Professor Blinder Shows a Blindness to the Entepreneurial Spirit

The Weekly Standard ^ | July 20, 2010 | Jim Prevor

[JimPrevor]

At one point toward the end of his article, Professor Blinder downplays conservative concerns over the disincentive to work that unemployment insurance creates: “As the unemployment rate rises, the disincentives that worry conservatives become less important because there are fewer jobs to find…” In this line, we see a true conflict of visions about the way the world works. Professor Blinder sees some fixed number of jobs out there and too many people fighting for them.

He thinks that businesses don’t hire more because there is not enough demand for their products. Yet this is an impoverished view of the motivations of entrepreneurs. In my own small business, not one of our products was launched with any known demand, but we believed in our products, and ourselves, and thought we would create the demand. This is not atypical.

When Sam Walton created his first supercenter, nobody in America was clamoring for this, and then it became the most successful retail format in the country. How many years of losses did Amazon.com absorb before demand caught up to the idea? There are no neighborhoods gathering petitions because they lack a pizza place or a great diner or a Chinese take-out – yet they open every day, mostly on the belief of entrepreneurs in themselves and the willingness of friends and family to back a worthy entrepreneur.

[JimPrevor]

The comeuppance of the Democratic positions that Professor Blinder undertakes to defend is that the government, by taking more in taxes and divvying it up as it sees fit among the populace, reduces the sphere of economic activity from which entrepreneurs can draw sustenance. And that will both make society poorer and less free.

[Steely Tom]

Professor Blinder has his cushy job. Everything else is just theory, at least to him.

[Son House]

Which Blinder is that? #1 or #2?

#1
Transcript of Pelosi, House Democratic Leaders, and Economists’ Press Conference Following Economic Forum 10/21/2009

http://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/pressreleases?id=1414

Economic Expert #1. Alan Blinder 10/21/2009
“So for that reason, despite the fact that we’re looking at an absolutely horrendous long-term fiscal outlook,”

or

#2
Wall St. Journal : The Case for Optimism on the Economy 12/16/2009 | Alan Blinder

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2408814/posts?page=24

Economic Expert #2. Alan Blinder, 12/16/2009
“Let me offer instead, in deliberately one-sided fashion, the case for optimism.”

[genghis]

blinder was a brilliant student in the early 70’s.
He hasn’t said anything smart since, but his latest rant was so off the charts, i thought the other moron- krugman wrote it.