Faith-based Freaks - by Paul Krugman

[bananas]

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/faith-based-freaks/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=2

Faith-based Freaks
Paul Krugman
May 16, 2014

Noah Smith isn’t very happy with Steve Levitt, who thinks he was being smart by telling David Cameron that he should scrap the NHS and let the magic of the marketplace deal with health care. Strangely, Cameron wasn’t impressed.

I think there are actually several things going on here. One is a Levitt-specific, or maybe Freakonomics-specific, effect: the belief that a smart guy can waltz into any subject and that his shoot-from-the-hip assertions are as good as the experts’. Remember, Levitt did this on climate in his last book, delivering such brilliant judgements as the assertion that because solar panels are black (which they actually aren’t), they’ll absorb heat and make global warming worse. So it’s true to form that he would consider it unnecessary to pay attention to the work of lots of health economists, or for that matter the insights of Ken Arrow, and assert that hey, I don’t see any reason not to trust markets here.

There’s also the resurgence of faith-based free-market fundamentalism. I’ll write more on this soon, but I’m seeing on multiple fronts signs of an attempt to wave away everything that happened to the world these past seven years and go back to the notion that the market always knows best. Hey, it’s always about allocating scarce resources (never mind all those unemployed workers and zero interest rates), and why would you ever imagine that market prices are wrong (don’t mention the bubble).

<snip>

[bvar22]

1. DURec,

...but too many of our "Democrats" are faith-based believers in the Free Market Fundamentalism, even our "Free Trading" President.


Sorry, Virginia,
but there is No Such Thing as a "Free Market".
There is NO Such Thing as "Free Trade",
and there certainly is NO All Powerful Invisible Hand that reaches down from The Heavens and
protects Citizens & Consumers from "mistakes" in the Free Market Place.

All that BS was invented by RICH men so they could GET MORE MONEY.
The used smooth talking Con Men to sell this to a gullible America.
They were so good at marketing this new Faith Based Economic Religion,
that many STILL buy their BS TODAY!!!

Here is a picture of the altar in this New Church where our Political Leaders, Democrat & Republican, all go to worship.

[font color=white]..............[/font][font size=4]The Graven Image on the altar
[font color=white].......[/font]of the Church of the "Free Trade"[/font]

[lunasun]

2. +1

[fasttense]

4. Oh wow, you just wrote my own thoughts.

There is no such thing as "free" markets. There never was such an animal and can never be such an animal. All markets ever established were and are controlled by the state. From ancient Rome and Greece to modern America, every market ever created has been under the control of government and always will be. Markets must be controlled in order to have a civilization. To be truly "free" a market would involve common theft and brute force. In order to prevent brute force from winning out, police, military, security, contract laws and trade agreements were developed.

There never was and never will be such an animal as "free" trade. It's all hype to reduce competition and let the fat cats win out.

[blkmusclmachine]

3. Seduced by Big Money. All "False Prophets"!

[Enthusiast]

5. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

[Jefferson23]

6. Recommend. n/t