When Stephen Brill’s piece on prices came out, I can admit I was frustrated. It makes me feel just a little bit better to know that Nobel Prize winners feel that way, too:
[B]asic information takes amazingly long to make its way into public discussion. Some of us have spent years trying to drive home the point that many Americans haven’t shared in rising life expectancy, making policy recommendations like a rise in the Medicare age a really bad idea; so while I’m glad to see the WaPo running a story saying “Hey, it turns out that lower-income Americans haven’t seen much rise in life expectancy!”, it’s frustrating to see this presented as new and surprising information.
What all this means is that if you’re going to try to play a constructive role in public economic discourse, you have to be willing to say the same thing over and over again. Also, if you’re going to try to play a constructive role in public economic discourse, you have to be willing to say the same thing over and over again. And if you’re going to try …
This can be frustrating, and can annoy readers who want every piece to be brand new and counter-intuitive. But someone has to keep rolling the stone up the hill.
For the record, I sent Austin an email this morning ARGHing that WaPo piece. I’ve posted on life expectancy so many times here, I’ve already got a zombie post up on the topic.
Maybe we need shirts.
