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Dumbo Does Not Know Economics

Dim Won, a/k/a Dumbo, b/k/a Barack Obama defended his economic success, lack thereof, on Sixty Minutes, from Politico [1]:

Barack Obama offered a spirited defense of his presidency in an interview that aired Sunday on “60 Minutes,” framing the 2012 election as a “contrast in visions.”

Reax, William Teach, Pirates Cove [2]:

Man Who Accepted Nomination In Front Of Greek Temple Says He Didn’t “Overpromise”

Alternate title: “man who said his ascendency stopped the rise of the seas and healed the earth says he didn’t overpromise”

More reax, from Robert Stacy McCain,  Only McCain [3]:

Obamanomics is simply ignorance as the basis of policy. The more you know, the less you like it, and his only hope of re-election is to promulgate counterfactual ideas and persuade voters that they must choose between two lies: His dishonest characterizations of his own policies and his dishonest characterizations of Republican policies.

And more, rom Richard A. Epstein, Hoover Institution [4]:

The painful ignorance that is revealed in these remarks augurs ill for the long-term recovery of America. With the president firmly determined to set himself against the tides of progress, innovation will be harder to come by. The levels of unemployment will continue to be high as the president works overtime to impose additional restrictions on the labor markets and more taxes at the top of the income distribution—both backhanded ways to reward innovation and growth.

The problem, therefore, with the president’s speech is not that it is demagogic in tone. The problem is that it is intellectually incoherent. As a matter of high principle, the president announces his fealty to markets. As a matter of practical politics, he denigrates and undermines them at every step. It is a frightening prospect to have a president who lives in a time warp that lets him believe that the failed policies of 1935 can lead this nation back from the brink. His chosen constituency, the middle class, should tremble at the prospect that his agenda might well set the course for the United States for the next four years.

To illustrate Epstein, we have few coal miners producing more coal that we did at the turn of the previous century.from Source Watch [5]:

Since 1900, technological developments in the coal mining industry have dramatically increased miner productivity; thus, while U.S. coal production is currently at a record high, mining employment is a fraction of what it was during the heyday of coal mining in the 1910’s and 20’s

Year Total U.S. Coal Production Total U.S. Coal Miner Employment Annual Production Per Miner

1900 269,684 448,581 0.60

[…]

2006 1,162,750 82,595 14.08

If adhered to Dumbo’s Luddite Economics, we would have to be trudging back to the coal mines.    Any takers?

I once explained the gist of the Laffer Curve to two waitresses in less than two minutes.  Is the exhulte4d Dumbo dumber than a waitress?   I don’t mean to impugn waitresses, how they not noted for allegedly editing the Harvard Law Review.

And finally from Karen, likes this analogy from Dumbo, via Lonely Conservative [6]:

“And no matter how well we’re steering the ship, if the boat’s rocking back and forth and people are getting sick and…they’re being buffeted by the winds and the rain and…at a certain point- if you’re asking, “Are you enjoying the ride right now?”

You really should not be the captain of a ship when you are  too dumb, uneducated, or just plain stubborn to read a compass.