Dean Baker | The Problem of "Stupid" in Economics

MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber has inadvertently become a YouTube celebrity as a result of a video of him referring to the public as "stupid." The immediate point of reference was the complexity of the design of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which Gruber was describing as being necessary politically in order to deceive the public. With the right-wing now in a state of near frenzy after the Republican election victories, the Gruber comment was fresh meat in their attack on the ACA.

Apart from merits of the ACA, there is something grating about seeing a prominent economist refer to the US public as "stupid." After all, the country and the world have suffered enormously over the last seven years because the leading lights of the economic profession were almost completely oblivious to the largest asset bubble in the history of the world.