Re: "A quadrupling of the national debt in just one year... [is] not [a thing] from which any country is guaranteed to recover..."

It's much worse for Sowell if you read "deficit" for "debt." If he really thinks a quadrupling of the deficit "is not a thing from which any country is guaranteed to recover", then he has lost it completely. A quadrupling of the deficit in a recession year is no big deal.
 

brad,

One would think that it matters how big the deficit was to start with (and that goes for the debt, too, for that matter).

True, if the deficit were - say - $1, then quadrupling doesn't mean much (also true if that's the debt). But, we started with a significant deficit in the first place.

That said, I think Bob's point is a good one. As "intellectuals" we will make far more progress if we give each other the most charitable interpretation and ignore little errors like these and try to get to the real points being made.
 

Tom Sowell turned 79 today, June 30, 2009, although he looks much younger. For whatever that's worth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell
 

Brad is the type who projects what hates about himself into everyone else.
 

Bob, trust me - if things turn out the way Austrian economists predict, all of these jokers will have always been against whatever got us into the mess - or claim that there was just not enough xyz, or there will be a war :)
 

Roger Garrison has a new article explaining how Mr. DeLong just does not comprehend the Austrian theory:

"DeLong blithely rejects the Austrian account. In his lecture delivered January 5, 2009 in Singapore, “The Financial Crisis of 2008-2009: Understanding the
Causes, Consequences—and Possible Cures,” he fabricates a 'Marx-Hoover-Hayek axis' (complete with adjoined photos of this unlikely trio) and then offers a brief and illinformed critique under the heading 'The ‘Austrian’ Story in a Nutshell.'

***

So, what effect did this virtual immersion in Austrian theory have on DeLong’s understanding? The answer: little or none. Although his January 'nutshell' is just too
small to contain much understanding at all, it does contain evidence of the continuing
fundamental misunderstandings that are typical of mainstream critiques."

http://www.auburn.edu/~garriro/mainstreammacro.pdf
 

Occam's razor suggests that someone, at some point, substituted "national debt" for "deficit", and it is by no means certain that this was done by Sowell himself, who surely knows the difference since he has discussed both in many other essays through the years. Most editors know far less about economics and the associated lingo than even DeLong himself, and may have felt the terms were interchangeable and wished to make a stronger point. I find it difficult to believe that Sowell would have deliberately written it this way since it is an obvious error, and one that would make him look ignorant.

Assuming an innocent change in terms, then, es, recessions can easily increase the deficits by more than a magnitude, but even then an intellectually honest person would have to concede that quadrupling the deficit from the previous year's already large deficit would be the actual reading in that case.

Far more egregious was the comment about sharia law. I thought this comment was definitely over the top, at least when applied to the United States, but Sowell is entitled to his opinion in this regard, so I just have to disagree.
 

"Far more egregious was the comment about sharia law. I thought this comment was definitely over the top, at least when applied to the United States..."

Yancey, I agree with everything in your post, but your opinion about what is over the top in the United States is a bit dated. Why, just this past year:

Obama declared that there would be a dozen "czars" that have more power than cabinet secretaries yet aren't subject to Senate confirmation.

The government owns Chrysler and GM, and broke black-letter contract law with a sham bankruptcy proceeding that destroyed secured creditors in favor of unsecured but politically connected parties.

Bank Executives have been threatened by the government and compelled to follow through on transactions that have destroyed billions in shareholder equity.

In Honduras, a term limited President tries to install himself as a dictator and overturn the Honduran Constitution, and the President of the United States supports... the dictator?

So, when you say something doesn't apply to the United States... there are a lot of things that didn't used to apply to the United States. I'll forgive Dr. Sowell for fearing the Sharia law is a threat here.
 

Spend less time wondering "why oh why is everyone else so stupid and evil?" and try to understand what your opponents are actually saying.[lb]

*falls out of chair*

Wanna take the lead on following this advice, Bob?

Like, specifically in debates with me?

Like, so you don't wait until the sixth or seventh exchange to check if I said something you attributed to me?
 

s*las, no one knows what you are talking about.

I do know one thing, you are the most annoying person I have come across.
 

Right, Brad, because as we all know, when the economy recovers we'll start paying down the debt we've incurred, etc. That's always how it works. Oh wait, that's never how it works.

In a recession year, just what we need is to loot the private sector and blow the proceeds on politically motivated money losers. That should fill in the missing demand and jump start idle resources. Amazing that people still believe this.