# Live with Paul Krugman: the convulsions of the Trump tariffs

An episode of [Paul Krugman Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1877144831), 9 Apr 2025, 20 min.

Audio: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/160794793/35bb3d3b4b3f8761df09f0bf4bb15c1c.mp3

Thank you Todd Ortscheid, Francis Wade, Gayle S. Rose, Steve Brant, Jeeni Criscenzo, and many others for tuning into my live video with Harry Litman! Join me for my next live video in the app. Get full access to Paul Krugman at paulkrugman.substack.com/subscribe

## Transcript

[0:00] SPEAKER_01: And we are live.
[0:01] SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
[0:02] SPEAKER_01: All right.
[0:03] SPEAKER_01: Hey, everyone.
[0:05] Welcome to a special Substack Live focusing on the
[0:08] extraordinary convulsions in the
[0:11] SPEAKER_01: stock market and economy in the wake of the Trump tariff plan.
[0:15] SPEAKER_01: and Trump and the Scott Bessent's feckless responses.
[0:20] SPEAKER_01: I am really thrilled, as you can see, by the company.
[0:23] I don't think there's a better person in the world to join me
[0:26] to help explain the
[0:28] SPEAKER_01: tailspin than Nobel Prize economist,
[0:32] SPEAKER_01: Paul Krugman,
[0:32] whose economic acuity is matched by his common sense and regard
[0:38] for the normal
[0:40] SPEAKER_01: regular Americans,
[0:41] SPEAKER_01: his essential substack is under his name,
[0:45] SPEAKER_01: Paul Krugman.
[0:46] SPEAKER_01: Paul, thank you so much for joining.
[0:49] SPEAKER_00: Hi, great to keep talking with you.
[0:52] SPEAKER_00: And what a time.
[0:53] Yeah,
[0:54] I mean,
[0:54] we talked before,
[0:55] and it looked like it was going to be bad.
[0:57] SPEAKER_01: So to briefly set it up,
[0:58] SPEAKER_01: though most people here probably know,
[1:00] SPEAKER_01: stock markets plunge again this morning.
[1:03] SPEAKER_01: We, for a time, officially entered bear market territory.
[1:08] SPEAKER_01: Over $5 trillion of wealth just vaporized in a couple days,
[1:13] SPEAKER_01: nearly $10 million since Trump took office.
[1:16] SPEAKER_01: Trump and Scott Besant,
[1:18] SPEAKER_01: the Treasury Secretary,
[1:20] acting as if everything is hunky-dory with Trump signaling this
[1:24] morning he has no
[1:25] SPEAKER_01: plans to back off the tariffs.
[1:27] SPEAKER_01: And Besant saying on TV, everything's running smoothly.
[1:31] SPEAKER_01: And Americans who have put away for years,
[1:33] SPEAKER_01: they don't really look at the day-to-day fluctuations.
[1:36] SPEAKER_01: So man, oh man.
[1:40] Based on his Rose Garden speech,
[1:42] Paul,
[1:43] you'd already opined that Trump had gone
[1:45] SPEAKER_01: full-on crazy, a phrase I don't think you use lightly now.
[1:50] SPEAKER_01: It seems as if the financial markets around the world agree with you.
[1:54] SPEAKER_01: Did even you expect it could get this bad this fast?
[1:59] SPEAKER_00: No.
[2:00] I mean,
[2:01] there's multiple levels in which...
[2:07] I mean,
[2:07] there's nothing like this ever.
[2:08] I mean,
[2:10] first of all,
[2:11] we kind of had...
[2:13] Trump had said during the campaign...
[2:16] He talked about 10% or maybe 20% tariffs and then something,
[2:20] you know,
[2:20] higher on China.
[2:21] And lots of people thought,
[2:23] well,
[2:23] he won't actually go through with all of that.
[2:25] SPEAKER_00: What he's actually done is, first of all, bigger than that.
