2. Bartley offered Max the job of editorial writer on economics. Max "had never taken a class in the subject...[but] Bartley was serenely unperturbed. I later learned that he lied to take writers who did not know much about the subject and train them in his way of thinking."
3. "He did not want to hire an economist because most professional economists disdained supply-side economics." (p. 38) This is the editorial page editor of the most widely-read & influential conservative media outlet in the 1990s and 2000s saying, "expertise, meh, who needs it?"
4. So if the editorial page of the WSJ wasn't interested in how the economy was actually working, what were they really interested in? One is tempted to say, "crass self-interest" or "filthy lucre."
5. Man, I'd be as rich as a Russian oligarch I had a nickel for everytime some conservative in the 90s or 00s cited the WSJ while tut-tutting about fuzzy headed liberals and their "economic wishful thinking."
ugh..."liked to take writers" not "lied" back in #2. Apologies for the typo.
