Trumponomics is working |
Remember the old quip about economists? “That’s all very in practice,” they say, “but how does it work out in theory?” Nobel laureate Paul Krugman of the New York Times is a splendid example of that sort of folly. On the evening of November 9, 2016, Krugman skirled that the election of Donald Trump would precipitate economic Armageddon. “If the question is when markets will recover,” he said, “a first-pass answer is never.” How could they recover since the nation had just elected an “irresponsible, ignorant man who takes his advice from all the wrong people,” that is to say, he didn’t take advice from people like Paul Krugman.Reality check: the day Krugman wrote that, the market closed at 18,589. In the last few days the Dow broke 50,000. All the accredited experts have been wrong about Trump. He came back to office last year on a platform of common sense. They don’t teach that at Harvard. But in the real world it works like magic. Just a few days ago, the jobs report for January came out. “Unexpectedly,” the economy added 130,000 jobs. The green-eye shade chaps predicted 55,000. Another bright light: the government lost about 42,000 employees: that’s 42,000 paychecks that taxpayers will not have to pick up going forward. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3 percent – a number that, when translated into English, means close to full employment. Inflation rose just 0.2 percent in January, and........