336 Comments

Until we as a country find a way to tear up & destroy the deceitful propaganda blanket enveloping the South and West (and eventually the whole country), it won't matter what politicians say or do until there is disaster; it will only matter what Fox et al. say anyone did or said. We are now living in a world fabricated by the Murdochs, added by the Kochs & ALEC, and new players like Musk & Bezos. We are well and truly cooked, unless truth & facts find a way into the ears & eyes of voters. The terrible proof is in all Biden/Harris did for the working & middle classes, and how they voted. It's unforgiveable.

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But Dr Krugman is bringing up a slightly different (and I would say, more important) point: that this both sides ism, to appear to be even handed, becomes an endorsement of, ummm, nonsense. And it is unending

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I agree, but there seems to be a bit of "both sides-ism" to me when Krugman points to Obama when you consider what Obama was facing and that TARP, the bank bailout, was passed under Bush, before Obama even took office.

Due to Franken's delay in being seated and Kennedy's death, Obama had to get 2 GOP senators to overcome a filibuster to pass the stimulus, so it had to be cut.

Yes, he admitted he could have started higher with his stimulus ask to end higher upon negotiations, but I think one would be surprised that the GOP was completely unwilling to help in such a crisis! Obama eventually got moderate GOP Senators Specter, Collins and Snowe to vote to pass it.

Perhaps Krugman has additional insights from Obama's advisors, but I think the criticism placed on Obama might be misplaced, in my view.

Obama as an optimist may have thought they could do more later with a stimulus, if the nation needed it, not knowing the GOP could care less about the nation and its people when a Dem is in the White House.

I also do not see how he could have done more with the banks and won reelection when the GOP were effectively selling "death panel" and "government takeover" nonsense, already. It would have been "The Dems are taking over the banks!"

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I remember being truly shocked by the "death panel" lies. Everyone knows politicians lie...but this was such a huge, blatant, in your face lie. This is the point where I think outright lying without consequences became the norm on the national level.

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Bush stole the 2000 election and then lied us into Iraq all the while selling us out to China…nothing the Republicans do should surprise you!

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I agree with the WaPo’s Dana Milbank that it was in the 90s when Republicans and the editorial page of the WSJ pushed the insane, vicious lie that the Clintons had murdered their close friend Vince Foster that the Republicans went off the deep end.(The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party). The media played along with a lot of it (the phony Whitewater and Travelgate scandals) and downplayed or normalized the most insane claims.

https://www.vox.com/2016/5/25/11761128/vince-foster

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All true. But instead of focusing on a few GOP lies like the "Death Panel" and "Government Takeover" memes, why not focus on the delivery method of such drivel: FOX News.

Well, FOX News and its lesser imitators like OANN, Newsmax, Gateway Pundit, etc. that continue to put out an unending stream of un-journalistic nonsense that GOP voters implicitly believe, like "Immigrants are psychopathic murderers who will eat your pets," "Dems abort (murder) babies *after* birth," "Biden created all-time high unemployment and crime."

Since Obama, the market share of FOX News has only grown, putting out endless pro-GOP/anti-Dem falsehoods that conservative voters implicitly believe. Our democracy is simply no match for the corrosive effects of the alternative facts RW media.

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“I thought at the time and still think that at least one major bank should have been put under temporary receivership, if only to make it clear that the bailout had strings attached.”—Krugman.

I agree with Krugman. I was a mid-level bank employee then.

It had all the elements of SVB: A regulatory lawyer CEO who was expert on banking law (and how to mitigate/litigate), but knew little about the nuts and bolts of banking, so the bank was being run by “rainmaker” front-end chiefs who cared little about risk and carried heavily-staffed compliance units reporting to themselves just for show. Many in the mid-office finance units saw the dangers, but were sidelined as is often the case.

The Fed overseers were also lax, a carryover from the Greenspan/Cox era. Yeah, GOP regulation mostly sucked except for FDIC’s Blair, but she was a single secondary voice in the regulatory jungle of that time.

