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His byline: > Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. H

by bko 5y ago

His byline: > Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography I wouldn't expect an article from a Nobel Prize winning economist titled "Krugman Wonks Out" to be so devoid of substance. I don't care about his political beliefs. I purposely look out for people with different beliefs than my own when exploring an idea. But if you're not concerned about the unprecedented growth in the money supply and you characterize the other side as "printing press goes brrr -> inflation", you're being dishonest. He could do better, but instead he doesn't present the facts, manipulates graphs, introduces misleading terms and insults people. You increasingly see politics seep into discussions where it does not belong. What happened to the money supply is not left or right. It started in the last administration and is continuing in this administration, and the stakes are high. Krugman's writings on the subject of monetary policy and crypto are not helpful and just fuel this polarization.

bb88 5y ago
> I wouldn't expect an article from a Nobel Prize winning economist titled "Krugman Wonks Out" to be so devoid of substance. NY Times opinion pieces kind of have to be "dumbed-down" and he's admitted as much. He stopped posting the really wonky stuff on his nytimes blog for whatever reason, and these days seems to write opinion pieces the most. > You increasingly see politics seep into discussions where it does not belong. What happened to the money supply is not left or right. It started in the last administration and is continuing in this administration, and the stakes are high. Krugman's writings on the subject of monetary policy and crypto are not helpful and just fuel this polarization. So I don't know if you know this or not, and I'm not saying this as an insult, but because I really don't know if you know this or not. Monetary policy is not handled by the current political white house. Hasn't been for decades and never should be, ever. In fact, the group that seems to be politicizing it are libertarians and crypto advocates. "GOLD STANDARD!" arguments have long been settled by economists a century ago. Edited to add: I feel like if you want to complain about printing money willy nilly you should take a deep look at Tether before suggesting we all go off USD and onto BTC.
- bko 5y ago
  > Monetary policy is not handled by the current political white house. Hasn't been for decades and never should be, ever. Right, which is why I don't think Krugman being a liberal has anything to do w/ taking the threat of unprecedented growth in money supply seriously. > "GOLD STANDARD!" arguments have long been settled by economists a century ago. US got off gold standard in 1971. Gold has been around since 40,000 BC. I don't think hard money has been settled. But that's besides the point. The question is whether you think there is a remote chance that increasing the money supply by 25% in one year could have negative economic distortions such as inflation. You can be for fiat currency but think that growing the currency 25% in one year is a bad idea.
  - bb88 5y ago
    > The question is whether you think there is a remote chance that increasing the money supply by 25% in one year could have negative economic distortions such as inflation. I believe that's a perfectly reasonable question. Fortunately there are graphs which show the inflation rate before and after the US got off the gold standard. https://www.macrotrends.net/2497/historical-inflation-rate-by-year https://www.macrotrends.net/2497/historical-inflation-rate-b... Note that the inflation rate has pretty much stabilized since the 1980's. Before that the inflation in 1970's were due to OPEC policies largely (hence the national speed limit set to 55mph). Before that it was WWII. The transition to fiat currency happened in 1933 domestically in the heart of the great depression. And you can see that inflation was in fact wildly variable before 1933 -- with severe deflation in the midst of the depression as people hoarded gold rather than depositing it in banks. So effectively the US ran out of the ability to control the money supply. It's not theoretical either. Loss of control of the currency has been a sticking point for countries in the EU. GB never did accept the Euro -- largely because they would lose control of this. Spain who did join the EU had 40% unemployment and lost the use of monetary policy to try to alleviate that, etc. > I don't think hard money has been settled. Back in 2012 the Chicago Booth school of economics surveyed a good number of economists from freshwater and saltwater economists. Here are the results: https://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/gold-standard/ https://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/gold-standard/ My favorite response is this one: "Why tie to gold? why not 1982 Bordeaux?"
hindsightbias 5y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/16/opinion/economy-inflation-retail-sales.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/16/opinion/economy-inflation... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/22/opinion/us-inflation-stimulus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/22/opinion/us-inflation-stim... Krugman has been writing and tweeting about it for the last year. You should be aware of that if you read him. Even the libertarian Cato Institute surrendered a year ago: https://www.cato.org/blog/return-inflation-mongers https://www.cato.org/blog/return-inflation-mongers > where it does not belong Except that we had a near decade of hysterics from the right after 2008 about bailout and money supply and hyperinflation just-around-the-corner and a decade of Krugman ranting about them. “It” belongs everywhere and has for decades now. I realize many “libertarians” are frustrated now that Republicans went full metal Keynesian when their guy was in power during Covid. But expecting Krugman of all people to be unbiased non-partisan is bizarre. What drives lbertarians crazy is that Krugman was right all along. He and Paul McCulley called Greenspans bubble, called the hysteria after 2008 what it was and he’s probably right now (if you actually read him, you would know that he has inflation concerns).
- bko 5y ago
  I don't really care about what Cato said or what "libertarians" say. I'm just concerned about the unprecedented growth of the money supply and the fact that pretty much all financial assets are up 30% above pre-covid levels. 2008 hysteria was about spending, not growth in money supply. Here's the log growth of M2 money supply over the last 20 years. See if you notice anything interesting 2000-01-01 5.30% 2001-01-01 6.13% 2002-01-01 8.41% 2003-01-01 5.69% 2004-01-01 3.94% 2005-01-01 4.94% 2006-01-01 4.43% 2007-01-01 5.21% 2008-01-01 5.20% 2009-01-01 8.65% 2010-01-01 1.84% 2011-01-01 3.64% 2012-01-01 9.12% 2013-01-01 6.79% 2014-01-01 5.44% 2015-01-01 5.02% 2016-01-01 4.93% 2017-01-01 5.71% 2018-01-01 3.75% 2019-01-01 3.72% 2020-01-01 6.16% 2021-01-01 22.51%

