A Brand-New Idiot

I don't do Fox (unless I'm stranded in Florida visiting my family, and then I'd rather sit by the pool), so I wasn't aware of John Stossel, who apparently is a Paul Ryan wannabe who creams his pants at the idea of the "undeserving" starving to death. Vis Digby, this choice piece of crap:

Desperate New Jersey drivers wait in long lines to buy gasoline. One line was two miles long[.]

The media blame “a lack of electricity” and report that “Governor Christie has acted to boost supplies of gasoline…by directing Treasury officials to waive licensing requirements that affect merchants’ ability to buy fuel from out-of-state suppliers.”

That would help, but Christie would help more if he could suspend New Jersey’s foolish law forbidding price increases of more than 10% during an “emergency,” and if he’d apologize for bragging that the state will crack down on price “gouging!”

Complaining about greedy profiteers is probably politically smart. But if you're one of the people the law "protects," you won't fare as well.

What politicians call “gouging” is just the free market. When markets are allowed to work their magic, lines disappear. The high price is a big flag planted in the ground that says, “Hey, come over here and make money.”

(Emphasis added.)

Now, I don't know if Stossel is technically sub-normal in IQ -- after all, he's probably making nice money as a commentator for Fox, which can cut both ways -- but his emotional development and socialization are well below par, at least based on these comments.

And actually, when you take a step or two back and actually look at what he's saying, this little screed doesn't show the "free market" in a very flattering light, at least the Randian version, wherein our heroes prove their superiority by screwing everyone else. But even that vision presupposes a market operating under more or less normal conditions. Stossel's version is pure predation.

I like Digby's summation:

Seriously, this worship of markets is just as faith based as any other religion. And just like all the others it features an invisible Deity directing traffic from somewhere else. I'm not much of a believer in any of them but if I had to choose I'd pick one of the ones that doesn't require the human sacrifices.

I wonder if Stossel is particularly religious. If he is, he's going to have some 'splaining to do when he shuffles off this mortal coil.