Last night I wrote about eminent domain and how economic ignorance keeps some from seeing how harmful the practice is. This morning I find this article by Thomas Sowell, subtitled, Why it's important for economists to combat public ignorance.
Some years ago, the distinguished international-trade economist Jagdish Bhagwati was visiting Cornell University, giving a lecture to graduate students during the day and debating Ralph Nader on free trade that evening. During his lecture, Prof. Bhagwati asked how many of the graduate students would be attending that evening's debate. Not one hand went up.
Amazed, he asked why. The answer was that the economics students considered it to be a waste of time. The kind of silly stuff that Ralph Nader was saying had been refuted by economists ages ago. The net result was that the audience for the debate consisted of people largely illiterate in economics and they cheered for Mr. Nader.
Read the rest for Sowell's real life examples of bad political policy through economic ignorance. The Sowell article link comes via Catallarchy, where Micha Ghertner adds, "I think one can safely say that systematic economic illiteracy is the most dangerous problem in the world today."
TO: Walter
RE: Another Winner
I've linked to the article. It should be useful, here in Pueblo.
Thanks, again, for pointing it out.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Ignorance is when you don't know something. Stupidity is ignorance with pride.]