November 1, 2010

"Obama = Keynesian?" sign makes Rally for Sanity folks insane...

... and stupid:



Via Weekly Standard.

Bleh. I don't like saying Rally for Sanity folks. Help me pick a better coinage:

What should we call the Rally to Restore Sanity folks?
Sanitarians
Sane Freaks
Reasonable People
The Enemy
Sanitizers
Sanity's Little Elves
  
pollcode.com free polls

120 comments:

Scott M said...

There was enough humor in the clips I saw to keep me from yelling "let them eat cake" at the peasants (damned peasants...so poor and filthy...), but not enough to watch for any prolonged amount of time like five minutes.

garage mahal said...

Cute how defensive Althouse gets when some group threatens her precious tea partiers.

I'm Full of Soup said...

The attendees seemed to have left their sense of humor at home especially the St. Louis Cards fan. So I'd have to go with Rally of Humorless Scolds [unoriginal I know].

kent said...

If nature does, in fact, genuinely abhor a vacuum... then: these people are well and truly boned.

Triangle Man said...

Those are all very funny options. Certainly more clever than "suckers, clowns, and fools".

Anonymous said...

o - Males who can't get a date

Trooper York said...

I thought they were called Trekkies?

Trooper York said...

You know the last group of uber-nerds who were obessed with a TV show.

garage mahal said...

Would tea partiers be called "Beckies" then?

Ankur said...

..What are the odds that the people who knew exactly what Keynsian meant were edited out of the clip?

Seriously - I don't know much about the american education system, but would someone who is not concentrating on economics or knows a lot about economic affairs know about Keynes or Friedman? Was his name common knowledge to you guys when you were in your early 20's to late 20s?

I'll be honest - I didn't know the Keynes name until my mid twenties. I knew Bernoulli, Euler, Lagrange, Faraday, Carnot, Hamilton, Doppler,Tesla, Foucalt, Feynman, Poincare, Planck, Dirac, Von Neumann, Heisenberg, Pauli, Fermi....but I did not know Keynes. Different specialty, you see.


Remember: A video clip might be fun, especially when confirming your biases.. but it is by no means statistically relevant or accurate or indicative of...anything, really.

kent said...

... 'cause nothin', but nothin', absolutely SHRIEKS "sanity!" like poncing about in Hitler Youth togs and a cute li'l matching Hitler moustache, baby! YEAH!!!

Mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmm.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Ankur- I was a business major and took like 30 credits in economics so you make a fair point. But I knew back then that people from Kenya were Kenyans not Keynesians.

wv= paterbom [Obama's Dad?]

Revenant said...

Would tea partiers be called "Beckies" then?

Santellians.

Rick Santelli's criticism of the mortgage bailout is what kicked off the Tea Party movement.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Hahah.... I hope that fat high shrill woman gets to see just what an idiot she is. If I knew who she was, I would spam this video to all of her friends and co-workers. Sweet.

Seriously. Reminds me of some relatives that I have who say things like "Sarah Palin is stupid." and who have no reason for their decision. When asked what they think she has said that is stupid or what she has done, they have no examples or anything other than something along the lines.....well everyone knows.

I may not agree with your position but for GOD'S sake at least have some reasoning behind your positions.

Morons.

Original Mike said...

What should we call the Rally to Restore Sanity folks?

Children.

Revenant said...

But I knew back then that people from Kenya were Kenyans not Keynesians.

On the other hand, you might expect that anybody ignorant enough to think Obama is from Kenya might also be ignorant enough to misspell "Kenyan".

jayne_cobb said...

I personally prefer "Sanitarians", but a name would suggest that this actually constitutes a movement and I have yet to see anyone who believes that.

Quite frankly I think I'm just going to keep referring to them as hipsters.

Sofa King said...

Stuff White People Like:

o John Stewart
o Dressing Up As Hitler
o Serious Irony

Ankur said...

Hah..good point, AJ Lynch.

So...a bunch of americans are geographically ignorant. Is that the point?

