When I first published the Layman’s Guide, I omitted any reference to economists as such, mostly because it seemed to me at the time that not even God himself, let alone an untutored blogger, could make anything either succinct or coherent out of their work. Since then, I’ve read more widely, if not more deeply, and, by George, I think I’ve finally got it.
Economists in General: The health of the economy does not depend on your having any.
Some Economists in Particular: And a damned good thing it is, too, which you would realize if only you could grasp the concepts involved.
Are you the William Timberman who used to live on Riviera Ave. in Venice … and in Berkeley, and in Isla Vista?
Yes.
William Timberman at CT:
“You might say, accurately enough, that there’s a war going on, and every thought, every action, takes place in a defined theater of operations. The comments threads at CT are one such theater — a minor one, but not insignificant, I think.”
They are quite insignificant, in my opinion, like comment threads in much or most of the blogosphere. That’s one of several reasons I’m not regretting my decision to stop commenting there.
You may be right, but I think you underestimate the cumulative effect of dissent on individual and collective convictions/actions. Delayed gratification, perhaps none at all for any given individual, is the rule in politics. You never can tell going in whether you’ll get to be the one waving the tricoleur on the rubble of the Bastille, or the one shot on the barricades, shipped off to the Gulag by the secret police, or left without a pension after 20 years of service when some corporate raider like Mitt Romney buys and puts his company into Chapter 11. Goes with the territory….