March 28, 2024
 
Many “experts” expected, predicted and warned of instant economic disaster under a Donald Trump presidency. But a funny thing happened on our way to economic oblivion. The economy took off.

Former President Barack Obama presided over the worst economic recovery since 1949. He became the first president to preside over a recovery without at least one year of gross domestic product growth at 3 percent or better. Last year, under President Trump, the economy hit 3 percent GDP growth. And despite the predictions of an economic slowdown at the beginning of this year, the economy, according to the advance estimate by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, showed a healthy 3.2 percent GDP growth the first quarter.

Economist Paul Krugman, with his column in The New York Times and appearances on cable, is one of the nation’s most widely read and influential economists. How wrong was Krugman? He predicted Trump would cause a “recession.” Just hours after the 2016 presidential election, he called Trump “the mother of all adverse effects.” Krugman wrote:

“The disaster for America and the world has so many aspects that the economic ramifications are way down my list of things to fear.

“Still, I guess people want an answer: If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.

“Under any circumstances, putting an irresponsible, ignorant man who takes his advice from all the wrong people in charge of the nation with the world’s most important economy would be very bad news. What makes it especially bad right now, however, is the fundamentally fragile state much of the world is still in. …

“Now comes the mother of all adverse effects — and what it brings with it is a regime that will be ignorant of economic policy and hostile to any effort to make it work. …

“So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight. I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened.”

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"Paul Krugman at the WKF2012 in Seoul" by Marc_Smith is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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