One of my favorite pastimes here at PJ Media is poking fun at New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. The man has made a career out of being spectacularly wrong, time and again, and pointing it out is always good for a laugh.
Why does anyone still listen to him? At this point, he seems more famous for his blunders than for his supposed expertise. In 1998, he predicted that the Internet’s economic impact would be no greater than the fax machine’s. Wrong. On Bitcoin, he’s consistently off the mark, with Reason magazine noting his commentary has been “misguided, uninformed, or just plain wrong.”
In 2010, Krugman praised Europe’s social democratic model, right before it plunged into a debt crisis. He predicted that Trump’s presidency would trigger a “global recession with no end in sight”—it didn’t. And in 2020, he promised an economic boom under Biden while dismissing inflation concerns. Four years and skyrocketing prices later, we’re still waiting.
Once again, after Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, he predicted economic doom and even said that Trump will take credit for Joe Biden’s economic successes over the past four years.
I’ll give you a minute to finish laughing.
Rather than admit his errors, Krugman always seems to double down, bizarrely claiming success where none exists.
Recommended: Let's Laugh At Tim Walz Before Everyone Forgets Who He Is
Sadly, we don’t have much time left before we won’t get to make fun of him anymore—at least, not as much. On Friday, the New York Times announced that the Nobel Prize-winning economist will be retiring from the paper after 25 years.
And the announcement, written by NYT opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury, is just as delusional as Krugman.
“Beginnings are always difficult, as Paul said, and so are endings. I’m writing to let you know that he has decided to retire from The Times at the end of the year,” she wrote. “He plans to write a final column soon — though he will forever be a friend of Opinion.”
Kathleen Kingsbury’s tribute to Paul Krugman in the New York Times reads more like an obligatory lap around the track of liberal nostalgia than a balanced assessment of his tenure. The piece gushes with praise for Krugman’s “lonely voice arguing unfashionable positions,” even though, as I previously pointed out, he seems to have been competing with Jim Cramer for the most bad predictions.
Kingsbury glosses over Krugman's failed prophecies, focusing more on his rabid left-wing bandwagoning than anything else.
Kingsbury touted Krugman’s “principled” criticism of George W. Bush, including Bush’s tax cuts and efforts to privatize Social Security. Of course, no celebration of Krugman would be complete without his endless harping on Trump. Kingsbury notes how Krugman warned of Trump’s “radical harm” to the economy, specifically his tariff plans, ending his critique with a smug “Pros: I can’t think of any.” Remember, is the same man who predicted Trump’s election in 2016 would trigger a global recession—and it didn’t.
I suspect Tim Walz was a better football coach than Krugman was an economist.
Kingsbury’s send-off amounts to a cheerleader’s ovation for a player who fumbled more often than scored, all while refusing to acknowledge his glaring blind spots. It’s a participation trophy at best.
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