Another Effort to Kill the Living Dead Zombies

Zombie ideas surface again on ABC Some economic ideas are called "zombie ideas" because they cannot be destroyed by evidence. One of the ideas is that business investment, which includes capital spending by business, and spending on residential housing, is down because of over-regulation by government. Brad DeLong provides a graph that shows the real situation: business investment in software and equipment is back to pre-crisis levels. Our real problem is that the decline in residential investment is greater than the rise in residential investment during the boom years. Numerous surveys also show that business is less worried about government over-regulation than it is about the slow economy and the potential for a decline in consumer demand. Evidence, however, does not matter to the carriers of zombie ideas. Moreover, they get equal time on national television. Television news has become entertainment. The basic idea is to find someone who will argue that the earth is flat, to argue with someone will provide evidence that the earth is really round. They get into an entertaining battle on TV that the audience loves. That is good for ratings as well as proof of objectivity for the networks. The audience learns little from this form of reality TV. The zombie ideas have been given a platform on TV and they can survive the battle. The Wall Street Journal and talk radio will follow up the battle by declaring victory for the zombies.