Krugman's Doppelgänger writes another column for New York Times

I'm relieved that I've found the answer to the mysteriously off-base columns appearing under Paul Krugman's byline in the New York Times recently. He's not writing them. Apparently, a doppelgänger has assumed his place in the Op-Ed department and is churning out nonsense in some sort of weirdo retribution move. I don't have all the details.

It's a great word, Doppelgänger, from the German for "double-goer," an apparition or ghost who takes corporeal form and appears in the place of his human counterpart. Spooky. Like Paul Krugman's Doppelgänger's ("PKD," for short) column today. If you think America currently has a problem with inflation, reflected in such luxuries as basic food and gasoline, you're wrong. You might think in such an erroneous way because you're stuck in a 1970's mind-set. Out-of-control inflation gets underway because of a "wage-price spiral," and while prices are going up, wages aren't, so there's nothing to keep driving the prices up. PKD cites a case from 1981 to prove his point, involving the United Mine Workers. In those days of high inflation, the union demanded a hefty 11% pay raise over the next contractual period to keep pace with anticipated inflation. That isn't happening now, so there is nothing to fuel inflation.

PKD notes in passing that there really are no unions to speak of anymore, and any demand for higher wages would fall on deaf ears because of the weak job market. So: "And since there isn’t a wage-price spiral, we don’t need higher interest rates to get inflation under control. When the surge in commodity prices levels off — and it will; the laws of supply and demand haven’t been repealed — inflation will subside on its own."

It's uncanny how well PKD has internalized his double-goer's style, even down to beginning the sentence with "And." Unlike the human form of Paul Krugman, however, the PKD doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. Or he does and he's deliberately making Krugman look bad as part of that karmic thing which must underlie this episode of double-going. Maybe it has something to do with his shilling for Hillary.

I'm not an apparition currently serving as a Geist-instructor (that joke is only for the very subtle) on the economics faculty at Princeton, but it seems to me that the main sources of inflation in food and gasoline do not lie within the direct, one-for-one control of the cash-strapped American consumer. If PKD excludes food and gasoline from inflation computations, as the Federal government does in order not to give Social Security recipients a living stipend, then there's not much of a problem anyway. Simply eliminate everything Americans really have to buy and the inflation problem goes away in a hurry. So I applaud PKD for a more realistic approach in this respect.

However, let us also be realistic about the effect that fading American buying power can have on the world price of oil. 87 million barrels per day, worldwide usage. We import 14 million barrels and produce another 7. Our importation figure against world usage, therefore, is about 16%. The gouging American oil companies, of course, have a "me too" attitude about the prices OPEC and the other big oil producers are demanding, piling up dough against the day when they'll either have to go into the ethanol business or simply start drinking the stuff. So our share of total usage might fall a little and have a diluted moderating influence on price, which may be completely offset by a further decline in the purchasing price of the dollar as our economy continues to tank, in part because of the crushing cost of fuel. And (see?, PKD, I can do it too) since world prices for oil are denominated in dollars, the Saudis and our other friends will jack the price, which will not be felt as strongly in areas of the world which have hard currency instead of American Monopoly money.

We're not in Kansas anymore, PKD, and it's not 1978. Our market does not determine everything that happens in the world. We're, hate to say this, kind of at the mercy of the world.

The food problem is also related to petroleum costs. Displacement of grain crops by ethanol-corn, cost of transport, cost of fertilizer inputs, cost of everything. So it was a cute title for the column, Doppelgänger --"A Return of That 70's Show?," but the real Paul Krugman knows you should not be seduced by a clever title into writing a whole column on a specious theory. Nicht es wahr? You probably looked up that "supply and demand" thing in Chapter 1 of one of PK's econ textbooks. Not much depth there; you're just phoning it in. Maybe it's time to head for the Ausgang.