Saturday, September 12, 2009

Economics of "You Lie"

What are the economic benefits of yelling at the President?
Less than a day after Rep. Joe Wilson formally apologized to President Obama over his "you lie" outburst, a campaign aide confirms to CNN the South Carolina Republican has raised "more than $200,000″ in the wake of the now-infamous moment.
But what are the costs? So far his political opponent has raised $254,721.

3 comments:

  1. You should do the economics of idiocy, a la Glenn Beck. That guy's making a ton of money, but the social cost of his stupidity is stupendously high. Maybe it's a problem of externalities...

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  2. Forgot you'd already done a small post on the flight of Beck's advertisers. I'd still like a more comprehensive analysis though :-P

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  3. I feel like my economics of idiocy would ignore these outliers. Joe Wilson and Glenn Beck are the exceptions, not the rule. Idiots are usually punished, not rewarded. Of course losers are harder to think of because, well they lost.

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You are the reason why I do not write privately. I would love to hear your thoughts, whether you agree or not.