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To be fair to Krugman, I think that if Obama didn't realize that the GOP didn't give a shi-t about the country, but only bout their own power/$, then he wasn't as smart as he is supposed to be. What motivates them has always been perfectly obvious, and if there was any doubt, that should have been erased by McConnell's comments at the beginning of Obama's term that the Repubs' goal was making sure he was a one term president.

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What I wish Paul would have also pointed out is that the US economy also saw unemployment plummet and growth surge relative to the EU and OECD economies as well. Frankly, even if we have no inflation, then the narrative would have been Biden did not create jobs, so I still could not afford groceries. This kind of disingenuous narrative coming from the media and R’s is to play on the fears, biases, and prejudices of low information voters without looking at facts, data, or logic.

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Perhaps, because Substack readers already know about it. The challenge is informing the low information voters.

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I'm starting to wonder if the correct conclusion (and one political strategists have arrived at since the dawn of time) is just to trick people into voting how you want them to, for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with why voting for you is a good idea.

The best part of this strategy, as demonstrated by the current GOP, is that there don't even HAVE to be good reasons to vote for you! You just gotta have the best tricks! (Like a f---ing registration lottery or something.)

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Uh, Rupert Murdoch figured that out in the 90s! And what the right wing echo chamber mostly focuses on is driving up the negatives of Democrats because Republicans fail to deliver very frequently and so the better bang for your buck is disqualifying your opponent.

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Yep, we just got straight up rolled.

I think because the "liberal establishment" has maintained such firm control over the formal academic discussion in psychology and sociology, they kind of missed the boat on techniques that were exploiting biases and affecting society and didn't notice the ground shifting beneath them.

This has all been happening in a very intentional and coordinated way since Nixon was President and it feels like most everybody left of center was sleeping on it until 2016.

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Obama talks about the fragmentation of the media which is how this happened. I dropped my subscription to WaPo because they don’t understand what is going on.

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No argument here. But how does one get the facts to low information voters?

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Print the facts on egg cartons. Many low-information voters, who are clueless about the bird flu and other facts, apparently based their vote on what they paid for a dozen eggs purchased on their way to vote.

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Love this. A little humor always helps.

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Right, and no mention that the BLS concluded that real wages outgrew inflation since before the pandemic. This alone should prove propaganda and not facts about inflation cost the Dems the election.

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Link?

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"Real weekly earnings for the median worker grew 1.7 percent between 2019 and 2023.[3] This means that one week of pay for the median worker now buys more than a week of pay did in 2019, despite higher prices. Furthermore, as shown in Figure 1, the increases in earnings are by no means concentrated at the top: in fact, they skew toward the middle class and the lower end of the income distribution. The 25th percentile of the wage distribution saw their nominal weekly earnings grow by $143, from $611 in 2019 to $754 in 2023. When adjusted for inflation, this amounts to a 3.2 percent increase in real earnings. Real earnings increases were particularly strong for the median Black and Hispanic Americans, who saw increases of 5.7 and 2.9 percent, respectively.[4]"

https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-purchasing-power-of-american-households

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A graph or two of that stuff should be included in any discussion like Paul's above. Yes I know we (well, I) know this stuff and probably you do to, and there's only so much space etc.

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For profit media entertains. Since it doesn't inform, it doesn't deserve constitutional protection. We need to bolster public broadcasting and encourage more fora like Bluesky.

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Also, vehemently agree. For-profit journalism is like for-profit medicine. The results are compromised more often than they will admit. Capitalism is great, but it should be kept out of industries where public health, public information and public safety are involved, or, at least, as suggested by Steve Urdegar, robust support for publicly-financed platforms would provide a more transparent and honest alternative to the click-motivated headline writers and test-motivated doctors.