[2:29] He's just,
[2:29] you know,
[2:29] the Roosevelt speech was putting tariffs up higher than they
[2:32] were
[2:33] after smooth hauling so this is the highest tariff rate we've
[2:36] had you know in
[2:38] basically essentially in modern history um and with an economy
[2:42] that's three times
[2:42] as dependent on trade as it was in 1930 so this is a this is
[2:47] you know nothing
[2:47] SPEAKER_00: previous like this but also the the craziness of the um
[2:54] SPEAKER_00: The details,
[2:55] SPEAKER_00: I mean,
[2:55] SPEAKER_00: everybody's,
[2:56] SPEAKER_00: I don't know if everybody's heard,
[2:57] SPEAKER_00: but,
[2:57] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[2:58] SPEAKER_00: they came up with this crazy formula that imposed tariffs,
[3:04] SPEAKER_00: very different tariffs,
[3:05] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[3:06] SPEAKER_00: not arbitrarily,
[3:07] SPEAKER_00: because there was a,
[3:08] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[3:09] SPEAKER_00: the formula was crazy,
[3:10] SPEAKER_00: but they followed it.
[3:12] But it meant that you have a 10% tariff on islands that have no
[3:15] people on them.
[3:16] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[3:18] SPEAKER_00: that you have wildly different tariffs on the UK and the European Union,
[3:24] which means that there's immediately going to be a problem with
[3:27] people trucking
[3:29] stuff across from Ireland into Northern Ireland and shipping it
[3:33] from there.
[3:33] SPEAKER_00: You know,
[3:33] SPEAKER_00: it's just...
[3:34] And didn't the formula have some elementary mathematical error
[3:38] built in that like...
[3:39] SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
[3:40] SPEAKER_00: they also,
[3:41] SPEAKER_00: they took...
[3:42] SPEAKER_00: They said that only...
[3:47] SPEAKER_00: a quarter of tariffs are passed on into prices.
[3:53] SPEAKER_00: And they use that in the formula,
[3:55] SPEAKER_00: but they confused retail prices with prices,
[4:01] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[4:01] SPEAKER_00: at the dock.
[4:02] SPEAKER_00: So it's basically the same.
[4:05] The study they were citing actually said that 95% of the tariff
[4:08] shows up at the dock,
[4:09] SPEAKER_00: but most of the price of something you buy in the store is actually,
[4:12] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[4:13] SPEAKER_00: the markup of the store.
[4:14] SPEAKER_00: So they confused those two.
[4:16] SPEAKER_00: But I don't think that was just an innocent confusion.
[4:18] SPEAKER_00: I think they threw in some Greek letters on the original formula,
[4:22] SPEAKER_00: but wanted the two Greek letters to cancel out.
[4:24] SPEAKER_00: So,
[4:25] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[4:26] SPEAKER_00: it's the craziest...
[4:27] SPEAKER_00: Well,
[4:28] SPEAKER_00: I mean,
[4:29] SPEAKER_00: they started with something which was idiotic,
[4:31] and then they tried to dress up the idiotic stuff with some
[4:34] extra numbers.
[4:35] SPEAKER_00: And the whole thing... And this appears to have been settled.
[4:40] SPEAKER_00: The tariff, you know, is big...
[4:42] pieces of cardboard that Trump held up,
[4:44] the tariff appears to have been settled at 1 p.m.
[4:49] SPEAKER_00: And then he gave the speech at 4 p.m.
[4:51] SPEAKER_00: And this is the biggest trade shock in history that they were deciding.
[4:54] I mean,
[4:55] I'm laughing because,
[4:57] you know,
[4:59] I won't be that badly hurt by a 401k.
[5:00] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, this is great for it's giving me something to talk about.
[5:04] But by God,
[5:05] it's the idea that the world's greatest country is being run
[5:08] like this.
[5:10] SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
[5:10] SPEAKER_01: you know,
[5:11] SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking of the scariest roller coasters I've ever been on,
[5:14] SPEAKER_01: which have the plunge,
[5:15] SPEAKER_01: then the plunge,
[5:17] SPEAKER_01: then the plunge.
[5:18] SPEAKER_01: Let's just say, I mean, we are in a wildly volatile situation now.
[5:24] SPEAKER_01: China is saying, you know, is going to retaliate robustly, et cetera.
[5:31] SPEAKER_01: If we could actually just freeze things here,
[5:33] SPEAKER_01: just what's happened in the last few days,
[5:37] SPEAKER_01: what would be...
[5:39] SPEAKER_00: I can't resist.
[5:40] SPEAKER_00: I do have, as it happens, this is the market.
[5:45] SPEAKER_00: This looks like a chart that might happen in a very volatile year.
[5:49] SPEAKER_00: That's actually just today.
[5:52] SPEAKER_01: Wow.
[5:53] SPEAKER_01: Again, again, please, for one second.
[5:55] SPEAKER_00: I'll try it again.
[5:57] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is just it.
