Economic experts don’t get much more expert than Paul Krugman.
The current ‘Distinguished Professor of Economics at City University of New York’ is so eminent in his field that he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2008.
He’s written 27 books on economic matters, published over 200 scholarly articles, and penned several hundred more columns for the New York Times, Fortune and Slate.
So it’s probably fair to surmise, as many do, that Mr Krugman might be the smartest economist in the world.
That’s why people were so desperate to know his immediate reaction to Donald Trump winning the 2016 election.
He was unequivocal: this was a catastrophe of almost Biblical proportions.
‘It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump,’ Krugman wrote in a blog for the NYT posted at 12.42am, ‘and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover? Frankly, I find it hard to care much, even though this is my speciality. The disaster for America and the world has so many aspects that the economic ramifications are way down my list of things to fear. Still, I guess people want an answer: If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.’
After two-and-a-half years of President Trump, the US economy is powering away and smashing records as it surges
Today, it was revealed that 263,000 new jobs were added in April, massively higher than what was forecast. Unemployment fell to 3.6%, the lowest number since 1969
Poor Krugman, whose sneering loathing for Trump knows no bounds, was almost inconsolable as he predicted financial Armageddon:
‘Under any circumstances, putting an irresponsible, ignorant man who takes his advice from all the wrong people in charge of the nation with the world’s most important economy would be very bad news. What makes it especially bad right now, however, is the fundamentally fragile state much of the world is still in, eight years after the financial crisis. Now comes the mother of all adverse effects and what it brings with it is a regime that will be ignorant of economic policy and hostile to any effort to make it work. So we are probably looking at global recession, with no end in sight.’
Other economic experts agreed with Krugman.
‘Under Trump, I would expect a protracted recession to begin within 18 months,’ declared former Clinton and Obama chief economist Larry Summers.
‘Trump would likely cause the stock market to crash and plunge the world into recession,’ asserted Simon Johnson, MIT economics professor.
The Washington Post entitled an editorial: ‘A President Trump could destroy the world economy.’
As predictions go, these are now all right up there with the ones confidently insisting Special Counsel Robert Mueller would find Trump guilty of Russian collusion.
Because none of them actually transpired.
Indeed, the complete opposite has happened.
After two-and-a-half years of President Trump, the US economy is in fact powering away and smashing records as it surges.
Today, it was revealed that 263,000 new jobs were added in April, massively higher than what was forecast.
Unemployment fell to 3.6%, the lowest number since 1969.
America now has record low African America, Hispanic and Asian unemployment, the lowest unemployment rate for women since 1953, and the quickest wage growth for workers in 10 years.
Economic experts don’t get much more expert than Paul Krugman (pictured). The current ‘Distinguished Professor of Economics at City University of New York’ is so eminent in his field that he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2008 - but his prediction about Trump couldn't have been more wrong
Other experts agreed. Former Clinton and Obama chief economist Larry Summers (pictured) said: 'Under Trump, I would expect a protracted recession to begin within 18 months'
This comes after a whole week of other stunningly good economic news for Trump.
Last Friday, it was announced that first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 3.2%, after widespread predictions of just 2.3%.
On Wednesday, the US stock markets that Paul Krugman said would never recover hit record highs.
And yesterday, CNN published a new poll revealing Trump’s economic approval rating had hit a new high of 56% including double digit increases amongst those under 35 (up 16 points) non-whites (up 13pts), independents (up 11pts) women (up 10pts) and even Democrats (up 10pts).
With today’s jobs results, it’s reasonable to expect all Trump’s economic approval ratings to soar even higher.
And all this spells very BAD news for the Democrats, because good economies win elections as reliably as bad economies lose them.
It was Bill Clinton’s former strategist James Carville who famously planned his boss’s 1992 win over sitting president George H. Bush with the words: ‘The economy, stupid.’
The Democrat party is being dragged ever further into the socialist electoral abyss by media-hogging young firebrands such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez whose economic polices like the Green New Deal would bankrupt America faster than Trump can tweet ‘SAD!’
America was in recession in 1992, and Clinton unseated Bush by promising to bring the country back out of it.
Like Ronald Reagan before him, Clinton then won re-election on the back of a strong economy – despite both presidencies being engulfed by scandal in their first terms.
The message is clear: get the economy right and Americans will forgive you almost anything. Get it wrong, and they’ll kick you out.
Right now, with just 18 months until the 2020 election, President Trump is on an undeniable economic roll that supports his election promise to ‘Make America Great Again.’
And that should put the fear of God into Democrats, who are still reeling from Trump being cleared of collusion.
While they continue to pathetically and pointlessly stamp their feet and scream blue murder at not getting what they want, like toddlers who’ve had their rattles taken away, Trump’s laughing all the way to the electoral bank.
Even worse, the Democrat party is being dragged ever further into the socialist electoral abyss by media-hogging young firebrands such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez whose economic polices like the Green New Deal would bankrupt America faster than Trump can tweet ‘SAD!’
You only have to look at the wreckage of Venezuela to see how Trump would exploit any whiff of the ‘socialist dream’ in a 2020 opponent.
If enough dumb, deluded Democrats decide to commit further political suicide by pushing for Trump to now be impeached, it would almost certainly backfire horrendously just as the Republican attempt to impeach Clinton over Monica Lewinsky made him massively more popular.
Nothing will annoy voters more than a bogus, nakedly partisan attempt to unseat a President who for all his inflammatory rhetoric and tweeting is boosting their wallets and getting them back to work.
And the big picture statistics are all on Trump’s side.
Since 1900, there have been 19 presidents who ran for re-election and only four lost.
In almost every case, the economy was a large factor.
If Trump continues to financially fire up the US in the way he’s doing, then I can see him winning again, perhaps even by a landslide, and chortling ‘The economy, stupid’ as Paul Krugman writes another tear-stained blog telling us the world has just ended – again.
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