Best-Laid Plans Backfire

Academics salivate at the chance to put their pet theories into practice but when they actually are able to, they’re usually the last ones to recognize the unintended consequences of their schemes.

“Remember the presidential advisors –Austan Goolsbee, Peter Orszag, Christina Romer, Larry Summers–who, in the euphoria of the hope and change election sweep of November 2008, advocated a World War II-like new level of federal indebtedness,” Victor Davis Hanson writes on the Pajamas Media website. “They are now quietly back on Wall Street, back to their tenured academic perches, or considering departure.”

“They remain either mum or in op-eds visibly confused about why a strong recovery did not follow a strong recession in the manner of all other post-war ups and downs.” Hanson is a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.

“So there seems to be genuine confusion—and fear — on the part of leftist economic advisors that the capitalist engine that fuels their redistributive government for some unknown reason is not running on all cylinders and thus cannot quite continue to make the money that even capitalism’s critics count on for support,” Hanson observes. “It reminds me of the please, please letters alumni receive when annual giving to their [alma maters]  almae matres is down, and the left-wing president’s mega-salary and the center for gender studies are possibly imperiled.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

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