Paul Krugman

“What strikes me, looking back, is how optimistic many people, both here and in much of the Western world, were back then and the extent to which that optimism has been replaced by anger and resentment.” So wrote New York Times columnist and Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman in his last column for the former paper of record on December 9. After twenty-five years of gaslighting the reading public with one egregiously false prognostication after another, on December 6 New York Times opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury announced that seventy-one-year-old Krugman was stepping down. Alas, he says he will continue to weigh in on social and economic issues in other media.

Cockburn has enjoyed giving teasing liberal opinion leaders for their limitless ability to engage in political projection. But even his patience is wearing thin after the latest atrocity inflicted upon the New York Times opinion page by economist and professional irritant Paul Krugman. Krugman’s latest column, published Monday evening, asks how the coming Biden administration will ever possibly cope with the unprecedented idea of having an opposing party with political disagreements. ‘When Joe Biden is inaugurated, he will immediately be confronted with an unprecedented challenge... he’ll be the first modern US president trying to govern in the face of an opposition that refuses to accept his legitimacy.