Thoughts on the No Vote?
 

Hey fucko. Get an original name.

You can hold your opinion about Krugman, and I will admit that I don't race to read him (or any of the NYT columnists), but Okrent smeared him with that parting shot, and couldn't back it up. In that exchange I linked to, Krugman just kicked his ass.

It appears that Okrent was getting fed stuff by Donald Luskin, and is not enough of an economist to realize that Luskin done him wrong.

I didn't really have a bad sense of Okrent, and I'm not sure why he chose to pick this fight.

If you don't feel like wading through all the details, read Jonathan Chait's summary of the exchange:

Quote:

OKRENT'S LAST WORD: I didn't think Daniel Okrent, the departing New York Times public editor, could get any more cowardly. But he just did. If you didn't notice, Okrent included in his final Times column a parting shot at columnist Paul Krugman and two other Times columnists. Okrent wrote, "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults." Okrent declined to offer a single example of such slicing and dicing, or even to expound upon his accusation in any way. By way of explanation, he wrote: "I didn't give Krugman, Dowd or Safire the chance to respond before writing the last two paragraphs. I decided to impersonate an opinion columnist." This is, of course, a shockingly dumb explanation. No, op-ed columnists don't give their targets a chance to respond. But they do make some effort to substantiate their claims. Krugman wouldn't write that President Bush told a lie in a recent speech and leave it at that. He would pass on to the readers what Bush said and explain why he felt it was a lie. Is Okrent really so dim that he couldn't grasp this point? Maybe, but more likely he doesn't have the guts to do it. In an online debate, Krugman pressed Okrent to substantiate his accusation. You can read the debate here. It's truly pathetic. Krugman explains why Okrent's accusations were wrong, and Okrent repeatedly dodges the substance. For instance, Okrent writes, "His 5/9/05 column on progressive indexing. The column itself (without the ex post facto explanation) suggestively conflates 'retirement income' and 'social security benefits' without sufficient explanation, but with plenty of apparent point-making." Krugman replies: I explained that the term "retirement income" normally refers to income from all sources, not just Social Security benefits (the Social Security Administration says on its Web site that "you should not count only on Social Security for your retirement income.") I supplied him with a study (pdf) that used Social Security Administration data to show that because high-income workers depend much less than middle-income workers on Social Security, they would have smaller percentage cuts in overall retirement income than middle-income workers. This was similar to a point I made, using different data, a week earlier (5/1/05), so I was surprised that Mr. Okrent even raised the issue. So Okrent simply launches even more personal attacks. For instance, he writes: "For a man who makes his living offering strong opinions, Paul Krugman seems peculiarly reluctant to grant the same privilege to others. And for a man who leads with his chin twice a week, he acts awfully surprised when someone takes a pop at it." But of course Krugman didn't challenge Okrent's right to disagree with him, only his right to launch unsubstantiated attacks on his integrity. The sneakiest thing in Okrent's latest entry is this: Believe me--I could go on, as could a number of readers more sophisticated about economic matters than I am. (Among these are several who, like me, generally align themselves politically with Prof. Krugman, but feel he does himself and his cause no good when he heeds the roaring approval of his acolytes and dismisses his critics as ideologically motivated.) Note what's going on here. First, Okrent implies that there are lots of examples of Krugman abusing data but declines to provide them. Next, he conflates that accusation with a completely different one--that Krugman plays to his liberal base and dismisses those who disagree too easily. I think there's some truth to the latter criticism. But that's a completely different accusation. Being too ideological or partisan is a common flaw among pundits, and it's in the eye of the beholder. Manipulating data is far more serious. Readers can judge for themselves if Krugman is playing to the liberal crowd. They can't judge whether he's using numbers dishonestly. To say he does so is to tell readers they can't trust him. Okrent continues on with other snide remarks, including this parting shot: "If he replies to this statement, as I imagine he will, I'll let him have what he always insists on keeping for himself: the last word. I hate to do this to a decent man like my successor, Barney Calame, but I'm hereby turning the Krugman beat over to him." Look, many journalists have been in the position of wanting to dodge a reader who harbors a burning desire to debate some obscure point and lots of time on his hands. But Krugman isn't some crank, and he's not debating some obscure point. Okrent smeared him in his own newspaper, and he has a right to clear his name. I'm not saying there are no quarrels that anybody could ever make with any of Krugman's data. He deals with very complicated questions in a very small space. He simply can't devote endless technical paragraphs to establishing his every premise. (That's why I happen to think his recent series of columns on health care, which allowed him to develop his thoughts at greater length without rushing through his premises, have been his best ones.) So Krugman can't chase every rabbit down every hole, but given the constraints of his column, he does a very good job. Okrent ought to be ashamed of himself.

