Fareed Zakaria is a Clueless Keynesian, Greenspan Calls for Greece Default, and Washington Times Writer Declares Ron Paul Winner of NH Debate

If you want to see just how far Keynesian idiocy is inbred into the mainstream media, see John Stewart's interview with Fareed Zakaria last night:

The Daily Show - Fareed Zakaria
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Seriously?  "World Wars are useful"?  Only a moron would seriously believe that destruction creates prosperity.  Only a moron believes that the Defense Department's massive spending and allocating resources toward war mongering away from peaceful and productive enterprise is conducive to long term economic growth.  And only a moron would claim that destroying the infrastructure and well being of another nation is good for the nation left standing because then the manufacturing establishment still in place is able to sell goods to those countries.  Where the hell does Zakaria think the money to buy those goods is going to come from?

Zakaria falls into the same dumbfounded belief that WWII got us out of the Depression because the government spent massive amounts of money and destroyed our economic competitors.  He fails to realize that the huge economic growth we saw after WWII happened only AFTER government expenditures were cut drastically and wage and price controls were lifted.

You can tell Zakaria reads Paul Krugman's column every week and thus thinks he is an expert on everything economics related.  He needs to stick to Middle East policy, though that may not be a god idea because he seems to have some fetish for war in order to restore economic prosperity.  And how high and mighty does John Stewart think he is by declaring that we have "earned" our middle class living standard, as if it shouldn't magically disappear overnight?

Oh, and maybe Zakaria should take a look at this handy Mark Perry graph since he seems so infatuated with Germany's manufacturing sector:

Despite the fact that he engineered a housing bubble that brought the world economy to its knees, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan still has the nerve to pop up now and again to bless us with his otherworldly financial knowledge.  But wait....it looks like even Greenspan can't deny the obvious anymore, via Bloomberg:

Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chairman, said a default by Greece is “almost certain” and could help drive the U.S. economy into recession.
“The problem you have is that it’s extremely unlikely the political system will work” in a way that solves Greece’s crisis, Greenspan, 85, said in an interview today with Charlie Rose in New York. “The chances of Greece not defaulting are very small.”

You know what they say about a broken clock, it's right at least twice a day.

Speaking of being right, it looks like someone is finally recognizing the real winner of the recent Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire:

The winner of the night – who was also the winner of the first Republican debate – was Ron Paul. At least a few times, some of the candidates referenced Dr. Paul in their answers, and sounded their best when they used similar rhetoric as the Congressman from Texas. He was not as exciting as he was last month in South Carolina talking about Heroin, but he was able to refrain from giving himself a bad image – something none of the other candidates were able to do.

Congressman Ron Paul may not have been flashy, but his answers had substance, he never contradicted himself, nor did he say anything that might have scared away an entire demographic of voters. This couldn't be said about Herman Cain who acknowledged that he would be uncomfortable appointing a Muslim to his cabinet for fear that they might be the kind of Muslims that want to kill us.
Not only did the congressman perform well at the debate, but his ideas have begun to gain more traction among an electorate who are fed up with what they're getting from both parties. He received one of the louder ovations of the night for his comment on two of the wars we're fighting in the Middle East.

All one needs to do is re-watch the debate and see the fake, pasted on smiles of Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty and googly eyes of Michelle Bachman as Paul elucidated Say's Law and the disastrous policy of the federal government trying to prop up the housing market.

Speaking of Say's Law, here is a recent example of how it could have worked:

NEW YORK (AP) -- The parent of Kmart stores is laying off 700 employees working in Kmart's appliance departments as it changes how the stores sell refrigerators, ovens and other appliances.
Kmart spokesman Chris Brathwaite says the move will allow customers to check out appliances at any register rather than going to a dedicated register for appliances. But there also won't be any specialized appliance-only staff people on hand near appliances. Instead, all Kmart staffers are being trained to answer questions about appliances.

Perhaps if it weren't for minimum wage policies, Kmart employees could have taken a pay cut in order to prevent being laid off.  I bet if Kmart was unionized this whole thing could have been prevented....

Update- Awesome video by Robert P. Murphy in response to Robert Reich:

Murphy challenges his fans to guess where is recording it.  It's obviously where Tom Woods records, so good try Murphy, it took all of about 2 seconds to figure out.  It probably looks worse on me that I knew so quickly though.