A few days ago, former Buch economic advisor Greg Mankiw wrote an editorial arguing that if tax rates returned to their 1990s-era levels, he’d work far less, perhaps writing fewer disingenuous editorials.
If only.
A Taxing Manner and Marginal Revolution and Brad DeLong have all debunked him on the facts, but that doesn’t really address how offensive his lies are.
Like Mankiw, I have several sources of income: I’ve got my day job, and I do some freelance editing, and I do some events work on evenings and weekends at my wife’s book store. Yesterday I worked the Boston Book Festival. Eight hours on my feet with a smile on my face and a twinge in my back lifting books and running a register. For that I earned $80 pre-tax, most of which I spent buying a round of drinks afterwards.
I’m not in it for the money, in other words. I do it because I enjoy it and because I believe in the book store and in sales. And because this weekend I got to meet Dennis Lehane, Chip Kidd, and Kristin Hersh.
Mankiw gets paid good money to advance a theories he doesn’t even believe. If he were serious about what he’s saying, he’d shut the fuck up and get the fuck out, and we’d all be better off.
Secretly Ironic 
I too sometimes wish that Mankiw would just STFU. He doesn’t have to work — he’s rich. So logically, he only does for enjoyment anyway.
In general, I think he’s quite childish and naive, though I guess that it’s easy to lose perspective on life and hard to empathize with normal people when you’re born tall, handsome, and witty with a stratospheric IQ and end up a millionaire with a job that pays hundreds of thousands a year and is guaranteed for life.
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