The Irony of the Irony of The Onion

Bryan Caplan

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Yesterday's Onion reads:

In a moving and beautiful ceremony held atop Lower Manhattan's gleaming, 120-story-tall Freedom Tower, the nation commemorated the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by raising a glass to the stable democracy of Afghanistan and to a decade of unprecedented peace and prosperity across the globe.

Yea, I laughed too. But mid-laugh I remembered that, contrary to virtually everyone, that last decade was a decade of unprecedented peace and prosperity across the globe. Americans fought two ugly wars and endured two recessions. But mankind is doing amazingly well.

All we lack is a moving and beautiful ceremony to crown our achievements.

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CATEGORIES: Growth: Consequences , Politics and Economics
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COMMENTS (7 to date)

Latest Comment

Hume writes:

What about Africa?

Posted September 14, 2011 11:17 AM

Scott Scheule writes:

What is this Africa you speak of?

Posted September 14, 2011 11:40 AM

PrometheeFeu writes:

The scary part for me is that I read the blurb before I saw the link to the Onion and I did not doubt for one second that it was true. It seems so depressingly plausible that some polticians would pat themselves on the back for the handling of the Afghan war, 9/11 and everything that has happened in the past 10 years.

Posted September 14, 2011 12:46 PM

Noah writes:

Unprecedented peace, yes.

Unprecedented prosperity no, since "last decade" includes 2008-10.

Posted September 14, 2011 2:09 PM

Lorenzo from Oz writes:

Noah: seems pretty good if you are Chinese, Indian (or Australian, but there are not that many of us). So, yes, unprecedented prosperity.

Posted September 15, 2011 1:54 AM

infopractical writes:

Yes, excellent relative peace and prosperity on a global scale. My only quibble is whether or not our global economic success really will survive much longer. It's unclear as to whether we're selling forward the pain.

Posted September 16, 2011 1:06 PM

Chris writes:

According to the PDF-linked Brookings study, the global poverty rate is now 15% - the same as in the United States. Can that be correct?

Posted September 16, 2011 10:58 PM

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