So, I was too busy to comment on the jobs numbers this AM. But let's step back: you should see where we are in the context of Trump's decision, back in April, to stop fighting the virus and in fact bully states into relaxing restrictions 1/
This was supposed to lead to rapid economic recovery; in fact, after a few months the recovery slowed and has now effectively stalled, with the US still ~10 million jobs down 2/
Meanwhile, the virus was supposed to go away; instead, 200,000 more people have died, with high likelihood that another 100,000 or more will die before Trump leaves office 3/
The truly terrifying thing is that millions of people think that Trump was a great president, and that zombie Hugo Chavez stole his much-deserved reelection 4/

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More from @paulkrugman

4 Dec
I write about debt; couldn't resist the Strangelove reference 1/ nytimes.com/2020/12/03/opi…
Now, many people will surely start waving around frightening-looking projections, like those of the CBO 2/ cbo.gov/publication/56…
But while I respect CBO's integrity, those long-run debt projections are much more questionable than people probably realize. Realistic projections, I (and many sensible economists) argue, are much less alarming 3/
Read 10 tweets
2 Dec
More on fiscal issues: once Biden is in office, expect Rs to wave around a lot of charts purporting to show a dangerous long-run debt trajectory. And to be fair, long-term CBO projections show a big rise in debt 1/
But what's driving those projections? Mainly it's rising interest costs — which in turn are driven largely by the assumption that rates will rise a lot 2/
But as Furman and Summers point out, CBO has consistently projected big rate increases that haven't happened 3/ piie.com/system/files/d…
Read 6 tweets
28 Nov
This is going to be a very dark and tragic winter — especially tragic because so many Americans are going to die unnecessarily 1/ nytimes.com/2020/11/27/hea…
We've known since the early days of the pandemic that it was crucial to flatten the curve to avoid overloading the health care system 2/ nytimes.com/article/flatte…
And the case for flattening the curve is especially strong now that we know that a vaccine is on the way: at this point an infection postponed for a few months may well be an infection avoided 3/
Read 4 tweets
27 Nov
So Trump lost, but we're still talking about why so many people voted for him. And story seems to be that millions thought "We feel disrespected by liberal elites, who think we're stupid. So we're going to own them by ... 1/
voting for a corrupt, dishonest, incompetent guy who barely conceals his contempt for his own supporters." I honestly have no idea how we're supposed to deal with this 2/
To say that many Trump supporters basically engaged in a massive self-own sounds condescending; yet what could be more condescending than pretending that this isn't exactly what happened? 3/
Read 5 tweets
26 Nov
The first major decision from the Trump-packed court — and, naturally, it will kill people 1/ nytimes.com/2020/11/26/us/…
The bad logic is obvious. Suppose I adhere to a religion whose rituals include dumping neurotoxins into public reservoirs. Does the principle of religious freedom give me the right to do that? 2/
Freedom of belief, yes; the right to hurt other people in tangible ways — which large gatherings in a pandemic definitely do — no. 3/
Read 4 tweets
26 Nov
And now for something almost completely different: Max Roser has a beautiful post about the Black Death. And no, that's not a contradiction 1/ ourworldindata.org/breaking-the-m…
Roser points out and documents something I've often said, but with much less data: Malthus was right! That is, until roughly a century before he wrote, the pressure of population on land always drove living standards to the edge of subsistence 2/
There were probably interludes when this wasn't true — the economy of ancient Rome may have temporarily broken out of the Malthusian trap, with productivity rising along with population 3/ books.google.com/books/about/Th…
Read 6 tweets

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