Paul Krugman on Affordability: Inflation Is Outpacing Wages, the Typical Worker Is Worse Off on Purchasing Power Than They Were a Year Ago

RUSH EXCERPT:
KRUGMAN: "Well, not exactly, although, I mean, there’s a conflict there. I mean, Wall Street, to the extent it’s anything, it’s a claim on profits. So if you have an economy in which profits are rising at the expense of wages, which is what we have to an important extent, yeah, stocks will be going up. But that’s you know, stocks are mostly owned by a relatively small part of the population. And the rest of the population lives on wage income. So that’s actually bad. So, you know, in many cases what’s good for stocks is actually bad for workers. And besides stocks, it’s it’s speculation. Stock markets are up all around the world. There’s a what exactly that’s about is a long story, but that’s not an achievement here. And the main thing is that inflation is outpacing wages. The typical worker is worse off in terms of purchasing power than they were a year ago. And also job creation. It’s amazing that these guys can be boasting about jobs. The the reality is that, you know, in the last year of the Biden Administration, the America gained about 100,000 jobs a month under Trump. So far, it’s a little over 30,000 a month. So we’ve had a real we’ve sort of fallen off a cliff in terms of job creation. So this is not a great economy for anybody except, you know, a handful of people who are have bought the right stocks."