It’s hard being a professor of Economics these days. Quoth Brad DeLong,
In short, I trot over to the J-School TV studio as part of the sober, sensible, bipartisan consensus, intending to carry water for Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson.
And what do I find also on BBC/Newsnight when I get there?
I FIND THAT I AM ON WITH GROVER-FRACKING-NORQUIST!! I FIND THAT I AM ON WITH GROVER-FRACKING-NORQUIST!!! WHO HAS THREE POINTS HE WANTS TO MAKE:
- Barack Obama wants to take your money by raising your taxes and pay it to the Communist Chinese.
- Oil prices are high today and the economy is in a near recession because of Nancy Pelosi: before Nancy Pelosi became speaker economic growth was fine–and she is responsible for high oil prices too.
- Economic growth is stalling because congress has not extended the Bush tax cuts. Congress needs to extend the Bush tax cuts, and if it does then that will fix the economy, and if it doesn’t then the economy cannot recover.
I am not paid enough to deal with this lying bullshit. I am not paid enough to deal with Grover Norquist and his willful stream of defecation into the global information pool.
In ‘c’, I think I can write the code that defines Grover Norquist.
#define IS_GROVER_NORQUIST_BREATHING 1
#define IS_GROVER_NORQUIST_LYING IS_GROVER_NORQUIST_BREATHING