Mutual Poop Fling

Economists crack me up. They also annoy the shit out of me, sometimes doing both things at the same time. Dean Baker has yet another case in point where he makes a hilariously ridiculous statement in “correcting” an error that Robert Samuelson made in a print editorial.

He doesn’t link to Samuelson’s editorial, but from Dean’s rebuttals it seems that Samuelson claimed that our current trade deficit is being caused by the dollar’s status as “the global major currency,” inadequate government enforcement of patents and copyrights overseas, and the failure of the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement to come to fruition.

I have no problem in agreeing with Dean Baker that Robert Samuelson is full of shit. My problem is that I don’t agree with his reason for thinking so, which is that “The reason the U.S. is running such large trade deficits was the decision by many developing countries to accumulate huge amounts of reserves…”

He does not make any mention whatever of consumers buying Korean televisions and Japanese automobiles, or the decision by American manufacturers to export the production of both industrial and consumer goods to foreign countries. No indeed, this nation had nothing whatever to do with creating the terrible trade deficit that is trashing our economy. It was entirely inflicted upon us by others, making us innocent victims of predatory foreign countries.

Economists should be sealed in a hogshead immediately upon graduation from college, stored in a deep isolated cavern and fed through the bunghole until they die of old age.