Political Forums  

Go Back   Political Forums > Economy

We appreciate your help

in keeping this site going.
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 10-25-2020, 11:38 AM
whell's Avatar
whell whell is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Metro Detroit
Posts: 13,016
Krugman Admits He Was Wrong

...in a somewhat qualified manner.

Interesting article from Foreign Policy:

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/e...=pocket-newtab

Now Krugman has come out and admitted, offhandedly, that his own understanding of economics has been seriously deficient as well. In a recent essay titled “What Economists (Including Me) Got Wrong About Globalization,” adapted from a forthcoming book on inequality, Krugman writes that he and other mainstream economists “missed a crucial part of the story” in failing to realize that globalization would lead to “hyperglobalization” and huge economic and social upheaval, particularly of the industrial middle class in America. And many of these working-class communities have been hit hard by Chinese competition, which economists made a “major mistake” in underestimating, Krugman says.

Yes, the article takes a swipe at Trump:

The U.S. president has effectively discarded modern economics, reembraced crude protectionism, and, like the mercantilists of the pre-Adam Smith era, appears to see trade as a zero-sum game in which surpluses are in effect profits and deficits are losses. His ignorance of basic economics “is without parallel among modern American presidents,” Appelbaum writes in The Economists’ Hour.

At the same time, Trump isn't wrong about the impact of the economic conventional wisdom such as that previously embraced by the Paul Krugmans of the world. And the currently proposed solutions of the Biden camp: "we'll retrain and redeploy those workers in "green economy" jobs miss the central fact that you still have to have an underlying healthy manufacturing sector and a healthy middle class to be able to produce a tax base to afford such a shift.

Trarrifs are a policy born of economic weakness, IMHO. They demonstrate that one government may have limited control over global economic policy when its own economy has been hollowed out from within by pursuing a "free market, globalist" policy that folks like Krugman once advocted. As this article from Poltico - which is another interesting read - states:

With Trump's election, it's now acceptable to at least name the problems the U.S. has confronted on the world stage, ranging from coercive Chinese requirements over our manufacturers to corporations invoking their global supply-chain decisions as a reason we can’t fundamentally rethink U.S. trading rules. But Trump’s solutions to those problems suffer just as much from an absence of creative ambition.

I agree, as I've never thought that tariffs were a long term solutions to any problem. The threat of tariffs can be effective if there's economic force behind it. The threat of a tariff on steel can be effective if we have a thriving domestic steel industry, but we don't.

All this is to say that at least we've been able to restart the discussion on the state of the middle class and the erosion of our manufacturing base. Let's hope that in the next four years we apply appropriate economic policy and start to rebuild a manufacturing base that supports a thriving middle class.

Now, if Krugman going to give back his Nobel Prize?

Last edited by whell; 10-25-2020 at 11:42 AM.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 10-25-2020, 12:03 PM
nailer's Avatar
nailer nailer is offline
Rational Anarchist
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: DFW
Posts: 7,315
Dream on. The middle class of which you speak will keep shrinking because the US cannot afford continuing to overpay manfacturing workers in a globalized economy. That is, unless you want high tariffs on well made consumer goods. Remember, high wages are why US manufacturers have outsourced manufacturing to lower paid countries.
__________________
"We have met the enemy and he is us."

Last edited by nailer; 10-25-2020 at 12:08 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 10-25-2020, 12:26 PM
donquixote99's Avatar
donquixote99 donquixote99 is offline
Ready
 
Join Date: Oct 2013
Posts: 19,122
The OP isn't the piece from Foreign Policy, as implied here, it's a commentary by an unknown person that quotes the piece in Foreign Policy. It's a little hit piece on Krugman. It's just a typical Whell tactic to try to pass it off as if it was from Foreign Policy.

The actual Foreign Policy feature, published in Oct 2019, was a Big Think piece, long, wide-ranging, digging into many ideas about the economic profession and economic policy. And shocking as it may be to some, part of being a serious intellectual is an easy willingness to take in new data and argument, and admit you were wrong if you decide that you were.

