Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?: Investors Business Daily Edition
Paul Krugman
Levels And Changes: Jared Bernstein is annoyed at an Investor’s Business Daily piece that totally misinforms readers about how to think about the effects of stimulus and austerity. Indeed, it’s as bad as he says. IBD says federal spending is still rising, so how can you say that stimulus is fading out?
This is, of course, dead simple stuff. The economy’s growth — the rate of change in GDP — depends on the rate of change in spending, not its level — and the rate of change has been falling. What’s more, lots of people tried to explain this a long time ago. Here was my take back in 2009.
Now, in my experience IBD is a consistent source of misinformation. What’s sad is that people pay money for this, believing that reading the thing will make them smarter, when in fact it actively makes them stupider.
Indeed. My rule in dealing with IBD is that the way to bet is that if it is new to me, it is false; and if it is true, it is not new to me.