[5:59] SPEAKER_01: Just today.
[6:00] And you can actually see a teeny little that we were in bear
[6:03] territory now,
[6:04] SPEAKER_01: but overall in the last few days is $5 trillion.
[6:08] What does that mean concretely,
[6:10] even leaving aside the possible tumult that awaits us?
[6:16] SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, okay.
[6:19] SPEAKER_00: I think it's still kind of true.
[6:21] SPEAKER_00: When we talk about the stock market,
[6:26] the three most important things to understand is the stock
[6:28] market is not the economy.
[6:30] The stock market is not the economy and the stock market is not
[6:32] the economy.
[6:34] SPEAKER_00: Half of Americans have no exposure to stocks at all.
[6:39] SPEAKER_00: Most of the rest, it's really pretty small.
[6:42] SPEAKER_00: They do have 401ks, but it's not a whole lot really.
[6:46] SPEAKER_00: Most people depend on Social Security for their retirement.
[6:51] SPEAKER_00: But there are some rich people,
[6:54] SPEAKER_00: and rich people are a pretty big driver of spending,
[6:57] SPEAKER_00: so this matters.
[6:58] SPEAKER_00: But also, it's a signal.
[6:59] I think what's happening now is that the stock market is
[7:01] basically reflecting this
[7:04] SPEAKER_00: horrendous uncertainty.
[7:09] SPEAKER_01: Lack of confidence, really, right?
[7:11] SPEAKER_01: I mean, Jamie Dimon, people are coming out saying, yeah, sorry, go ahead.
[7:16] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it's what's happening.
[7:19] SPEAKER_00: And if you go back to the fundamentals,
[7:20] SPEAKER_00: so the market,
[7:21] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[7:22] SPEAKER_00: I always hate to base your judgments on the market because it is.
[7:26] SPEAKER_00: I mean,
[7:27] SPEAKER_00: the famous line from the great Paul Samuelson,
[7:30] SPEAKER_00: he said,
[7:31] SPEAKER_00: the stock market has predicted nine of the last five recessions,
[7:34] SPEAKER_00: right?
[7:34] It says the stock market is not a good guy to what's going to
[7:37] happen in real life.
[7:39] SPEAKER_00: But...
[7:41] SPEAKER_00: If you think about the reality,
[7:43] SPEAKER_00: so going back to these tariffs,
[7:46] SPEAKER_00: it's one thing to impose extremely high tariffs,
[7:49] SPEAKER_00: which is something that is completely out of the blue,
[7:52] SPEAKER_00: but nobody knows what is actually going to happen.
[7:56] SPEAKER_00: We've had wild swings in the tariff policy.
[8:01] SPEAKER_00: Trump's been in office less than three months,
[8:04] SPEAKER_00: and we've already had multiple tariffs on,
[8:06] SPEAKER_00: tariffs off,
[8:07] SPEAKER_00: then we're going to
[8:08] SPEAKER_00: You know, people were thinking it was moderating.
[8:10] SPEAKER_00: Then we get hit by this massive baseball bat tariff announcement.
[8:14] SPEAKER_00: And nobody knows whether it will stick.
[8:18] SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows.
[8:20] SPEAKER_00: Just as I was getting raved with,
[8:23] my wife just showed me the headline that says Trump is now
[8:26] threatening an extra 50,
[8:28] SPEAKER_00: 0% tariff on China.
[8:31] Now that uncertainty,
[8:32] you know,
[8:33] if we just had,
[8:35] even if we had a 25% tariff,
[8:38] SPEAKER_00: That's a bad thing.
[8:40] SPEAKER_00: That would cut off a lot of productive activity.
[8:43] SPEAKER_00: That would really do a lot to damage American industry.
[8:47] SPEAKER_00: But...
[8:48] SPEAKER_00: business would more or less find a way to live with it.
[8:51] SPEAKER_00: When you have, it's 25, no, it's 50, no, it's zero, no, it's 25 again.
[8:56] SPEAKER_00: A business can't be...
[8:58] SPEAKER_00: I mean,
[8:59] SPEAKER_00: aside from the psychological toll,
[9:01] SPEAKER_00: I mean,
[9:02] SPEAKER_00: I would hate to be a manufacturing executive right now.
[9:05] SPEAKER_00: I'd be probably drinking heavily if I were.
[9:07] SPEAKER_00: But it's also just...
