Bobo's lastest dispatch from the Department of Making Shit Up is what this post is about.

(For a measure of how the Times' Op-Ed quality varies, Krugman today is back at the top of his game.)

The opening flourish:

In the 19th century, industrialization swept the world. Many European nations expanded their welfare states but kept their education systems exclusive. The U.S. tried the opposite approach. American leaders expanded education and created the highest quality work force on the planet.

This is incorrect. Or it means that the US adopted parts of the Communist manifesto before Western Europe did.

Anyways, for the sake of argument let's define the welfare state as having three key components - unemployment benefits, universal healthcare, and retirement security.

European welfare states developed in the 20th century, only Germany began to introduce welfare state programmes in the late 19th century under Bismarck ( and curiously they did so to draw a contrast with a "warfare state"). Take Britain for example - Lloyd George's early 20th century government was the first to implement welfare state programmes there.

Universal healthcare is a 20th century phenomenon - in Britain, the Attlee government introduced this in 1946.

Anyways, the point is Bobo's opening flourish on the birth of the welfare state is complete shit.

He is wrong on education too. Britain's state education system evolved in the 19th century (1833 and 1870 were the watershed years in England). As I indicated, you can make a case that Marx was driver for these changes - given one of the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto was free education for all children at the expense of the state - but the key point is Europe was beginning to invest in education right at the time Bobo tells you they weren't.

Anyways, based on his wildly inaccurate opening flourish, Bobo makes his next grand statement:

That quality work force was the single biggest reason the U.S. emerged as the economic superpower of the 20th century. Generation after generation, American workers were better educated, more industrious and more innovative than the ones that came before.

"Single biggest reason"... Er, right. How's about it's the single best explanation you can find to fit your bullshit argument?

"better educated, more industrious and more innovative"... Better educated - perhaps. More industrious - who knows (if he means more productive, he'd be correct but he should say so). More innovative - no. If the last point were correct, we would see the rate of change of productivity increasing over time. It has not and does not. In reality, it's the nearest thing to a random walk.

"That progress stopped about 30 years ago." What? St Ronald applied the brakes? Jokes aside, Bobo's trends are a figment of his imagination so deciding where they end are just as much of a game of make-believe.

"As well-educated boomers retire over the next decades, the quality of the American work force is likely to decline."

Why? Who said anything about regression in overall worker productivity? Progress in education (assuming that correlates with increasing productivity which it doesn't) according to Bobo has stagnated, but unless it has reversed, Bobo is arguing against his own diagnosis.

"Mitt Romney captured the consequences in his withdrawal statement: “I am convinced that unless America changes course, we will become the France of the 21st century".

Not much wrong with the French education system. There's plenty to criticize about the French economy, but the education system remains excellent. To recap then: Bobo has argued progress in American education has stagnated, therefore the quality in the workforce has declined, thus we could turn out like France (whose workforce is highly educated).

We're not yet half-way through.

But bless him, he is now providing free campaign advice for Republicans...

- Where economic and social policy advocacy seamlessly form quadruple mixed metaphors, such as "a poisonous spiral of economic stress and cultural decay."

- Where classic Republican patrio gobbledy-gook follows on from more phantom diagnostics - "college affordability [is the] least important explanation for why so many students don’t complete college. The real reasons are that students are academically unprepared and emotionally disengaged. National service should be a rite of passage for 20-somethings, and these volunteers could mentor students through high school and college years."

- Where new social programmes are great ideas except paying for them is a non-starter. And the Laffer curve still rules the world - "portable health insurance and retraining accounts would give adult workers security. Income taxes are not going to be coming down, but they need to stay where they are. As Edward Prescott has shown, higher taxes mean less work, and less work means less worker development."

And the reason for the all round awesomeness of Bobo's ideas - "Republicans do believe, or at least should, that positive government can help prepare people for the rigors of competition".

Well then, I guess when St Ronald said - " The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'" - he was obviously just full of shit. Perhaps this explains why Bobo honors him weekly in the way he does.