The bitter ex-New York Times columnist Paul Krugman went to a new level of deranged by using the poorest choice of words to describe his disdain for corporate America’s relationship with President Donald Trump.
Krugman went on another of his usual Substack tirades January 19, whingeing that “Big Business Should End Its Faustian Bargain With Trump.”
Krugman twisted and bent the words of Benjamin Franklin to evoke the imagery of death crouching at the doors of any American business leader who won’t band together to stand up to the Trumpian dictator in his bizarre worldview: “If you don’t hang together, you’ll all hang separately.” You’re all gonna die didn’t ya know!
Sheesh, no wonder Krugman’s nutty behavior was even too much for the Times editorial leadership. One of his first Substack columns after he left the newspaper in a huff over the editors “toning down” his voice, literally read as follows: “Donald Trump Wants You to Die.”
Now, despite most of Krugman’s prophecies of Trump driving the economy into a brick wall falling flat, the disgruntled has-been turned to making it seem like business leaders were selling their souls to the devil. No, we’re not kidding:
Moreover, believing that [Trump’s] extremism was a charade was made much easier by Corporate America’s expectations of future profits from the conventional right-wing parts of his agenda: tax cuts plus increased freedom to pollute and defraud consumers, along with lax financial regulation and permissive anti-trust. No more pesky Democrats to get in their way.
Remember that this is the same schlub who made himself a caricature by being the poster-child, er, economist, for the inflationary disaster of Bidenomics, who called Americans that despised Biden’s outrageous spending policies dumb, and who told President Joe Biden before his inauguration, “Don’t Worry About Inflation.” Yeah, Krugman’s one to talk about Faustian bargains, especially since he virtually flushed his career down the toilet just for the sake of propping up Biden as the best president of “my adult life.” The level of projection in his latest screed is just mind-blowing:
The lesson for businesspeople is that Faustian bargains never end well. Take a lesson from watching Scott Bessent – appease Trump and he will demand that you debase yourself even further. It’s been astonishing how quickly corporate greed has been replaced by corporate fear: Businesses who hoped to profit from Trump now toe the line because they’re afraid of being punished.
Did that Faustian bargain you made with the walking sock puppet Biden end well, Krugman? The world wants to know.
