The New York Times made Paul Krugman famous. It also made him bland. By his last year there, every column ran through a meat grinder of editorial caution. "Extremely intrusive," he called it. Three levels of editors, all of them allergic to clarity. Everything came out soft. Balanced. Harmless. The paper of record wanted an economist who explained things without making anyone uncomfortable.
Krugman wanted to tell the truth. Those stopped being the same thing.
He left in December 2024. By year's end, nearly half a million people had followed him to Substack. They weren't paying for balance. They were paying for the Krugman the Times kept muzzling—the one who'd been right about everything and was finally done being polite about it.
The gloves came off fast.
"Trump Is Stupid, Erratic and Weak." That was a headline. His headline. Not a quote from critics. Not buried in paragraph twelve. The headline. He called the administration delusional, said Trump lives in an autocratic bubble where nobody dares tell him he's wrong because telling him he's wrong ends careers. He wrote about Trump throwing a Great Gatsby party at Mar-a-Lago during the government shutdown—champagne coupes and showgirls while 42 million Americans faced losing their food assistance. The theme was "A Little Party Never Killed Nobody." Apparently nobody at Mar-a-Lago finished the novel.
Trump fired back. Called Krugman a "Deranged BUM" on Truth Social.
Krugman added it to his bio.
That's the move. That's the whole thing right there. A Nobel laureate getting called a bum by a man who thinks tariffs are paid by foreigners, and instead of issuing a dignified statement, he updates his profile. Seventy-two years old and still knows how to throw a punch.
He earned it. He was right about Iraq—said the economic justifications were garbage and the war would be a catastrophe. Everyone who mattered ignored him. He was right. He was right about austerity after 2008—said cutting spending during a recession was malpractice dressed as fiscal responsibility. Europe tried it anyway, watched their economies flatline, and pretended they'd never heard of him. He was right about Trump in 2016, laid out exactly what would happen to institutions and norms and the basic machinery of governance. Got called hysterical. Got called partisan. Got called an elitist by people who think expertise is just snobbery with a degree.
He was right about all of it.
Twenty-five years of charts and data and careful explanation. Twenty-five years of treating bad-faith arguments like legitimate disagreement. Twenty-five years of the Times telling him to be fair to people who weren't being fair to anyone.
It didn't work. The country elected Trump anyway. Twice.
So Krugman stopped pretending.
Now he writes that the United States is no longer a functioning democracy. Says it flat, no hedging, no "critics say" weaseling. He told Public Notice there's a "high likelihood" of a growth recession, and that "the thing that's extra damaging now is the craziness." Craziness. That's a Nobel laureate's clinical assessment. Not hysteria. Diagnosis.
His critics whine that he's become partisan. As if describing reality is partisan. As if noting that tariffs cause inflation is taking sides. As if pointing out that firing inspectors general is authoritarian behavior is somehow unfair to authoritarians. They want him neutral. Neutral between truth and lies. Neutral between competence and chaos. Neutral between democracy and whatever the hell this is becoming.
He's not interested anymore.
Most people mellow into irrelevance at seventy-two. Take the emeritus title. Write careful memoirs that offend no one. Cash the speaking fees and disappear into a comfortable fog of retrospection. Krugman looked at the smoldering wreckage of everything he'd warned about and decided mellowing was complicity. The Times wanted diplomacy. Substack lets him call a bum a bum.
Turns out honesty has a market. Who knew.
The polite version didn't work. Decades of careful, measured, responsible explanation got us here—got us Trump and tariffs and a Supreme Court that thinks bribery is fine as long as you call it a gift. Politeness was just permission for the liars to keep lying.
So he stopped being polite. Added "Deranged BUM" to his bio. And kept writing.
Copied and pasted Ziegler’s comments (with his name in full display) and emailed it to my good friends at the New York Times - Peter Baker, Maggie Haberman, and others.
Absolutely, Joe Ziegler. There were many of us who were devout Krugman-readers even back in the NYT days. Now we are being rewarded with Krugman-unchained. What an education; what an educator. His writing makes me smarter every day.
I am a poor white woman. I may be poor (I do have a Ph.D., which is silly to try to pay for when you come from the lower middle class--it does make a difference when you try to work in academia), but I know the truth when I see it. Many of us do! I have spent some of my hard-earned dollars and time to read Krugman since he started writing for the NYTimes, for all the reasons Mr. Zeigler notes, and many more. You could feel the truth everywhere in what he wrote, even under the usual editing at the NYTimes. I learned a lot about the traditional news generators by watching what they have done to the public over the years since Reagan. Truly, Krugman is freed now, he and the alternative news sources like Substack. More power to him and them!
My name is spelled Teresa not Theresa. You get used to it after time, and it stops bothering you. Names are actually not us. They are something applied to us to help us make sense of the world around us. You get used to that too. I hope what we actually say is what matters and what is noticed. If how you spell your name, not what you say, is not making you famous, then being famous is what you want, and you associate that with something like name spelling instead of what you actually say. Okay. It is your way. It is actually the way of many humans.
Personally, I don't care how you spell my name—I've seen every variation over eighty years and stopped keeping score. But I'm trying to build readership at Burnt-Ground.com, and a misspelling means someone searching for the publication might not find it. Missed opportunity, nothing more.
P.K. used to show up on panels - roundtable discussions - on the Sunday morning News-talk shows. But I think I finally realized why he had gone missing. Too much truth.
It's hard to be famous with my name, Zeigler. It's either misspelled or I'm assumed to be a Nazi or a Jew. I'm neither but would be proud to be a Jew as my son in law.
After getting illegally elected in 2024, Trump implemented Project 2025 that described how to conduct an insurrection against the Constitution and the rule of law in America to install a lawless cruel fascist autocracy. A new generation of Democrats must get elected in 2026 and 2028 with solutions to core problems in America including putting the right taxes on the wealthy, creating affordability of healthcare and housing, creating good paying jobs for the working class and correcting the weak legal system. The weak legal system failed to imprison Trump for his crimes from 2021 to 2024 or enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to block Trump as an insurrectionist from holding office, so he was illegally elected in 2024. After getting elected in 2028, a new generation of Democrats must enforce the federal law against the ongoing insurrection in 2025 by Trump, his Cabinet, members of his administration, Republicans in Congress, and six justices in SCOTUS to arrest, convict and imprison all of them.
An insurrection is defined as a felony crime in federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2383) in language that is clear and easy to understand:
“Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”
Citing the criminal law risks supporting the mistaken and pernicious idea that conviction under it is required for disqualification. As George Conway remarked, this is a matter of election, not criminal, law.
Agree that mistaken thinking and opinions exist regarding the criminal law and election law. So is what is Constituional law specifically Section 3 of the 14th Amendment that clearly blocks Trump as an insurrectionist from holding office? The corrupt decision by SCOTUS not to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment seemed to be neither election law or criminal law. My opinion is still Trump was illegally elected in violation of the Constitution. Maybe a new SCOTUS would nullify Trump's election in 2024.
Properly speaking, they refused to allow the states to enforce it, Article II be damned.
Look up the Hassan case. Colorado refused to place him on their presidential ballot, as he was not born in the US. Gorsuch sat on the Federal Circuit which affirmed that decision. No act of Congress required, that is, the constitutional provision was "self enforcing".
At the time of its adoption, the self enforcing character of the section was not questioned by Jeff Davis' lawyer, who argued in court that it meant his client need not be criminally prosecuted to prevent him from running for president (a real fear at the time).
Mr. Miller, Dems have a big problem trying to "put taxes on the right people." Either tax increases are passed by Reconciliation and are therefore time-limited or they must get 60 votes in the Senate, which will never in the future of the fifty-state Republic happen.
The only answer to the freeloading "low-tax" retro-states is a National Divorce wherein the fourteen reliable peripheral and contiguous Blue states leave the Union and join Canada, if they agree.
(Sorry Colorado and New Mexico. There's just no way to connect to you. Arizona voting Democratic at the state level was just a passing fancy.)
It turns out that Abraham Lincoln was wrong about those "mystic cords of memory". The Red states are still Royalist Slavers and will never give up their degenerate mania to return to a class-based society.
And enforcing the federal law against the ongoing insurrection conducted by Trump, his administration, Republicans in Congress, and six justices on SCOTUS will enable justice including fixing 50 years of wealth theft by billionaires
Sorry, Bill, you are living in Fantasy land. It takes 60 votes in the Senate to raise taxes, and it took an economic meltdown to give Democrats that for just BARELY long enough to pass the ACA in 2009/10. They got wiped out in the midterms.
America is a low-tax, high-spend country, which I guess creates a very liquid bond market.
But NOBODY is advocating for the across-the-board tax increases -- and some cuts to pork -- necessary to bring receipts and expenditures into a minimal sense of balance (i.e. deficits no higher than the growth in constant dollar GDP over an economic cycle).
You obviously are not reading the clear specific words in my comment which say after winning in 2028 Democrats would enforce the law against insurrection to arrest convict and imprison Trump members of his administration ALL REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS AND SIX JUSTICES ON SCOTUS so the taxes can easily be changed because Democrats will have ALL votes in the Senate and the House and control SCOTUS and the WH. Fantasy land is your world which operates by rejecting the reality of what is actually said.
