The 99% flunked econ? Just want to bang bongos?

On the topic of another sort of privilege, Alan Grayson on Occupy Wall Street:

If you don’t know what the movement’s all about, Stephanie Zvan leaves absolutely no room for doubt as to what the participants want. If you click that link and still claim the movement lacks clarity, you probably work for some entity that wants to keep a real grassroots movement from gaining momentum.

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The 99% flunked econ? Just want to bang bongos?
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14 thoughts on “The 99% flunked econ? Just want to bang bongos?

  1. 3

    This kind of stuff is why I don’t watch TV. Even with Alan Grayson thrown in there being awesome, it raises my blood pressure so much. I can’t stand it. ARGH WHY ARE THEY ALL ASSHOLES SERIOUSLY WHAT.

  2. 4

    I love the expression on his face at the end of the video. I didn’t have a mirror around, but I think I was making the same face. A resounding smackdown.

  3. 6

    That’s the best O’Rourke can do? Toss around DFH stereotypes? I thought he was supposed to be witty.

    P.S. Jason, it’s spelled “Grayson”, not “Greyson”.

    (There ought to be a limerick in that somehow.)

  4. 7

    Hercules @6: My bad, fixed.

    Michael @4: Thanks! Hopefully that’ll translate to hits for Stephanie too, since (the video aside) I was mostly hoping to point people her way.

  5. 9

    “The 99% flunked econ”?

    When a few of the 99% rack up $10,000 in credit card debt, they get their balls ripped off by banks and the people who didn’t rack up any debt – because they lived within their means – pay more bank fees.

    When the 99% live day to day, they don’t spend twice what they earn and expect someone else to pay for it.

    When the 99% take out a loan, they pay it back or they fail to pay it, they don’t get a “bailout” or get declared “too big to fail”.

    O’Rourke is making himself into a stooge for Wall Street, culpable and party to their actions, much the same way Hitchens is culpable for the war crimes of George Bu**sh** and his mis-administration.

    .

  6. 11

    What puzzles me is how so many business commentators and politicians failed basic macroeconomics.

    they might not have; have you seen economics textbooks these days?

    My microeconomics textbook actually praised the fact that individual spending has been rising faster than incomes, and was calling it a better indicator for economic wellbeing (it also defended scalpers and promoted legalization of the human organ trade, but that’s beside the point right now). It was of course printed before the debt-crisis.

  7. 12

    Yeahh..

    The problem isn’t that they failed microeconomics, the problem is that the basic 101-level microeconomic models are woefully out of date. They tend to present a somewhat balanced demand-side/supply-side view, when the reality is that we’re currently in a hardcore demand side economy.

    Or as I like to say, MBA’s start with Microeconomics 101 then they spend the next few years learning how to break it.

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