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The problem is that for-profit medicine has made the people who can afford it much healthier. Just like for-profit MEDIA - and there was never any separation between "journalism" and other forms of media, really - has made the world incredibly entertaining. (If you send a 20 year old born in 2004 back to the 90s they would think the TV available was about as exciting as a test pattern. If you gave them the video games I grew up playing they'd think you were playing a joke on them.)

The parts of the system that do work, and are largely brought about by the profit motive - delightful Steve Martin comedies, say, in media, or Ozempic in medicine - are used to prop up and solidify the parts that don't - like Fox News or UHC.

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Do we really want to mimic Elyssium?

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Clearly we don’t! We can see with our eyes that it’s not working. It’s not making anybody happy. It’s just making us not-bored. There is clearly more to life and too many of us are missing out on it.

We don’t need all the other crap to come up with lifesaving drugs or awesome TV shows, is the good thing. Because I like those things a lot. But right now they are, to some extent, standing in the way of us actually being happier and healthier.

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True that!

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As someone who worked as a journalist in for-profit media for 40 years, I have to burst the bubble of those who rant about capitalism being the evil of good journalism. It just ain’t so.

What allowed for-profit newspapers and TV to do the great investigative and explanatory journalism of the last half of the 20th Century WAS their profitability.

Before the internet opened up the media space to millions of players and diluted advertising and circulation revenue, legacy media were highly profitable businesses. That made the owners and publishers powerful and insulated them — and their newsrooms — from government pressure. Now that profits for most legacy media are a small fraction of what they were, that’s not the case anymore.

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So, why no endorsement. The owners get to pick and choose what's good for THEM. To paraphrase Coolidge, "Whats good for Wall Street is [not always] what's good for Main Street " This is not about Capitalism, it is about for profit vs not for profit.

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This is painting with too broad a brush. Yes, newspapers and the more modern media, are seeking profit, but there are many better ways to make a lot of money and most journalists are in it for the right reason. See, e.g, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/the-girls-on-the-bus-are-messy-flawed-and-driven-just-like-the-best-journalists-i-know?srsltid=AfmBOopskqIhxY1wKLtwvQAeHwTqAs_uD-yrfxuWn_RBSagE1MmNyAPm

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Of course there are better ways. The question is why the false equivalence? If you've got a better explanation than greed and fear, enlighten me. Recently, I responded to WAPO self pity over loss of subscribers due to their non endorsement of a presidential candidate. The WAPO that brought down Nixon is dead. Full stop. LA Times, etc. owned by rapacious invertebrates.

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Yep - it's easy for journos to give in to pressure from up top. The "beauty" of an economy conceived the way ours is, with "jobs" and "careers" and "marketable skills," is that even if you get into a field for exclusively non-monetary reasons, it's likely you'll bend your morals to keep your job because your food and shelter is reliant on you keeping it. Especially in a field where job opportunities are crumbling like journalism.

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LA Times doesn't seem to be owned by an invertebrate but by an actively bad person -who, I recently read, advised the editorial folks that there were to be no "anti-trump" editorials.

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Fear. Period.

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Tune in to MSNBC to hear H1B is opposed by "immigration hardliners." Really, many of us support worker visas when there are skills shortages. However, they are also used to facilitate outsourcing for the sole purpose of driving down wages and benefits. Combine with union busting, the middle class has suffered. Does anyone think an underwear model merits an Einstein Visa?

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Listening to Velshi, now. Lots of pearl clutching and rehashing all the outages. I'm shocked. I'm shocked there is gambling going on here. Cut to a commercial.

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Sorry, first amendment applies to "speech" - not just "informative speech." Frustrating that it applies to absolute lies that fool people into voting against their own interests - but I don't see how to change that. There are certainly exceptions to the First Amendment, but "lies about politics" aren't one of them. :( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions

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The First Amendment only applies to prevent Government from censoring speech. It has nothing to do with private entities such as newspapers, etc.