This might come off as superciliousness - but the lack of knowledge of world geographical or world history among americans isn't exactly uncommon. I've come across plenty of really smart/succesful colleagues who thought India was in the middle east and was primarily a muslim country, and that Sikhs were also muslims because they wear turbans. And their lack of knowledge had no correlation whatsoever with their level of intelligence or their political persuasion.

Jason (the commenter) said...

Let's just not call them anything, and just forget about them. Because what were they for and what did they have to say? Nothing!

X said...

Seriously - I don't know much about the american education system, but would someone who is not concentrating on economics or knows a lot about economic affairs know about Keynes

only if you paid attention during the study of The Great Depression in high school. even though it wasn't true, they did teach legend.

jayne_cobb said...

Slightly OT (it does involve Obama and an attempt to stir up the youth vote), but the President is apparently going to be doing an interview with Ryan Seacrest.

Given this site's love of all things American Idol I thought it would be of interest.

campy said...

● Losers

Ankur said...

Oh..and don't get me started on people who claim that genital mutilation is a muslim thing, rather than an older-than-islam african animist practise.

Islam has plenty of things to get angry about - genital mutilation isn't one of them.

Just saying.

Michael said...

DBQ:

I hear the Sarah Palin is stupid mainly from housewives in the late fifties. Saying it makes them smart. A talisman of sorts.

kent said...

What should we call the Rally to Restore Sanity folks?

Why do I need to call them anything, really? I tell them either regular or large fries with the rest of my order, and that's that.

Trooper York said...

Well at least Ryan is not going to question him about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

They have the same policy on American Idol.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Ankur said...

Really, Comrade X?

In my understanding, Keynes'ideas were widely adopted after World War 2, and his influence peaked in the 50s and 60s,both well beyond the depression.

Although, I do remember reading somewhere that Keynes predicted the second world war sometime in the late 20s.

WV: spanc. I kid you not.

dbp said...

I went to college in the 1980's but in econ 101 we certainly covered the views of John Maynard Keynes.

The whole stunt reminded me of a bit done on The Man Show where they got a bunch of people to sign a petition against women's suffrage.

There was a part of the video toward the end where the person being interviewed clearly knew that they were talking about economics not country of origin.

DaveW said...

At least now I know what Stewart's audience is like.

X said...

did Keynes ever show his long form macroeconomics?

Anonymous said...

Was his name common knowledge to you guys when you were in your early 20's to late 20s?

"Commonly" known, but less understood. Keynes, a darling of the Left for his extraordinarily "complex" theories, which in fact were very simple - and simpleminded.

A buffoon of the first Marxist order, later annihilated by John Nash ("Game Therory").

Keynesian antidote: Road to Serfdom* by F.A. Hayek.

*Complete remission: Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.

Ankur said...

So..does everyone take Econ 101 when they go to college? Is it a core course that everyone HAS to take regardless of what they are majoring in?

I ask because where I went to college, we started with hardcore sciences right away. (Hence the overarching nerdiness)

I'm Full of Soup said...

Ankur:

It's not geographic ignorance, it's basic spelling ability they lack.

Not one person told him he misspelled the word Kenyan so I suspect they can't read or can't spell but quickly jumped to the conclusion he was a birther.

DKWalser said...

The video was hilarious, but it was also painful to watch. Like the man-on-the-street quizes Leno does, I sincerly hope this video didn't present a random sample of the responses.

To answer the question, I knew who Keynes was when I was in high school. The mantra from the left is that the Tea Party is made up of a bunch of illiterate hicks. I'll bet that most Tea Partiers could not only name Keynes, they could offer a pretty fair critique of why his economic theories offer little insight in what should be done to get our economy moving again.

WV: altesh

AlphaLiberal said...

I think Ann Althouse broke her funny bone.

Ankur said...

Calling an academic a buffoon because subsequent discoveries and research proved him wrong...is kind of odd, don't you think?

No one would call Newton a buffoon just because Einstein comprehensively proved him wrong. And...in many cases, we still use newtonian mechanics.

Economics is even less deterministic, and frameworks are bound to fail at some point. Miltonian theories have also shown to fail in some cases. In physics, one can at least dream of a GUT. In Economics, a GUT doesn't even seem in the realm of possibility.

dbp said...

