November 9, 2007 by Tom Armstrong.

Krugman responds to “Health Care Excuses.” For those short on time, let me summarize:

Paul Krugman is a retarded idiot.

Example, which comes from his opinion today in the NY Times:

Excuse No. 3: 2007 is better than 1950.

This is an argument that baffles me, but you hear it all the time. When you point out that America spends far more on health care than other countries, but gets worse results, the apologists reply: “Sure, we spend a lot of money on health care, but medical care is a lot better than it was in 1950, so it’s money well spent.” Huh?

It’s as if you went to a store to buy a DVD player, and the salesman told you not to worry about the fact that his prices are twice those of his competitors — after all, the machines on offer at his store are a lot better than they were five years ago. It is, in other words, an argument that makes no sense at all, yet respectable economists make it with a straight face.

No! That’s the worst analogy I’ve ever read. How does Mr. Krugman ever get printed? He is not comparing the two values of a particular good across time in his analogy. He is comparing price differences among competitors. What he writes, as he says above, “makes no sense at all.”

A more apt analogy: a man must pay (and is willing to pay) more in real terms for a modern-day transportation vehicle than he did 150 years ago (a Ford Taurus is more valuable than a horse, as a means of transporation). You say my analogy is flawed as well because I’m comparing two entirely different goods. I could go with: a Model T versus a modern Ford Taurus. Is that better?

If I had to choose between medical care today at today’s prices and medical care in the 1950s at those prices, and if my life was on the line, I believe I’d spend the extra money and trust my life to modern medicine; something tells me most would do the same, suggesting the extra cost of medical care has, in part, to do with the added value of medical care over the last 50 years.

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November 9, 2007 by Tom Armstrong.

Don’s latest letter, posted on Nov. 9 at Cafe Hayek, is a must read.

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November 9, 2007 by Tom Armstrong.

Here’s my letter to the WSJ editor.

Here is a better, more concise letter than mine, which also appears today in the WSJ:

In his letter Peter L. Wanger plumps for a “living” Constitution. To him I give an outstanding example of a “living” document: The U.S. tax code.

Makes the heart race, doesn’t it? Just think, we could have a malleable Constitution shaped by present-day legislative politicians and our judiciary. Instead, we have this dusty old thing worked out by naive folks. Makes one wish they had included an amending process. Oh . . . they did?

Charles Moore
Shreveport, La.

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