Stupid and Poor...

Correspondents have been asking where my four-times-a-year pointing out that Donald Luskin is a *real* idiot--and that anyone who cites him as an authority is bonkers--is. The problem is that surfing over to his website is so painful and sad. But I'll do it.

Here we have Donald Luskin writing that Paul Krugman should "aspire" to becoming a totalitarian dictator and killing twenty million people:

The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid : SOMETHING FOR KRUGMAN TO ASPIRE TO: Reader Perry Eidelbus informs us that Paul Krugman has been selected in a poll as number 35 among the top economists of the 20th century. Perry notes: "At least 13 people out of 1249 respondents thought Krugman was one of the top five (12 for first-place votes, and a 13th for a second-place vote). At most, 64 people voted for him (all fifth-place votes). At least 36 were similarly minded to vote for Lenin, of all people, as at least the fifth greatest. Mao apparently didn't make it. I guess you can still kill 20 million people and be called an economist..."

It appears that Luskin is making the point--if there is a point--that economists who like Krugman are also economists who like Lenin. But what Luskin doesn't point out is that in the poll Lenin's 36 points (and Paul's 64) are swamped by right-wingers Joseph Schumpeter's 1080 points, Friedrich Hayek's 469, Milton Friedman's 319, Ronald Coase's 246, and even Ludwig von Mises's 78.

(Keynes wins by a landslide, with 3.5 times Schumpeter's vote point total.)

As I said, painful and sad: Luskin can't open his mouth without misrepresenting something--in this case an online poll--and misrepresenting it for no purpose.