Paul Krugman, the Keynesian masquerading as an economist at Princeton, in today’s column in the New York Times writes about the “lump of labor” fallacy of economics. For the most part, he seems to get it right. However, our hero simply is incapable of writing anything on economics without committing at least one major fallacy. Today, Krugman gives us the Broken Windown Fallacy with a huge shattering of glass. Right in the middle of his column, he gives us this gem:
Since 2001, sensible economists have been pleading for federal aid to state and local governments so schoolteachers and police officers needn’t be laid off because of a temporary fall in revenues. They’ve also urged the administration to stop dragging its heels on much-needed homeland security spending, not just because such spending is needed to make the country safer, but also because it would create jobs and put more income into the hands of Americans likely to spend it. (And if you’re worried about spending’s leading to increased deficits, why not cancel some of those long-run tax breaks for upper brackets?) Until we’ve done the obvious things, there’s no reason to despair about job creation.
Yes, only our hero Paul can write a column on economic fallacies -- and commit them all at the same time!
