On being wrong

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Friday August 05, 2011 · 5:21 AM PDT

2011/08/05 · 05:21

More important than being right is how one deals with being wrong. Very successful intelligent people are seldom wrong. Yes they do make mistakes like not seeing a speed limit sign hidden by bushes, but they are usually more right than others when dealing with problems. The question of what do you do when you learn you made a mistake is seldom asked of elected officials. Even less frequently asked is what do you do when you learn that you were wrong in your thinking?

Paul Krugman points out today in The Wrong Worries

To turn this disaster around, a lot of people are going to have to admit, to themselves at least, that they’ve been wrong and need to change their priorities, right away.

In particular

But the policy disaster of the past two years wasn’t just the result of G.O.P. obstructionism, which wouldn’t have been so effective if the policy elite — including at least some senior figures in the Obama administration — hadn’t agreed that deficit reduction, not job creation, should be our main priority.

Not just "senior figures in the Obama administration" have been wrong about the country's priorities, the President himself has been wrong. I would like to know when else has the president been wrong and what did he do about being wrong? Very rarely compared with the rest of us mortals has President Obama been wrong. I wonder if he is capable of recognizing when he is wrong. I wonder if he is capable of learning when he is wrong. I wonder if he is capable of not repeating being wrong under similar circumstances to being wrong in the past. I think our biggest problem is that the president has a serious problem recognizing when he is wrong and if he does then he has no idea how to make course correction.

How wrong is the president about unemployment? Again Paul Krugman has some interesting figures.

Consider one crucial measure, the ratio of employment to population. In June 2007, around 63 percent of adults were employed. In June 2009, the official end of the recession, that number was down to 59.4. As of June 2011, two years into the alleged recovery, the number was: 58.2.

This is not due to baby boomers retiring, okay some like myself were forced to retire though I am looking for a job, this is due to the stinking recovery. And now I predict as have many investors in the stock market and some economists that the economy is going to get worse. If this happens, then will the president recognize he was wrong about deficit reduction and change his rhetoric? With a republican house there is little else that he can change.

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