Ben Stein speaks

Here's what's on Ben Stein's "mind" in today's NYT:

• $10 million bat mitzvahs are killing soldiers in Iraq. He "reasons" that the rich party-givers got the money from a tax cut that is starving the soldiers. The tax cut is also raising the deficit.  Look elsewhere for hard thoughts about whether we should starve the soldiers, bring them home, reduce the deficit, or tax the rich so that they don't have as much for the caterers.
• He's still raging about going private transactions, this time Four Seasons. This one is particularly bad because Bill Gates is investing in it, and he's too rich already.
• Ben still had some space to fill, so he gave a couple of his brain cells over to why foreign listings are down in NY.

Why should we read this? Because Ben is (according to the company that rents him out to Bat Mitzvahs or wherever he entertains)

[a]n exceptionally gifted economist. . . An unlikely Renaissance man, Stein’s career achievements range from speechwriter for President Nixon to the pop icon who starred as Ferris Bueller’s teacher. He is, above all, an expert on bringing meaning to both life and work.

By the way, according to Wikipedia, this "exceptionally gifted economist" apparently got his training by majoring in economics in college, from which he graduated about 40 years ago (was that before Adam Smith?). Amazing that from such a simple beginning Ben should have been able to come up with insights like the ones in today's column.

So Ben Stein is a clown. Why should we care? After all, if people actually wanted to be informed, they wouldn't be reading Stein in the first place, would they? And anti-rich resentment sells newspapers. We want the NYT to prosper, don't we?

Deeper concerns about the effects of such rhetoric on public policy and on our criminal justice system is really the concern of blogs, not mighty newspapers.

Update: Tom Kirkendall adds his critique of Stein's LBO analysis.

Comments

[Alumnus]

Economics Teacher: . . . Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. "Voodoo" economics.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Actually I think there was a $10M bar mitzvah last year, and the father was making tons of money from defense contracting in Iraq.

That hardly constitutes a trend however.

Our troops in Iraq are undertrained and underequipped due to good old fashioned incompetence. How completely sad.

And Bush is charging the cost of the war to my childrens' future. Damn him anyway.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Only lawyers and economists are qualified to be experts on everything.

Ben is double trouble.