Go Dean!
Vintage Dean Baker, on the general subject of annoying opinion writers who, at this late stage and at least two years and five books after there was any excuse, still don't understand what happened in the housing bubble. I have mentioned in the past that the main thing I admire about Dean is that he is a liberal economist who doesn't feel the need to apologise for himself; I'd also add that another characteristic which makes him a man after my own heart is that, when attacking a perennial enemy, he doesn't miss an opportunity to take a few swings at targets of opportunity and related old feuds too. The American Left Such As It Is (this phrase [tm] Doug Henwood) badly needs a platoon of him.
What, you don't appreciate Delong's "Cascade of Conservatives that agree with me"?
ReplyDeleteWhatever Delong is, he ain't on the left.
ReplyDeleteBaker also is willing to say the same thing 100 times if the same thing happens 100 time. That lacks entertainment value, but repeatedly pointing out that things are still fucked up the same way they always were really is necessary.
ReplyDeleteMainstream journalists say, "Oh, that's not going to change, no reason to talk about it, no one wants to hear that, it's boring."
Dean was the one who taught me - back in the 90s - that anyone warning of a Social Security shortfall is full of crap. And it was, in large part, by repeating himself often enough that I learned it in my bones
ReplyDeleteDeLong is a funny case because, if anything, he's more shrill than Krugman on a personal level, but politically he still dreams of bipartisan technocentrism. God knows he despises the Left; I'm not sure he much likes liberals, either.
Baker also is willing to say the same thing 100 times if the same thing happens 100 time. That lacks entertainment value, but repeatedly pointing out that things are still fucked up the same way they always were really is necessary.
ReplyDeletethis is the other thing I was meaning to say about Dean - it is this characteristic, more than any other (even the characteristic of being usually right, which is also valuable), which would have made him absurdly suitable to a well-paying job on Wall Street if he had wanted one.
Mainstream journalists say, "Oh, that's not going to change, no reason to talk about it, no one wants to hear that, it's boring."
ReplyDeleteOr they work under the belief that repetition is a writerly sin, and thus eventually get overwhelmed by the thesaurus, especially in the US, where reporting extends to the fact that a statement was uttered, not whether that statement was factual.
This doesn't apply to Brooks, Will, Kristol et al., who are masters of knowing just how often to space out their lies in order to allow their mendacity some breathing rule.
It doesn't help that while sniggering about penises is acceptable for both cable and network news, telling Davey Brooks to fuck off is not.
Breathing rule? Damn brain: breathing room.
ReplyDeleteI think part of Baker's success is that his mental model of the economy is laughably simple. For example, his explanation of the recession is the wealth effect: people feel poorer because their total wealth has plunged (because of falling house prices), so there's a big recession. A sophisticated economist at this point would start sputtering about expectations or technology shocks or something. Unfortunately for the sophisticated economist, things happen in the economy for crude reasons, not because of the delicate dance of expectations and optimal planning.
ReplyDeleteKrugman's most recent blog post is an example, where he quotes Woodford approvingly saying that fiscal policy works through some round-about expectations mechanism, when in fact fiscal policy works through giving money so that they spend it.