The Confederacy tried leaving the Union and lost - changing taxes is a lot easier than giving Trump an excuse for a military war - Democrats can win in 2028 and fix the cruel cost of living problems which are hurting red and blue states
I agree that he should not be limited. I wonder if Trump or people who report to him read Krugman, because I heard that Trump was raving about the word "affordability" and Krugman is doing a series on it.
I like that Krugman brings up the lack of empathy in this article. Andra Watkins, another substacker who is both an expert on Christian Nationalism and Project 2025, says that White Christian Nationalists are taught not to have empathy. If children display it they are punished. Then there is the segment that embrace the Prosperity Gospel popular in a lot of Pentecostal churches. That makes psychopathic people like Thiel and Musk very much like people in the Pentecostal church with a hatred for empathy and a worship of money.
When Substack was just starting up I was in a meeting with one of the founders of Wired magazine. His take on Substack was that it represented the future of publishing for current content.
Dr. Krugman’s columns show how that can be a reality. Legacy media serves a purpose but is too bound to commercial interests of those wanting to sell something to readers rather than deliver content.
Thank you for such a comprehensive overview of Mr. Krugman’s career and some perspective into his mindset. I do appreciate his insight and practical advice on all things economic policy and that leads into the political arena by nature. It is nice to have a bit of background filled in, so thank you.
In these times it is vitally important to be discerning about where, and from whom, we get our information. You have just added to the trust factor in my understanding of Krugman’s work and reporting. And yeah, considering the source he should wear the BUM comment from Trump as a badge of honor.
Empathy is for suckers...need to pull yourselves up by your boot straps, find a sugar daddy to financially propel you into political office, and then LOOT the tax payers funds! Nobody gives you anything...you have to legally STEAL it!
While we can all rejoice in the success of substack, particularly Krugman's contribution, we must also ask ourselves what this reflects: the failure of the Times, the Supreme Court and Congress, and, what Krugman's column is about, the failure of people to vote in their economic interests. But all of this reflects a bigger failure, the failure of Democratic leadership over the past 40 years.
I got a reprimanded once by the manager of a neighborhood jazz bar about hustling some of the kitchen dudes on break outside to vote. One had suffered a stroke after his wife left him, was on disability--but working under the table as a cook for cash presumably to keep his benefits? I guess the lesson was sometimes you have to be a little shady and avoid the man to keep what you have? To avoid a murdering thug finding him? I wonder how that's working out for him now.
The Democratic leadership failed, was asleep at the wheel, and aligned itself with Wall Street instead of main street. The Republican leadership also failed, bigly, by aligning itself with a moronic, psychopathic, narcissist bent on destroying everything of value built by anyone who wasn't him.
Hegseth was always a poseur, but he went to another level of pathetic when he denied giving the order and tried to pin it all on the admiral. What a coward! He built his whole brand on being willing to commit war crimes, but now the instant he's accused of one, he loses his nerve? If he had any integrity he would be owning it, and offering to take responsibility for any and all war crimes committed under him. He made it clear that he wanted his "Department of War" to ignore the old rules of engagement.
Sen Tammy Duckworth, a vet who sacrificed both legs in defense of this country, summed it up:
“Pete Hegseth is a f*cking liar. This is so clearly classified info he recklessly leaked that could’ve gotten our pilots killed. He needs to resign in disgrace immediately. “Hegseth and every other official who was included in this group chat must be subject to an independent investigation. If Republicans won’t join us in holding the Trump Administration accountable, then they are complicit in this dangerous and likely criminal breach of our national security.” https://www.duckworth.senate.gov/news/press-releases/duckworth-pete-hegseth-needs-to-resign-in-disgrace
All the way down the line. The order should not have been given and no one should have followed it. Let everyone see Trump hanging the front line sailors out to dry
Can the Sec. of Defense literally order a general or admiral? The secretary is a civilian. He can announce policies, but can he command a military officer to do anything? If the officer refuses to obey, is that insubordination in the military sense?
Especially where the US military's own war rulebook cites killing the shipwrecked as the textbook example of a war crime. Since we're not at war, that's simply murder. And everyone in the chain of command, down to the service member who pushed the button, should be liable for those murders.
Really poor timing to be asserting the defense of obeying orders with the new Nuremberg movie playing in theaters...
I agree with you 100%, but remember Trump has the Supreme Court behind him who will say he was committing his crimes while performing his duties as PWS (POTUS While Sleeping). Bradley will likely take the fall and Trump will pardon him. All will be well in international war crime world, because we no longer recognize the authority of the ICC.
The U.S. signed on, then signed off. But you're right, the ICC has no authority to come to the U.S. and arrest anyone, or extradite. The U.S. claimed the reason we withdrew from the ICC is that we had the ability to police ourselves effectively and didn't need outside authority. GW Bush was the POTUS who withdrew us. Conveniently.
True. But an indictment by thd ICC is an inconvenience. Participating countries are obligated to arrest any person indicted by the ICC who shows up within their boundaries.
Those who complain about “socialism” are fine with dumping their losses on the federal government, a la bank and insurance company bailouts. They only fuss and moan when they think government is impacting their profits.
In short, they privatize the gains and socialize the losses.
Check out reports from the city of Flint MI. They are giving a stipend of up to $7500 to new mothers since early this year. The program is already reaping benefits to this beleaguered city, so much so that other Michigan cities are thinking to adopt the program, and discussions are filtering to the state level.
Small investments can reap big rewards. Corporations look only at short term, governments can invest for decades ahead.
China has been reaping the rewards of its planning for the past two decades, while "expert" US analysts in industry, politics and finance have either been oblivious to their successes or called them transient. Meanwhile, the US electorate bounces between two very disparate parties in the White House.
China has brought hundreds of millions out of dirt poverty, has been grooming previously neglected countries for trade and investment ("belt and road"), is making a well-planned move on the global gold trade, is currently building and filling its own Strategic Petroleum Reserve to protect itself from political oil instability, is securing supply chains via strategic relationships, is building a big military machine, and is promoting production of "stuff" over the rent-seeking finance of the US/West.
All true, and China has a much more efficient governmental process, authoritarianism. All we have is messy democracy, the Bill of Rights, and a wealthy class that pays politicians to protect their offshore bank accounts and practices selfism while worshipping capitalism.
The US Constitution (including the Bill of Rights), besides being archaic, is dead in the water. None of the three branches are following it, and it isn't really a national constitution if it only applies when Dems are in office.
The central problem with democracies are that there is no value given to being well-informed. In the US, Murdoch and Bezos and Sullivan and the likes of Joe Rogan are programming the electorate with disinformation.
Legal/judicial systems are also based on an old, grossly flawed model of human cognition (e.g., asking jurors if they can be impartial, and jurors thinking/pretending that they can be).
That’s what was said already in 2009 when Obama was forced to bail them out.
At the time there would have been another way: to reschedule the subprime mortgages at a manageable interest rate for the defaulting borrowers (the principle of « rebus sic stantibus »- conditionality of circumstances remaining the same instead of the short-sighted « pacta sunt servanda » that doesn’t let terms being adjusted). Then the banks would have been able to clean their junk bonds and people would have kept their homes. But the Treasury Secretary (herited from the Bush Administration) didn’t want to hear about it. The rest in known: Obama’s Administration spent the next 7 years cleaning the mess and restarting the economy.
FEMA established 1979. Reagan assumes office, slow-walks the setting up of the agency. George H.W. Bush continues Reagan's neglect of FEMA. Then Hurricane Andrew hits southeast Florida. More than a decade of neglect and mismanagement results in FEMA being incapable of responding. This was part of what cost Bush the Smarter re-election.
Clinton came in, appointed someone to head FEMA who was actually trained in emergency management, and provided the budget and priority to get FEMA operating properly.
Bush the Lesser became president, and FEMA once again fell to neglect. When Katrina hit New Orleans, FEMA was incapable of responding as its head, Michael Brown, had no clue what he or the agency should be doing.
Obama came in, appointed someone to head FEMA who was actually trained . . .
Let’s be clear. Trump doesn’t even know wha is going on. This is project 2025, full stop. The people “running” the government are billionaires and toadies that are all working to serve the billionaires.
Ah, but there's a catch. Trumpkopf is indeed just a figurehead, as far as Miller and Vought are concerned, but he is also the sole leader/messiah of the MAGA cult. Without him, the cult falls back into its previous disarray, and the P2025 crew lose their power.
Right now, Trump is all that's holding them together and they know it. I think the Tech Bros will get thrown under the bus by the Christian Nationalists when Trump gets so far out in left field that his base deserts him.
I'd be glad to see then smacked down, but the Christian Nationalists are exemplified by Pete Hegseth. Arrogance, ignorance, dominance displays.
Trump’s frontotemporal dementia is getting worse, while Russell Vought and Stephen Miller are pulling his strings to get whatever they want from Trump. Also, no voters ever gave their consent to a private billionaire funded foundation to decide for the citizens what sort of government we should have. I see the potential for a significant amount of violent resistance if the Heritage Foundation continues to foist its theocratic and plutocratic agenda upon the rest of us.