[9:11] Think about your business and you're trying to decide whether
[9:14] to invest in some new
[9:16] SPEAKER_00: equipment or trying to start up a new plant or even in a lot of cases,
[9:21] SPEAKER_00: whatever.
[9:21] SPEAKER_00: You're trying to make some kind of long-term commitment.
[9:24] But anything you do now runs a substantial risk of being
[9:27] completely wasted
[9:28] SPEAKER_00: investment because the policy has suddenly changed on you.
[9:31] SPEAKER_00: If you put your plant in Mexico, then a tariff will make it unviable.
[9:35] SPEAKER_00: If you put the plant in the United States,
[9:37] SPEAKER_00: then they'll eliminate the tariff and it will not be a...
[9:41] SPEAKER_00: not be liable.
[9:42] SPEAKER_00: And so all of this just leads to people sitting on their hands.
[9:48] SPEAKER_00: There's got to be a big drag just from the sheer craziness.
[9:54] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[9:56] SPEAKER_01: I'm reminded of the scene in the airplane where a striker is going here,
[10:01] SPEAKER_01: there,
[10:01] SPEAKER_01: there,
[10:01] SPEAKER_01: and the air traffic controller.
[10:03] SPEAKER_01: What an asshole trying to figure out where to go.
[10:07] SPEAKER_01: I think,
[10:07] SPEAKER_01: Paul,
[10:08] SPEAKER_01: you maybe have just answered this,
[10:09] SPEAKER_01: but I want to understand it,
[10:12] SPEAKER_01: and I'm sure the viewers do too.
[10:15] SPEAKER_01: So, all right, stock market is not the economy.
[10:18] SPEAKER_01: There is a disconnect.
[10:19] SPEAKER_01: Nevertheless,
[10:20] we have all kinds of reports and concerns that we are
[10:29] triggering with the stock
[10:31] SPEAKER_01: market plunge,
[10:31] SPEAKER_01: some kind of recession.
[10:32] SPEAKER_01: Goldman Sachs this morning.
[10:34] SPEAKER_01: advises their clients there's a 35% chance of recession.
[10:39] So what is it about what is so far especially a cataclysm in
[10:45] the stock market that
[10:47] really portends a hop over into the whole economy and actually
[10:53] the triggering of a recession?
[10:56] SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
[10:56] I would say that the stock market is mostly a symptom rather
[10:59] than a cause,
[11:00] SPEAKER_00: although it adds to it,
[11:01] SPEAKER_00: the loss.
[11:02] SPEAKER_00: And the stock market is a kind of a,
[11:04] it's a way of people knowing that their own anxiety and
[11:07] confusion is shared by a
[11:10] SPEAKER_00: lot of other people.
[11:14] SPEAKER_00: Look, tariffs, there's a lot of mythology about tariffs.
[11:18] SPEAKER_00: People think that the Smoot-Hawley tariff caused a Great Depression.
[11:21] SPEAKER_00: It didn't.
[11:22] SPEAKER_00: People think that tariffs in general cause recessions.
[11:25] SPEAKER_00: In general, they don't.
[11:27] SPEAKER_00: They create a lot of economic damage.
[11:29] SPEAKER_00: They reduce the efficiency of the economy.
[11:31] SPEAKER_00: They raise prices.
[11:32] SPEAKER_00: But causing recession is not usually what happens.
[11:34] SPEAKER_00: But this...
[11:36] SPEAKER_00: climate of uncertainty really could cause a recession.
[11:40] SPEAKER_00: In fact,
[11:40] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[11:41] SPEAKER_00: I think,
[11:42] SPEAKER_00: I don't know if Goldman has marked it up,
[11:44] SPEAKER_00: but a lot of,
[11:46] SPEAKER_00: for what it's worth,
[11:47] a lot of business and banking economists are now saying a
[11:51] recession is more likely
[11:52] SPEAKER_00: than not.
[11:53] SPEAKER_00: And this will be the first time that trade,
[11:58] I actually think it's really the first time that policy actions
[12:04] by the president
[12:07] SPEAKER_00: may trigger a recession.
[12:10] SPEAKER_00: Herbert Hoover was a terrible economic manager,
[12:12] SPEAKER_00: but what he did was he failed to respond effectively.
[12:16] The Great Depression was not something that he caused,
[12:20] it was something he failed to deal with.
[12:22] SPEAKER_00: This is the president actually doing it.
[12:27] SPEAKER_00: to the economy.
[12:29] SPEAKER_00: And then you ask, well, then what?
