Dobbsian War of All Against Some

Howie Kurtz drops in on Lou Dobbs in the middle of a spat with James Glassman, and finds CNN's bloviator-in-chief trashing Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Par for Dobbs' infomercial correspondence-course exposure to economics.

More juicy are indications that Dobbs plays to both sides of the trade warfare trenches, the close-the-borders skit for his mouth-breathing, mattress-stuffing TV viewers and the worldly financial maven for the hot tip-hungry subbers to his $200-newsletter.

Glassman has the details here.

Comments

[Kevin Carson]

Um, I seem to recall some people besides Dobbs “trashing” Smith and Ricardo: people like Menger, Jevons, and Bohm-Bawerk, among others.

If you think Ricardo’s formulation of comparative advantage was particularly well done, or that Dobbs misses the point in the critiques of it, fine. But what matters is the argument itself, not who said it. He who lives by the appeal to authority will die by the appeal to authority.

[The Lonewacko Blog]

“Must slam Lou Dobbs…… must slam Lou Dobbs….. ” ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Meanwhile, libertarian idol Dan Griswold said at a recent Cato panel (paraphrasing) “our guest workers will come here to work and they’ll be too tired to think about voting.” Why don’t we just bring back slavery or indentured servitude? Those are old American concepts, so it’s not like they aren’t as unAmerican as they might sound.

From the same panel, Bush assistant Margaret Spellings says in effect that Bush wants to put American jobs in eBay.

You guys might like this, but I think the mouth-breathing electorate might have a few surprises in store.