David Leonhardt – economic court jester to Bush

It’s bad enough that Judy Miller and others at the “paper of wrecks,” the The New York Times, lied us into war in Iraq. Now Leonhardt is trying to lie us into believing we’re not in a recession.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, he notes, is expected to announce next week that the Consumer Price Index increased only fractionally, three-tenths of a percent, in April. Contrary to Kevin Phillips, and many others, who have documented how the government, not just under Bush but also his predecessors, has played with economic statistics for decades, Leonhardt expects us to actually believe these numbers.

Price increases are simply more noticeable — more salient, as psychologists would say — than price decreases.

As for the number of items whose prices have been flat in recent months, Leonhardt doesn’t even dig into the whys, such as recession-influenced sales declines (certainly true on appliances with the housing market in the tank)

He also defends past changes to the CPI on the grounds that it used to overstate inflation. Ahh, yes, the “people will shift from steak to hamburger” argument.

What a fucking moron. As a writer, an economist and a psychologist.

Send him some e-mail love.