Everything You Need To Know About Liberals In One Blog Post: They Are Dumb

From the, "I can't beieve Jeff Bezos didn't give Ezra Klein $10 million dollars" file, behold this gem.

Everything you need to know about economics, in 297 words http://t.co/2YK9O1j0Sb

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) April 19, 2014

First of all let me say how asinine it is for someone who claims to be engaged in deep wonkery to keep pitching stories as "Everything you need to know about X in one chart/graph/interpretative dance performance".

If complex subjects can be fully covered and explained in a single anything, it's probably not that complex of a subject and you don't need experts, let alone a bunch of arrogant children without any discernible accomplishments to explain it to you.

But enough about the staff of Vox.com. Let's look at some of the "297 words" that constitute Ezra Klein's vision of all you need to know about economics. Mind you, these aren't Klein's words but the words of an actual expert in economics, Thomas Sargent a Nobel Laureate in the field.

1. Many things that are desirable are not feasible.

2. Individuals and communities face trade-offs.

3. Other people have more information about their abilities, their efforts,
and their preferences than you do.

4. Everyone responds to incentives, including people you want to help. That is why social safety nets don't always end up working as intended.

I'm going to stop here, 74 words into the 297 (my version of Word says it's actually 308 but let's not quibble).

How can you think these are essential truths about economics and still be a big government liberal? Imagine thinking, as Klein does, that these are four essential parts (there's 12 in total) of understanding economics while simultaneously thinking that ObamaCare doesn't go far enough and we should have "a more nationalized health-care system".

If your entire worldview is based on greater concentration of political power over the economy and the incentives under which individuals operate, wouldn't you look at those 4 points alone and either say, "What an idiot this guy is!" or "Hmmm....I may need to evaluate my thinking on everything."?

How can you read those words and think, "Yes! This guy nails it and oh by the way, society should be organized in such a way as to ignore everything he just said"?

There's more of this, approximately 223 words worth, at the link and all of it damning to the liberal project of confiscatory taxation providing central government planners with more money and power to control the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

And yet, Klein and his merry band of know-it-alls want you to trust them to explain everything to you.

I really feel there should be a word that means "smart person who is actually quite stupid". Preferably it would be in German.

posted by DrewM. at 10:53 AM

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