'Really rude shock' coming to Trump voters on inflation: Nobel Prize-winning economist

New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said that voters who believed President-elect Donald Trump would do a better job of handling inflation than Vice President Kamala Harris are in for a "really rude shock."

In a podcast published by the Times this week, Krugman outlined why Trump's proposed economic policies were likely to do the exact opposite of what voters believed they would be getting.

"As an economist, there’s a great irony here, which is that the biggest single factor in Trump’s victory was the fact that there was a burst of inflation," he argues. "It’s in the rear view mirror now, but people are still annoyed at how much things cost. And yet, Trump’s economic program, as far as we can tell, is the most inflationary program, probably, that any American president has ever tried to implement."

Krugman then examines Trump's policies on passing yet another massive tax cut that will benefit wealthy Americans while at the same time jacking up tariffs on all foreign products.

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Taken together, Krugman believes that these policies will raise prices for consumers just as they've begun to stabilize.

Krugman also predicts that these pressures will be even worse if Trump goes through with his plans to deport 10 million undocumented immigrants.

"So the food on your table is largely put there by immigrants, many of whom will end up being deported," he writes. "What’s going to happen is that farm owners are going to have to pay much, much higher wages to get people to do those jobs, which the farmers will have to pass on in the form of higher prices."

Finally, Krugman worries that Trump will move to interfere with the Federal Reserve if it starts to raise interest rates again in the face of higher inflation.

"I have very little reason to believe that Trump will acknowledge that his policies are actually producing inflation — much more likely that he’ll start putting pressure on government statistical agencies to report better numbers," Krugman warns. "That is what autocratic regimes have done around the world in the past."