Ankur said...

"So..does everyone take Econ 101 when they go to college? Is it a core course that everyone HAS to take regardless of what they are majoring in?"

Hard to say after all this time. I was a mechanical engineering major, I certainly didn't take econ for fun--so it must have filled some kind of graduation requirement.

Michael said...

Ankur: I was an English major and knew about Keynes. I also knew the names, if not the thinking, of most of the thinkers you list. I believe a mark of a good education is one that makes the student aware of the existence of major influences in many different fields. It is a shame that people believe that specialized educations of the type you received prepare the student for the real world.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Alpha:
What video were you watching- the attendees lost their funny bones. Hence the knee-jerk offense taken to the Keynesian sign.

garage mahal said...

Good thing they didn't ask something almost impossible to answer like "what do you read".

Ankur said...

Again, not to defend ignorance...but 'Kenyan' is an adjective based on a proper noun. It is easy to make mistake with those.

I mean, I still don't know how "Dutch" can be derived from either "Holland" or "The Netherlands". "The Netherlands" -> crotch. But Dutch? Maybe from Deutsch? Ah, never mind. Ignorance is ignorance

Anonymous said...

I still like "Puerile Majority" but it doesn't seem to be catching on. Whatever happened to "Brights"?

Ankur said...

Michael - very good point. I strongly agree with you. I DO wish I had a more balanced education instead of all science all the time. I was stupid enough to think that courses in the liberal arts and economics and such were 'soft' and for stupid people. That was a bad attitude to have and I regret it now.

Methadras said...

garage mahal said...

Cute how defensive Althouse gets when some group threatens her precious tea partiers.


Hey lardo, it was nice to see some of your relatives out there. Fucking chump.

bagoh20 said...

Of course, there are fools in all groups, but when you're a fool and your main message is telling everyone else how stupid they are, it's just more precious.

I wonder if Jon Stewart will feature any of this on the Daily Show. If he cares about the funny and the truth, he should.

X said...

like I said Ankur, it wasn't true, but in the late 70's high schools were teaching that Keynsian economics had saved America during The Great Depression.

Methadras said...

AlphaLiberal said...

I think Ann Althouse broke her funny bone.


How would you know. You never had one. Hey, I saw your mom on that video by the way. Yeah, she was just as stupid as you are.

Methadras said...

What should we call the Rally to Restore Sanity folks?

The unsane.

garage mahal said...

Hey lardo, it was nice to see some of your relatives out there. Fucking chump.

Still not getting laid eh. That's too bad. Don't know what to tell ya.

Unknown said...

Saniteers?

Bruce Hayden said...

It was quite humorous. But, then, you would almost have to be either ignorant about economics to back Obama, or on the take (like, for example, former Enron advisor Paul Krugman).

Diamondhead said...

"Good thing they didn't ask something almost impossible to answer like "what do you read"."

I'm sure their reading lists are impressive.

Bruce Hayden said...

Let me restate my previous assertion - you would have to be either ignorant about economics or on the take to continue to support President Obama after the last two years.

bagoh20 said...

Why do we need to pick a name for them? I'm sure they all wear name tags...at least 8 hrs. a day. Well, the over-achievers anyway.

AllenS said...

Nothing says Rally for Sanity like someone with a Hitler mustache, and his friend with a clown nose. Are Kenesians from Kenya?

Anonymous said...

Calling an academic a buffoon because subsequent discoveries and research proved him wrong...is kind of odd, don't you think?

No. Although it wasn't his fault that the Left ingested his crackpot theories by the shovels full.

And they're still gorging at the trough, such as Princeton's #1 zero-summer, Paul Krugman. Where, BTW, Game Theory was essentially born.

In physics, Keynes may be best equated with the Law of Entropy, wherein his theories devolve into quantum chaos.

Bruce Hayden said...

like I said Ankur, it wasn't true, but in the late 70's high schools were teaching that Keynesian economics had saved America during The Great Depression.

Not surprised. My memory is that it was the 1970s where Keynesian economics was originally debunked.

When I took econ as an undergrad during the Nixon years, Keynesian economics was still being taught as accepted wisdom. But ten years later, in business school, I saw a lot of research that had been done that had debunked it.

garage mahal said...

