everyday Americans is if he covered himself in bubble wrap. There is no real “extent” to how he can measure the experiences of people in flyover country.
One might argue that Krugman is merely writing for the Times’s coastal elite audience. I would counter that his columns have a decided “Professor Paul is angry that the kids aren’t getting it,” vibe to them. Remember, the Coastal Media Bubble denizens think that everyone pays attention to them.
The condescending attitude continues as Krugman attempts to examine the “disconnect between personal experience and narratives.” Krugman used to leave a lot of his disdain up to the reader to infer; now he’s moving it front and center. Sure, buddy, there are millions of Americans out there whose economic realities are just super peachy, but the idiots are hypnotizing themselves with “narratives.”
By the way, only one who traffics in false narratives would believe in their power that much.
Another thing about Krugman is that he hasn’t had to sweat a monthly household budget in a while. His estimated net worth is in the neighborhood of five million dollars, so it’s probably safe to say that the professor doesn’t do a lot of coupon cutting.
He also doesn’t understand that people who don’t measure their net worths in multiples of a million dollars don’t rebound as quickly after getting financially shellacked by inflation or, say, austerity measures imposed by the economic havoc wrought by a global pandemic.
In fact, Krugman leads off this column with a recollection of the economic dumpster fire that was lit by COVID. Yeah, we’re aware, especially those of us who weren’t sitting on a pile of net worth.
Because he’s a hack, Krugman dutifully tries to make the COVID economy Trump’s fault (speaking of false narratives). He asks, “Is it really a good idea to remind voters what the spring of 2020 was like?”
Again, Paul, we haven’t forgotten. Regular folks like me have plenty of reality to remind us. We also remember that our retirement investments were roaring along on autopilot in the three years before that.
There’s something to remind the voters about.
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