Paul Krugman Sets the Bar Far too Low...

...when he says that Keynes's greatness is illustrated by the fact that he understood things that George F. Will does not. A six year old child could write more intelligent columns about economics than George F. Will. The fact that Fred Hiatt has not yet fired George F. Will and replaced him with a six year old child is yet another piece of the wreckage of the crashed-and-burned Washington Post detritus scattered around the landscape.

Paul:

The greatness of Keynes...: ...is illustrated by the trouble people who consider themselves well informed have, to this day, in understanding the basic principles of how a depressed economy works. The key to Keynes’s contribution was his realization that liquidity preference — the desire of individuals to hold liquid monetary assets — can lead to situations in which effective demand isn’t enough to employ all the economy’s resources. When you don’t understand that principle, you end up writing stuff like this [from George F. Will]:

Obama’s “rescue plan for the middle class” includes a tax credit for businesses “for each new employee they hire” in America over the next two years. The assumption is that businesses will create jobs that would not have been created without the subsidy. If so, the subsidy will suffuse the economy with inefficiencies — labor costs not justified by value added.

That is, if the private sector wouldn’t have created a job on its own, that job shouldn’t have been created... [never mind that] the real choice is between having workers doing something and being uselessly, destructively unemployed....

Why do people still fail to get Keynes, after all these years? Keynes might have said that it’s the inherent difficulty of the concepts: "For—though no one will believe it—economics is a technical and difficult subject." But there’s also the Upton Sinclair theorem:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

But George F. Will's salary doesn't depend on his not understanding that we are now for the first time since 1982 faced with the prospect of a depression, or upon his not understanding that if Amity Shlaes disagrees with Ben Bernanke on the Great Depression one would be well-advised to bet on Ben Bernanke.

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

Comments

[Doctor Science]

"But George F. Will's salary doesn't depend on his not understanding that we are now for the first time since 1982 faced with the prospect of a depression"

Yes, it (his salary) *does*. George Will is paid to be a conservative columnist, and that means his salary depends on reassuring conservatives that their view of the world is correct.

[DrDick]

"But George F. Will's salary doesn't depend on his not understanding that we are now for the first time since 1982 faced with the prospect of a depression"

I agree with Doctor Science on this. Will's salary very much depends on his inability to understand Keynes or any other liberal economist. For him and his ilk there will always and only be Friedman and the Chicago School. His corporate overlords demand it.

[save_the_rustbelt]

"That is, if the private sector wouldn’t have created a job on its own, that job shouldn’t have been created... [never mind that] the real choice is between having workers doing something and being uselessly, destructively unemployed...."

Agreed on the desirability of jobs as opposed to unemployment, both for the individual employee and the economy as a whole. However.....

If we assume employers are rational, then the job will be created if the credit is large enough to make the employee a positive contribution to the business. Or, if the job was going to be created anyway and the business free rides the credit.

[Memory fades, but the job creation tax credit in 1976 (or maybe 1977) was very poorly designed (employers got credit for wage inflation) but there was some job creation, often because employers were not rational (or didn't understand cost accounting). I remember the tax return calculations being a particular pain in the butt.]

Any job creation tax credit should be very carefully designed so as to actually accomplish the intended objective. Or, designed so employers make lots of bad hiring decisions, a sort of backwards means of accomplishing the intended objective of job creation.

[bob h]

The fact that ABC has not yet fired George F. Will and replaced him with a six year old child is yet another piece of the wreckage of the crashed-and-burned ABC /This Week detritus scattered around the landscape.

[Michael Drake]

Another explanation, due to Bertrand Russell: "A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand."

[low-tech cyclist]

I was never particularly keen on Will in the first place, but his columns these days are an embarrassment to punditry in general.

Hell, Will's columns make Robert J. Samuelson look good by comparison, and that takes serious work.

One piece of good news: Deborah Howell, the Washington Post Apologist, is packing it in at the end of the year.

[PQuincy]

And right on schedule, Samuelson repeats 'center-right' talking points from his perch at the Post: "Starting with his "economic stimulus" plan, will he focus mainly on reviving the economy and relieving the financial crisis? Or will he use the economic crisis as a vehicle to advance a more ambitious social and economic agenda? The two approaches are at odds."

His argument seems to be that 'confidence' requires doing nothing controversial that might upset anyone. That's the kind of thinking, naturally, that got us here in the first place. Any number of thoughtful commentators have made very convincing arguments -- though you wouldn't know it from anything Samuelson writes -- that deploying a necessary stimulus in ways that led to long-term improvements in our physical and social infrastructure makes eminently good sense. As Obama proposes, why not use the stimulus (jobs now) to create alternative energy infrastructure (long-term benefit). It's a win-win, and similar arguments apply to reforming health care and other Obama agenda items.

Instead, Samuelson insists that "In the long run, we need to discipline our appetite for health care and energy" because doing otherwise would produce "bruising political battles" that would destabilize business confidence.

If Obama were some kind of utopian dreamer, Samuelson might have a point...but he's not. Evidently, Samuelson has not noticed that the Democrats now control both houses of the Federal legislature, and that Obama has assembled a crack (and moderate) legislative team. Moving ahead with a stimulus package that didn't ignore long-term issues like health care and energy will not produce bruising battles, therefore; it will produce loud Republican whining, cheered on by Samuelson.

[kharris]

PQ,

Doing nothing controversial is a hallmark of conservative thought. Doing nothing that might upset anyone (of means) is a halmark of conservatism as a class tool rather than a political philosophy. That's George Will.

[David22]

"Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?"

You go with the press corps you have, not the one you wish you had . . .

[Johnny Pez]

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

Flouridation. The Birchers warned us what would happen, but we laughed and ignored them, and this is the result.