Let me restate my previous assertion - you would have to be either ignorant about economics or on the take to continue to support President Obama after the last two years.

By almost every economic measure, the economy is doing better than when he took over. Taxes down, deficit down, stock market up 4000 points, modest job growth, and instead of the economy contracting, it is growing. Or did you mean another country?

Bruce Hayden said...

I personally prefer "Sanitarians", but a name would suggest that this actually constitutes a movement and I have yet to see anyone who believes that.

Movement or not, you got my vote. Sanitarians has a nice ring to it.

Trooper York said...

But you would think that Sanitarians would clean up after themselves?

Otherwise how Sanitary would they be?

Godot said...

What should we call the Rally to Restore Sanity folks?

Keenians
___

bagoh20 said...

Like the people who had great new homes 2 years ago. I'm doing great!

There is a little thing called debt, Garage. It's the other shoe.

Trooper York said...

Why not go with what all the other kids call them in High School: Douche Bags.

Anonymous said...

By almost every economic measure, the economy is doing better than when he took over.

In that case the Dems will not only retain congress, but gain seats.

By the same measure, Chris Dodd will rise from the political graveyard.

Automatic_Wing said...

We could call them "The Coffee Party".

bagoh20 said...

Both Beck's and this rally were pretty nonpolitical, but in different ways. This one looked fun - more of a concert really, but Beck's was inspirational, even for an agnostic like me. Beck's people seemed to be looking for meaning, brotherhood, and solidarity. Just a deepe, more mature group. But of course, as we know, they were all insane.

garage mahal said...

In that case the Dems will not only retain congress, but gain seats.

2 out of 3 voters think their taxes went up.

Methadras said...

garage mahal said...

Still not getting laid eh. That's too bad. Don't know what to tell ya.


Oh, I get laid just fine. Tell your mom I said Hi. kthxbye.

Methadras said...

AllenS said...

Are Kenesians from Kenya?


No, communists are.

Chip Ahoy said...

Speaking of sanitarians, can I safely assume the Restore Sanity rally did leave the grounds as well picked up as the Restoring Honor rally participants did? Otherwise I'm certain I'd have seen several comparisons by now.

Methadras said...

Almost Ali said...

By the same measure, Chris Dodd will rise from the political graveyard.


And Barney Frank will be made Queen of something...

wv = China = LOL!!!

AllenS said...

Sanitarian napkins.

Martin L. Shoemaker said...

Ankur,

Overarching nerdiness? Please. You haven't come close to demonstrating that yet.

Oh, and Trooper, it's Trekker.

(See, Ankur? That is overarching nerdiness.)

As for your questions: yeah, this math/physics/computer geek knew who Keynes, Hayek, and Friedman were, and at least a little about their positions. Sometimes the courses you pick are less important than the roommates and friends you pick, as far as getting exposed to a wide range of ideas.

X said...

2 out of 3 voters think their taxes went up.

that's because dems are in office. a conditioned response. probably should have cut taxes in a meaningful way. but if you're going to do that, what's the point of being a democrat?

Anonymous said...

2 out of 3 voters think their taxes went up.

Also "going up," way up.

And already way up locally.

AST said...

Comedy Centrists

Paul said...

Since Obama's election and his embrace of Keynesian economics the subject has been in the news and discussed on the blogs ad nauseum. Regardless of whether or not one took economics in school anyone paying attention for the last couple of years is familiar with the topic.

Looks like these geniuses are simply uninformed. No surprise there.

LordSomber said...

"What should we call the Rally to Restore Sanity folks?"

How about "sanies"?

Warning: you're not gonna wanna google the meaning of that word.

Phil 314 said...

Alpha and Garage lighten up!

c'mon even Stewart would have found this video funny.

X said...

a thousand quatloos says the large angry lady in red is a teacher.

Michael said...

Ankur: The flip side is that I have half a dozen books on physics and game theory and black holes and I dutifully plow through them making notes as I go. I then give myself a little test on what I have just read, noted, underlined and highlighted. The sad truth is that you can bullshit your way, or most of the way, through the humanities but not so much with science, mathematics and the physics that nestles beside philosophy.

