Contra Krugman, episode 213.

Welcome to the podcast that takes apart Paul Kruikman's New York Times column.

Join us as Tom Woods and Bob Murphy teach economics by uncovering and dissecting the arrows of Krukman.

Nobel Prize winner, newspaper columnist, and destroyer of nations.

It's time for Contra Krugman.

A lot of our people complain that the Pentagon spends and wastes a lot of money, but the damage it

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economy.com. Everybody, Tom and Bob here with another episode of Contra Krugman. We are covering a

trade-related column this week, so we've got some economics for you.

This one is called How Trump Lost His Trade War from the, this is the December 16th, 2019 column,

and we'll link to it at contra Krugman.com slash 213.

The really short summary of the column is that Trump went into a trade fight with China and

emerged the loser. That's Krugman's thesis. Now, obviously, he says Trump doesn't portray it that way,

but he being Krugman says, basically Trump didn't achieve any of his goals, basically nothing. Yet he's

declaring victory, but it's not a victory. It's a defeat. He says the New York Times are reporting

that Chinese officials are jubilant and even incredulous at the success they had by just being

a hard line in their negotiation. So Krugman says first, in order to

understand exactly what happened here, we have to make sure we have a handle on what Trump

was trying to accomplish with the tariffs and then compare that with what actually happened.

So first, Trump wanted to slash the trade deficit. Now, Krugman says economists more or less

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