Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The bar for historians that deal with economic history at Harvard is apparently very low

I haven't really waded into this Niall Ferguson thing at all, but this is just incredible.

How disconnected from the issues of the current crisis do you have to be to make a mistake like that?

8 comments:

  1. If your irony meter can handle it, here is a rightwing journo rushing to defend Ferguson... only to make *exactly* the same mistake as him on the (updated) CBO report.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hang on a second Daniel. I looked at it quickly, but it looks like this is yet another example of a right-winger making a true statement, and Keynesians flipping out because he didn't classify it the way they want him to. Maybe in the bigger context he said something untrue, but the actual quote produced (by the guy Krugman lined to) is a true statement.

    In contrast, when Krugman, say, said that Solyndra was the only DOE-backed company to fail, he was either lying or simply uninformed. At the time, you shrugged that off like it was no big deal, like Krugman shouldn't be expected to get his facts right when commenting on DOE loan guarantees.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't think that's really comparable.

      So Krugman was mistaken (although wasn't the other case slightly different?) on a point that didn't change the substance of the argument. He wasn't misinterpreting the broader state of the loan program in the way that Ferguson is misinterpreting the public employment data series.

      Let me put it this way - how many failed loan guarantees were there? X? OK, X. If Krugman had said "look the media focuses on the really bad elements of this one case, but you have to remember that only X firms actually failed - and firm failure is sort of a natural part of the way capitalism works - we expect it", would the interpretation have changed all that much? I don't really see how it could.

      The other surprising thing is that this Census blip was widely remarked upon. Lots of people had talked about it before. On the other hand, very few people had been talking about the non-Solyndra failures until people played gotcha with Krugman.

      That makes Krugman a little sloppy on this in my book, but not as surprising as Ferguson.

      Delete
    2. No Daniel, your response here doesn't work. In the first place, the "spirit" of what Krugman was saying went like this: "These right wing blowhards keep harping on Solyndra, and are trying to draw conclusions about the DOE loan program itself. But Solyndra was the only bankruptcy." So yeah, it kind of undercuts him if he says, "...and so far only 3 companies have gone bankrupt, with the auditor thinking the taxpayers are ultimately going to lose $x billion on the whole program. This is just one bad apple." Doesn't work at all.

      And also, you are wrong in saying that nobody could have known this. I told you at the time--anybody who was actually immersed in this debate knew about some of the other failures, because when they occurred, people would report it with the news hook of, "On the heels of the Solyndra failure, this is embarrassing..."

      Finally: Doesn't it at all trouble you, that you are here openly admitting you get more upset when an austerian says a true statement in a way you think is misleading, than when Krugman says something that is demonstrably false? Can't you understand why some people think you have a double standard?

      Delete
  3. We get Newsweek for free with our npr membership... not a great magazine, but it's always fun in a gazing-at-a-car-wreck sort of way to read Ferguson's columns.

    I assume his appointment at Harvard is similar to Blair's recent visiting appointment to Yale- i.e., more about the big name than about the level of scholarship that is standard there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Although he has written some well regarded books, right? It's true - I don't know if they are well regarded popular history or well regarded historian's history. But he's no slouch.

      I think it's more an issue of Ferguson being very confident in himself and having a David-Brooks-type "reasonable guy"/"Very Serious Person" mentality which leads him to put his foot in his mouth.

      Delete
  4. Delighted that I found your site, fantasDelighted that I found your site, fantastic info. I will bookmark and try to visit more frequently.tic info. I will bookmark and try to visit more frequently.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Good contest , it’s really helpful for new bloggers. All the best guys

    ReplyDelete

All anonymous comments will be deleted. Consistent pseudonyms are fine.