Unknown said...

The sanitarians seem to belong in a sanitarium.

Ankur said...

..What are the odds that the people who knew exactly what Keynsian meant were edited out of the clip?

Seriously - I don't know much about the american education system, but would someone who is not concentrating on economics or knows a lot about economic affairs know about Keynes or Friedman? Was his name common knowledge to you guys when you were in your early 20's to late 20s?

I'll be honest - I didn't know the Keynes name until my mid twenties. I knew Bernoulli, Euler, Lagrange, Faraday, Carnot, Hamilton, Doppler,Tesla, Foucalt, Feynman, Poincare, Planck, Dirac, Von Neumann, Heisenberg, Pauli, Fermi....but I did not know Keynes. Different specialty, you see.


Ankur sounds a lot like another of PB&J's alter egos. He rattles off a list of names, many of which any reasonably well-grounded high schooler might know: I was exposed to Keynes, Faraday, Tesla, Poincare, Planck, and Fermi through various science and history courses.

Some of the others only come into play with the rise of computers.

Bottom line: Ankur wants us all to be impressed with how many names from the world of physics and computer science he can rattle off.

So..does everyone take Econ 101 when they go to college? Is it a core course that everyone HAS to take regardless of what they are majoring in?

I ask because where I went to college, we started with hardcore sciences right away. (Hence the overarching nerdiness)


Makes me wonder if he ever went at all. Most schools do the liberal arts stuff first. I didn't get a year of economics till I was a sophomore.

AlphaLiberal said...

I think Ann Althouse broke her funny bone.

Over Alpha's head.

themightypuck said...

These sorts of shenanigans are totally fair and also funny. Stupid people abound and there is nothing wrong with having a laugh.

themightypuck said...

Also, of course the people who knew what Keynesian meant were edited out. This is like Jaywalking. You don't focus on the people who step on the joke.

dbp said...

When I saw the title of this post: ""Obama = Keynesian?" sign makes Rally for Sanity folks insane...
... and stupid:" I had no idea that the video would involve thinking Keynesian was Keynan. The S in there makes it seem like a pretty unrelated word to me.

If a person had the word Keynan on their mind then a word with some of the same letters might make them think of it. It is kind of indicative of the "restore sanity" mind-set: They are so sure their opponents are unhinged or stupid that they jump to conclusions.

shirley elizabeth said...

Comrade X said:

"but in the late 70's high schools were teaching that Keynsian economics had saved America during The Great Depression."

I read this (from Wikipedia) shortly before your comment:

"Keynesian economics...served as the economic model during the latter part of the Great Depression..."

and I laughed.

Anonymous said...

FWIW, I am quite sure that I never learned about Keysian economics (or, really, any other kind) in college. I don't recall anyone I knew ever taking an econ class, although I know that they are offered now (and assume they were then). If it ever came up in High School (where I took almost every AP class offered), it wasn't enough to stick.

I was a Psych major. I was in my University's very exclusive Honor's program, but the classes we were urged and often required to take were almost entirely based around Humanities/literature and philosophy. Hard sciences and math were basically frowned upon. I graduated HS in 1998 and was in undergrad through 2002, so I'm a little older than most of these folks, but probably close enough to compare experiences.

It's only my love of reading about politics, mostly discovered post-college, that taught me about such things. I'm not at all surprised that most people don't know them.

- Lyssa

(My point, BTW, is that modern education sucks badly at teaching anything that would be actually good for citizens to know.)

John Burgess said...

I see no reason to change my usual terminology: "Sanctimonious, humor-impaired assholes".

I definitely came across Keynes and Keynsian in high school, but that was back in the 60s.

Roger Zimmerman said...

To the defenders of these dolts:

The debate about the value of Keynesian policies has been a central issue of this election. It is unfathomable that someone who claims to be a rational adult - and who is about to vote in a federal election - has not taken the responsibility of educating themselves about this enough to at least know that the term refers to an economic prescription.

Of course, the stoned kid probably does know that when he isn't stoned, so I give him a pass.

garage mahal said...