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I don't think the founders gave them a special freedom so they could sell advertising. Did Thomas Jefferson want ploughs pushed on him all day?

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I wasn't referring to speech. I was referring to freedom of the press.

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everyone says this, but no one has a solution

I blame our "leaders" from Pelosi to Krugman to social media people like golden gate blond

somehow, they need to organize to the tiny bit of money we have can be directed toward a single news source, and not dissapaited into 1000 substacks, not one of which has any real national reach

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This stuff is going in in all sorts of media not just the right-wing sphere. I see it constantly in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, everywhere. There is so much effort to be evenhanded that that they equate things that are in no way equal.

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Vehemently agree--the media hides behind bothsidesism and it greatly benefits repugnicans. Scott Jennings on CNN is a great example.

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I watched CNN a lot during the campaign and the election. As much as I hated listening to Jennings and the little bald guy, I have to admit it was good journalism. They were spouting what I didn't want to hear, and it turns out they were right about what voters were thinking. It's not their fault I dismissed what they were saying. I think CNN's poor ratings prove that the public would rather listen to one side or the other. Maybe that's the problem. A better example of bothsiderism are the three broadcast networks who give washed down versions of each side or just a lot of analysis of poll data.

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The problem is that they equate the lies told by Jennings with the truth. When George Conway said Jennings is lying, he was told that is not acceptable..

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That went both ways. There were a lot of lies about Biden's condition and fitness to run coming out of the other side. We all get a bit over-concerned with who is right and who is wrong. What's true today may be proven wrong tomorrow. Elections are about winning and losing. The obsession about the truth and being right likely caused the Democrats to lose (this time).

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So you are all right with lying as long as you win.

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Personally, I am. I was a Boy Scout and went to Sunday school. But, the last eight years has proven that most people don't care as much. People have different values and, as hard as it can be to take, just because someone else doesn't share my values doesn't mean I'm right and they are wrong. Rather than waiting for half the country to see the light and change their ways, maybe try a different message that attracts a larger audience.

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Problem is, beliefs trump facts. People cherry pick the facts that support their narrative, and ignore or spin those facts that oppose it. If lies support their narrative then they don't examine those lies, but accept them at face value - even ignoring that they know them to be lies.

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Like a slug, if you poured salt on him, he'd shrivel and die.

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I turn CNN off every time Scott Jennings is on the panel. He gets no pushback against his lies. It’s too flabbergasting to watch. So I don’t know who CNN is catering to when Jennings is on air.

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Weissman is a hack. This takedown is valuable. Krugman may have a better chance of imparting change at the NYT with this blog than he did with the column.

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I am glad that I cancelled my NY Times subscription after the election. I only kept it so that I could read your column. Very glad that you are still writing.

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Republicans made inflation the only measure that mattered and blamed it on Biden. Predictably the mainstream media played along. While all those other countries had similar levels of inflation most European countries have been struggling to revive their economies. In contrast because of Biden’s economic investment spending the US economy has seen steady gdp growth, full employment and wages rising faster than inflation.

What Republicans and many in the media were cheerleading for was a recession. Call me crazy but I think most people would prefer higher prices over unemployment but that trade off was never made clear.

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"Most people" arguments are hard when so few have so much. Most people rely on Social Security in retirement. Inflation greater than COLA matters to that most.

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This recalls a comment by an Obama administration official who explained away their underwhelming response in the ARA to "people really don't like inflation". The figure seems to suggest that maintaining demand in the face of disrupted supply will accelerate inflation (the period between July'21 and July '22). There are trade-offs, but it seems like it is too complex to focus on more than one variable in a story.

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Brucek,

“Economy over people”? No thanks. It is complex, but suggesting that most people would rather have employment than worry about inflation overlooks how inflation truly affects everyone—especially those who don’t have the option to job-hop or shift sectors.

