As I tend to do most morning after I've checked the jobs sites in my attempt to find full employment, I came across this piece of gibberish written by Arthur Laffer for the Wall St Journal (via Google). For those too young or too memory impaired, Laffer was the "author" of the "Laffer Curve" which was used by the Reaganauts and subsequent Republican politicians to justify massive tax cuts for the rich.
It's hard to know where to begin in tackling the various strawman and out right fallacious arguments Laffer uses in this opinion piece.
On the face of it, the idea that higher unemployment benefits won't lead to more unemployment doesn't make much sense. Imagine what the unemployment rate would look like if unemployment benefits were universally $150,000 per year.
First off, few people are actually calling for higher Unemployment compensation, although with an average weekly payment of $293 per week, with only a few states maxing out their Unemployment payments over $500 per week, it surely would not be a bad thing to raise the compensation a bit.
