- BitsBlog - https://bitsblog.com -

Krugman And the Truth: Never Shall They Meet

I’ll open this by saying that by rights, and in a sane world, Paul Krugman should be hammered flat on economics, and drummed from his perch at the New York Times. However, let’s admit this isn’t a sane world, and Krugman and the New York Times [1]deserve each other.  That said:

By rights, John McCain should be getting hammered on economics.

After all, Mr. McCain proposes continuing the policies of a president who’s had a truly dismal economic record — job growth under the current administration has been the slowest in 60 years, even slower than job growth under the first President Bush. And the public blames the White House, giving Mr. Bush spectacularly low ratings on his handling of the economy.

Really, Paul? Well, let’s see, here.

Would it shock you, Paul to learn that in most ways President Bush’s economic record outshnes that of Bill Clinton? It’s true; J Edward Carter, in the winter of 2004, gave us these figures in an NRO posting: [2]

Compared with the “exceptional” years of 1993, 1994, and 1995, the first three years of George W. Bush’s presidency featured:

  • lower inflation
  •  lower unemployment
  • faster productivity growth
  • Faster labor compensation growth (i.e., wages and benefits)
  •  29.4 percent ($6.9 trillion) more economic output
  •  45 percent ($960 billion) more exports; and
  •  an economic growth rate 81.2 percent as fast as that under Clinton

[3]

It gets better. Carter continues from there:

Considering the circumstances under which the U.S. economy has labored for the past few years, President Bush’s record is all the more impressive. When George W. Bush moved into the White House, the economy was on the verge of recession. The largest stock market bubble in U.S. history had recently burst, exports were declining, manufacturing employment had been falling for half a year, and people were finding it harder and harder to find work. And that was before 9/11, the war on terror, and the revelations of the corporate-governance scandals that grew out of the late 1990s.

The tax cuts President Bush signed into law helped alleviate the impact of these economic shocks and kept millions of Americans working who would have otherwise lost their jobs. Consequently, the unemployment rate peaked in June 2003 at 6.3 percent, compared with peaks of 7.8 percent and 10.8 percent during the previous two recessions.

With the U.S. economy on the upswing, President Bush’s critics are finding it increasingly difficult to disparage his economic record. But that won’t stop them. Fortunately, as Aldous Huxley observed, “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

Indeed.

Now one could, I suppose, wonder how it is that such a highly sought after and knowledgeable economist as Krugman tells us he is, could forget these things. The most obvious conclusion to draw is that Krugman is a political hack.

Like I said, he and the Times deserve each other. The only thing that keeps Krugman in the Tofu is the GED’s that still think he’s impressive. Most other folks, not so much. Of course there’s the hard left that worships on his altar, but they’d worship anything that mouthed what they want to hear. Krugman certainly does that. In both cases, Krugman knows where his target audience is, and writes to them. But the relationship between Krugman and truth is non-exsistant.

Call Bush’s record a failure all you want, Paul. It just doesn’t make it so. Oh… and Pau? You should remember, Bush isn’t who you’re running against.