If you don't know anything about a subject, don't write an editorial about it in the WSJ!

First, it is important to understand the Stephen Moore is a member of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board.  Their EDITORIAL BOARD.  So I assume he graduated from high school and might even have a college degree, after all, Michele Bachmann has more than one of those and look at the kind of stuff she says...

Anyway, he has written an editorial in the WSJ excoriating Democrats, the Obama administration, and Keynesian economists in particular, and it is probably the stupidest editorial to ever run in a major newspaper.  In fact it manages to confirm one of my biggest fears: that the right really is composed of the shallowest dregs of our society.

It's also embarrassing because most of us know that while we may be knowledgeable about some things, we don't know shit about a whole lot of other stuff and when conversation turns to things we know nothing about, what do you do?  We SHUT UP and listen.  I don't know squat about jai-alia, oncology, string theory, and Ruby on Rails, so expressing an opinion about those topics in a conversation would only expose my ignorance.  But it's increasingly evident that today's conservatives know no such restraint.  They assume they are knowledgeable about everything, and that they are also always right.  Don't believe me?  Read the comments section at WaPost (example of an idiot-magnet article) - or read Moore's editorial.

[White House Press Secretary Jay]  Carney explained that unemployment insurance "is one of the most direct ways to infuse money into the economy because people who are unemployed and obviously aren't earning a paycheck are going to spend the money that they get . . . and that creates growth and income for businesses that then lead them to making decisions about jobs—more hiring."

That's a perfect Keynesian answer, and also perfectly nonsensical. What the White House is telling us is that the more unemployed people we can pay for not working, the more people will work. Only someone with a Ph.D. in economics from an elite university would believe this.

Groan. Do you see Stephen Moore's insultingly transparent gimmick here?  Jay Carney is talking about giving money to workers who are not working because there are no jobs for them, but Stephen Moore pretends Carney and the Obama administration wants workers to quit their jobs so we can give them money to spur the economy.   Such a tactic is dishonest, but I see it a lot from righties these days.  And if you don't know why money paid to the poor and unemployed is especially important to the economy, you need to sit down and think it through, it's really very elementary.

Other looniness from Moore:

"The multiplier theory only works if you believe there's a fairy passing out free dollars",  "...the "invisible hand" of the free enterprise system, first explained in 1776 by Adam Smith, got tossed aside for the new "macroeconomics," a witchcraft that began to flourish in the 1930s...", "Macroeconomics was nothing more than a dismissal of the rules of economics", "Consumers lined up for blocks to buy things in empty stores in communist Russia, but that never sparked production [yeah, he equates the dysfunctional economy of the Soviet Union to our free market economy], "All economic problems are about removing impediments to supply, not demand", and "So here we are, three years of mostly impotent stimulus experiments and the economy still hobbled."

I wish I had time to debunk or rebut each of these claims, but - again - anyone with common sense should be able to see through them pretty quickly.  For help, check out Keynesian economics at Wikipedia.

-- Trakker

 

Comments

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WSJ doltism refudiated in the Comments

23 hours ago

ZEV ARNOLD wrote:

I routinely read the WSJ editorial and op-ed pages in search of a rational counter-point to liberal arguments. I have never been more convinced that I am looking in the wrong place than after reading this editorial. If conservative intellectuals have abandoned reason and logic for "common sense", it is no home for me.

20 hours ago

Jessica Williams-Holt wrote:

An op-ed filled with claim, and utterly lacking in substance. To be sure, there are problems with modern economic theory and education in the US; its unfortunate that this article doesn't address a single one of them.

STEPHEN MOORE (from the article):

I have two teenage sons. One worked all summer and the other sat on his duff. To stimulate the economy, the White House wants to take more money from the son who works and give it to the one who doesn't work. I can say with 100% certainty as a parent that in the Moore household this will lead to less work.

Two sons who wish their father would STFU.

[Trakker]

Two sons who wish their father would STFU.

Damn straight! Moore's use of his two sons as an example of keynesian economics had to be one of the biggest head slaps of the year. Doesn't the WSJ have anyone vetting what goes in their paper?