Thursday, November 27, 2008

Call Him Meier


Arthur Laffer shown here in happier days, wearing his full dress Reaganomics uniform, sporting both his "Grand Order of Jesusland Economics -- Trickle Down First Class" medal, and the prestigious "Culture War Merit Cross with Laffer-Curve Clusters".

So why dress this debunked fraud up like Fat Hermann?

Well, read on and see if you notice any similarities...

Hermann Göring, 9 August 1939:

"The Ruhr will not be subjected to a single bomb. If an enemy bomber reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Hermann Göring: you can call me Meier!"


Arthur Laffer, 28 August 2006:

"The U.S. economy has never been in better shape. There is no tax increase coming in the next couple of years. Monetary policy is spectacular."

and

"I’ll bet you a penny on this one, If you’ll sign a letter saying that you were wrong to me on this. But, you’re way off base, there’s nothing out there that tells us this - we’re going to have a nice slowdown but it’s not going to be a crash.


The video of Laffer and other Conservative skin-flutes making the mocking, sneering, declarative economic predictions that have now all blown up so spec-tac-ularly in their collective faces has already been all over the web and back

several times, so I wouldn't bring it up again but for this little bit of digital jetsam from three days ago featured on former New Yorker editor Tina Brown's latest throw-a-bucket-o-cash-at-it bid for Media Empire, The Daily Beast :

A Warning from Reagan's Economist

Why the proposed $700 billion stimulus plan could drive the country to economic ruin.

As you read this, our government is committing enormous sums of money above and beyond normal spending, solely to stimulate the economy and prop up failing companies and markets. These additional sums are huge by any reasonable measure, with estimates as high as $3 trillion in an economy with a GDP of about $15 trillion.

Here’s the bottom line: Instead of making things better, increased spending will only drive our economy further into the ground.
...

There is no tooth fairy. Every dollar given to someone comes from someone else.


Written by none other than Arty "Meier" Laffer.

Because among the Wingnut Welfare Kings and Queens, merely being fatally wrong a fucktillion times in a row has never been a barrier to cutting right to the front of the line for one more helping of Big Media Gravy.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

We simply need to silence these people. Permanently.

Anonymous said...

Interesting that the concept of "shame" is so foreign to right-wingers. But hey, don't listen to the DFHs, instead listen to the people who got us into this mess.

Phil said...

Happy Thanksgiving Drifty.

Busted.

tech98 said...

There is no tooth fairy. Every dollar given to someone comes from someone else.

But according to the Laffer Curve, every dollar cut from taxes on the rich "pays for itself!" So apparently if we cut taxes to zero, revenues will go to infinity.

Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" has a section on Laffer and the intellectually dishonest way in which his bullshit economic theory came to predominate with the opportunistic conservatards.

After he was ridiculed out of Nixon's administration for making a wildly over-optimistic GDP forecast based on a a grand total of four variables (serious economists use thousands), he fell in with the snake-oil salesmen of the Retard Right looking for a policy justification for their selfish greed and kleptocracy. The Laffer Curve is the economic equivalent of eat-donuts-and-lose-twenty-pounds-a-day -- complete bullshit, but like catnip to the reality-is-what-we-say-it-is authoritarian creeps and their simpleton eager dupes like Reagan.

And just to continue his unbroken streak of involvement with every disastrously wrong and evil idea, policy and action of the last thirty years, Laffer's curve was first sketched on Dick Cheney's dinner napkin.

The Minstrel Boy said...

just as the idiots who have been driving our intelligence, justice, and foreign policy from the fictional exploits of jack bauer on "24" have ruined things, the economists like laffer and greenspan have been setting economic policy on the fictions of ayn rand.

her fantasy, turgidly written, was that the essential nobility of the rich would prove to be a boon to all. thing was, like most life imitating art fiction, the noblesse oblige of the rich never happened. they were allowed to break the unions, ship manufacturing jobs overseas to escape the few viable unions, and the rich, simply made themselves richer. they didn't "trickle down" jackshit.

instead of investing in new products and technology the auto makers wrung concession after consession from the unions and bought themselves limos and drivers, and private jets. they are now, as we speak, spouting off fictions of how the nasty unions are costing them bazillions of dollars.

they based their whole theory on fiction. now, reality has come to call. reality is hungry and has teeth.

Anonymous said...

so sayeth The Minstrel:

" ... the noblesse oblige of the rich never happened. they were allowed to break the unions, ship manufacturing jobs overseas to escape the few viable unions, and the rich, simply made themselves richer. they didn't "trickle down" jackshit.(snip)"

And from Driftglass "being fatally wrong a fucktillion times in a row" ...

The Rightwing Retards' day has come ... and gone. Sean Hannity of Faux Fox is jacking off hourly; uncertain of his place in the post- Braindead Media universe.

His buddy, ersatz liberal, Alan Colmes is leaving Fux; contract not renewed.

Keith Olbermann did a thorough disrobing of "the blonde and bimbo/ bimba newscasters" who blamed Detroit Big Three driving companies over the cliff on ... who else? ... UNIONS.

Olbermann on Countdown 11-26-08 did a numbers crunch and reality based ass kicking -- with and w/o the steel toed shoes. Olbermann ass-kicked all those "news" bimbos and rightwing retards who parroted voodoo numbers and declared The Cause of all of Detroit's self-inflicted, top-management plutocratic woes as EVIL UNIONS.

Ayn Rand -- tarty old bag -- would be proud of the blame-placing. And would scrunch her horsey ass-face over the Olbermann and Colbert Nation and progressive blog push backs.

These bastards are simply not accustomed to being questioned.

Well, party over. It's getting better all the time. Honest.

Anonymous said...

Few things would make me happier than to see that worthless "economist" Laffer be discredited for the snake oil salesman he is, including disgorgement of every speaking fee, every salary he ever earned for peddling his worthless trickle down theory.

Bluesborn said...

"..Because among the Wingnut Welfare Kings and Queens, merely being fatally wrong a fucktillion times in a row has never been a barrier.."

These guys should be hitting THEMSELVES in the face with cream pies at this stage.