Is stupidity a pre-existing condition?

A few readers criticized me for implying, in a previous post, that the more educated you are, the less likely it is (or should be) that you are...

“Cuba is somewhere in this area”

A few readers criticized me for implying, in a previous post, that the more educated you are, the less likely it is (or should be) that you are chavista.

Putting aside the obvious correlation that leads me to this, I get where they’re coming from. Hopefully, they will make an effort to get where I am coming from.

Case in point: Venezuela’s Health Minister. Today she went on TV saying that the Cuban doctors currently working in Venezuela under the oil-for-stuff scheme currently in place between the two countries … doesn’t cost Venezuelans a cent!

Here is Minister Sader, in all her glorious stupidity:

“People who criticize this agreement are unaware that it is a product of Cuba’s solidarity, because our country does not pay a cent for it, this agreement allows Venezuelan patients to get health care for free.” (Emphasis added)

Oh boy. Where do we start with this one? Since Minister Sader can’t really ignore the fact that these Cuban doctors are there in exchange for tens of thousands of barrels of oil we send to the island every day, it has to be that she doesn’t understand the concept of opportunity costs.

You see, dear Eugenia, we don’t pay for these doctors in cash, we pay for it in oil that we could be selling for cash otherwise. In the end it’s all the same. It’s what we economists like to call “opportunity cost.” Get it? No? Still nothing?

Something tells me Eugenia Sader is not the brightest bulb in the lamp. I wonder where she got her medical degree from. ¿Una caja de Ace?

La estupidez es roja, rojita…