Looks like Stewarts audience knows more about money that Bill O'Reilly's audience, which is not surprising:

CNN) -- So, three guys are watching TV.

One turns on Jay Leno. One tunes into David Letterman. And the other watches Jon Stewart.

Who's better informed politically?

In a recent survey, viewers of Stewart's "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central tested better than Letterman and Leno viewers on a six-question politics quiz. (How do you stack up? Take the quiz and compare your score.)

Viewers of all three shows know more about the background of presidential candidates and their positions on issues than people who don't watch late-night TV.

On top of that, "Daily Show" viewers know more about election issues than people who regularly read newspapers or watch television news, according to the National Annenberg Election Survey. (Pop quiz)

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young, a senior research analyst at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, said "Daily Show" viewers came out on top "even when education, party identification, following politics, watching cable news, receiving campaign information online, age and gender are taken into consideration."

The quiz was given to 19,013 adults between July 15 and September 19.

The quiz included these questions:

"Who favors allowing workers to invest some of their Social Security contributions in the stock market?" Answer: Bush.

"Who urges Congress to extend the federal law banning assault weapons?" Answer: Kerry.

While viewers of NBC's "The Tonight Show" and CBS's "The Late Show" scored better than the general public, Stewart's fans came out on top.

Leno and Letterman viewers scored 49 percent on the quiz. But "Daily Show" viewers scored 60 percent on average.

Scores were even lower for those who read a newspaper or watch network news four days a week.

Comedy Central was waiting for news like this. On September 17, Stewart appeared on Bill O'Reilly's "The O'Reilly Factor" only to be told his viewers are "stoned slackers" and "dopey kids."

"You know what's really frightening?" O'Reilly asked Stewart. " You actually have an influence on this presidential election. That is scary, but it's true."

Comedy Central used its viewers' test scores Tuesday to strike back at Fox News Channel and O'Reilly's viewers.

It also trotted out stats from Nielsen Media Research to show that Stewart's viewers are not only smart, but more educated than O'Reilly's.

"Daily Show" viewers are 78 percent more likely than the average adult to have four or more years of college education, while O'Reilly's audience is only 24 percent more likely to have that much schooling.

Plus, the network noted, "Daily Show" viewers are 26 percent more likely to have a household income more than $100,000, while O'Reilly's audience is only 11 percent more likely to make that much money.


So the guy watching Stewart may not only be smart, but may also be rich.


Linkage

Anonymous said...

Garage- Educated does not equal smart or informed. Notice that they didn't, apparently, give this survey to O'Reilly viewers. (Not that that would show much, anyway- O'Reilly's a pompous ass, and I doubt his audience is representative of "conservatives")

BTW, I really wanted to take the quiz myself (not that I would fit into any of the catagories listed), but the link (the one at your link) doesn't work.

Also, I really, really doubt the income statistics. The Daily Show comes on at 11:00, eastern time. Most people who make that much probably don't even stay up late enough to watch shows that come on that late. I watched it when I was in college and just out, like many people, but now, that's just too late.

- Lyssa

Gahrie said...

2 out of 3 voters think their taxes went up.


Mine did. And they are set to go up even more when the Bush tax cuts expire next year. I bet most people's taxes have gone up the last two years. There are plenty more taxes in this country besides the federal income tax.

Blue@9 said...

Well, these people either have bad eyesight, are dyslexic, or simply assume it's a birther statement because they have no clue what the word means.

Of course, like most "Hey look at these dumb people" show clips, there were probably scores of people who knew what the word meant and did not beclown themselves.

Writ Small said...

Two ideas from the same theme: "the sanier than thou's" or "the sane-temonious"

Anonymous said...

I knew who Keynes was when I was 14.

Of course, I was a very strange child.

Freeman Hunt said...

The Super Sanes

bagoh20 said...

""Daily Show" viewers are 78 percent more likely than the average adult to have four or more years of college education,"

And that got them a 60% score. Lernin' ain't what it used to be.

somefeller said...

edutcher says: Bottom line: Ankur wants us all to be impressed with how many names from the world of physics and computer science he can rattle off...Makes me wonder if he ever went at all. Most schools do the liberal arts stuff first. I didn't get a year of economics till I was a sophomore.

