Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Virtual Stalking
Donald Luskin, whose superior blog is titled The Conspiracy to Keep you Poor and
Stupid, virtually stalks New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and comments on nearly all of Krugman's columns, correcting their apparently numerous errors. He does it again today at the Krugman Truth Squad column over at NRO. I am so totally clueless about economics (one of the many holes in my education) that I can't comment on the accuracy of Luskin's views vis a vis Krugman's views, but I can certainly say that Luskin's style of writing is superior, he backs up his statements better than Krugman, and he is funny where Krugman is a complete bore.
Money quote today:
"One needn't go halfway around the world to see Krugman's economic blunders on display. In another Times column last week, Krugman promoted his doomsaying economic narrative in the face of a drop in the unemployment rate to 5 percent by claiming, "adjusted for inflation, average weekly earnings have been flat for the past five years." But just visit the website of the Department of Labor, the official source of such statistics, and you'll see that, in fact, they are up half a percent--not "flat." Or visit the website of the Department of Commerce, which shows that a comparable figures--per capita disposable income--is up 9.6 percent, again not "flat."
It's all just another case of what former New York Times "public editor" Dan Okrent called a "disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers." I wrote to Byron Calame--the new "public editor"-- to demand a correction of Krugman's error about "flat" wages. His associate Joe Plambeck told me that Krugman was not "factually incorrect. Had he said 'remained the same,' he would have been in error."
Later, Plambeck told me that Krugman's boss--editorial page editor Gail Collins--agreed with him that "no correction is necessary" because "you and Mr. Krugman are emphasizing different things."
I suppose that's right. I was emphasizing accurate reporting of economic news. Krugman was emphasizing left-wing spin designed to trash-talk a booming economy. Those are different things."
Stupid, virtually stalks New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and comments on nearly all of Krugman's columns, correcting their apparently numerous errors. He does it again today at the Krugman Truth Squad column over at NRO. I am so totally clueless about economics (one of the many holes in my education) that I can't comment on the accuracy of Luskin's views vis a vis Krugman's views, but I can certainly say that Luskin's style of writing is superior, he backs up his statements better than Krugman, and he is funny where Krugman is a complete bore.
Money quote today:
"One needn't go halfway around the world to see Krugman's economic blunders on display. In another Times column last week, Krugman promoted his doomsaying economic narrative in the face of a drop in the unemployment rate to 5 percent by claiming, "adjusted for inflation, average weekly earnings have been flat for the past five years." But just visit the website of the Department of Labor, the official source of such statistics, and you'll see that, in fact, they are up half a percent--not "flat." Or visit the website of the Department of Commerce, which shows that a comparable figures--per capita disposable income--is up 9.6 percent, again not "flat."
It's all just another case of what former New York Times "public editor" Dan Okrent called a "disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers." I wrote to Byron Calame--the new "public editor"-- to demand a correction of Krugman's error about "flat" wages. His associate Joe Plambeck told me that Krugman was not "factually incorrect. Had he said 'remained the same,' he would have been in error."
Later, Plambeck told me that Krugman's boss--editorial page editor Gail Collins--agreed with him that "no correction is necessary" because "you and Mr. Krugman are emphasizing different things."
I suppose that's right. I was emphasizing accurate reporting of economic news. Krugman was emphasizing left-wing spin designed to trash-talk a booming economy. Those are different things."
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 8:21 AM 
