WSJ explains:
Liberal economist and Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz was in Hong Kong Thursday and gave his support to the recently passed minimum wage...“It’s an important part of making a market economy work well,” he said.
“Minimum wages are an important instrument of government policy to maintain the economic well-being of citizens and enable the people at the bottom to maintain their livelihood,” he said.
Stiglitz's analysis is so awesome, I think we should call a special session of Congress and legally raise his hourly rate to $600 billion, for his well being, of course. He really deserves all of QE2, on an hourly basis.
I tried to point this out on Eric Falkenstein's blog last week: "liberal economist" makes no sense. You might say "liberal and economist", but even then one wonders how one would maintain liberal viewpoints while simultaneously understanding economic truth. It's like saying "animal-rights activist and cow butcher".
ReplyDeleteBut my point is, there is no alternate set of economic laws and facts that liberals are in touch with and other economists aren't. You either deny some economic truths and try to live in opposition to them, or you don't. You don't get to be a liberal and have your economist title, too.
Mainstream media journalists are incredibly lazy and take this stuff for granted. How do you call a man an economist in the same effin' sentence in which you point out he supports a completely erroneous, thoroughly exploded, anti-economic concept like the minimum wage law?
Man, where is Hugh Hendry when you need him? Someone get that man on the next flight to HK so he can beat some sense into Stiglitz and the ignorant WSJ reporter who covered him.
Thanks, and I'll take QE.Lite. Glad you picked up on this. One of the freest economies in the world is being hijacked by the same interventionist nonsense that has wrecked the others.
ReplyDelete