by bko 5y ago

bb88 5y ago

> I wouldn't expect an article from a Nobel Prize winning economist titled "Krugman Wonks Out" to be so devoid of substance. NY Times opinion pieces kind of have to be "dumbed-down" and he's admitted as much. He stopped posting the really wonky stuff on his nytimes blog for whatever reason, and these days seems to write opinion pieces the most. > You increasingly see politics seep into discussions where it does not belong. What happened to the money supply is not left or right. It started in the last administration and is continuing in this administration, and the stakes are high. Krugman's writings on the subject of monetary policy and crypto are not helpful and just fuel this polarization. So I don't know if you know this or not, and I'm not saying this as an insult, but because I really don't know if you know this or not. Monetary policy is not handled by the current political white house. Hasn't been for decades and never should be, ever. In fact, the group that seems to be politicizing it are libertarians and crypto advocates. "GOLD STANDARD!" arguments have long been settled by economists a century ago. Edited to add: I feel like if you want to complain about printing money willy nilly you should take a deep look at Tether before suggesting we all go off USD and onto BTC.

bko 5y ago
> Monetary policy is not handled by the current political white house. Hasn't been for decades and never should be, ever. Right, which is why I don't think Krugman being a liberal has anything to do w/ taking the threat of unprecedented growth in money supply seriously. > "GOLD STANDARD!" arguments have long been settled by economists a century ago. US got off gold standard in 1971. Gold has been around since 40,000 BC. I don't think hard money has been settled. But that's besides the point. The question is whether you think there is a remote chance that increasing the money supply by 25% in one year could have negative economic distortions such as inflation. You can be for fiat currency but think that growing the currency 25% in one year is a bad idea.
- bb88 5y ago
  > The question is whether you think there is a remote chance that increasing the money supply by 25% in one year could have negative economic distortions such as inflation. I believe that's a perfectly reasonable question. Fortunately there are graphs which show the inflation rate before and after the US got off the gold standard. https://www.macrotrends.net/2497/historical-inflation-rate-by-year https://www.macrotrends.net/2497/historical-inflation-rate-b... Note that the inflation rate has pretty much stabilized since the 1980's. Before that the inflation in 1970's were due to OPEC policies largely (hence the national speed limit set to 55mph). Before that it was WWII. The transition to fiat currency happened in 1933 domestically in the heart of the great depression. And you can see that inflation was in fact wildly variable before 1933 -- with severe deflation in the midst of the depression as people hoarded gold rather than depositing it in banks. So effectively the US ran out of the ability to control the money supply. It's not theoretical either. Loss of control of the currency has been a sticking point for countries in the EU. GB never did accept the Euro -- largely because they would lose control of this. Spain who did join the EU had 40% unemployment and lost the use of monetary policy to try to alleviate that, etc. > I don't think hard money has been settled. Back in 2012 the Chicago Booth school of economics surveyed a good number of economists from freshwater and saltwater economists. Here are the results: https://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/gold-standard/ https://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/gold-standard/ My favorite response is this one: "Why tie to gold? why not 1982 Bordeaux?"

hindsightbias 5y ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/16/opinion/economy-inflation-retail-sales.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/16/opinion/economy-inflation... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/22/opinion/us-inflation-stimulus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/22/opinion/us-inflation-stim... Krugman has been writing and tweeting about it for the last year. You should be aware of that if you read him. Even the libertarian Cato Institute surrendered a year ago: https://www.cato.org/blog/return-inflation-mongers https://www.cato.org/blog/return-inflation-mongers > where it does not belong Except that we had a near decade of hysterics from the right after 2008 about bailout and money supply and hyperinflation just-around-the-corner and a decade of Krugman ranting about them. “It” belongs everywhere and has for decades now. I realize many “libertarians” are frustrated now that Republicans went full metal Keynesian when their guy was in power during Covid. But expecting Krugman of all people to be unbiased non-partisan is bizarre. What drives lbertarians crazy is that Krugman was right all along. He and Paul McCulley called Greenspans bubble, called the hysteria after 2008 what it was and he’s probably right now (if you actually read him, you would know that he has inflation concerns).

bko 5y ago
I don't really care about what Cato said or what "libertarians" say. I'm just concerned about the unprecedented growth of the money supply and the fact that pretty much all financial assets are up 30% above pre-covid levels. 2008 hysteria was about spending, not growth in money supply. Here's the log growth of M2 money supply over the last 20 years. See if you notice anything interesting 2000-01-01 5.30% 2001-01-01 6.13% 2002-01-01 8.41% 2003-01-01 5.69% 2004-01-01 3.94% 2005-01-01 4.94% 2006-01-01 4.43% 2007-01-01 5.21% 2008-01-01 5.20% 2009-01-01 8.65% 2010-01-01 1.84% 2011-01-01 3.64% 2012-01-01 9.12% 2013-01-01 6.79% 2014-01-01 5.44% 2015-01-01 5.02% 2016-01-01 4.93% 2017-01-01 5.71% 2018-01-01 3.75% 2019-01-01 3.72% 2020-01-01 6.16% 2021-01-01 22.51%