re: #319 Irene NYC

Tells me that economics education in this country is in very bad shape.
;)

Agreed, but I’ve taken that as a “given” since suffering through a high-school Civics and Economics class (full year) taught by a self-described Fabian Socialist. Among whose brilliant theories was that Communism was the best thing that ever happened to Mainland China, the Cultural Revolution notwithstanding.

He didn’t appreciate my using the China (PRC) News Agency’s own figures for the economic catastrophe that the Great Leap Forward (1958-63) was for the PRC. He’d never bothered to look them up, as he just assumed that it must have worked, because it was “ideologically pure”.

He then accused me of thinking the Mandarins and/or Chiang Kai-Shek were “better”. My response?

“China hasn’t had a reasonable, rational, worthwhile government in its entire history, period. In going from the Mandarins to the Maoists, all the country did was trade one bunch of clueless hereditary aristocrats with lousy fashion sense for a bunch of even more clueless self-elevated aristocrats with even worse fashion sense.”

Believe it or not, I passed the class, because my coursework was almost flawless (I got 100% on the final).

cheers

eon