Mankiw Agonistes

Brad DeLong analyzes the torments of an honest man who goes to work for George W. Bush. To make a long story short, honesty gets compromised and he's not working for Bush anymore anyway.

Comments

honesty gets compromised and he's not working for Bush anymore anyway.

He's still waiting for his Halliburton stock to vest.

Posted by moron | July 4, 2007 10:46 AM

I've never understood the respect Mankiw gets from other economists. His ideology is strongly held, and founded to a large extent on simply ignoring or forgetting large parts of the corpus of economic theory and accumulated knowledge.

Mankiw, with the same moronic grin on his face as any hack from the American Enterprise Institute, that the minimum wage is a bad, bad idea that hurts low-wage workers, because it deprives them of the joy of working even longer hours at still lower wages. And, Mankiw will bolster his argument, by saying that this is the consensus of the economics profession, confirmed by careful research by labor economists. Someone, like Brad, will bring up lists of prominent economists endorsing an increase in the minimum wage, or cite the careful empirical research confirming that higher minimum wages increase worker incomes, and Greg Mankiw will nod dumbly -- never changing his opinion -- until the next time he's asked.

How does this kind of stubborn, ideologically driven behavior earn Mankiw a reputation as anything, but a dumbass? Is it just because he looks good, compared to Alan Reynolds?

Posted by Bruce Wilder | July 4, 2007 1:41 PM

Honesty is not, and never has been, the issue. And who is to say what “torments’ he has? Have you sat him down on the couch and tried to read his mind?

No!

It is perhaps, and to some extent, a matter of ideology. But what you fail to acknowledge, or perhaps to understand, is how the system of incentives (power, prestige, fortune, and fame) works.

These guys, like Mankiw, Lazear, Boskin, et al, willingly (repeat, willingly) sell their souls to the devil for the rewards they receive as they go through the revolving doors of power and return to their high chairs in academia.

Others of them, like for instance the stable that works out of the Hoover Institution at Stanford, sit in resplendent comfort on top of a pile of gold provided by cheerful corporate donors, while idly churning out the learned treatises that give support to the ideology and the policies that rule the day.

Still others, not quite able to penetrate the higher circles, stand around in awe and jealousy of those who do.

Posted by Justin | July 4, 2007 2:31 PM

It's hard to take seriously any lefty who advocates an increase in the minimum wage but has no problem with massive unskilled immigration. That's a combination of policies that will lead to maybe a $1 per hour raise for retarded people working the fryer at McDonald's for minimum wage and a $5 per hour pay cut for high school grads hanging drywall.

Posted by Harry | July 4, 2007 4:07 PM