Thoughts on the No Vote?
 

I think he spells that "fuckeau."

eta: Sorry, wrong fucko.

Thoughts on the No Vote?
 

dissent. you are considered a jackass these days, you must be losing your fucking mind sucking cornhole at the temple of W.

Because they were little people of substance. Or little people of significant size. Or little people of enhanced buoyancy - whatever the term is supposed to be.

Thoughts on the No Vote?
 

These days?

Thoughts on the No Vote?
 

Oh, please.

They were short, but very thick about the middle.

Moo
 

1) I thought it rather telling that the ombudsman of the Times withheld all comment on Krugman and Dowd until his final column. Either Okrent is a pussy unwilling to gore the Grey Lady's sacred cows, or his bosses forced him to clam up.

2) How did Krugman win this fight, other than getting in - by concession - the last word?

Thoughts on the No Vote?
 

I agree but the French population don't understand that.

It is not in French interest to kill it as an economic entity. This view comes with looking at economics as a zero sum game. In addition, the Europeans are so intertwined economically, if it started to unravel the people would immediately feel the pain. People don't see the benefits right now, but if the EU unraveld the pain would hit and they would go right back. I think Britain is going to have to join the Monetary Union eventually. Its business community will eventually start screaming about the currency risk they go through that their European counterparts don't have to worry about. As someone who has worked in international finance, currency risk is huge factors of multinationals. Since the closer Economic Union is in the business communities interest, all stuff below the radar screen will still move towards a closer union.

Moo
 

Is it telling that he never commented on Brooks at all? I've seen factual claims made by Brooks refuted. Okrent couldn't come close with Krugman.

As Safire proved for years, op-ed columnists at the NYT get to say whatever the hell they want, without fearing of getting called on it.

Did you bother to read the exchange? Okrent had no idea what he was talking about. Krugman answered everything he said, so Okrent resorted to crappy, ad hominem attacks.

Those that missed the wagon train......
 

Sidd, Tryone and Slave: Being blessed enough to live on the California coast, one of the advantages is completely not caring what these bozos, Krugman and Okrent, say.

for Hank
 

Darwin in a vise:

http://home.earthlink.net/~tjneal/Darwin_in_a_Vise.jpg

Those that missed the wagon train......
 

nice admission, like lord emperor W you aspire to stupidity. keep your head swilled in their regime of scurrilous lies while your rightwing media pals Hannity and Rush conspire to legitimize our military's campaign of murder, torture and tyranny.

does is 100,000 murdered Iraqis and over 1600 sacrificial Americans sound like freedom to you?

but of course you live on the westcoast so are blessed with not having to care. this must be how democracy ends, with the sound of repukes shoving their heads up their asses.

Caption, please.
 

Caption, please.
 

"Fill'er up!"

Caption, please.
 

No Vetos
 

I thought you folks were smart enough to pick out the Penske trolls by now.

Caption, please.
 

"Yeah, that's really great stuff, but I'm 'fraid I can't help ya - Dick says Halliburton doesn't drill fer this and so they don't really make any money on this...but thanks - it's great stuff, it really is."

This is fuckin' hilarious.

• Nixon aides condemn 'Deep Throat' for betrayal
  AFP - Wed Jun 1, 6:23 AM ET
  WASHINGTON - (AFP) - Aides to the late president Richard Nixon have said that former FBI deputy director Mark Felt, unmasked as the anonymous Watergate source known as "Deep Throat," had breached professional ethics by leaking information. G. Gordon Liddy, a Nixon operative who engineered the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Campaign headquarters in the Watergate building in Washington, and served four and a half years in jail for it, said Wednesday that Felt "violated the ethics of the law enforcement profession."

