I can't believe a Nobel Prize-winning economist would get this wrong. It's not gibberish; it's double-talk, and this is how it's done:Think of it this way: there was a time when you could say that the right had a model of how the economy worked. A silly model, yes, since it depended on implausibly large effects of marginal tax rates on incentives. Still, supply-side economics had a point of sorts.
But can you discern any model in what Malpass wrote, or for that matter in almost anything on the WSJ editorial page? I can’t. All I see is a bunch of prejudices, strung together with some vaguely economistic-sounding phrases, something like someone talking gibberish that sort of sounds like Swedish. In the world according to the WSJ, low taxes are good (unless the people involved are low income lucky duckies), regulation bad, low inflation good, low interest rates bad, strong dollar good — and don’t ask why.
Co-posted at Mippyville TV.
See update here.
What exactly has he gotten wrong? You're saying he's mistaken gibberish for double-talk, but Caesar's act is about "someone talking gibberish that sort of sounds like Swedish", not about double-talk. And is there really a substantive difference between gibberish and double-talk that warrants "I can't believe a Nobel Prize-winning economist would get this wrong" here? No offense (heh) -- I say this as a friend -- but this post makes you sound stupid and a little arrogant. You're on notice -- one more slip up like this and I'm cancelling my RSS subscription. YES, YOU HEARD ME RIGHT. I said good day.
ReplyDeleteDear 22ea13be,
ReplyDeleteYes, the difference between gibberish and the more specific show business term double-talk is trivial (double talk is gibberish that comically suggests a foreign language) and there is no reason to expect an economist to know the term.
Mark