Meanwhile, people with fixed incomes or those who depend on Social Security are especially vulnerable to rising prices. Obama’s caution about inflation made sense, and maybe the Trump/Biden stimulus did overshoot a bit, but considering inflation worldwide, we didn’t overshoot by that much.

Ultimately, it’s about balance (not to be confused with Both-Side-ism); however, we can’t forget that the whole point of the economy is to serve people, not the other way around.

Best,

Tim

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Tim,

I don't think we disagree. It is hard to know how "supply" will unkink in advance, and it appears that the demand support in ARP (decided with the prior decade's angst around secular stagnation in recent memory) overshot supply restoration.

It would be interesting to hear how someone from Team Transitory might have re-fashioned ARP (knowing what they now know).

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We had inflation because we had pent up demand. But not all spending is essential. Many people could have forgone purchases. But they didn't, so they have no bargaining power. Face it, the suppliers create demand and the proles can't say no.

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Better yet, did anybody send back their stimulus check?

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You're preaching to the choir. Try telling them. If you thought inflation was too high, did you return your Covid Relief check. Or, want prices to come down, we'll have a depression.

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Speaking as a retiree, the COLA has actually been great for the past few years.

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Jane,

This is helpful, and, of course, mileage may vary.

COLA "matches" inflation by intent but doesn't reflect actual retiree costs. The adjustments lag a quarter since they are calculated based on the 3rd quarter numbers only based on spending patterns of wage earners (urban and clerical workers specifically). These costs can be different and statistically are, but not anecdotally. ==>https://www.ssa.gov/cola/

Everyone's costs will vary by region. Have you noticed uncovered medical expenses and certain staples changing your buying patterns? Honest question. I'm unsure where you live, but medical costs and some grocery items like meat outstrip COLA.

We can't all live in Wichita, Tulsa, or other low-cost, high-value retirement locations. Do you live in a low-tax/low-cost city or state?

Thanks again; this is helpful.

Tim

I fully expect DOGE to go after the Bureau of Labor Statistics as a prime target to undercut Government data and reduce costs. I'm not saying that will happen, but I expect it.

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I don’t think the issue is “the media” in general. It’s the mass propaganda machine that is Fox and Twitter.

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Please think again. Dr Krugman cracked CNN had become 'INN', Inflation News Network' with good reason. MSM coverage of Biden's economic record was at least as negative as the bald numbers permitted. A casual listener/reader formed a very negative impression. Recession was endlessly predicted, those predictions finally abandoned with obvious reluctance. The effect showed up in polling about the economy. People beieved things a Googe search would have disproved in mere seconds.

That same economy wil get positive coverage as Trump takes credit for it. It already is.

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That last line is exactly what I’ve been saying. I’m not an economist, I’m a sculptor and as far from economics as you can imagine. Why can’t people THINK?

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Thanks, thinking is very effortful; it requires preparedness and the ability to engage with string challenges to our received and held positions; plus good sources of credible experts like Dr Krugman!

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And much of the MAGAsphere has the IQ of sheetrock!

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I blame W and No Child Left Behind education « reform. »

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That was 25 years ago. The vultures have been feeding long enough so all that's left is bones.

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Because big tech has accommodated their worst impulses by providing thinking saving devices at every turn. Videos instead of print, Siri where is the bathroom?

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Almost hate to do this, but Myers Briggs may be helpful here..a lot of people are feeling, not thinking types, thinking is their inferior mode. That said, I'm not alone in observing people devote more disciplined thought to fantasy football than to politics or economics. It is actually pretty strange.

Btw, Myers Briggs is based on Carl Jung's Psychological Types

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They would never take one. They think Meyers Briggs is big Pharma because they watch Fox.

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You’d have to set up an awful lot of tests in order to sort everyone, but you could be on to something.

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Fox and Twitter, every conservative podcast which says the exact same thing as every other conservative podcast (Seriously, try it sometime), the Gym Bros who all say the same things to each other, the man-o-sphere podcasts who rarely talk economics but definitely talk male victimhood, and then the big one: Megachurch. Every week, you hear the exact same thing over and over and over. There is no way liberals, progressives, etc., can pierce that bubble with facts, logic, or the mainstream (dead) media.