Actually, Ankur made it clear in this thread that he was a science major in college who eschewed economics and liberal arts courses, something he regrets now. But I suspect that despite all that he's turned out fine and is a much more successful and productive member of American society than you, edutcher.

bagoh20 said...

Yea, why do the links to the quiz not work?

They have two questions in the article, and they are hardly indicative of anything but that someone has been watching the Daily Show.

The results show that the group of stoners who watches the political show have a slightly better (60% to 49%) knowledge of political trivia than the stoners who stay up later watching a pure entertainment show.

They should be very proud of their failing grade.

A.W. said...

my suggestion?

"Sanity and Colmes"

Shanna said...

Also, I really, really doubt the income statistics.

Lyssa, it makes a lot more sense if you realize it measures "household" income, ie mom and dad.

I knew who keynes was at 20, but then I took econ. Mostly I knew him as the economist who thought stagflation could never happen, until Carter came along a proved it wrong. But don't be too hard on him, since he's reported to have said "when the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?" So, respect for that.

The Crack Emcee said...

edutcher,

That assault on Ankur was uncalled for. WTF?

Garage,

You just proved you're not very smart.

AllenS said...

I don't think that I heard about Keynes in high school. He might have been mentioned though. I never minded going to school, but that wait until I could go home was bullshit.

When I saw "Obama = Keynesian", I knew it was a trap, and people full of themselves fell for it. The few, the smart, the sanitarian napkins.

kent said...

Garage,

You just proved you're not very smart.

Most of the leftists hereabouts are still stuck halfway between Stages One and Two in the grieving process. (They know perfectly well what's going to happen tomorrow, whether they willingly 'fess up to said knowledge or not.)

They'll be ramping up for one last full-bore, pyrotechnic Stage Two tantrum, post-election; and then skipping past Stage Three altogether and seguing directly into Stage Four, by and large. You should have better luck coaxing (semi-)rational, (quasi-)coherent responses out of them by then.

William said...

I just saw brief clips from the rally, but it appeared to be a decent, well behaved crowd. They were for the most part young, and many of them will be voting Republican in the fullness of time....Beck is not a harbinger of Nazism, and these kids are not the Red Guard. .....Has anyone not in the field ever read a book on economics just for enlightenment? Those books are difficult, and economics doesn't seem to attract writers with a light touch.

Clyde said...

I picked the last option in the poll, but only because "Hipster Douchebags" wasn't on the list.

Freeman Hunt said...

Does college seem to anyone else to have become, in large part, a training ground for hubris?

Ankur said...

Education has always led to Hubris. When you're young, and you suddenly learn amazingly elegant ideas, and it seems like the answers to the deepest universal questions are just round the bend, its hard to avoid a certain amount of Hubris.

I suspect this was true even in the days of Plato. Everything has its downside.

..If only one could take courses in Wisdom 101.

And Edutcher, this is where I went to school: http://www.iitk.ac.in/

When I went, we were only required to take 2 humanities courses as part of a degree requirement, in a four year period. Of course, I took the ones which seemed to be the easiest grades - Philosophy 141 and Sociology 121 - no answer was a wrong answer in these courses.

Martin L. Shoemaker said...

William said...

Has anyone not in the field ever read a book on economics just for enlightenment?

Yes, but I'm a geek.

Also, it depends on what sort of books you count as "in the field". Does a non-quantitative layman's explanation count? Or does it have to be quantitative and academic?

dick said...

I grew up in a small farm town and we learned the rudiments of Keynesian econ by junior year. In college we had to take a core curriculum which included econ that made up half your college courses. I think the impression was that almost everyone would go on for at least a master's from that school and you could specialize then.

Anonymous said...

@Ankur: No one would call Newton a buffoon just because Einstein comprehensively proved him wrong. And...in many cases, we still use newtonian mechanics.

Newtonian mechanics is a special case that falls out of relativistic mechanics when v << c. The world of Einstein encompasses the world of Newton.

