myths and fallacies

Hold the Pork on that Ham Sandwich

Reading this editorial in today’s Baltimore Sun makes me realize that the world is full of people who believe in square circles, mighty hurricanes whose strongest winds are but gentle breezes,...

Apologies to Paul Krugman

I here plead guilty to interpreting Paul Krugman unfairly.  I’ve long read a passage in this 2002 New York Times Magazine essay by Krugman as being an example of the common but false belief in...

Simon Will

In yesterday’s Washington Post, the great George Will has an excellent column — with this outstanding concluding line: Today, there is a name for the political doctrine that rejoices in...

Menacing Krugman

Here’s a letter that I sent today to the New York Times: Paul Krugman insists that the nearly ten trillion dollars of projected U.S. government budget deficits over the next decade is a...

Still Manufacturing Myths Aplenty

Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the New York Times: Bob Herbert insists that manufacturing in the U.S. is a mere shadow of its past proud self – and that this alleged decline of...

Stop Those Foreigners from Giving Us Such Great Deals!!!

Here’s a letter that I sent to the Wall Street Journal: Peter Navarro asserts that “China mops up vast sums of export dollars through sterilization efforts that are tantamount to forced...

Taxes, Subsidies, and Distortions

In the current New Yorker, James Surowiecki is properly critical of the economic distortions introduced by taxing debt-financed income much more lightly than taxing equity-financed income. But his...

Yet More Meyerson Myths

Here’s a letter that I sent this morning to the Washington Post: Harold Meyerson is confused about U.S. trade with China (”A marriage made in China,” Nov. 18). As incontrovertible...

More Meyerson Myths

Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Washington Post: Harold Meyerson’s discussion of U.S. trade with China is a buffet of errors (”A marriage made in China,” Nov....

Gangster ‘Capitalism’

Here’s a letter that I sent yesterday to the Wall Street Journal: John Micetich argues that “if we add up the bailouts to all financial firms, we’re well over $1 trillion, at least...