I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Thursday, October 14th.

One sign of a return to normality, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is doing his first in-person event

since before the pandemic. It'll be at the 92nd Street Y on Sunday night, and that gives

us an excuse for our latest visit by the Nobel Prize winning economists right now. Among

Paul Krugman's recent intriguing columns is one from last Thursday called, What If Things Are About to Get Better? Can't wait to talk about that. Dr. Krugman, always great to have you on the show. Welcome back to WNYC. Hi there. Good to be on. And since there is so much doom and gloom around all the time these days, let's focus right away as I bite on last week's column. What might be about to get

better? Okay. Almost everything, not everything, but almost everything that's going wrong economically

right now is related to the fact that the pandemic ain't over. It's related to the, you know, to

lingering effects from the previous ways of the pandemic ain't over is related to the, you know, to lingering effects from the, the previous

ways of the pandemic and the fact that we had this delta wave, which really knocked everybody

back for a loop. If the pandemic is receding, and it does look as if it is, and if vaccination

gets more comprehensive, which

with the spread of vaccine mandates is probably going to happen, then a lot of things will start

to improve, not just the fewer people will be dying, but a lot of the economics scene

will get a lot better too. A lot of the things that we're seeing, the supply shortages and all of that are actually

directly or indirectly the result of the pandemic and will get a lot less severe once normal

life can be resumed.

Let me ask you about an aspect of the supply chain problems.

President Biden just got the ports of L.A. and San Diego to start working 24-7.

Why would a COVID pandemic clog up the ports?

That's an interesting story.

I mean, it's, God, sound like a professor, don't I?

But anyway, the point about the ports is the, the ports

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