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And the grift goes on.

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Perhaps the recipient of said propaganda should be considered here…those currently labeled the "low information voter." And in turn, their upbringing…. What was the quality of their education growing up for example? Learn any civics, for example….. and so on…

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EXACTLY! Although I would point to both ultimately. But lack of education, lack of rational thought, that’s the vacuum that propaganda fills. And it’s now going to keep getting worse, with the continued assault on public education, and push for more religious education.

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It’s terrifying that what used to be education has turned into a propaganda machine reaching young vulnerable children. Education can be so wonderful; exploring the realms of literature and science for example.

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Agree, Chris . I fear, this element, plan 2025, will be in play for generations to come.

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Glad you mentioned that. I conducted educational research for 35 years. Yes, they do teach civics. Two is required in Florida. It is forgotten after graduation. Society, peers, and parents don't reinforce its important. That and the disdain for "elitists," i.e. anyone who knows the difference between Warren Buffet and Jimmy Buffet.

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Sadly, I know a lot of well educated, successful people who are low information voters. These are nice people living in good communities who think life is always gonna be this way for them no matter which side wins.

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It's both.

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That IS a subset of media. Broadcast, social, and print. I think we need to break down by for profit and not for profit. Looks like media and healthcare have something in common. For profit implies low quality.

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Not only Fox & Twitter. Add in the whole Sinclair media network, and the right wing talk radio that blankets much of the country. To a lot of folks, that right wing propaganda is just "the news". The left has absolutely nothing like that, and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

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Republicans have been working the refs since the era of Agnew's "effete intellectual snobs" in response to the factual coverage of the corruption in the Nixon Administration. The corporate media is so used to playing the "both sides" game that they don't know any better, and besides, if they reported the truth of Trump (or before him W), Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker would not be invited to the cocktail parties they use for information gathering (which they then bury). It's a disgrace, and in no small part why we are where we are. And yes, Obama needed to hold not just the banksters, but Bush and Cheney to account but he failed to. Or, as I have said in other forums before - Nixon was pardoned so we got Reagan. Reagan committed treason in Iran/Contra but was never held to account so we got HW Bush. HW pardoned his co-conspirators to avoid accountability so we got W. W and Cheney committed war crimes and were allowed to skate so we got Trump. Trump is a rapist, a fraud, a convicted felon and he got re-elected. What do we get next from Republicans?

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We used to think Dick Cheney was Voldemort. But whatever he did in the past, he spoke out against Trump. The courage shown by the Cheneys and the late John McCain is in short supply.

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I disagree, Lizard Cheney only started speaking out after January 6th…Trump’s behavior was bad his entire time in office and she stood by him. I will never forgive Kamala for campaigning with Cheney…made my skin crawl!

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I had this argument about someone else. There is a line that even the Cheney's wouldn't cross. They should be commended for that. Covfefe and Musk would turn the country into an ash heap if they could line their pockets.

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I don’t know….I think the Cheneys believed Trump’s political career was over and they wanted to lead the GOP again. She didn’t help Democrats and so I don’t think Biden should pardon her…let the Republicans defend her…they voted her into leadership as late as January 2021.

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Agree to disagree. Adam Kinsinger was shunned as well.

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Even the vaunted New York Times was biased on the economy. So were the news media. There were always yes/but stories every single day hammering with bad news while good news was given short shrift. The rate of inflation went down today but egg prices went up with no mention of avian flu.

Or economic news with no context. The price if gas went up but not mentioning that it is because of the Russian War or OPEC raised prices. Then following with interviews with people complaining about prices. The bias was overwhelming towards republicans, who were allowed to set the agenda. Now, the media are caving to trump in order to protect their profits rather than defending democracy.

