Paul Krugman Has Predicted 9 Out of the Last None Recessions Under Bush Administration
1. "Right now it looks as if the economy is stalling..." — Paul Krugman, September 2002
2. "We have a sluggish economy, which is, for all practical purposes, in recession..." — Paul Krugman, May 2003
3. "An oil-driven recession does not look at all far-fetched." — Paul Krugman, May 2004
4. "A mild form of stagflation - rising inflation in an economy still well short of full employment - has already arrived." — Paul Krugman, April 2005
5. "If housing prices actually started falling, we'd be looking at an economy pushed right back into recession. That's why it's so ominous to see signs that America's housing market ... is approaching the final, feverish stages of a speculative bubble." — Paul Krugman, May 2005
6. "In fact, a growing number of economists are using the "R" word [i.e., "recession"] for 2006." - Paul Krugman, August 2005
7. "But based on what we know now, there’s an economic slowdown coming." - Paul Krugman, August 2006
8. "This kind of confusion about what’s going on is what typically happens when the economy is at a turning point, when an economic expansion is about to turn into a recession" - Paul Krugman, December 2006
9. "Right now, statistical models ... give roughly even odds that we’re about to experience a formal recession. ... The odds are very good — maybe 2 to 1 — that 2007 will be a very tough year." - Paul Krugman, December 2006
Bottom Line: In other words, to paraphrase Megan McArdle, Paul Krugman has predicted nine out of the last none recessions under the Bush administration.
(Source: The Q&O Blog, via the Mighty Angus at Kids Prefer Cheese.)
Update: According to LyinginPonds, Paul Krugman ended up as the #2 most partisan columnist in 2007 (tied with Joe Conason), right behind the #1 most partisan columnist: Ann Coulter.
24 Comments:
Is this another form of the "Bush Derangement Syndrome"? It sure looks like it. On the other hand, if Mr Krugman was also predicting non-recessions during previous presidencies, then he is just a bore.
Makes your failing to predict this one only 1/9th as egregious.
Well, while we can say that the Professor does have access to the best tools for predicting recessions, he just doesn't appreciate that people and institutions adapt and react in ways to economic data that aren't centrally coordinated or that follow the theories he holds, or those that he's willing to take time for these days.
[The poll at the final link is no longer active - at the time, "political hackery" was by far and away the most popular explanation.]
(In case the first comment is not visible because of the long post title)
Frederick Davies said...
Is this another form of the "Bush Derangement Syndrome"? It sure looks like it. On the other hand, if Mr Krugman was also predicting non-recessions during previous presidencies, then he is just a bore.
If the economy does happen to tick into a recession in 2008, you know Krugman will take credit for "accurately" forecasting it. We can expect a string of "see, I told you so" columns in the New York Times as soon as the NBER dates a trough.
Thanks for the perspective.
This reminds me of the "old saw" spoken about lawyers that goes something like this:
"When you have the law, pound the law. When you have the facts, pound the facts. When you have neither the law nor the facts, pound the table."
I can understand his confusion, housing says depression and gold says hyperinflation so it is kind of a tough call.
http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=FOREX_XAUUSDO&v=dmax
"Housing says depression"?
How So?
Some of my friends seem to think that if they are having a tough time paying their bills because of the cost of gas that we are in a recession; it also means to them that "the ecomomy is in the crapper" and that Bush is the worst president in history. I think that reaction is exactly what Mr. Krugman wants.
It used to be that people with nice cars and houses (and big screen TVs and lots of toys) that could not pay their bills were "house poor". Now, it means the republican president is the worst president in history. Do people not remember the 70s? Sheesh. Its like people have no idea what a real recession is like - the misery index has been so low since Reagan that people are spoiled.
http://divisionoflabour.com/
Interesting piece is included at the above website under the heading "European Growth" with links to the original article by Paul Krugman which he asserts has grown fast than the U.S.
It is unfortunate that an economist as intelligent as Paul Krugman is content to become a political partisan. His work from ten years ago is much better than his work today.
I must agree with Marko. Many do not remember what a recession was like and some are too young to have experienced it.
We may get a recession but we are not in one yet.