Keynesianism is not a special case of anything. There is only one reason that it ever got any purchase in the world of political economy, and that is because it is a handy excuse for statist politicians, union goons, crony capitalists, and all the other lazy rent seekers to shove their snouts deeper in the public trough. (Much like the moral panic of global warming, by the way.)

Mick said...

Rally for the willfully blind.

Mick said...

None of you know anything about economics apparently. Keyensian Economics revolves around the theory that government spending will keep the economy growing infinitely.
It is a failed theory that fails to account for Opportunity Cost, i.e government spending takes away from private sector spending. It creates an ever growing cycle of spending to pay for previous spending. The problem is, and where we are right now, is that the interest being paid on the previous spending eventually oustrips the ability of incomes to pay for it.
It also replaces the Austrian Economic theory that "Savings Equals Investment" with "Income equals Investment". "Saving" is Evil in the Keyensian world, as that means the money is not being spent. That is why Interest rates have unnaturally been kept near zero, to punish savers, where saving should be the lynchpin of investment, and the taking of risk.
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell".
--Edward Abbey
We have eaten our economic selves alive. A new system is coming.

kent said...

A dead-on, pitch perfect squelching of the stiflingly straitjacketed mindset common to the likes of Stewart and his studiedly bemused flock:

The Jon Stewart "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" might as well have been the product of an "Operation Diversion." How to keep as many liberals as possible safely in thrall to their own smug superiority and distaste for the rough-and-tumble of political persuasion? Give them a rally a few days before the election where they can amuse themselves with their ironic signs and their highhanded dismissal of anyone not as exquisitely reasonable as they are. "Yes, We Can (Congratulate Ourselves)."

Anonymous said...

India! Interesting, Ankur, because India (c. 1913) was the subject of John Maynard Keynes first major (published) work: Indian Currency and Finance

Modern politics and economics aside, Keynes had a wonderful mind. His influence on 20th century economics can't be overstated, including our own Federal Reserve system.

But personally I admire his The Economic Consequences of the Peace, dealing with German reparations following WW1, particularly how President Wilson was completely outwitted at the Paris Peace Conference by Clemenceau, who sought under the guise of "statemanship" nothing but vengeance.

To his great credit, Keynes (representing the British Treasury) envisioned the onerous effects of the hyper-excessive reparations foisted on defeated Germany, and walked out of the Conference in protest.

In his time, Keynes was a, if not thee, major economic figure, with an attending and astute grasp of geopolitics. So in fairness, the term "buffoon" does not apply - except to his many and confused disciples.

William said...

Keynes' book, The Economic Consequences of Peace, was a big best seller in Germany. It contributed mightily to the sense of wounded nationalism that Germans held about their defeat-- feelings that were later exploited by Hitler. Nonetheless, the reparations inflicted on Germany were not extreme. For extreme reparations, see what Germany inflicted on France after the Franco-Prussian War or on Russia after her defeat.....Keynes book had a profound effect not just on Germans but on most thinking people in the west. The feeling was that the problems of the Weimar Republic were a direct consequence of reparations rather than of financial mismanagement by its own politicians. I have read several historians such as Paul Johnson who claims that Keynes' book had more deleterous effects than Mein Kampf.

Methadras said...

The Crack Emcee said...

Garage,

You just proved you're not very smart.


I proved that a long time ago. However, Crisco boy himself did it even before I pointed it out. He's his own best advertiser.

Anonymous said...

Nonetheless, the reparations inflicted on Germany were not extreme.

By that measure, I suppose we could also say Hitler wasn't extreme, even though his ascendancy was spawned by the onerous reparations orchestrated by Clemenceau.

I'm glad Keynes was there to record the details, although the resulting lessons were never learned. Even now as our man in the White House is as clueless as Wilson was at the Paris Peace Conference.

And look at what's happened in between, namely the European Union with the French Court essentially in control. Primarily because yet [another] Austrian got the ear of post-war Charles de Gaulle. The whole French point being to offset Anglo/Slav power by aligning themselves with the "Latin Bloc," namely Islamic.

And with great imperialist enthusiasm the French-EU imported their own executioners. Namely Islamic.

Meanwhile, Germany rises, again.

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