[12:32] SPEAKER_00: Suppose that the economy does slide into, you know, it really does.
[12:35] SPEAKER_00: You know,
[12:35] SPEAKER_00: if the economy grows 0.2% over the next year,
[12:40] SPEAKER_00: as opposed to minus 0.2%,
[12:42] SPEAKER_00: that doesn't make a difference.
[12:43] Whether it ends up being technically called a recession,
[12:46] it's going to feel like one.
[12:48] SPEAKER_00: But then what?
[12:49] SPEAKER_00: And so normally you would say, well, the Fed,
[12:52] SPEAKER_00: will cut interest rates and that will eventually turn around.
[12:55] But the Fed,
[12:57] first of all,
[12:58] may not have as much traction as we like to think.
[13:00] SPEAKER_00: You know,
[13:00] SPEAKER_00: we,
[13:00] SPEAKER_00: people,
[13:02] there's a lot of excessive credibility given to what the Fed
[13:05] can accomplish.
[13:06] SPEAKER_00: But on top of that,
[13:08] SPEAKER_00: the,
[13:08] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[13:11] SPEAKER_00: the Fed is concerned,
[13:12] SPEAKER_00: yeah,
[13:12] SPEAKER_00: it wants to fight recession,
[13:14] SPEAKER_00: but it's also worries about inflation.
[13:16] Then you have this,
[13:17] the inflationary impact of these tariffs,
[13:18] which is going to be quite large.
[13:21] SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
[13:22] SPEAKER_00: You know, and by the way, tariffs are not the only story.
[13:27] The one thing that I'm concerned about is that because we're
[13:30] all focused on the
[13:31] SPEAKER_00: tariff stuff,
[13:32] we're not looking at what Doge is doing to the ability of the
[13:38] federal government to
[13:38] SPEAKER_00: carry out,
[13:39] SPEAKER_00: you know,
[13:39] SPEAKER_00: provide essential services.
[13:42] SPEAKER_00: We're not looking at... We're taking a quite large hit from other stuff.
[13:48] SPEAKER_00: The...
[13:50] We're wondering if other countries will impose retaliatory
[13:53] tariffs and how big they'll be.
[13:54] SPEAKER_00: I mean, they certainly will, but how big will it be?
[13:56] SPEAKER_00: But even without official policy to hurt the U.S.
[14:03] SPEAKER_00: economy by foreign countries, foreign individuals
[14:08] There's been a huge drop off in the number of foreigners coming
[14:13] to the United
[14:13] SPEAKER_00: States for tourism or business.
[14:15] SPEAKER_00: That's a big sector.
[14:19] SPEAKER_00: Think about education.
[14:21] The main thing is I'm terrified of what's happening to freedom
[14:25] of thought and the
[14:26] SPEAKER_00: future of science and all of that.
[14:28] SPEAKER_00: Also, immediately, education is a big U.S.
[14:30] SPEAKER_00: export industry.
[14:31] SPEAKER_00: We don't think of it that way,
[14:32] SPEAKER_00: but a lot of foreigners come to the United States,
[14:34] SPEAKER_00: and if I were them,
[14:36] SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't come.
[14:37] They don't want to come anyway because they may get stopped at
[14:40] the border.
[14:41] SPEAKER_01: Wow.
[14:42] SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you're right.
[14:43] You always hear about presidents or candidates talk about the
[14:47] economy almost
[14:48] SPEAKER_01: fecklessly because they really can't do that much,
[14:51] SPEAKER_01: and here is an instance in which...
[14:54] SPEAKER_01: You know, it actually seems to have been the pilot.
[14:57] SPEAKER_01: And I'll just add the talks you sometimes hear in the legal realm,
[15:01] SPEAKER_01: in this whole unitary executive brouhaha,
[15:04] SPEAKER_01: that he might try...
[15:05] SPEAKER_01: to control the Fed in unprecedented ways.
[15:12] SPEAKER_01: I want to sum up, and thank you so much for being here.
[15:15] SPEAKER_01: But first,
[15:17] SPEAKER_01: I want to confirm,
[15:17] SPEAKER_01: if I understand it,
[15:18] SPEAKER_01: it's not exactly the tariffs,
[15:20] but the massive uncertainty and paralysis and retaliation that
[15:25] they could bring
[15:26] SPEAKER_01: that makes us think about a recession.