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It's not the Mainstream or the Legacy Media any more. It's the Vichy Media now.

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Both sides views are fine when both sides are equal in honesty, fairness, and the ability to recognize the other side’s arguments and positions. That simply doesn’t happen anymore with the Reds.

But I’m so happy you are free now to write what you actually think. (And I love snark, especially in these times).

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The Republican-slanted narrative in the major news outlets is just as insidious, or maybe more, than the blatant, ridiculous lies at Fox and Rumble. Because it slowly chips away at the subconscious attitude of relatively informed, decent voters.

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My takeaway after reading the piece was much like yours and I appreciate having the affirmation from a more well informed source.

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Same here!

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It confirmed my suspicion and reinforced my reason for cancelling my NYT subscription.

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3dEdited

I love everything about your approach to this newsletter. Followed you for many years in the times; by comparison, here you are Krugman Unbound. The only economist I've come across who has your flair was Robert Solow, who deliciously could go sliding "down the Phillips curve with camera in hand." Please keep it up.

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"I’ve tried to maintain a light tone in this newsletter, with plenty of snark. But sometimes I do get angry. Apologies."

I was promised an angry rant and all I got was this thoughtful analysis - I want my money back!

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Actually, if the choice is between a flat earth and a spherical earth, neither view has a point.

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"John, when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”

--Iasaac Asimov

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Everybody’s a pedant. :-\

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3dEdited

Guilty!

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How with precision and definition, do you mean? LOL

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Guess I should have said roughly spherical. Spherical with an equatorial bulge. But still there's no point.

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Yes. Approximately spherical, NOT flat. An example of false equivalence. If Trump said foreign countries pay tariffs and Biden says we have the lowest inflation in 55 years, they would point out it was 54.

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finally got the joke.

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I knew I was pushing the boundaries of subtlety. Glad it finally worked for you.

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3dEdited

What confused me was your writing "neither view has a point," when you meant that neither a sphere nor a circle has a point. If you had written, for instance, "if the choice is between a flat earth and a spherical earth, neither has a point," I think I would have gotten it immediately.

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Earth is an oblate spheroid!

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Great example of why so many scientists can no longer communicate with even the median human being. Would you rather be 99.99999% correct or aim for a broadly correct and well understood statement?

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🤨

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No Kathleen you just did what the right does. The earth is round. It’s simple. I don’t need a 8 million explanations on why that’s technically not true. That’s what wrong with the left. The earth is round. That’s all we need to know on a daily basis. But your “well kinda sorts maybe” is what turns everyone off on our side. On the right it’s just right and wrong. No grey. We don’t have a single answer to anything that’s black and white. You just did what caused us to lose so badly

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I contend it depends on the audience you are speaking to. I just criticized the guy because he'd rather be totally correct than communicate effectively. In an astronomy course on a college level, you aim for precision. An ordinary day to day discourse, you say round. I was dealing with a substack audience that wanted to insist on precision, and I succumbed to the desire not to appear uninformed. In daily life, which would include all political discourse, I would say round very happily, but I might just push it to a "sphere."

I cannot agree with you that there is one level of discourse that fits all circumstances.

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Only approximately. There are bumps. And there are points!

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OK. Mount Everest and the Matterhorn. But I don't think they're visible even from the NASA space station.

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Yeah, about 0.3% difference in pole to equator. Congratulations on both-siding (speaking as an astronomer).

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Lots of people ducking to avoid the joke here.

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This was a great line:

see a news analysis under the headline ''Shape of the Planet: Both Sides Have a Point.''

The Musical coda was even better. My favorite song by one of my favorite artists of all time. A live performance of a video I've never seen before. I miss the Canada of days gone by.

What is so ironic is that this was served to me from some cloud out there.

"It's cloud illusions I recall, I really don't know clouds at all"

Mr Krugman, I look forward to your economic analysis of AI. The energy it consumes versus the actual benefit it delivers.

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