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Media Infiltrations: Of Interventions and Conservative Principles  National Review Online September 23, 2008 Quit Doling Out That Bad-Economy Line The Washington Post September 14, 2008
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The Conspiracy Letters
Join the fray! Email us at letters@poorandstupid.com. We reserve the right to publish all letters with authors' names, unless specified as not for publication or for publication anonymously. Letters may be edited for clarity and brevity.
Friday, February 14, 2003
THE EDUCATION SOLUTION I read your article ("One out of 55 Economist Agree...." National Review Online 1/12/2003), and I agree wholeheartedly with your conclusions. It is troubling to me when someone like Robert M. Solow, whom you mentioned in the article, is still trusted by many in the media when his views have been completely discredited by history; not only the history of this country, but others, as well.I am so tired of hearing the same old song in the media: that tax cuts will not have a stimulating effect on the economy; that Reagan's era was a period of the poor getting poorer; that tax increases are the proper response to a "downturn" in the economy. Isn't one of the greatest problems in modern U.S. society the lack of even a basic understanding of proven economic principles on the part of most citizens? Most people I know have no understanding of the implications of the law of supply and demand, much less the law of comparative advantage. I know from my own experience that I went all the way through my first 12 years of schooling without being taught a single word about economics. When I was in college, I took a basic economics course and immediately said to myself, "Whoa, Dick Gephardt is completely out in left field!" Why are the media not reporting the truth about any of this stuff? I believe if more economics education were required, beginning at the Junior High School level, much better economic policy decisions would be made in this country.
John Cammack
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 9:11 AM | link
Thursday, February 13, 2003
FIRST DISQUALIFY ALL THE PROFESSORS! Re: ("One out of 55 Economist Agree...." National Review Online 1/12/2003). I think any so-called economist who is also a college professor should be disqualified to begin with. I was an economics major and all but one of my profs were hard core left-wing 60s hippies who never really grew up and I suspect that is the case with most colleges. They just happened to get a PhD in economics. However there is no difference between William F. Sharpe's view on the matter and some Stanford professor of comparative literature. They are both socialists who will oppose tax cuts no matter what.Eduard Dordea
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 12:08 PM | link
BASIC CONCEPTS Great article ("One out of 55 Economist Agree...." National Review Online 1/12/2003)! And on top of the 22,000 AEA members, there are many like me who have a degree in Economics (and MBA) who follow economics for fun and fully agree with the following basic concepts:
Less tax is good (less inefficient government use of resources)...
Lower tax rates increase efficient, productivity enhancing capital formation...
Simplified tax structures improve productivity...
The media is blatantly biased...
Etc., etc....
Ken Jones
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 9:10 AM | link
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
EVER THE VISIONARY Re: your great Ken Lay commentary. You are right that this was not, or should not have been, a secret. See, for example, George Gilder's article in the December 23, 2002, Forbes:"I trust chief executives because they deal in projects that can go bankrupt. They cannot repeatedly or consistently lie about their companies because the truth will out in a relatively short time. Even at Enron, Lay and Skilling could deceive themselves and the public only for a matter of months. Skilling got skittish--and got out. Lay maintained his faith through no fewer than 14 margin calls that he had to meet by selling Enron shares. Both Enron stars learned their lessons (about off-the-books subsidiaries and financial engineering, for example), and they taught them to the world."Bret Swanson
Gilder Technology Group
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 11:27 PM | link
PUNISHING THE GOOD Love your work and the article "One out of 55 Economist Agree...." (National Review Online 1/12/2003). What I'd love to hear in the debate, and find unbelievable that there is no mention of, is the following: the question of tax cuts potentially providing short-term stimulus is irrelevant. What continues to be overlooked is the purpose of taxes, i.e., establishing a fair, equitable tax policy that leaves individuals free to prosper. In today's debate we are implicitly accepting this notion that it is proper for government to play games with our money rather than set objective rules and guidelines based on Constitutional responsibilities. By accepting this notion we perpetuate the insanity of our present tax policy of punishing the good for being good.
David Withington
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 9:30 PM | link
TOUGH QUESTIONS FOR LAY, AND THE TIMES Re: your "The NY Times' Enron Cover-Up." Let’s not get too choked up about how poor Ken Lay had to sell his Enron stock to pay off other debts without asking a few questions:
Were there other assets he could have sold to pay those debts?
If the debts involved other investments could he have let those investments go, in effect using them to meet the obligations?
Why the sudden urgency to pay off the debts? Wouldn’t an honest man have waited until his serious inside information became public and then sold? Sure, it would have cost him more shares, but it would have been honest.
Bernard Yomtov
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 1:16 PM | link
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
400 TO 1 Re: your "400 Economists Can't Be Wrong!" In the 1930s, a book was published in Germany titled 100 Professors Disprove Einstein. Einstein's reaction was, "If I were wrong, it would only take one."Bob Hawkins
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 5:10 PM | link