WAS: What Adults are Saying about a Substack Gift

'Tis the season to enjoy straight economic and political talk from a master

Amid this week’s twin Holiday towers of Hanukkah and Christmas a recent event on this platform might easily get lost in the shuffle. Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman has brought his sometimes wonky, sometimes irreverent and always accurate skewers to Subtack—and for the moment—as a free subscription.

The backstory as to how this came to be is not fully known but surely must include another instance of collapsing Main Stream Media (MSM), editors wanting more middle-school level perspective and the Trump clown college now again taking DC residence while seeking more Seil Heil goosesteppers at the ready. Who bets these things rolled into one tells the tale? For his part, Krugman in his initial week here made it clear his recent “retirement” from the New York Times is not all that it seems. At any rate the gain for Substack readers is enormous.

His story frequency has been impressive sharing many of his well-established economic fundamentals that took him all the way to Stockholm in 2008. He appropriately modifies them for lay audiences and even that audience segment who often dismisses the written word in whole sentences as nothing more than Boomer nostalgia. As always he’s full of verve and especially impatience with ignore-the- reality approaches most folks take when assessing geo-economics, US debt or others items making their way onto MSM platforms from folks with a thimble-full of topical command.

Among his long list of greatest hits here are some paraphrased ideas about various topics:

“The United States government is an insurance company with an army.”

“Trade deficits or surpluses are paramount in modern economies.”

“The US budget deficit primarily has three components to it. Social subsidies (such as Medicare and Social Security), defense and interest. All other matters are mostly irrelevant especially foreign aid which is less than 1% GDP.”

“America’s health care system is the world’s most expensive because we demand its primary customer (the Federal government) purchase through private, for-profit insurance and health care delivery systems.”

That’s just a small sampling and his parables are often jewels which cut to the case and provoke needed thought.

Now, with Trump 2.0 approaching the volume of fodder will be immense. He already has illustrated that bemoaning knowledge or common sense gaps will be a key feature of his offerings. If you think any Trump administration will be full of ignorance, then imagine the brain power available on economic matters! He goes beyond that and illustrates deftly and concisely how Trump’s “wild hairs of the week” are more than anything, just plain silly. (Greenland and Panama? Really!)

In a season where gifts are aplenty and spirits varied, Paul Krugman has timely provided one to help lift the other. He is must read content in 2025.