Paul Krugman: How Stone-Faced Generals, Wall Street Pushback, and Government Shutdown May Save America's Quickly Declining Democracy

©iStock/lineartestpilot

Paul Krugman says, "If America still had a fully functioning democracy, Donald Trump’s speech Tuesday (9/30/25) to the assembled generals would have ended his presidency. Trump treated the event like a political rally and was clearly taken aback by the refusal of the audience to applaud or laugh at his jokes. Delivering a nakedly partisan speech to a mandated assembly of military officers was a gross violation of the Hatch Act. The content – telling the officers to be ready to use force against U.S. citizens – was clearly an impeachable offense. In an earlier era, Trump’s incoherent ranting would have paved the way for his immediate removal from office under the 25th Amendment."

Read more from Krugman.

What Would a One-Party America Look Like?

©iStock/Creative_Outlet

Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 for The New York Times and is also a distinguished professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography.

Here's what he has to say about a one-party America.

Are You Ready to Risk Your Life to Go Back to Business as Usual?

©iStock/Rawpixel

Paul Krugman, a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center and 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences winner says that America is now engaged in a vast, dangerous experiment. "Although social distancing has limited the spread of the coronavirus, it is far from contained. Yet despite warnings from epidemiologists, much of the country is moving to open up for business as usual."

What, after all, is the economy’s purpose? If your answer is something like, “To generate incomes that let people buy things,” you’re getting it wrong — money isn’t the ultimate goal; it’s just a means to an end, namely, improving the quality of life.

Now, as Krugman puts it, to money matters.  Read the entire Opinion column here.

Will China Give In?

iStock/Thinkstock

One of my favorite thought leaders (Nobel Prize winner), Paul Krugman, explains how he thinks about the current China syndrome, and why he believes that most of the responses that he hears from fans are missing the point.

He focuses on three questions:

The macroeconomics of Chinese currency intervention, the fallacies of elasticity pessimism, and the political economy issue of how to deal with Chinese intransigence.

Capital Export, Elasticity Pessimism, and the Renminbi (Wonkish)

Agree or disagree?

Mistaking Beauty for Global Truth

iStock/Thinkstock

An interesting state of the economics piece by economist Paul Krugman, "How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?"

A snippet from it here:

When it comes to the all-too-human problem of recessions and depressions, economists need to abandon the neat but wrong solution of assuming that everyone is rational and markets work perfectly. The vision that emerges as the profession rethinks its foundations may not be all that clear; it certainly won’t be neat; but we can hope that it will have the virtue of being at least partly right.

A few notes about it here.

We wrote about Krugman a while back (10/13/08). He's someone to track.

Smart, Full and Focused

iStock/Thinkstock

This looks like someone we should follow: Paul Krugman, the Princeton University scholar and New York Times columnist. He won the Nobel economic prize for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect trade patterns and the location of economic activity.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences praised Krugman for formulating a new theory to answer questions about free trade.

"What are the effects of free trade and globalization? What are the driving forces behind worldwide urbanization? Paul Krugman has formulated a new theory to answer these questions," the academy said in its citation.

"He has thereby integrated the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography," it said.

Read more about Paul's background, at least as a New York Times columnist, here.