Well, he spends all night every night posting insanity on Trump Social (or whatever it calls itself). If you're up all night, people can't expect you to stay awake during the day.
More of his man baby activities. Cant self regulate to have a normal schedule so to be prepared for responsibilities. Normal humans who like to keep their job and perform well at work get adequate rest.
It has been said time and again about Trump and his administration(s): the cruelty is the point. He is right about one thing - he will likely burn in hell
There is an underlying psychopathy in modern conservatism in that its adherents want to make other people suffer because they ENJOY watching other people suffer.
Remember when conservatism was "I've made mine; feel free to make yours"? Now it's "I've made mine, I'm coming for yours, and if you're not suffering, I'm not happy"?
I can't disagree with you. I have known and reflected on the makeup of various families over my 71 years, and I am coming to think that the lack of empathy we see in some Conservatives and most Libertarians is actually a heritable (genetic) trait. I am just not sure what to do with the knowledge. It seems that producing a fair, ethical, and beneficial society is a laudable goal. But these people are absolutely a destabilizing influence on such a society. Some days I think we might be able to coerce them into behaving better and other days I think we should just split into Red and Blue nations and be rid of them.
Social controls used to work. For almost half a century, it was not acceptable to be openly racist. But that social control is falling apart under direct assault from Trump.
I'd like to see that sort of control come back into vogue.
As long as State Television tells them all day, every day that they don't have to be ashamed of their racism and (Dickensian) meanness, It won't happen.
Which has been done. And, yes, there are observable differences, enough that psychopathy can be predicted with high accuracy from scans. Trump's doctors likely have made the diagnosis.
As mentioned, some studies have been done in an effort to reduce violence and violent tendencies. It apparently is possible to retrain the brain but it must be a conscious effort. Read "Unforgiving Places" by Ludwig.
Well one way is to stop attempting to rescue them? If West Virginia votes seventeen times to retain its downward decline and repudiate a helping hand, what's the point of going on? It's like trying to rescue some alcoholic relative with a fatty liver.
If Democrats stopped trying to rescue Kentucky ACA subsidies and started to draw a line on civil rights and labor rights, it might be a better use of its time.
Democrats don't like to see people suffer, but I am rapidly getting to the point where I think we should say our piece and step back and let folks see for themselves the price for following the anti-empathetic rethugs.
The family of Stephen Miller (aka Goebbels) warned us about him early on.
Mary Trump's description of Donald's relationship with his father, who praised and encouraged Donnie's greed and rapacity, shows that DJT was unlike her own father (Fred, Jr.) in that way.
As for Libertarians, I think a lot of them have been converted by the self-delusion that being materially successful means they're smart and superior.
I call the Libertarian Party, the Naive Party. They are truly naive in the practical ways of the World. Like most extremist philosophies such as libertarianism and communism, they are nice ideas and appealing as long as EVERYONE behaves as expected. Unfortunately the World does not work that way. Libertarianism expects everyone to have personal integrity, meaning behaving properly and responsibly. I have never seen a libertarian behave that way.
You are correct. I had to read "Altas Shrugged" in high school fifty years ago and found it tedious, simplistic, and stereotypical. It did not show her in a good light then and the more I learned about her it just reinforced my opinion of her.
If the gene complex causing the behavior can actually be identified, it should be used to select the lucky people who will lead the Terraforming of Mars.
Your fare discount can be the same percentage as the percentage that your set of allele of the panel of SNP's that determine the psychosis matches the full FreeBird expression.
If you're just a bit on this particular "spectrum" you only get a small break on the fare. If you match it all, you fly free!
Besides social darwinism and plain cruelty, it also seems like an extension of the same psychology as using a government shutdown or a debt ceiling crisis to gain political leverage.
These days, when government is gridlocked (almost always), or your party is in the minority, or you are fighting a culture war that you believe must be won at any cost, then any source of leverage is considered fair game. Including disaster relief.
Prof Krugman. Scientists and Doctors have sleepless nights these days thinking about what would happen if a new pandemic comes in this regime. We were fortunate that last pandemic was not so deadly as it *only* killed 1 Million Americans. Trump regime's pandemic response was an obscene clown show. Boy do we miss those daily press conferences by Trump.
BTW, Prof. Please don't just talk about bad things. Now start proposing some solutions. America need reforms in its political and economic system. We need a political system that must stop madman like Trump in coming to power. We need to dismantle enshittified monopolies. We need political system where competent people (like you, like Peter Hotez, like Bandy Lee etc etc) come to power. We need a system of competent people that understand this world.
So start proposing reforms. Bring some new ideas into public discourse Professor. Otherwise, what's the point of all the doom talk?
Saw on the news last night that a one of the flu viruses is showing a mutation which could lead to a rough flu season this year.
Concerns over falling flu vaccination rates are bring noted by epidemiologists ... noting last year was also bad ... over 600 children died of flu. I was shocked and saddened.
Get your flu shot, get your kids a flu shot if you have not already done so ... it is not too late and most pharmacies are giving cash and rebates to get them.
Sanjeev One of the first reforms that should be implemented is the ABOLITION OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE. It’s not normal that Trump won his first term while Clinton had 3 million more votes !
It’s not normal that the « winner takes all » applies to the electoral college. This system gives a distorted view of the election because a few votes can flip a state (remember Trump begging « give me 11 thousand votes » in Georgia ?
The second big reform would be to establish healthcare for everyone like in Japan and Europe and Canada.
Thirdly, the disinformation campaigns on vaccines and pandemic dangers should be severely punished, and a minimum of vaccination made compulsory. I don’t know how many children will have to die before Americans will realize how counterproductive this MAGA/R. F. Kennedy Jr propaganda is.
If you do away with the EC what do you do if the NPV comes in within a quarter percent? The states whose governor and secretary of state are of the party which is ahead will simply refuse to recount. And Bush v. Gore established a pretty clear precedent that such an imbalance would not be allowed.
No, the sane thing is to mandate that a state's EV's be allocated in a way such that the votes as closely as possible match the percentages of the votes in the state.
Yes,this keeps the "Small State Advantage", but there are enough small states that are "Blue" that it wouldn't be a deal-breaker.
Republicans in California would get a voice, as would Democrats in Texas. But 'swing" states wouldn't be the determinants they are now. EVERY state, even the 3 EV ones would be a swing state.
On just about every political forum I've encountered, we've had reforms proposed out the wazoo.
More often than not, "new ideas" are pointless if—like old solutions proposed in the past—there's no way to implement them. Forget the politicians in government for a moment and consider how they got there: The chosen media of the electorate.
Street protests just remind us that caring people don't like what's going on, while billionaires cave to Trump. Short of taking up arms (which civilized people don't have the background and temperament to carry out), I don't know how to de-Trump the government.
Actually I do sound like a bigot after hearing Trump say the same thing about Sudanese immigrants. I'm not angry at you, the person. I am angry at our government for not doing better by the people who are already here.
After writing what I wrote, I thought about my own situation and how the lack of financial support of schools impacted my own life. I'm in my late 60s. I got into a good PhD program in psychology in Palo Alto, California when I was 28. It was a private school and the tuition was high, completing the program probably would have run to $100k or more. So I dropped it. I'm sure there were many more like me. How many people went untrained because people didn't want to burden themselves with debt that could very well cripple them for life? That's a loss to the well being of our country. Destroying the ability to get a higher education by pulling government funds or making education prohibitively expensive except for the rich or foolhardy certainly didn't help us.
For your information Jess. I do not live in America. I live in India. I have not stolen any employment opportunity or any welfare benefit from any native American. 🙏
I know failures of my Govt (India). I do public policy analysis of India and have done an extensive critique of my government. I write this analysis on my two blogs and also prescribe some solutions. I don't have a big outreach but I do what I can. I have written more than 50 articles on India's problems which are collectively published on both my blogs.
Regarding inequality from global perspective, I recently wrote this article.
Of course, the problem is that certain parts of the country — TX, LA, and FL in particular — account for a disproportionate share of natural disaster costs. How do we help people in need after a disaster and not create incentives for excessive development in risky areas?
Very simple : rule of law that forbids development in risky areas and recurrent controls. Of course local bribery and corruption is not always preventable…
Trump’s answer in his first maladministration was to make governors come groveling to him for aid. He wanted to help only those areas where the voters had supported him, which was never intended to determine whether citizens should receive aid. He treated Puerto Ricans with contempt and disrespect by lobbing rolls of paper towels at them, and then refused to help the Commonwealth because of his stupid feud with the mayor of San Juan.
Yes indeed .. but the problem is people don’t buy flood insurance and then after they are wiped out the politicians say “no one could have predicted this and we need Washington to give us money to rebuild (so it can happen again in 10-20 years …
If you are purchasing a home in a flood zone, the mortgage requires purchase of flood insurance. The problem is climate change and flooding becoming more severe and unexpected ... like the one in Texas that took so many lives.
The flood in Texas occurred due to specific soil and hydrological conditions peculiar to the Texas Hill Country. The Guadalupe River runs through an area where there are hills of arid soil. The soil does not absorb water when it rains, and when it rains there, the rainwater runs directly down into the river and causes it to flood. The area there is often prone to flood.
