“Capitalism Is a Lot More Important than Democracy”

Stephen Moore (senior economic adviser to the Trump campaign): "Capitalism is a lot more important than democracy."pic.twitter.com/FHJDMr4GLQ

— Lauren Werner 🗽 (@LaurenWern) August 10, 2016

Coming back to Stephen Moore's radicalism. The jaw-dropping line is "capitalism is more important than democracy" – it's like a liberal caricature of what conservatives think, but it turns out to be what they actually think. But there's more 1/ https://t.co/cS2OQBWgnd

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 15, 2019

What you can easily miss is that Moore is calling for what amounts to a loyalty purge at the Fed 2/ pic.twitter.com/rxRu1UoQgy

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 15, 2019

After all, what does Moore think makes those hundreds of economists worthless? He had multiple confrontations with Fed analysis in 2008 and after, in which he kept claiming that the Fed's policies would produce soaring inflation. Obviously Fed economists disagreed 3/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 15, 2019

They were, of course, completely right; he was completely wrong. So on what basis does he declare them "worthless", with the wrong model? Well, their model is wrong in the sense that it doesn't confirm his (false) prejudices. 4/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 15, 2019

It would be interesting to ask who he considers to be "good" economists. I'm sure that having been wrong about everything for the past decade plus is a key qualification. Anyway, the point isn't just that Moore is a bad analyst. He wants to purge anyone competent 5/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 15, 2019

So people who suggest that a Moore appointment wouldn't be a disaster are missing the bigger picture. Trump is trying to do to the Fed what he's doing at DHS, purging the professionals and replacing them with apparatchiks. Moore would be just the beginning 6/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 15, 2019

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