Robert Frank Knows What Is Best For You
Beware of economics columnists for The New York Times. The days when Mises and Henry Hazlitt wrote for the paper have long since passed. Nowadays, Paul Krugman in his columns seems determined to disguise the undoubted intelligence that won him a Nobel Prize. Robert Frank, also a distinguished theorist, contributes a column to the Times as well and does little better than Krugman. Somehow, in this collection of Frank's columns, the free market is nearly always the object of indictment. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (9)
KY Leong
"the undoubted intelligence (of Krugman) that won him a Nobel Prize..."???
I detect a quantum leap in logic in that statement. Or is Dr Gordon just being charitable here?
Published: July 14, 2009 8:32 AM
Eric
How can anyone trained as an economist equate the process of producing wealth -- and becoming rich as a consequence -- to happening upon a diamond in the forest?
Published: July 14, 2009 8:50 AM
Walt D.
"the undoubted intelligence (of Krugman) that won him a Nobel Prize..."???
Gee, does that mean that Al Gore and Jimmy Carter are intelligent as well?
If Robert Frank actually practiced what he preached, he'd have moved to Cuba years ago. Galbraith's notion that individual spending is frivolous is fatuous - government spending at all levels is not only frivolous in the extreme, it overpays.
Robert Frank has a ghetto punk mentality. He sees other people with possessions that he does not have and feels entitled to steal them, in the sense that it is OK break into Bill Gates's house and steal a TV because he has 20 of them, or steal one of Steve Wozniaks cars because he has seven of them.
The big problem with this attitude is not just that it violates the notion of private property, but that it discourages people who produce from working, and creates a sense of entitlement that encourages people not to work - that there is windfall from estate taxes or diamonds lying around that will take care of their needs even if they produce nothing themselves.
Published: July 14, 2009 9:32 AM
David Gordon
Some commenters think that I said, "Because Krugman won the Nobel Prize, he must be intelligent." I didn't.
Published: July 14, 2009 10:06 AM
End the Fed
"How can anyone trained as an economist equate the process of producing wealth -- and becoming rich as a consequence -- to happening upon a diamond in the forest?"
Don't you know? Wealth is zero sum. So for anybody to gain wealth, other people must lose wealth. Wealth can neither be created nor destroyed. Then government intervention can't destroy wealth, so government intervention isn't bad. So government should do everything it can to give everyone an equal amount of wealth.
Published: July 14, 2009 10:38 AM
Levy
He is intelligent, and evil.
Published: July 14, 2009 10:59 AM
Yancey Ward
Frank commits the same error of arrogance most leftists (probably all) commit- they assume their preferences for consumption/production are the correct ones. It is the beginning of wisdom to understand that not everyone wants the same consumption items you want, nor the same lifestyle, and their reasons for wanting these things, while often interesting, are not my concern to curtail insofar as they are obtained via their own work and have not infringed on my own negative rights and my property.
Published: July 14, 2009 12:34 PM
End the Fed
According to Krugman, terrorism is good for the economy, since it creates rebuilding jobs. Why don't we just bomb entire cities then? Think of all the jobs that could create. Oh yeah, we *are* doing that, just in other countries. So we get all the "benefits" of "job creation" while actually keeping all our own cities.
Keynesian economics = broken window fallacy on a national scale
Published: July 14, 2009 2:44 PM
Marco Polo
@End the Fed: According to Krugman, terrorism is good for the economy, since it creates rebuilding jobs. Why don't we just bomb entire cities then?
You are. And have been for years.
Published: July 21, 2009 4:53 AM