Krugman's prediction 9 may turn out to be correct. As the Chinese saying goes "If you sit by the river long enough, the body of your enemy will float by".
http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=NYBOT_CI&v=dmax
Looks like stagflation to me and the more the FED cuts the worse it will get.
1. "Right now it looks as if the economy is stalling..." — Paul Krugman, September 2002
2. "We have a sluggish economy, which is, for all practical purposes, in recession..." — Paul Krugman, May 2003
I think most of us would agree that the U.S. economy is pretty battered and could go into recession.
Can anyone here demonstrate that the U.S. had recessions in 2002 and 2003 as claimed by Paul Krugman?
Krugman's doomster stuff about the US economy is long-standing, going back to the 1980s. In the third and last edition of an MIT pop-book --- http://www.amazon.com/Age-Diminished-Expectations-Third-Economic/dp/0262611341/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200367542&sr=1-20 --- he insisted in 1995 that the US economy was still likely headed toward a "hard landing" because of a falling dollar (back to the late 1980s) and big current account deficits (though there was a balanced one in 1991, at the cost of recession), and financial indebtedness at home.
This, mind you, in the third year of the longest economic boom in US history! Apparently, Paul Krugman's mind fills with venom directed at any administration, Republican or Democratic, that doesn't make him the Secretary of the Treasury or at least the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
Michael Gordon http://www.thebuggyprofessor.org
Paul Krugman predicted recessions that should have occured but didn't because of the House of Mirrors created in the financial markets, which, BTW, are unraveling right now. Fasten your seat belts boys and girls for we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the post-Bretton Woods/Greenspan financial games. In TWO wordS, TOTAL COLLAPSE!!
"Fasten your seat belts boys and girls for we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the post-Bretton Woods/Greenspan financial games. In TWO wordS, TOTAL COLLAPSE!!"
Hmmm, is this from listening to David Walker of the GAO on the Glenn Beck Show or from reading David Walker's speech at the Rotary Club of Birmingham: January 9, 2008?
Anyone remember the following: Taxpayers on the hook for $59 trillion?
Today's posting on Greg Mankiw's blog is worth a look. Mankiw links to an article by Paul Krugman from Feb. 21, 2001 when he opined that the Bush tax cuts were not necessary to avert a recession. As Mankiw states: "According to the NBER, the recession began in March of that year."
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/
Krugman does not seem to be very good at predicting recessions even when they are under his nose.
i think the problem is in semantics. a "recession" in paul krugman's world is anything involving george bush and dick cheney. he's gone from a trade economist to a sociologist with a background in math.
Read Bloomberg, Straights Times, Mumbai Independent, The Scotsman, International Herlad Tribune, BUT ignoring the bought-and-paid-for USA media. The big investors pay them off to keep sounding the trumpet while they unload their vulnerable stocks. Seen it in Tokyo in the end of the 1980s, SE Asia in mid to late 1990s, pre-dot com crash -- the same pattern.
BTW, I study Bubble Economies first hand so I am VERY familiar with the trends, not how they are related by mass media but how it happens as it happens. So far, same smell but different economy.
I read the below quote and immediately sold both my FL waterfront properties for circa 270% of their Nov 2001 purchase prices. TY Mr Krugman.
While you all split semantic hairs about the tech definition of a recession vs. the actual and ongoing loss of US employment, degradation of real wages, and imploding economic problems of the last 8 years - Mr Krugman has taken the medal now and his warnings have become reality
.
Which did more damage, a healthy skepticism of the Bush Admins' absurd economic policies or
the policies themselves?
5. "If housing prices actually started falling, we'd be looking at an economy pushed right back into recession. That's why it's so ominous to see signs that America's housing market ... is approaching the final, feverish stages of a speculative bubble." — Paul Krugman, May 2005
Krugman predicted one recession nine times. And here it is.
it's interesting how you eat words later, isn't it?
Wow, Krugman not only predicted the recession of 08, but the mechanism that would drive it (falling housing prices)...funny how that works.
You can fool all of the people some of the time. Those people are called conservatives.
Well, I'll give you credit for not deleting this post because, well... WOW! It's gotta suck to have been so wrong.
Joke's on you. Time has proven Krugman 100% correct.
Post a Comment
<< Home