My Latest Column and Some Recent Interviews
Be wary of economists with zero connection to normal people who buy groceries, drive used cars and have a mortgage (or pay rent!) and scroll down to watch my recent interviews
As many of you know, I write a monthly column in my local paper that I often share here too since so many of you live far away and won’t be picking up our free weekly paper at the grocery store or coffee shop. The original column ran in The Valley Breeze here. Below the column you’ll find three videos: two are short interviews and one is a much longer conversation.
Earlier this week, I ran into one of my sons’ former basketball coaches at a local grocery store and after catching up about life and the kids, we looked in our grocery carts and commiserated about our food bills. I was utterly gobsmacked that a box of cereal cost $7.39 and he was blown away by the price of milk.
New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman annoyed a lot of people recently when he spouted off on CNN about how the economy is “surreally good” and the American public’s inability to see it represented “a really profound and peculiar disconnect.” In other words, why aren’t average Americans, whose median household income is down almost 5 percent since 2019, busting out the pom-poms to celebrate the economy?
The answer to that can be found in Krugman’s own admission (in writing!) that the inflation news is only good if you exclude the price of “food, energy, shelter and used cars.” Umm, WHAT? I mean sure—if we exclude all the money we spend on basic necessities, then yes, things are basically perfect.
The 24 percent rate hike on electricity here in Rhode Island? No biggie.
Gas prices that remain high? Just ride a bike or carpool to work.
The 6.9 percent increase for renters in Providence? At least it’s not Boston where the increase was 7 percent.
The truth is, this Yale and MIT educated economist who writes a column for the New York Times probably hasn’t felt financially squeezed in decades and doesn’t realize that the disconnect he attributes to the American public really lies with him. He is oblivious to the lives of regular people who buy cereal and pay rent and need to purchase a used car. He doesn’t have any real understanding of the impact that a 9.9 percent increase in food prices in 2022 (on top of the 3.5 percent increases in the two prior years) continues to have on a family’s income. Adding insult to injury, the average mortgage rate now tops 7 percent, the highest level in more than two decades. That’s a two percent increase in one year and a difference of $400 a month on a $300,000 mortgage.
A new Harris poll shows that 68 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of Republicans, say that “it’s difficult to be happy about positive economic news when they feel financially squeezed each month.” So sure, even if all the graphs and charts piled up in Paul Krugman’s ivory tower lead him to believe that the “economic data is surreally good,” the reality on the ground tells a very different and very bipartisan story.
On another quick and totally different note, you may have heard that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer officially relaxed the dress code of the United States Senate to accommodate Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman’s insistence on wearing gym shorts and a hoodie to work in the US Capitol. The whole thing is embarrassing. There is a long line of disabled Senators in both parties, past and present, who, despite immense challenges, have never wavered from dressing respectfully and appropriately to carry out their duties on the floor of the Senate. I agree with Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, who expressed frustration over the dress code change: "We need to have standards when it comes to what we're wearing on the floor of the Senate." Amen, sir.
Recent Stuff:
An interview on Evening Edit a few weeks ago:
An interview with The National Desk (from a hotel room in DC):
PDE TV—I got to interview a friend! Robert Pondiscio is a former 5th grade teacher in The Bronx and a current Senior Research Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). We talk for over an hour so it’s perfect for a car ride or laundry folding (or lying on the couch while avoiding laundry!) The quotes below are directly pulled from our conversation and help to explain why I like him so much.
“I’m a literacy guy first and foremost.” — Robert Pondiscio
“I’m doomed to be the skunk at every picnic I’m invited to.” — Robert Pondiscio
“No part of my interest is in tearing this down. My interest is in making it work more fairly.” — Robert Pondiscio
Talk soon,
Erika