As for the tragic deaths at Camp Mystic, these occurred because the camp owners made a fatal error in building in a known flood plain close to the Guadalupe River. If the owners ever decide to rebuild Camp Mystic, they should be required to build it in an area which is far enough from the flood plain to prevent campers and staff from being caught in a flash flood.
There are many problems with developing coastal areas. But global warming is a big one, and it does not help that one political party still denies that it is happening.
If you study tidal gauge records — Battery Park New York for example — you see a 200 year linear trend upwards. This confirms that sea levels are rising, but they are not rising at an accelerating rate. Why is this? It is because we are in an interglacial period that began about 12,000 years ago … while there may be some effect from rising GHG levels, it is not the main cause or even a major factor
My house is well above the 100-year flood line, and the last quote I got for flood insurance was prohibitively expensive, more than my homeowner's policy. I can't imagine how much the premium is if you live in or near a flood plain.
So you are backing off from your statement "the problem is people don’t buy flood insurance", and replacing it with "the problem is that so many people are poor"?
It’s a complicated problem. I have more sympathy for people who are stuck in a risky area than Northeasterners who build expensive second homes on the shoreline, establish Florida residency,and decide to go bare because it’s too expensive … and then ask for a bailout
One misstatement: “Trump tried, unsuccessfully, to withhold wildfire aid from California unless it adopted voter ID.”
He has successfully withheld aid. Of the $40B requested (and much of it approved by Biden in the immediate aftermath), $2B has been released, n. Gavin Newsom is in DC now trying to get Congress to act on relief. The Trump administration is actively withholding federal aid.
Insuring citizens against disasters should have come at a cost but laissez-faire individualism got in the way. The cost should have been regulation, such as disallowing irresponsible development and development in areas that were guaranteed to suffer repeated catastrophes. But we couldn't do that because private, especially monied, interests always had to be appeased.
We aren't even in the ballpark on anything anymore. We needed more government, not less. We needed more public lands, more public transportation, strict controls on resource usage and allocation and so on. Externalities, economic bad karma, are catching up with us in an unprecedented way, the result of irresponsible living the benefits of which weren't even spread around.
Soil conservation? Do we realize how unbelievably stupid it is to not practice something that obviously good? The consequences are irreversible. Much of the insanity can only be counteracted by throwing more resources at problems. Step back and any reasonable person sees it's insane, which is why the rich want us buried in a struggle for survival in the midst of inconceivable wealth.
So we can't step back, catch our breath and ask what the hell are we doing. They own the media and increasingly our private information. Americans have voted themselves into servitude and non-voting social status. Paul, I wish you would go hard on externalities. Looking at it is discouraging but we need a revolution in favor of responsible living and we're doing just the opposite.
I'm about out of patience with these Tech Broligarch weirdos. Who's there with their hand out wanting trillion dollar pre-approved Federal bailout money? These "rugged libertarians" are quick to start whining every time China releases a free open source AI model that threatens their monopoly. And they want the rest of us to pay for their electric bills. It's a little hard to take them seriously.
Here is the perplexing thing. They will continue vote for this ideology that is indifferent to their suffering while saying they feel looked down upon by liberal elites who are more likely to help them.
Hard to say, we're all pissed off in southeast Michigan because DTE is now asking for a rate increase to fund the coal fired behemoth Trump is forcing them to keep open among other things.
The UP is pissed off because winter is here and they still have no relief from last year's storm damage to their infrastructure and they are freezing their assessment off on the home ground of the Michigan Militia ... remember them? Oklahoma?
I have never and will never understand why voters in this country, particularly in the South and parts of the Midwest continually vote against their own best interests. While polls are showing a growing disenchantment with Trump and his cruelty I’m not so sure that will translate to votes in these places. Democrats are jumping for joy that a Democrat lost the special election in Tennessee by only 10 points. That is considered progress? As Pogo once said, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”
This... people thrilled that "only" 40% of our voting adults support fascism, the destruction of our democracy, institutionalized cruelty, oligarchy, and the wholesale plundering of our treasury. "Only 40% are cool with that" isn't exactly heartening. I'm never as thrilled that the numbers are shifting as everyone wants me to be. It's always HOW are so many still supporting this insanity? HOW can anyone want to live in this chaos and blatant corruption? I know the answer to that question broadly, but it's so damn depressing. Our culture is diseased that so many people here revel in the darkness this regime represents. And you'll never convince me they "don't know" what they're supporting. They DO know. Watching Fox News and OAN and Newsmax every day is a CHOICE. They choose to swim in that sewage and to cheer on videos of Noam's brownshirts beating on poor brown people and women dying from not getting medical care. There are simply too many morally bankrupt and outright bad people in the United States, and our culture rewards those people.
It’s all very well saying Trump, the techbros or the rich lack empathy. Yet it is a sad thing that such a lack is now endemic throughout wealthy societies. The folk in Michigan may turn against Trump because they were not helped, but they certainly disliked anyone else getting assistance for any troubles they may experience.
You see it generally. In the UK moaning about the rich not helping the poor enough, yet at the same time hatred by the moaners slung at wretched migrants for taking ‘our’ money as well as calls to reduce international aid. Plenty of other examples of such thinking.
I have inlaws in Michigan and early into the relationship I was astounded at how 'conservative' they are. Good union members, also very racist and very 'I've got mine, and screw you'. I still haven't squared that circle!
There's a terrific book about the 1927 floods entitled "Rising Tide" The author describes the shocking indifference of government to the plight of Black Americans affected by that disaster, and posits that the 1927 flood was one of the events that led to the "Great Migration" of those Black flood victims to northern industrial states.
One hopes that victims of current day disasters, who may not be able to "vote with their feet" and leave their homes and states, will express their anger and despair by simply voting, and for their own best interests.
Indeed a terrific book by John Barry. Interesting sidenote: The book notes that Herbert Hoover got a boost to his presidential aspirations because of the reputation he got by successfully managing the Red Cross help effort. When I taught about fairness in economics, I always pointed to the 1927 Flood as when the general population began to think the government should help disaster victims. It's a short step from there to thinking the government should help with economic disasters as well, e.g., the Great Depression.
The Economist Who Stopped Being Polite
The New York Times made Paul Krugman famous. It also made him bland. By his last year there, every column ran through a meat grinder of editorial caution. "Extremely intrusive," he called it. Three levels of editors, all of them allergic to clarity. Everything came out soft. Balanced. Harmless. The paper of record wanted an economist who explained things without making anyone uncomfortable.
Krugman wanted to tell the truth. Those stopped being the same thing.
He left in December 2024. By year's end, nearly half a million people had followed him to Substack. They weren't paying for balance. They were paying for the Krugman the Times kept muzzling—the one who'd been right about everything and was finally done being polite about it.
The gloves came off fast.
"Trump Is Stupid, Erratic and Weak." That was a headline. His headline. Not a quote from critics. Not buried in paragraph twelve. The headline. He called the administration delusional, said Trump lives in an autocratic bubble where nobody dares tell him he's wrong because telling him he's wrong ends careers. He wrote about Trump throwing a Great Gatsby party at Mar-a-Lago during the government shutdown—champagne coupes and showgirls while 42 million Americans faced losing their food assistance. The theme was "A Little Party Never Killed Nobody." Apparently nobody at Mar-a-Lago finished the novel.
Trump fired back. Called Krugman a "Deranged BUM" on Truth Social.
Krugman added it to his bio.
That's the move. That's the whole thing right there. A Nobel laureate getting called a bum by a man who thinks tariffs are paid by foreigners, and instead of issuing a dignified statement, he updates his profile. Seventy-two years old and still knows how to throw a punch.
He earned it. He was right about Iraq—said the economic justifications were garbage and the war would be a catastrophe. Everyone who mattered ignored him. He was right. He was right about austerity after 2008—said cutting spending during a recession was malpractice dressed as fiscal responsibility. Europe tried it anyway, watched their economies flatline, and pretended they'd never heard of him. He was right about Trump in 2016, laid out exactly what would happen to institutions and norms and the basic machinery of governance. Got called hysterical. Got called partisan. Got called an elitist by people who think expertise is just snobbery with a degree.
He was right about all of it.
Twenty-five years of charts and data and careful explanation. Twenty-five years of treating bad-faith arguments like legitimate disagreement. Twenty-five years of the Times telling him to be fair to people who weren't being fair to anyone.
It didn't work. The country elected Trump anyway. Twice.
So Krugman stopped pretending.
Now he writes that the United States is no longer a functioning democracy. Says it flat, no hedging, no "critics say" weaseling. He told Public Notice there's a "high likelihood" of a growth recession, and that "the thing that's extra damaging now is the craziness." Craziness. That's a Nobel laureate's clinical assessment. Not hysteria. Diagnosis.
His critics whine that he's become partisan. As if describing reality is partisan. As if noting that tariffs cause inflation is taking sides. As if pointing out that firing inspectors general is authoritarian behavior is somehow unfair to authoritarians. They want him neutral. Neutral between truth and lies. Neutral between competence and chaos. Neutral between democracy and whatever the hell this is becoming.
He's not interested anymore.