The conclusion of the FP article, which I'm pretty sure Whell hasn't read, may be of interest to him and others:

Quote:
Hence, economists themselves are surprised at how quickly the mainstream of their profession has moved leftward—as many of them found at last week’s conference on inequality. And when it comes to 2020 U.S. election politics, the profession is much more with progressives like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, some of the participants said, than the centrist Joe Biden—open to radical solutions that give back bargaining power to labor (for example, Warren’s proposal to give workers a large place on corporate boards). “I came here as a French soc ialist, and now I find I’m in the center,” joked former IMF chief economist Blanchard.

And this may be the ultimate downstream effect of all those misreadings dating back to the ’90s. “People,” Tyson remarked, “missed how fast things could change.”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/22...krugman-china/
__________________
If you Love Liberty, you must Hate Trump!

Last edited by donquixote99; 10-25-2020 at 12:50 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 10-25-2020, 01:54 PM
Dondilion's Avatar
Dondilion Dondilion is offline
Jigsawed
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 10,557
Quote:
Originally Posted by nailer View Post
Dream on. The middle class of which you speak will keep shrinking because the US cannot afford continuing to overpay manfacturing workers in a globalized economy. That is, unless you want high tariffs on well made consumer goods. Remember, high wages are why US manufacturers have outsourced manufacturing to lower paid countries.
But US outsourced mainly to a country which is gearing up mightily against her.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 10-26-2020, 07:47 AM
whell's Avatar
whell whell is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Metro Detroit
Posts: 13,016
Quote:
Originally Posted by donquixote99 View Post
It's just a typical Whell tactic to try to pass it off as if it was from Foreign Policy.
Thats very kind of you. Some folks here don't think I'm smart enough to have tactics.

By the way, the part of the article you quoted - the part you said I didn't read - is actually present in the link I provided.
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 10-26-2020, 07:51 AM
whell's Avatar
whell whell is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Metro Detroit
Posts: 13,016
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dondilion View Post
But US outsourced mainly to a country which is gearing up mightily against her.
Correct. All those "Made in China" consumer goods we purchase have paid for that gear up.
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 10-26-2020, 08:02 AM
whell's Avatar
whell whell is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Metro Detroit
Posts: 13,016
Quote:
Originally Posted by donquixote99 View Post
And shocking as it may be to some, part of being a serious intellectual is an easy willingness to take in new data and argument, and admit you were wrong if you decide that you were.
A significant component of intellectual dishonesty is trying to publicly berate and demonize those who might disagree with you. That has been the essence of Krugman's "intellectual discourse." I'd hardly call that behavior evidence of "easy willingness to take in new data and argument".
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 10-26-2020, 08:20 AM
Chicks Chicks is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2017
Posts: 13,285
Always amusing when unaccomplished clowns like Whell think they, somehow, can hold a candle to a highly accomplished intellectual like Krugman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman

Whell's accomplishment? He's an HR flunky, trying to "berate and demonize" Krugman. Laughable.
__________________
"In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act." -
George Orwell
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 10-26-2020, 09:05 AM
whell's Avatar
whell whell is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Metro Detroit
Posts: 13,016
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chicks View Post
Always amusing when unaccomplished clowns like Whell think they, somehow, can hold a candle to a highly accomplished intellectual like Krugman.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman

Whell's accomplishment? He's an HR flunky, trying to "berate and demonize" Krugman. Laughable.
I can always count on Chicks to deflect and make me the topic. I think deflection one of those "tactics" that DonQ was referring to, but I'm not smart enough to be sure 'cuz I'm just an unaccomplished clown and a flunky.

Not sure if you noticed the title of the thread, but the topic is not "Whell". The topic is:

1) Krugman's admission that he was wrong about globalist economics, and;
2) The impact of the economic policies that Krugman advocated and;
3) Krugman's history of flaming those he doesn't agree with (you know the type ).

Please try to stay on topic.
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 10-26-2020, 09:44 AM
JJIII's Avatar
JJIII JJIII is offline
AKA Sister Mary JJ
 
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Upper East Tennessee
Posts: 5,897
Good luck with that.
__________________
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please." (Mark Twain)
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 02:28 PM.



Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.6
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.