Crooks, Liars, Idiots and Plutocrats: On the deep causes of the government shutdown

Economic historian Carlo Cipolla famously noted that human beings fall into four basic categories: the martyr who takes an action and suffers a loss while producing a gain to others; the genius or prodigy who takes an action by which he/she makes a gain while yielding a gain also to society; the crook (and liar too) who takes an action by which he/she makes a gain causing others a loss; and the stupid person who causes losses to others while deriving no personal gain and even possibly incurring losses. At first glance, the shutdown of the government and the looming debt-ceiling crisis seem to indicate that we are dealing with idiots, the likes of Michele Bachmann, Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, Steve King, and other Tea Party Republicans.

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