Jon Chait looks at Paul Krugman's case that the economy is actually doing great. Some of the problem - and I'm surprised that Chait didn't go there, because he loves to go there - is that if you are a left wing activist, there is absolutely no yield in arguing that things are good. Chait quotes a few left of left of center people who make the case that the American economy (which is inarguably the strongest in the world right now) is always broken. Liberal economics is fundamentally bad and can never be good.
I do think that inflation is such a long-ago phenomenon that most people simply can't recall what it was like and therefore that the current spike really wasn't all that bad. That inflationary spike was not unique to the US, as it was caused by supply issues surrounding the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. The problem is that inflation is a feedback loop. Prices rise, labor is tight so wages rise, so spending keeps pace and price keep rising, albeit at 3%, not 7%.
Where it gets really interesting is at the end when Chait notes that people's opinion of their OWN economic situation is pretty good. Consumer confidence and spending are pretty robust. People think that their own economic situation is sound, but that the economy as a whole is shitty. Some of this is negative polarization, as no Republican is going to say the economy is good with a Democratic president. The other factor is the Eeyore disposition of the American Left.
It does seem like we are starting to see opinions of the economy change. I'd love to see more Biden ads reminding people of what 2020 was actually like and that it happened under Trump. That seems self-evident, but it is precisely that sort of amnesia that has people saying the economy was better under Trump.
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