Thoughts on Josh Hawley: One thing we should have learned long ago is that politicians' character extends across multiple issues. I realized that Bush etc were lying about Iraq bc the selling of the war sounded just like the lies used to sell tax cuts 1/
Until now the most striking thing about Hawley was the way he lied about health care — pretending to support protection for pre-existing conditions while actually trying to destroy it 2/
This may have seemed like a wonkish argument, although if he had actually gotten his way it would have ruined the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans. But it also told you who he was 3/
It's good that some of his former backers now realize that he's a monster. But he always was — and it was always obvious 4/

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More from @paulkrugman

1 Jan
This was a good post, and the Pozen-
Scheppele paper it relies on is eye-opening (Kim was my office neighbor at Princeton, and posted about Hungary on my blog). But I think there's more to add 1/
The P-S paper doesn't exactly explain why authoritarians like Trump and Bolsonaro have refused to deal with Covid; it suggests that they might have various reasons, and that their belief that they can deny reality empowers them to refuse action 2/ papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
This is clearly right. But I might somewhat speculatively add one specific reason why authoritarians don't want to deal with disasters: a punitive mindset. That is, people like Trump get satisfaction from hurting people, not helping them. 3/
Read 4 tweets
31 Dec 20
Tis the time to be thinking about the future, and one big question beyond 2021 is the prospects for technology. For background, here's the BLS measure of multifactor productivity — how economists (try to) measure the overall level of technology 1/
You can see the big slowdown beginning around 1973, the decade of IT-led growth from 1995 to 2005, and the Great Stagnation since then — when we were promised flying cars but got 280 characters instead (good line, even if Peter Thiel is loathsome) 2/
For what it's worth, I'm tentatively on the side of the techno-optimists 3/ noahpinion.substack.com/p/techno-optim…
Read 5 tweets
30 Dec 20
So John Lott and Peter Navarro say that there was massive voter fraud, and Trump actually won. I'm sure that Mary Rosh and Ron Vara agree 1/
For those who don't know what I'm talking about, Lott was previously best known for fraudulent studies purporting to show that widespread ownership of firearms reduces crime — and also for glowing testimonials to his teaching by a former student named Mary Rosh ... 2/
who didn't actually exist and was in fact Lott himself 3/ archive.thinkprogress.org/debunking-john…
Read 5 tweets
29 Dec 20
The proposal for $2000 stimulus checks is divisive, and not along simple left-right lines. Lots of disagreement among progressives, with people like Bernie Sanders very pro but many others not on board. Both sides have a point 1/
My take: the economics aren't very good, but the political economy may make such checks necessary 2/ nytimes.com/2020/12/17/opi…
The key economic argument, which @crampell picks up on, is that given a slump that has affected people very unevenly, aid should concentrate on those actually suffering 3/ washingtonpost.com/opinions/2000-…
Read 9 tweets
27 Dec 20
Why has Trump apparently blown up the economic relief deal? I don't care, and neither should anyone else. In 24 days we can stop worrying about this terrible person's motives, and focus on the GOP backed him all the way. But there are more interesting questions 1/
One is whether $2K for most Americans is a good idea. Even some Democrats, notably Larry Summers, don't think so 2/ bloomberg.com/news/videos/20…
LS should always be listened to, but I think he's wrong here. I agree that across-the-board checks are not an ideal policy — much better to extend enhanced unemployment benefits until the economy recovers — but that's not politically on the table 3/
Read 10 tweets
24 Dec 20
OK, so we're apparently getting more or less a UK-EU free trade area for goods, although service trade will de facto face new protective barriers 1/ nytimes.com/2020/12/24/bus…
This is better than no deal, although tariffs were never the important issue; the serious costs of Brexit were always going to come from red tape and border checks, which are impossible to avoid unless you have a full customs union 2/ nytimes.com/2018/07/10/opi…
Wrong to be apocalyptic here: traffic flows pretty smoothly at the border between the US and Canada, even though we only have a free trade area. But there will be some costs — probably highest in the next few months, when business is still adjusting 3/
Read 6 tweets

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