Sherman Dorn

Greg Mankiw provides the laugh of the day

Economist Greg Mankiw provides the unintentional humor of the day: "Smart parents make more money and pass those good genes on to their offspring."

Smart parents years ago miraculously picked employers who survived the Great Recession without laying them off?

Smart parents are dumb enough to spend money on expensive private schools and expensive private test-prep services when according to Mankiw's claim their kids would do well anyway?

Smart parents who choose public schools are dumb enough to spend far too much for houses in wealthy areas because it's really not necessary for their kids to have a decent education?

Historical perspective: I think that Greg Mankiw is living in the past, a time when wealthy people would accept the argument that they're wealthy because they're smart rather than the argument that they're wealthy because they work their tails off. The second that we became a workaholic society, the arguments of Charles Murray, Greg Mankiw, and the like became dinoideologies. Wealthy people no longer need to argue that their wealth derives from their being smarter than other people in the sense of algorithmic cognition. And it's been years since I've heard any of that crap from actual wealthy people who don't fancy themselves as part of the chattering class. They and their close admirers will talk about their being "whip-smart," sure, but also working very, very hard and having the luck to have good mentors, the right opportunity at the right time, and so forth.