[15:29] SPEAKER_01: And assuming I'm right about that,
[15:32] SPEAKER_01: what should we be looking for in the next week,
[15:35] SPEAKER_01: two,
[15:36] SPEAKER_01: four,
[15:36] SPEAKER_01: to be thinking,
[15:37] SPEAKER_01: are we going farther down that road or pulling back?
[15:42] SPEAKER_00: That's a weird thing,
[15:43] SPEAKER_00: because in some ways,
[15:46] SPEAKER_00: I've been seeing people saying,
[15:50] SPEAKER_00: oh,
[15:50] SPEAKER_00: Trump needs to roll back his tariff plan now,
[15:53] SPEAKER_00: and that will avoid a recession.
[15:55] SPEAKER_00: But if he rolls it back,
[15:57] SPEAKER_00: In some ways, doesn't that actually even maybe add to the uncertainty?
[16:01] SPEAKER_00: Another convulsion.
[16:06] SPEAKER_00: So in some ways,
[16:06] SPEAKER_00: actually,
[16:07] SPEAKER_00: if there was a way that he could settle on whatever,
[16:12] SPEAKER_00: any plan,
[16:13] SPEAKER_00: just make that the future,
[16:16] SPEAKER_00: that would come.
[16:17] SPEAKER_00: But he can't do that.
[16:20] SPEAKER_00: He can't credibly do it.
[16:22] SPEAKER_00: Who will believe?
[16:24] SPEAKER_00: That any plan is so.
[16:26] SPEAKER_00: I mean, it may be a little abstract and historical here.
[16:31] SPEAKER_00: Now,
[16:31] SPEAKER_00: why did representative governments,
[16:35] SPEAKER_00: why did parliamentary governments eventually come to,
[16:39] SPEAKER_00: at least temporarily,
[16:40] SPEAKER_00: rule the world?
[16:41] SPEAKER_00: Why did the divine right of kings fade out?
[16:43] SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons was that the governments that...
[16:49] SPEAKER_00: not necessarily very democratic,
[16:51] SPEAKER_00: but nonetheless,
[16:51] SPEAKER_00: republics de facto,
[16:53] SPEAKER_00: Britain became de facto republic a long time,
[16:56] SPEAKER_00: even though it's still a monarchy on paper.
[16:57] SPEAKER_00: But why were they more effective?
[17:01] Why was England with its parliament more effective than the
[17:09] various Louis in France?
[17:10] SPEAKER_00: And part of it was that they could make credible commitments.
[17:13] You could lend to the British government because you knew that
[17:17] they wouldn't decide
[17:19] SPEAKER_00: at a convenient moment that debt was immoral and refudiate their loans.
[17:23] SPEAKER_00: You could make business plans because there was some rule of law.
[17:28] SPEAKER_00: And the fact that we now have somehow we've ended up back in,
[17:32] SPEAKER_00: we're seeing all the problems of autocracy.
[17:35] Aside from the fact that autocracy is a bad thing and democracy
[17:37] is a good thing,
[17:38] SPEAKER_00: autocracy is also an impractical thing.
[17:41] SPEAKER_00: You really need a government that can be trusted to honor its promises.
[17:47] SPEAKER_00: And that's always a problem when you have one man rule.
[17:50] SPEAKER_00: And when you have,
[17:51] SPEAKER_00: particularly if it's Donald Trump,
[17:52] SPEAKER_00: who has never honored a promise in his life.
[17:57] SPEAKER_00: And that's fundamentally, I mean, that's the underlying thing.
[18:04] SPEAKER_00: behind below the tariffs.
[18:05] The tariffs are just one symptom of what happens when you have
[18:09] an irresponsible,
[18:11] SPEAKER_00: ego-driven guy with no checks on his power.
[18:15] SPEAKER_01: What a great point, and it's so cross-cutting.
[18:18] SPEAKER_01: Paul,
[18:19] thank you so much for being with us this morning in particular
[18:23] and hope we'll have
[18:24] SPEAKER_01: a chance to be with you again.
[18:25] SPEAKER_01: But everyone will look to,
[18:27] SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you'll be explaining more,
[18:29] SPEAKER_01: including the graph on your Substack.
[18:32] SPEAKER_01: So everyone do check out the essential Paul Krugman Substack,
[18:36] SPEAKER_01: but really appreciate your spending some time with us this morning.
[18:40] SPEAKER_01: Okay, thanks for having me on.
[18:42] SPEAKER_01: Bye-bye.
[18:47] SPEAKER_01: Alright.

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