dagblog - Comments for "NItpicking Niall Ferguson"

If Mitt Romney = Wimp is

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 11:46:56 +0000

In reply to Dan, just FYI, Newsweek 's

If Mitt Romney = Wimp is their standard fare, I'll eat my foodie elsewhere. What an inane insipid article. And to think we have real issues to discuss, yet this stupidity makes it on the cover of one of America's major weeklies, and people take it seriously enough to comment?

Maybe Newsweek should get back in the news business - USA Today and The Enquirer are kicking its butt in terms of quality investigative journalism.

You don't know that much

Dan Kervick — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 11:24:27 +0000

In reply to Dan, just FYI, Newsweek 's

You don't know that much about what I spend my time reading, and I'm not interested in sharing.

Dan, just FYI, Newsweek 's

artappraiser — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 06:04:27 +0000

In reply to And on a much smaller point

Dan, just FYI,

Newsweek 's cover just three weeks ago was ROMNEY: THE WIMP FACTOR: IS HE JUST TOO INSECURE TO BE PRESIDENT? BY MICHAEL TOMASKY

So I think I'd be pretty safe in saying that, no, Newseeek did not just come out and endorse a presidential candidate. And one could say that they themselves as a published entity are still not editorializing or endorsing, but they have switched from selling news and analaysis to mostly selling political, economic and social op-eds.

Matter of fact, on thinking on it, I see very little difference from the content of some of the blogs you and I and others here frequent. Within that context, I really don't get your disdain.

Actually, the quality of the writing might be somewhat better than the blogs we frequent, owing to the fact that it's more carefully edited. Still, most of the topics are the same. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a cover I missed with Modern Monetary Theory: The New Economics or A Fad? or one entitled The New Libertarian Movement: Grownups or Children?.

I will readily admit that the current Newsweek is no Crooked Timber (last week the cover was 101 Best Places to Eat In The World Chosen by 53 of The Finest Chefs) but then on my infrequent visits, I haven't seen your name as an common participant over there. But for people who don't spend a lot of time in the blogosphere, they seem to summing up the very same "most popular" issues (even to the point of Foodie-ism seeming to be at its very peak with lots of political blogs with a foodie post mixed in here and there.)

Just as the EU is currently

DF — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 22:30:59 +0000

In reply to To me the solution is a

Just as the EU is currently discovering that their chosen system has its flaw, I think that this economic downturn has illustrated one of the flaws of our Federalism. Despite how much the Federal government might have added, much was being subtracted at the state level. Krugman described this as the "50 Hoovers" syndroms back '08.

To make matters worse, our system is now almost completely polarized politically. The problem with this is, of course, that there are more "red states" in number than there are "blue states" when we look at who is controlling state governments across America. Given what we've witnessed, I wonder just how much impact a much larger stimulus would have had, not because I doubt the theory, but because in practice any such measures have been vehemently opposed by a number of Republican governors.

Except that they already do

DF — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 22:25:55 +0000

In reply to Good stuff, Peracles. The

Except that they already do pay the bills of other states, just not so much California's. It's really more like New Mexico's, West Virginia's and Mississippi's.

Well we have passed on

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 21:44:23 +0000

In reply to Good stuff, Peracles. The

Well we have passed on massive costs to the states.

But I'm confused - do these charts mean state jobs are counted as "private sector"? Otherwise, where's the additional state job loss?

Good stuff, Peracles. The

Michael Maiello — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 21:40:49 +0000

In reply to Reality check - most of the

Good stuff, Peracles. The census is part of the answer. But state and city governments are another part. That's where we're seeing the bigger job losses and Obama doesn't actually have much control over that. He could, of course, try to bail out the worst off states and cities, but I think we know what his critics would say about that. Taxpayers in Nebraska don't want to pay California's bills...

Reality check - most of the

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 21:11:46 +0000

In reply to NItpicking Niall Ferguson

Reality check - most of the gov gains and losses were around the census. Only have up through 2011 on first graph, but still only treading water on job replacement, not expanding as yet.

But looking at #2 - why is Obama cutting public employment & services so much? Or do we blame that on the Republican Congress? Hard to do, as most of the cuts were made when Democrats controlled both houses and the White House.

Public employment is about back where it was 3 1/2 years ago (though with an additional population, still in the red).

Destor, I have to say that I

DF — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:48:00 +0000

In reply to NItpicking Niall Ferguson

Destor, I have to say that I feel like you've given Ferguson's critics short shrift here. Their complaints aren't nitpicking. Ferguson straight up lied in Newsweek. When he was called on it, his response was to basically admit it and to illustrate how he had done it in a particularly clever way.

We could try to entertain his argument further, but why should we? Ferguson was the guy out there for the past few years putting a Serious face on the hand-wringing over invisible bond vigilantes. That never manifested. Neither did Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation. Literally nothing he's said in his public escapades has been remotely correct. Here he is just the other day on Bloomberg TV pretending he doesn't know the census exists.

The Ferguson flap has nothing to do with whether or not his critics are glossing over his broader argument. His broader argument has been fundamentally wrong for years running now. He has been repeatedly exposed as a liar with an agenda.

This would be fine if he weren't a professor at Harvard and Senior Fellow at Oxford and Stanford. Instead, he's joined the ranks of people like John Cochrane and Eugene Fama who are slapping their prestigious credentials on demonstrable lies. And he's done it over and over. He does not even deny it in this case. Why, then, should we care about what else he has to say?

Yes, none of the

Dan Kervick — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:29:42 +0000

In reply to Financials rebounded big

Yes, none of the conservatives have any business criticizing Obama for failing to deliver jobs, since their own proposals would have given us the UK debacle, or worse.

But I think progressives should criticize Obama from a progressive perspective.