WSJ for the win

I was checking out the Journal’s web site to see if there was anything interesting to talk about. The number four most popular article on the WSJ website right now is an opinion piece by Laffer claiming that extending long term unemployment benefits is not stimulus. His logic is tortuous.

First he ignores the fact that the money would be borrowed by the government rather then paid for by increasing taxes right now. Then he mentions the heightened propensity of the unemployed  to spend their benefits immediately, claims that the “facts are in dispute” and then immediately talks about the ineffectiveness of other types of stimulus spending. Baffling. Finally he claims that since it is obvious that if we gave the unemployed 150k per year, no one would work and so any unemployment benefits are a strong disincentive to work.

I could have sworn that the Journal used to cover up it’s printing of Republican talking points as opinion pieces with at least a thin veneer of facts and objectivity. Now they seem to be a Gawker blog posting flame bait in order to get lots of page views and angry comments. I am glad to see that Murdoch has succeeded in turning the Wall Street Journal into the print arm of Fox News. I thought he bought it so that he could compete with the Financial Times, not take the FT’s main global competitor out of contention.

Lame.