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Sunday, June 14, 2009

Economics Reporters Ignorant of Economics

I just watched David Mark of Politico say on MSNBC that there is no positive side to the closing of auto dealerships. No positive side? What about the freeing up of labor and resources for projects that will create -- rather than destroy -- value?

It is outrageous -- though hardly new -- that major news organizations have reporters covering economic news without knowing even the most basic concepts of economics -- such as scarcity!

Is ignorance of Bastiat's "broken window" fallacy that widespread?

1 comment:

Joe said...

Do you really have to ask?

Just for fun I googled "bastiat site:nytimes.com" and there were only 242 results (compared to 4250 for Keynes). The first three date to 1911 and 1879! And the 4th and 5th are a blog post by Bob McTeer (former Dallas FRB president, i.e.,not a journalist).