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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 We reserve the right to publish all letters with authors' names, unless specified as not for publication or for publication anonymously.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, April 18, 2003
DON'T LIE... EVEN FOR A GOOD CAUSE Re "Krugman Vs. The Little Red Hen" (4/182003): Here’s my big pet peeve. People like Krugman telling flat out lies to make points I happen to agree with. The entire left press was guilty of this in their coverage of the partial birth abortion ban in claiming there was no provision for the life of the mother. Krugman is guilty of this when he blames Bush for killing Kyoto. Last time I checked, the Republican’s didn’t control 95 votes in the Senate.Dave Nadig
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 9:23 PM | link
THE KYOTO VOTE Re the update to "Krugman Vs. The Little Red Hen" (4/182003): To be more accurate, the Senate didn't reject the Kyoto treaty itself, and the vote wasn't 99-0. It passed a resolution rejecting any treaty that would put America at a disadvantage and exempt large polluters. There was never a vote on the treaty itself -- as Clinton so often did, he signed (actually, Gore signed this one) a treaty for the international PC points, and then never submitted the treaty to the Senate for a vote that he know would be a loser. The Senate's resolution was 95-0.
David Stewart
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 1:56 PM | link
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
THE WISDOM EQUATION I have been reading your exposés of Paul Krugman, and I've been thinking about his ability to show the world his utter incompetence as a reasonable/thinking individual. This points out the absolute truth to my belief that wisdom is gained only when reason develops along with intellect. Let me give you the equation I have worked up in my spare time. It goes like this: Wisdom (W) = (Intellect (IQ) + Age (A)) * Reason, or common sense (R). W= (I+A) * R.Let's check this out by looking at Krugman. Here we have the typical intellectual, who is a tenured college professor, economist, and well rewarded columnist for a large, but well rusted liner of the news industry. Lets assume that his IQ is somewhere around 150 (it could be more). He is 50 years old. But he has lived in the wonderland of Oz for so long that his reasoning ability is arrested at 2. Using the equation, his Wisdom index would be (150+50) * 2 = 400.
Now, lets look a Farmer Joe, who has been out in the real world all his life and has many, many real life experiences. He has an IQ of only 100, and is 50 years old. But his ability to reason is dependent on his making it on his own. Thus, it is 4. Now, by plugging in the equation, we have W = (100+50) * 4 = 600.
Looking at it this way, it is easy to see that Farmer Joe has a firmer grasp on reality, since he has the ability to use his more limited intellect more efficiently. It is common sense that does this. The intellectual, on the other hand, has trouble finding his ass with both hands, as they say in the military.
Now, getting back to M. Krugman, I am convinced that he is less clever than he appears. For a long time, I was utterly perplexed with him. I could not understand why he could look, but not see. But then, it came to me: what we have here is the very thing that V. I. Lenin termed "useful idiot". The leadership of the Democratic Party is filled with those who are clever enough to prize power over almost everything else. M. Raines runs the folks at 43rd by doing the same. But M. Krugman is the "useful idiot", who responds to the stimulus provided to him. His first mistake was worshiping at the alter of John Maynard Keynes. This allowed the veneer of collectivist "theory" to be applied to economic "reality". From there, everything followed quite easily. To the point, we have an adult driver who has a license to drive, but doesn't know which side of the road to drive on. And there is the real danger posed by this "useful idiot". Left alone, he could simply steer in any desired direction. But he is not alone, and thus highly dangerous!
But what to do? Frankly, I can only see two things that don't break the law. First, do what you are doing. Simply get out the truth, and let everyone decide for themselves. An intelligent response to his moronic prose can go a long way. Second, let time run it's course. Eventually, he will die of old age. But his position in the lofty halls of education allow him to warp the minds of the many young people who haven't had the chance to increase their reasoning index along with their intellect. What a sad waste of talent! This is M. Krugman's real crime against humanity.
John Kelly
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 8:42 PM | link