Michael Klein’s letter to the editor glorifying the position
that Reaganomics led to the ’90s expansion brought to mind Albert
Einstein’s book “Ideas and Opinions,” particularly the section
entitled “Why Socialism?”
In the section, Einstein not only lays out his support of
Socialism, but also lays out the argument as to why such a
“non-expert” as himself should be allowed to speak about economics.
His first point is that, “The discovery of general laws in the
field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that
observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors
which are very hard to evaluate separately.”
Here Einstein shows more understanding of economics than Klein
and Brian Zimpfer, who wrote a letter on Tuesday, do. Sure, things
like tax breaks and other stimuli can take years to work due to the
money multiplier effect, but to attribute economic performance to
the president who was in office a decade earlier would be a gamble
and is debated among economists, but it is far away from the views
of “most economists,” as Klein would have your readers believe.
Would Klein have us believe that Bush senior’s two recessions
were due to Jimmy Carter? Most good economists list numerous
factors to the ’90s expansion, such as the emergence of
multi-billion dollar Internet commerce, increased worker
productivity and increased global competitiveness. Neither Reagan
nor Clinton invented the Internet, nor did they cause domestic
economic problems in Japan and Germany. This reductionism is
economics at its worst, as these oversimplified models are used to
justify solely political views.
Anonymous Author
Senior, Economics and Sociology
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.