Bloodlust for Dollars

Lawrence Kudlow loves any war where he can make a buck off of it:

Could it also be that world stock markets are rallying as Israel and its freedom agenda advances toward a Hezbollah-free Lebanese border, highlighting a significant defeat not only of the thuggish and cowardly Hezbollah murderers, but their totalitarian backers in Syria and Iran? At the close of business last Friday – after another violent week in the Middle East – Bloomberg chronicled the impressive performance of world stock markets: U.S. share prices had their best gain since November 2004; Canadian and European stocks had their top weekly performances all year; British and Brazilian equities rose for the second straight week; Asian stocks posted their strongest gain in over a month; Japan was up 3.5 percent; and India surged near 6 percent. The wartime stock market is saying that things might be better than most people believe.

As you gag or scream or whatever at this blatant moral depravity, let’s review the facts at least in terms of U.S. share prices by looking at a chart of the S&P 500. This tragedy started three weeks ago and the market has not shown any net gain. So Kudlow’s lack of any moral center is eclipsed by his lack of knowledge of what’s happening in the market place.

Even though Max Sawicky mocks them, the Cato crowd ranks Israel in 50th place with a 6.7 in terms of their “economic freedom scores” as compared to the U.S. 3rd place ranking with a 8.2 score and those socialist French getting a 6.9 score for ranking #38. So I’m not sure who to believe – Kudlow who thinks Israel troops entering Lebanon is spreading freedom or that Cato “rilly scientific index”.

Update: Jonathan Chait reads Kudlow and writes:

Seriously, Kudlow really is arguing that the war is causing the markets to surge. You really need to read his whole column to get the whole flavor … I should remind the readers that Kudlow is not just some raving nut sitting in a windowless room. He writes about economics for National Review and hosts a talk show on CNBC. In other words, he’s a raving nut who enjoys prestigious platforms to disseminate his views.

Why anyone would give Kudlow a platform is beyond me given the fact that the markets are not surging as well as the fact that Kudlow rarely gets anything right regarding economics or financial markets.