Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Whose Perceptions Anyway?

I wonder if there ought to be some sort of disclosure rule for these things. Paul Krugman writes:

... the fact that perceptions about the economy are worsening week by week, and one might have expected the central theme of the Democratic campaign to be “throw the bums out.”

I’m not sure what to make of this statement when it comes from someone who spends so much time preaching a general gloomy view of the economy. Especially when he later writes in the same piece:

Polling numbers aren’t much help: for now, at least, you can find polls telling you anything you want to hear...

This was in reference to the Democratic primary, but one cannot help but ask: if “polling numbers aren’t much help”, than how can you say anything meaningful in regards to “perceptions about the economy?”