Thread by @paulkrugman

As inflation persists, progressive politicians and the Biden administration have been condemning corporations for abusing their market power to raise prices — leading to a barrage of criticism from center-left economists and commentators. And I'm puzzled about the vehemence 1/

Let's stipulate two things. 1. Monopoly is a real issue and problem in the US economy. 2. It is not, however, a major reason for the acceleration of inflation in 2021, nor can a crackdown on monopoly do a lot to bring inflation down. But what does that tell us? 2/

It would be cause for alarm if the Biden administration were planning to use attacks on corporate greed as its principal inflation-fighting strategy, or proposing to act irresponsibly. But it isn't 3/

For the most part, taming inflation is now up to the Fed, and there's no hint that this administration (unlike Trump's!) will try to deter the Fed from raising rates if it chooses. Supply-chain measures may also help, and are continuing 4/

Nor is there any indication that anyone in the admin is considering Nixon-style price controls. In fact, I see no hint that we'll see anything even as aggressive as JFK's (successful) jawboning on steel prices 5/ jfklibrary.org/archives/other…

So why come down so hard on rhetoric that won't do any economic harm and might do (a bit of) good? The pundit response here seems wildly disproportionate to the policy reality 6/

I mean, aren't we at least curious about what's happening here? 7/