If anything, the last four years have illustrated a very important point: conservatives don't know a damn thing about economics.
I've already demonstrated that John Hinderaker of Powerline is not clueless, but clue free -- he's never had any concept of how the economy works. Greg Mankiw of Harvard has shown that his ivory tower severely limits his analytical abilities and John Taylor continues to incorrectly compare this expansion to the 1980s expansion despite their highly divergent causes.
And now we're reminded that the calls for inflation and currency debasement from the Fed's bond buying program were horribly wrong:
A group of 43 economists, including former aides to Republican
presidents and presidential candidates, published an open letter to the
Fed’s chairman, Ben Bernanke, saying the program should be “reconsidered
and discontinued.” The planned bond purchases “risk currency debasement
and inflation, and we do not think they will achieve the Fed’s
objective of promoting employment,” the economists wrote.
.....
But as the accompanying charts indicate, the Fed’s critics of 2010 and
2011 have not proved to be prescient. Far from bringing disaster, Q.E.2
appears to have helped the economy.
And finally, over at Barry's blog, we note that the Heritage Foundation has a remarkably interesting way of scoring countries that are successful despite not using "free market" concepts. Read the entire piece: Where 7.8% Growth is “Moderate” and 4.4% is “Spectacular”
In a "market place of ideas" those that are proven correct should be "purchased" and those that are incorrect should be avoided, if for no other reason that incorrect analysis will lead to a loss of money. If you had listened to conservative economists "analysis" you'd have lost a ton of money by now.