Most people mellow into irrelevance at seventy-two. Take the emeritus title. Write careful memoirs that offend no one. Cash the speaking fees and disappear into a comfortable fog of retrospection. Krugman looked at the smoldering wreckage of everything he'd warned about and decided mellowing was complicity. The Times wanted diplomacy. Substack lets him call a bum a bum.
Turns out honesty has a market. Who knew.
The polite version didn't work. Decades of careful, measured, responsible explanation got us here—got us Trump and tariffs and a Supreme Court that thinks bribery is fine as long as you call it a gift. Politeness was just permission for the liars to keep lying.
So he stopped being polite. Added "Deranged BUM" to his bio. And kept writing.
Good for him.
In a recent post, Paul gave significant credit to his wife’s role as his editor.
"Wonkman and Robin"?
And another spam bot. They seem to come in waves these days. Reported.
Spam bot reported. I haven't seen one of these in a while.
There was one yesterday.
Joe Zeigler's comment should be a guest essay in the New York Times.
Copied and pasted Ziegler’s comments (with his name in full display) and emailed it to my good friends at the New York Times - Peter Baker, Maggie Haberman, and others.
If they would dare to run it.
If they do, the headline would call it bullshit.
Agree wholeheartedly!
Absolutely, Joe Ziegler. There were many of us who were devout Krugman-readers even back in the NYT days. Now we are being rewarded with Krugman-unchained. What an education; what an educator. His writing makes me smarter every day.
I am a poor white woman. I may be poor (I do have a Ph.D., which is silly to try to pay for when you come from the lower middle class--it does make a difference when you try to work in academia), but I know the truth when I see it. Many of us do! I have spent some of my hard-earned dollars and time to read Krugman since he started writing for the NYTimes, for all the reasons Mr. Zeigler notes, and many more. You could feel the truth everywhere in what he wrote, even under the usual editing at the NYTimes. I learned a lot about the traditional news generators by watching what they have done to the public over the years since Reagan. Truly, Krugman is freed now, he and the alternative news sources like Substack. More power to him and them!
There it is again, Zeigler
My name is spelled Teresa not Theresa. You get used to it after time, and it stops bothering you. Names are actually not us. They are something applied to us to help us make sense of the world around us. You get used to that too. I hope what we actually say is what matters and what is noticed. If how you spell your name, not what you say, is not making you famous, then being famous is what you want, and you associate that with something like name spelling instead of what you actually say. Okay. It is your way. It is actually the way of many humans.
Thanks for taking the time to write.
Personally, I don't care how you spell my name—I've seen every variation over eighty years and stopped keeping score. But I'm trying to build readership at Burnt-Ground.com, and a misspelling means someone searching for the publication might not find it. Missed opportunity, nothing more.
I appreciate your thoughts.
Joe
I wish you success getting the readership you are looking for. Best always, Teresa
P.K. used to show up on panels - roundtable discussions - on the Sunday morning News-talk shows. But I think I finally realized why he had gone missing. Too much truth.
It's hard to be famous with my name, Zeigler. It's either misspelled or I'm assumed to be a Nazi or a Jew. I'm neither but would be proud to be a Jew as my son in law.
Another advantage of Krugman moving to substack is that there is no limits on the length of a comment.
After getting illegally elected in 2024, Trump implemented Project 2025 that described how to conduct an insurrection against the Constitution and the rule of law in America to install a lawless cruel fascist autocracy. A new generation of Democrats must get elected in 2026 and 2028 with solutions to core problems in America including putting the right taxes on the wealthy, creating affordability of healthcare and housing, creating good paying jobs for the working class and correcting the weak legal system. The weak legal system failed to imprison Trump for his crimes from 2021 to 2024 or enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to block Trump as an insurrectionist from holding office, so he was illegally elected in 2024. After getting elected in 2028, a new generation of Democrats must enforce the federal law against the ongoing insurrection in 2025 by Trump, his Cabinet, members of his administration, Republicans in Congress, and six justices in SCOTUS to arrest, convict and imprison all of them.
An insurrection is defined as a felony crime in federal law (18 U.S. Code § 2383) in language that is clear and easy to understand:
“Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”
Citing the criminal law risks supporting the mistaken and pernicious idea that conviction under it is required for disqualification. As George Conway remarked, this is a matter of election, not criminal, law.
Agree that mistaken thinking and opinions exist regarding the criminal law and election law. So is what is Constituional law specifically Section 3 of the 14th Amendment that clearly blocks Trump as an insurrectionist from holding office? The corrupt decision by SCOTUS not to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment seemed to be neither election law or criminal law. My opinion is still Trump was illegally elected in violation of the Constitution. Maybe a new SCOTUS would nullify Trump's election in 2024.
Properly speaking, they refused to allow the states to enforce it, Article II be damned.
Look up the Hassan case. Colorado refused to place him on their presidential ballot, as he was not born in the US. Gorsuch sat on the Federal Circuit which affirmed that decision. No act of Congress required, that is, the constitutional provision was "self enforcing".
At the time of its adoption, the self enforcing character of the section was not questioned by Jeff Davis' lawyer, who argued in court that it meant his client need not be criminally prosecuted to prevent him from running for president (a real fear at the time).
Mr. Miller, Dems have a big problem trying to "put taxes on the right people." Either tax increases are passed by Reconciliation and are therefore time-limited or they must get 60 votes in the Senate, which will never in the future of the fifty-state Republic happen.
The only answer to the freeloading "low-tax" retro-states is a National Divorce wherein the fourteen reliable peripheral and contiguous Blue states leave the Union and join Canada, if they agree.
(Sorry Colorado and New Mexico. There's just no way to connect to you. Arizona voting Democratic at the state level was just a passing fancy.)
It turns out that Abraham Lincoln was wrong about those "mystic cords of memory". The Red states are still Royalist Slavers and will never give up their degenerate mania to return to a class-based society.
And enforcing the federal law against the ongoing insurrection conducted by Trump, his administration, Republicans in Congress, and six justices on SCOTUS will enable justice including fixing 50 years of wealth theft by billionaires
Sorry, Bill, you are living in Fantasy land. It takes 60 votes in the Senate to raise taxes, and it took an economic meltdown to give Democrats that for just BARELY long enough to pass the ACA in 2009/10. They got wiped out in the midterms.
America is a low-tax, high-spend country, which I guess creates a very liquid bond market.
But NOBODY is advocating for the across-the-board tax increases -- and some cuts to pork -- necessary to bring receipts and expenditures into a minimal sense of balance (i.e. deficits no higher than the growth in constant dollar GDP over an economic cycle).
Richard
You obviously are not reading the clear specific words in my comment which say after winning in 2028 Democrats would enforce the law against insurrection to arrest convict and imprison Trump members of his administration ALL REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS AND SIX JUSTICES ON SCOTUS so the taxes can easily be changed because Democrats will have ALL votes in the Senate and the House and control SCOTUS and the WH. Fantasy land is your world which operates by rejecting the reality of what is actually said.
The Confederacy tried leaving the Union and lost - changing taxes is a lot easier than giving Trump an excuse for a military war - Democrats can win in 2028 and fix the cruel cost of living problems which are hurting red and blue states
I agree that he should not be limited. I wonder if Trump or people who report to him read Krugman, because I heard that Trump was raving about the word "affordability" and Krugman is doing a series on it.
I like that Krugman brings up the lack of empathy in this article. Andra Watkins, another substacker who is both an expert on Christian Nationalism and Project 2025, says that White Christian Nationalists are taught not to have empathy. If children display it they are punished. Then there is the segment that embrace the Prosperity Gospel popular in a lot of Pentecostal churches. That makes psychopathic people like Thiel and Musk very much like people in the Pentecostal church with a hatred for empathy and a worship of money.
When Substack was just starting up I was in a meeting with one of the founders of Wired magazine. His take on Substack was that it represented the future of publishing for current content.
Dr. Krugman’s columns show how that can be a reality. Legacy media serves a purpose but is too bound to commercial interests of those wanting to sell something to readers rather than deliver content.
Thank you for such a comprehensive overview of Mr. Krugman’s career and some perspective into his mindset. I do appreciate his insight and practical advice on all things economic policy and that leads into the political arena by nature. It is nice to have a bit of background filled in, so thank you.
In these times it is vitally important to be discerning about where, and from whom, we get our information. You have just added to the trust factor in my understanding of Krugman’s work and reporting. And yeah, considering the source he should wear the BUM comment from Trump as a badge of honor.
Wonderful writing, thank you!
Yes, the best comment EVER. Thank you, Prof. Krugman! It’s critically important now, more than ever.
And the subheading of today’s post is perfect:
“Sorry, but we don’t help the little people”
Empathy is for suckers...need to pull yourselves up by your boot straps, find a sugar daddy to financially propel you into political office, and then LOOT the tax payers funds! Nobody gives you anything...you have to legally STEAL it!
This a good column in itself
While we can all rejoice in the success of substack, particularly Krugman's contribution, we must also ask ourselves what this reflects: the failure of the Times, the Supreme Court and Congress, and, what Krugman's column is about, the failure of people to vote in their economic interests. But all of this reflects a bigger failure, the failure of Democratic leadership over the past 40 years.
The failure of too many Americans to pay attention, educate themselves and just plain give a damn.
Willful ignorance is the lifeblood of the Republican Party. Has been since 1968.
