Recent discussion on twitter, facebook and blogs involving, inter alia Matt Yglesias (yes, again!), “Erik Loomis”:http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2011/08/jimmy-carter-founding-father-of-the-beer-revolution (who kicked it all off), Scott Lemieux, John Band, Dsquared, me, and others, tells me that people get much more excited about who has the best beer than about the role of the brewing industry in late capitalism and the fate of organized laboour. It also tells me that the claim that country X has the best beer is ambiguous. Some people think that the United States now brews the best beer, but even they are forced to concede that should you wish to actually drink the stuff, you are better placed (for example) in England where a ten-minute stroll from your front door (in any major or minor city) will likely get you to a pub with a decent selection. However, the partisans of nouveau American beer chauvinism have asserted that whilst England may score highly on that dimension, the typical US supermarket has a world-beating selection of brews. I’m not so sure. But first some commentary on our three questions (accompanied by some photographs). (This post is, incidentally, fortified by the excellent Jennings “Sneck Lifter” from Cumbria, a dark bitter at 5.1% abv.)
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Continuing the all-Yglesias all-the-time quality for which Crooked Timber is lately renowned, Matt’s post here could be stronger. He’s pointing out that a Grover Norquist tweet is nonsense (not an unusual circumstance, I surmise, but there is a point to be made.) “If Keynesian economics worked — shoplifting would create jobs.”
Matt points out that Norquist is committing what he calls ‘the broken windows fallacy fallacy’, which requires some explanation of the money supply in 19th Century France. There is an easier way. W.W. II ended the Depression. So Hitler is like shoplifting, only more so. [click to continue…]