Academic

ACCORDING TO WASHINGTON POST WRITER STEPHEN PEARLSTEIN ON NPR, we?re stuck in a recession because bu?

By Glenn Reynolds

ACCORDING TO WASHINGTON POST WRITER STEPHEN PEARLSTEIN ON NPR, we’re stuck in a recession because businessmen are dumb and just parrot whatever they hear in the country club locker room. It’s good to know that we have people with such penetrating insight covering our economy, and one can only wish that the business community at large had the kind of financial savvy that has made the Washington Post so profitable an enterprise.

UPDATE: Wrong link before. Fixed now. Sorry! Thanks to reader D. Greene for pointing it out. Still not sure how I managed that.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Veronique de Rugy is not impressed: “I usually enjoy reading Steve Pearlstein’s work. I always learn something, even if I don’t agree with him. This time, however, I am very confused and unconvinced.”

MORE: A reader emails:

The Washington Post business writer says “most of the economic problems we have today have been brought on by poor allocation of capital by the private sector acting by itself”? He’s never heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? By any chance, was he on that lefty coverage-coordinating JournoList with ex-colleague Dave Weigel?

I don’t know. Maybe someone should ask him. And reader Clifford Grout writes:

What? Those of us who own a business and do not belong to a country club (and therefore do not have a locker room the hear things to parrot) are just plain dumb? Gee, thanks.

We’re not adding staff (and will likely cut staff) this in this ‘Recovery Summer’ because 1) no one – other than government – seems to have funds to build right now, so we don’t have the workload anymore (we’re architects, not sign designers…); 2) the complete uncertainty of what our bottom line will be with all of the new government mandates and regulations (enacted or proposed); and 3) adding staff right now means adding debt, something we already have quite enough of after the last two years, thank you very much.

You don’t need to hang around the country club to figure this out, do you?

STILL MORE: John Galvin writes: “It?s interesting that this coincides with business people getting fed up with our Community Organizer in Chief. The Business Roundtable and the U.S. C of C have expressed disapproval. Even Mort Zuckerman called Obam anti-business. So now, just as the Tea Party folks are knuckle dragging racists trying to drag us back to the 19th century, business leaders are incompetent fools who cannot possibly understand the wonders that Obama intends to bestow upon them.” Obviously, a lot of people need re-education.

MORE STILL: Reader Stephen Byrd writes: “My opinion of country club locker rooms just went up … at least in comparison to ‘business columnists’.”

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on July 15, 2010 (boomark / email).