Yes, but I’m thinking also of folks who don’t even bother to vote. A different kind of ignorance.
I got a reprimanded once by the manager of a neighborhood jazz bar about hustling some of the kitchen dudes on break outside to vote. One had suffered a stroke after his wife left him, was on disability--but working under the table as a cook for cash presumably to keep his benefits? I guess the lesson was sometimes you have to be a little shady and avoid the man to keep what you have? To avoid a murdering thug finding him? I wonder how that's working out for him now.
The Democratic leadership failed, was asleep at the wheel, and aligned itself with Wall Street instead of main street. The Republican leadership also failed, bigly, by aligning itself with a moronic, psychopathic, narcissist bent on destroying everything of value built by anyone who wasn't him.
The Constitution also failed.
You should treat Trump’s hate as a badge of honor. It shows you are far more knowledgeable and credible than Trump could ever hope to be.
you can just call it 'common sense'
The problem with common sense is that it's usually neither.
The truth has a well known liberal bias.
Mr J Z: thank you, yours is the best reply ever. 👏
Sometimes the comments are as great as the article. This is a time!
I woke up this morning and immediately read Paul Krugman’s post. Then, I read this comment. Thank you both.
Was this from an article?
Lock them up for war crimes. Hegseth must be arrested and prosecuted in international court. We cannot allow Trump and Republicans to keep killing innocents: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/pete-hegseth-war-crime-venezuela
Hegseth was always a poseur, but he went to another level of pathetic when he denied giving the order and tried to pin it all on the admiral. What a coward! He built his whole brand on being willing to commit war crimes, but now the instant he's accused of one, he loses his nerve? If he had any integrity he would be owning it, and offering to take responsibility for any and all war crimes committed under him. He made it clear that he wanted his "Department of War" to ignore the old rules of engagement.
Sen Tammy Duckworth, a vet who sacrificed both legs in defense of this country, summed it up:
“Pete Hegseth is a f*cking liar. This is so clearly classified info he recklessly leaked that could’ve gotten our pilots killed. He needs to resign in disgrace immediately. “Hegseth and every other official who was included in this group chat must be subject to an independent investigation. If Republicans won’t join us in holding the Trump Administration accountable, then they are complicit in this dangerous and likely criminal breach of our national security.” https://www.duckworth.senate.gov/news/press-releases/duckworth-pete-hegseth-needs-to-resign-in-disgrace
I really like Tammy Duckworth. I was hoping she'd be Biden's running mate, but she's not a good public speaker.
And the Admiral who should never have followed Heg's order.
All the way down the line. The order should not have been given and no one should have followed it. Let everyone see Trump hanging the front line sailors out to dry
Every sailor who is hung out to dry will be a lesson to everyone else to stop following illegal orders and instead resist!
This is guaranteed. Trump always skates by.
Can the Sec. of Defense literally order a general or admiral? The secretary is a civilian. He can announce policies, but can he command a military officer to do anything? If the officer refuses to obey, is that insubordination in the military sense?
Especially where the US military's own war rulebook cites killing the shipwrecked as the textbook example of a war crime. Since we're not at war, that's simply murder. And everyone in the chain of command, down to the service member who pushed the button, should be liable for those murders.
Really poor timing to be asserting the defense of obeying orders with the new Nuremberg movie playing in theaters...
I agree with you 100%, but remember Trump has the Supreme Court behind him who will say he was committing his crimes while performing his duties as PWS (POTUS While Sleeping). Bradley will likely take the fall and Trump will pardon him. All will be well in international war crime world, because we no longer recognize the authority of the ICC.
Has the US ever recognized the authority of the ICC over its own military?
No, because the US never signed on to the ICC so it has no authority here.
The U.S. signed on, then signed off. But you're right, the ICC has no authority to come to the U.S. and arrest anyone, or extradite. The U.S. claimed the reason we withdrew from the ICC is that we had the ability to police ourselves effectively and didn't need outside authority. GW Bush was the POTUS who withdrew us. Conveniently.
True. But an indictment by thd ICC is an inconvenience. Participating countries are obligated to arrest any person indicted by the ICC who shows up within their boundaries.
But the Carribian is not within the US
I love him too and I everything you wrote in your comment.
Thank you
No, we must ship him to Venezuela to stand trial.
I'd rather he be convicted in an American court, but either would be fine.
Those who complain about “socialism” are fine with dumping their losses on the federal government, a la bank and insurance company bailouts. They only fuss and moan when they think government is impacting their profits.
In short, they privatize the gains and socialize the losses.
Check out reports from the city of Flint MI. They are giving a stipend of up to $7500 to new mothers since early this year. The program is already reaping benefits to this beleaguered city, so much so that other Michigan cities are thinking to adopt the program, and discussions are filtering to the state level.
Small investments can reap big rewards. Corporations look only at short term, governments can invest for decades ahead.
China has been reaping the rewards of its planning for the past two decades, while "expert" US analysts in industry, politics and finance have either been oblivious to their successes or called them transient. Meanwhile, the US electorate bounces between two very disparate parties in the White House.
China has brought hundreds of millions out of dirt poverty, has been grooming previously neglected countries for trade and investment ("belt and road"), is making a well-planned move on the global gold trade, is currently building and filling its own Strategic Petroleum Reserve to protect itself from political oil instability, is securing supply chains via strategic relationships, is building a big military machine, and is promoting production of "stuff" over the rent-seeking finance of the US/West.
All true, and China has a much more efficient governmental process, authoritarianism. All we have is messy democracy, the Bill of Rights, and a wealthy class that pays politicians to protect their offshore bank accounts and practices selfism while worshipping capitalism.
The US Constitution (including the Bill of Rights), besides being archaic, is dead in the water. None of the three branches are following it, and it isn't really a national constitution if it only applies when Dems are in office.
The central problem with democracies are that there is no value given to being well-informed. In the US, Murdoch and Bezos and Sullivan and the likes of Joe Rogan are programming the electorate with disinformation.
Legal/judicial systems are also based on an old, grossly flawed model of human cognition (e.g., asking jurors if they can be impartial, and jurors thinking/pretending that they can be).
Thank you for telling us about that. I’m guessing there are scores of similar examples we never hear about.
That’s what was said already in 2009 when Obama was forced to bail them out.
At the time there would have been another way: to reschedule the subprime mortgages at a manageable interest rate for the defaulting borrowers (the principle of « rebus sic stantibus »- conditionality of circumstances remaining the same instead of the short-sighted « pacta sunt servanda » that doesn’t let terms being adjusted). Then the banks would have been able to clean their junk bonds and people would have kept their homes. But the Treasury Secretary (herited from the Bush Administration) didn’t want to hear about it. The rest in known: Obama’s Administration spent the next 7 years cleaning the mess and restarting the economy.
FEMA established 1979. Reagan assumes office, slow-walks the setting up of the agency. George H.W. Bush continues Reagan's neglect of FEMA. Then Hurricane Andrew hits southeast Florida. More than a decade of neglect and mismanagement results in FEMA being incapable of responding. This was part of what cost Bush the Smarter re-election.
Clinton came in, appointed someone to head FEMA who was actually trained in emergency management, and provided the budget and priority to get FEMA operating properly.
Bush the Lesser became president, and FEMA once again fell to neglect. When Katrina hit New Orleans, FEMA was incapable of responding as its head, Michael Brown, had no clue what he or the agency should be doing.
Obama came in, appointed someone to head FEMA who was actually trained . . .
Are we seeing a pattern here?
That pattern can be applied to A LOT more than just FEMA.
The pattern seems to be that the oblivious vote against their self-interest
The GOP insists that government is wasteful and inept, and they prove it every time they get the chance.
Indeed this isn't new, unfortunately. May be worse, but not new (the lack of response). Katrina victims would agree.
Let’s be clear. Trump doesn’t even know wha is going on. This is project 2025, full stop. The people “running” the government are billionaires and toadies that are all working to serve the billionaires.
Trump is a figurehead for Project 2025. As soon as he's no longer needed, they'll toss him under the bus.
Ah, but there's a catch. Trumpkopf is indeed just a figurehead, as far as Miller and Vought are concerned, but he is also the sole leader/messiah of the MAGA cult. Without him, the cult falls back into its previous disarray, and the P2025 crew lose their power.
Point! Assuming a Big Mac finally does him in, that leaves Vance (aka Captain No Charisma) as leader.
Right now, Trump is all that's holding them together and they know it. I think the Tech Bros will get thrown under the bus by the Christian Nationalists when Trump gets so far out in left field that his base deserts him.
I'd be glad to see then smacked down, but the Christian Nationalists are exemplified by Pete Hegseth. Arrogance, ignorance, dominance displays.
Yup.
Right?? Seeing increasing shots of him falling asleep in his seat.
Trump’s frontotemporal dementia is getting worse, while Russell Vought and Stephen Miller are pulling his strings to get whatever they want from Trump. Also, no voters ever gave their consent to a private billionaire funded foundation to decide for the citizens what sort of government we should have. I see the potential for a significant amount of violent resistance if the Heritage Foundation continues to foist its theocratic and plutocratic agenda upon the rest of us.
I would hope so, but they have accomplished a lot of their objectives. Congress is largely complicit.
