Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth.
Paul KrugmanRead
Wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.
Interpretation
The wealthy often resist acknowledging systemic inequalities that benefit them.
This quote highlights the tendency of wealthy individuals to react defensively when confronted with the reality of social and economic inequalities. Krugman suggests that those who are advantaged by a 'rigged' system may express outrage or denial when their privilege is called into question, thus highlighting a disconnection between their lived experiences and the struggles faced by others in society.
In practice
In a speech addressing economic disparities, one might use this quote to emphasize the resistance of the wealthy to recognizing their privileges.
Politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth.
Our popular economics writers, however, are not in the business of giving their readers a ringside seat on the research action; with no exception I can think of, they use their books to do an end run around the normal structure of scholarship, to preach ideas that few serious economists share. Often, these ideas are not just at odds with the professional consensus; they are demonstrably wrong, and sometimes terminally silly. But they sound good to the unwary reader.
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Wall Street has turned the economy into a giant asset-stripping scheme, one whose purpose is to suck the last bits of meat from the carcass of the middle class.
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Never in the history of human credit has so much been owed.
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