True, they rolled over for Trump and played dead.
Well, he spends all night every night posting insanity on Trump Social (or whatever it calls itself). If you're up all night, people can't expect you to stay awake during the day.
More of his man baby activities. Cant self regulate to have a normal schedule so to be prepared for responsibilities. Normal humans who like to keep their job and perform well at work get adequate rest.
It has been said time and again about Trump and his administration(s): the cruelty is the point. He is right about one thing - he will likely burn in hell
There is an underlying psychopathy in modern conservatism in that its adherents want to make other people suffer because they ENJOY watching other people suffer.
Remember when conservatism was "I've made mine; feel free to make yours"? Now it's "I've made mine, I'm coming for yours, and if you're not suffering, I'm not happy"?
I can't disagree with you. I have known and reflected on the makeup of various families over my 71 years, and I am coming to think that the lack of empathy we see in some Conservatives and most Libertarians is actually a heritable (genetic) trait. I am just not sure what to do with the knowledge. It seems that producing a fair, ethical, and beneficial society is a laudable goal. But these people are absolutely a destabilizing influence on such a society. Some days I think we might be able to coerce them into behaving better and other days I think we should just split into Red and Blue nations and be rid of them.
Social controls used to work. For almost half a century, it was not acceptable to be openly racist. But that social control is falling apart under direct assault from Trump.
I'd like to see that sort of control come back into vogue.
The jaguars will, in time, begin eating themselves.
As long as State Television tells them all day, every day that they don't have to be ashamed of their racism and (Dickensian) meanness, It won't happen.
It was certainly acceptable in Atlanta and surrounding counties when I lived there in the '70s.
When I went to Georgia Tech in the late '70s, I was astonished to walk past Lester Maddox's Real Estate office while wandering not far from campus.
Right. The souvenir shops in Underground Atlanta were still selling Maddox axe handles back then.
Psychopathy is hereditary. We can see it passed from Fred to Donald. A genomic study of psychopaths could prove interesting.
Per Mary Trump, Fred actively encouraged and promoted Donald's bullying and greed.
There was a book which came out before tRump 1 called 'The Republican Brain'. I have it on my reread list.
I think we could use some PET scans and fMRI's to compare them with normal brains!
Which has been done. And, yes, there are observable differences, enough that psychopathy can be predicted with high accuracy from scans. Trump's doctors likely have made the diagnosis.
As mentioned, some studies have been done in an effort to reduce violence and violent tendencies. It apparently is possible to retrain the brain but it must be a conscious effort. Read "Unforgiving Places" by Ludwig.
Ordered it.
It is not at all PC, but I'd love to see it.
Well one way is to stop attempting to rescue them? If West Virginia votes seventeen times to retain its downward decline and repudiate a helping hand, what's the point of going on? It's like trying to rescue some alcoholic relative with a fatty liver.
If Democrats stopped trying to rescue Kentucky ACA subsidies and started to draw a line on civil rights and labor rights, it might be a better use of its time.
Democrats don't like to see people suffer, but I am rapidly getting to the point where I think we should say our piece and step back and let folks see for themselves the price for following the anti-empathetic rethugs.
The family of Stephen Miller (aka Goebbels) warned us about him early on.
Mary Trump's description of Donald's relationship with his father, who praised and encouraged Donnie's greed and rapacity, shows that DJT was unlike her own father (Fred, Jr.) in that way.
As for Libertarians, I think a lot of them have been converted by the self-delusion that being materially successful means they're smart and superior.
I call the Libertarian Party, the Naive Party. They are truly naive in the practical ways of the World. Like most extremist philosophies such as libertarianism and communism, they are nice ideas and appealing as long as EVERYONE behaves as expected. Unfortunately the World does not work that way. Libertarianism expects everyone to have personal integrity, meaning behaving properly and responsibly. I have never seen a libertarian behave that way.
I suppose you don't appreciate Ayn Rand, a remarkable person who not only gave birth to herself but built the building she was born in.
You are correct. I had to read "Altas Shrugged" in high school fifty years ago and found it tedious, simplistic, and stereotypical. It did not show her in a good light then and the more I learned about her it just reinforced my opinion of her.
If the gene complex causing the behavior can actually be identified, it should be used to select the lucky people who will lead the Terraforming of Mars.
Your fare discount can be the same percentage as the percentage that your set of allele of the panel of SNP's that determine the psychosis matches the full FreeBird expression.
If you're just a bit on this particular "spectrum" you only get a small break on the fare. If you match it all, you fly free!
Props to you for the Orwell quote.
Hell may not want him!
Satan probably is afraid that DonnyJon will take over.
Excellent observation!
Besides social darwinism and plain cruelty, it also seems like an extension of the same psychology as using a government shutdown or a debt ceiling crisis to gain political leverage.
These days, when government is gridlocked (almost always), or your party is in the minority, or you are fighting a culture war that you believe must be won at any cost, then any source of leverage is considered fair game. Including disaster relief.
Prof Krugman. Scientists and Doctors have sleepless nights these days thinking about what would happen if a new pandemic comes in this regime. We were fortunate that last pandemic was not so deadly as it *only* killed 1 Million Americans. Trump regime's pandemic response was an obscene clown show. Boy do we miss those daily press conferences by Trump.
BTW, Prof. Please don't just talk about bad things. Now start proposing some solutions. America need reforms in its political and economic system. We need a political system that must stop madman like Trump in coming to power. We need to dismantle enshittified monopolies. We need political system where competent people (like you, like Peter Hotez, like Bandy Lee etc etc) come to power. We need a system of competent people that understand this world.
So start proposing reforms. Bring some new ideas into public discourse Professor. Otherwise, what's the point of all the doom talk?
Saw on the news last night that a one of the flu viruses is showing a mutation which could lead to a rough flu season this year.
Concerns over falling flu vaccination rates are bring noted by epidemiologists ... noting last year was also bad ... over 600 children died of flu. I was shocked and saddened.
Get your flu shot, get your kids a flu shot if you have not already done so ... it is not too late and most pharmacies are giving cash and rebates to get them.
Aye, get the influenza shot every year.
COVID-19 is still circulating, so get the latest vaccine for that.
Most adults are overdue for their Tdap booster (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) every ten years.
Got all of those to protect my grand kids ...and don't forget measles.
Most of us only got one shot, we need two ... plus 1964 ... bad batch. When I got my booster in 1988, also a bad batch, got it again this year.
Note to self: Avoid measles vaccines in years that JB gets them.
Got both of those a couple months back. I need to check the date on my "granny shot" - thanks for the reminder.
Sanjeev One of the first reforms that should be implemented is the ABOLITION OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE. It’s not normal that Trump won his first term while Clinton had 3 million more votes !
It’s not normal that the « winner takes all » applies to the electoral college. This system gives a distorted view of the election because a few votes can flip a state (remember Trump begging « give me 11 thousand votes » in Georgia ?
The second big reform would be to establish healthcare for everyone like in Japan and Europe and Canada.
Thirdly, the disinformation campaigns on vaccines and pandemic dangers should be severely punished, and a minimum of vaccination made compulsory. I don’t know how many children will have to die before Americans will realize how counterproductive this MAGA/R. F. Kennedy Jr propaganda is.
If you do away with the EC what do you do if the NPV comes in within a quarter percent? The states whose governor and secretary of state are of the party which is ahead will simply refuse to recount. And Bush v. Gore established a pretty clear precedent that such an imbalance would not be allowed.
No, the sane thing is to mandate that a state's EV's be allocated in a way such that the votes as closely as possible match the percentages of the votes in the state.
Yes,this keeps the "Small State Advantage", but there are enough small states that are "Blue" that it wouldn't be a deal-breaker.
Republicans in California would get a voice, as would Democrats in Texas. But 'swing" states wouldn't be the determinants they are now. EVERY state, even the 3 EV ones would be a swing state.
Enjoying all other kinds of misinformation won't help
On just about every political forum I've encountered, we've had reforms proposed out the wazoo.
More often than not, "new ideas" are pointless if—like old solutions proposed in the past—there's no way to implement them. Forget the politicians in government for a moment and consider how they got there: The chosen media of the electorate.
Street protests just remind us that caring people don't like what's going on, while billionaires cave to Trump. Short of taking up arms (which civilized people don't have the background and temperament to carry out), I don't know how to de-Trump the government.
How some politicians got there is through the opening Citizens United gave the kleptocrats.
Another gift from the Heritage Foundation SCOTUS justices.
Appreciate your bigotry Jess. Thanks
Actually I do sound like a bigot after hearing Trump say the same thing about Sudanese immigrants. I'm not angry at you, the person. I am angry at our government for not doing better by the people who are already here.
After writing what I wrote, I thought about my own situation and how the lack of financial support of schools impacted my own life. I'm in my late 60s. I got into a good PhD program in psychology in Palo Alto, California when I was 28. It was a private school and the tuition was high, completing the program probably would have run to $100k or more. So I dropped it. I'm sure there were many more like me. How many people went untrained because people didn't want to burden themselves with debt that could very well cripple them for life? That's a loss to the well being of our country. Destroying the ability to get a higher education by pulling government funds or making education prohibitively expensive except for the rich or foolhardy certainly didn't help us.
For your information Jess. I do not live in America. I live in India. I have not stolen any employment opportunity or any welfare benefit from any native American. 🙏
I know failures of my Govt (India). I do public policy analysis of India and have done an extensive critique of my government. I write this analysis on my two blogs and also prescribe some solutions. I don't have a big outreach but I do what I can. I have written more than 50 articles on India's problems which are collectively published on both my blogs.
Regarding inequality from global perspective, I recently wrote this article.
https://3rdworldecon.substack.com/p/late-stage-capitalism-and-inequality
thank you. I'll read.
"You're needed in your own country more than here."
That's some of the vilest comment I've read on Substack. Why you would say something like this?
Why day such things? Because cruelty is the point.
not really.
I hope you find peace Jess. Your anger is misplaced on Indians. I don't know what hurt you but Indians have nothing to do with it. Best regards.
Of course, the problem is that certain parts of the country — TX, LA, and FL in particular — account for a disproportionate share of natural disaster costs. How do we help people in need after a disaster and not create incentives for excessive development in risky areas?
Very simple : rule of law that forbids development in risky areas and recurrent controls. Of course local bribery and corruption is not always preventable…
Trump’s answer in his first maladministration was to make governors come groveling to him for aid. He wanted to help only those areas where the voters had supported him, which was never intended to determine whether citizens should receive aid. He treated Puerto Ricans with contempt and disrespect by lobbing rolls of paper towels at them, and then refused to help the Commonwealth because of his stupid feud with the mayor of San Juan.
Yes indeed .. but the problem is people don’t buy flood insurance and then after they are wiped out the politicians say “no one could have predicted this and we need Washington to give us money to rebuild (so it can happen again in 10-20 years …
If you are purchasing a home in a flood zone, the mortgage requires purchase of flood insurance. The problem is climate change and flooding becoming more severe and unexpected ... like the one in Texas that took so many lives.
The flood in Texas occurred due to specific soil and hydrological conditions peculiar to the Texas Hill Country. The Guadalupe River runs through an area where there are hills of arid soil. The soil does not absorb water when it rains, and when it rains there, the rainwater runs directly down into the river and causes it to flood. The area there is often prone to flood.
As for the tragic deaths at Camp Mystic, these occurred because the camp owners made a fatal error in building in a known flood plain close to the Guadalupe River. If the owners ever decide to rebuild Camp Mystic, they should be required to build it in an area which is far enough from the flood plain to prevent campers and staff from being caught in a flash flood.
We aren’t going to agree in that one. The problem is development and growth in coastal areas, not climate change per se. Study some hurricane history.
There are many problems with developing coastal areas. But global warming is a big one, and it does not help that one political party still denies that it is happening.
If you study tidal gauge records — Battery Park New York for example — you see a 200 year linear trend upwards. This confirms that sea levels are rising, but they are not rising at an accelerating rate. Why is this? It is because we are in an interglacial period that began about 12,000 years ago … while there may be some effect from rising GHG levels, it is not the main cause or even a major factor
It is certainly possible to have both elements. After all sea level rise will impact area long settled like Louisiana.
My house is well above the 100-year flood line, and the last quote I got for flood insurance was prohibitively expensive, more than my homeowner's policy. I can't imagine how much the premium is if you live in or near a flood plain.
Agree … so it’s a cost we all must bear
So you are backing off from your statement "the problem is people don’t buy flood insurance", and replacing it with "the problem is that so many people are poor"?
It’s a complicated problem. I have more sympathy for people who are stuck in a risky area than Northeasterners who build expensive second homes on the shoreline, establish Florida residency,and decide to go bare because it’s too expensive … and then ask for a bailout
One misstatement: “Trump tried, unsuccessfully, to withhold wildfire aid from California unless it adopted voter ID.”
He has successfully withheld aid. Of the $40B requested (and much of it approved by Biden in the immediate aftermath), $2B has been released, n. Gavin Newsom is in DC now trying to get Congress to act on relief. The Trump administration is actively withholding federal aid.
Tracy, thank you for that clarification.
Insuring citizens against disasters should have come at a cost but laissez-faire individualism got in the way. The cost should have been regulation, such as disallowing irresponsible development and development in areas that were guaranteed to suffer repeated catastrophes. But we couldn't do that because private, especially monied, interests always had to be appeased.
We aren't even in the ballpark on anything anymore. We needed more government, not less. We needed more public lands, more public transportation, strict controls on resource usage and allocation and so on. Externalities, economic bad karma, are catching up with us in an unprecedented way, the result of irresponsible living the benefits of which weren't even spread around.
Soil conservation? Do we realize how unbelievably stupid it is to not practice something that obviously good? The consequences are irreversible. Much of the insanity can only be counteracted by throwing more resources at problems. Step back and any reasonable person sees it's insane, which is why the rich want us buried in a struggle for survival in the midst of inconceivable wealth.
So we can't step back, catch our breath and ask what the hell are we doing. They own the media and increasingly our private information. Americans have voted themselves into servitude and non-voting social status. Paul, I wish you would go hard on externalities. Looking at it is discouraging but we need a revolution in favor of responsible living and we're doing just the opposite.
I'm about out of patience with these Tech Broligarch weirdos. Who's there with their hand out wanting trillion dollar pre-approved Federal bailout money? These "rugged libertarians" are quick to start whining every time China releases a free open source AI model that threatens their monopoly. And they want the rest of us to pay for their electric bills. It's a little hard to take them seriously.
Yup, they need to move to that island and make their own paradise well away from the rest of us.
“Prospera”, the little libertarian island in Honduras? Maybe Musk and Thiel et alia could all move there and “ make Central America great again”.
Here is the perplexing thing. They will continue vote for this ideology that is indifferent to their suffering while saying they feel looked down upon by liberal elites who are more likely to help them.
Hard to say, we're all pissed off in southeast Michigan because DTE is now asking for a rate increase to fund the coal fired behemoth Trump is forcing them to keep open among other things.
The UP is pissed off because winter is here and they still have no relief from last year's storm damage to their infrastructure and they are freezing their assessment off on the home ground of the Michigan Militia ... remember them? Oklahoma?
That's pretty much IT. That is exactly the cultural, electoral divide that Democrats need to somehow bridge across.
I have never and will never understand why voters in this country, particularly in the South and parts of the Midwest continually vote against their own best interests. While polls are showing a growing disenchantment with Trump and his cruelty I’m not so sure that will translate to votes in these places. Democrats are jumping for joy that a Democrat lost the special election in Tennessee by only 10 points. That is considered progress? As Pogo once said, “we have met the enemy and he is us.”
This... people thrilled that "only" 40% of our voting adults support fascism, the destruction of our democracy, institutionalized cruelty, oligarchy, and the wholesale plundering of our treasury. "Only 40% are cool with that" isn't exactly heartening. I'm never as thrilled that the numbers are shifting as everyone wants me to be. It's always HOW are so many still supporting this insanity? HOW can anyone want to live in this chaos and blatant corruption? I know the answer to that question broadly, but it's so damn depressing. Our culture is diseased that so many people here revel in the darkness this regime represents. And you'll never convince me they "don't know" what they're supporting. They DO know. Watching Fox News and OAN and Newsmax every day is a CHOICE. They choose to swim in that sewage and to cheer on videos of Noam's brownshirts beating on poor brown people and women dying from not getting medical care. There are simply too many morally bankrupt and outright bad people in the United States, and our culture rewards those people.
Very true and very sad.
Hatred junkies.
It’s all very well saying Trump, the techbros or the rich lack empathy. Yet it is a sad thing that such a lack is now endemic throughout wealthy societies. The folk in Michigan may turn against Trump because they were not helped, but they certainly disliked anyone else getting assistance for any troubles they may experience.
You see it generally. In the UK moaning about the rich not helping the poor enough, yet at the same time hatred by the moaners slung at wretched migrants for taking ‘our’ money as well as calls to reduce international aid. Plenty of other examples of such thinking.
Boy, Paul, you totally nailed it.
I have inlaws in Michigan and early into the relationship I was astounded at how 'conservative' they are. Good union members, also very racist and very 'I've got mine, and screw you'. I still haven't squared that circle!
It is odd isn't it? It gets worse the farther you move from the cities, while more urban areas are quite progressive.
There's a terrific book about the 1927 floods entitled "Rising Tide" The author describes the shocking indifference of government to the plight of Black Americans affected by that disaster, and posits that the 1927 flood was one of the events that led to the "Great Migration" of those Black flood victims to northern industrial states.
One hopes that victims of current day disasters, who may not be able to "vote with their feet" and leave their homes and states, will express their anger and despair by simply voting, and for their own best interests.
Not much has changed since 1927 for non whites living in the US.
Indeed a terrific book by John Barry. Interesting sidenote: The book notes that Herbert Hoover got a boost to his presidential aspirations because of the reputation he got by successfully managing the Red Cross help effort. When I taught about fairness in economics, I always pointed to the 1927 Flood as when the general population began to think the government should help disaster victims. It's a short step from there to thinking the government should help with economic disasters as well, e.g., the Great Depression.
I learned the same about Hoover when I visited his presidential library/home in Iowa, many years ago.