Let's see - you're a member of the law enforcement profession - you see a crime being committed - and because it's your superior, ethically, you're required to keep quiet about it?

Somehow, G. Gordon Liddy isn't the first name that comes to mind when I think of an ethics question.

I think the ethics he's referring to is the general obligation of investigators not to disclose information about an ongoing investigation. It's a fair point, but might be better made by someone other than a person ultimately convicted by that information, say, for example, a person improperly implicated early in an investigation that is later cleared (like the first olympic park bomber).

I have to say, that I find Felt's admission at this point most curious. Why make it now? I suspect his family had some ulterior motive that he was not fully capable, in his post-stroke condition, of resisting. The motive may simply have been "make grampa happy for his last couple of years", but still.

Thoughts on the No Vote?
 

Careful - that's an awfully Anglo/liberal idea there. I agree with you, but not everyone does, including a number of people setting policy from time to time in various European countries.
I overstate it. (What, hyperbole? No!) I don't think the EU will unravel entirely. However, I think that the various states will not integrate further politically, and will function more independently of each other than they have in the recent past (and therefore will offer no effective political counterweigh to the US, except to the extent that they occasionally support Russia for nuissance value). I think economically they will continue to integrate somewhat for now as a natural process rather than a matter of policy; but, economics always coming second to politics, that will last only so long as political expediency doesn't dictate otherwise (which I think is coming very soon for some of them). That's a description of what I think the reality will be, though not the policy. (But then when has policy in the EU reflected reality, anyway?)

I am not highly confident that the Euro will survive. I'd give it about a 75% chance over the medium term, but think there is a very high chance that at least one significant country will leave it in the next decade or so.
I'll bet you a buck that in 2020 the UK will not have joined.
I disagree. You're points about currency risk (and transaction costs, etc., etc.) are very valid, but the British business community isn't so slow in the head that they haven't been evaluating those risks for the past several years, and they aren't screaming for it yet. To say nothing of the business-related down sides of sharing Italian (and Romanian, and now French and German) fiscal policy.

But I think pointing to business pressures to join the Euro misses the point. Ultimately, it is not a business decision, or even really an economic one, but a political one. The UK is unlikely to switch from a currency that is well and (now) independently managed to a currency that has proven itself to be incompetently managed, and even if competently managed would not be managed in British interests (particularly given the extent to which the British economy remains very out of sync with continental economies, which aren't particularly in sync with each other, for that matter).

Since there was evidence that the director of the FBI at the time (L. Patrick Gray) participated in the coverup, I think he probably had more than ample legal and ethical ground to disclose the information that he did.

Concur as to being better made by another, but your example is irrelevant.

Possible. I think I heard that they talked him into agreeing to come forward, but I'm not totally sure on that.

I read somewhere that his children basically bullied him into it to cash in before he died. I specifically recall Felt saying his daughter convinced him that getting some money out of it so she could pay off her kids' educational expenses was a good enough reason to go public.

That said, I have a significant amount of sympathy for families stuck with oppressive educational expenses.

Some article I read said that the Felt family had been having "polite" discussions with Bernstein about money from books, movies etc.

ETA from NY Times article:

"The Vanity Fair article, written by a Felt family friend and lawyer, John D. O'Connor, portrays a polite but persistent dialogue between the Felt family and Mr. Woodward in recent years over who should control the rights (and benefits) to such a sensational story. "

Thoughts on the No Vote?
 

Is that a 2005 dollar or a 2020 dollar?

Thoughts on the No Vote?
 

I was considering that myself. 2005, but we can put our respective bucks into escrow to be invested as we direct until release on 12/31/20.

What do you think are then chances Spanky'll want to invest in the SS trust fund?

No Vetos
 

It is a profound testament to the pervasive stupidity of many of the posters on this board that anyone who presents a less than mainstream in-the-box position is tagged with the dreaded "troll" or "sock" label.

It's also funny you should label me with the name of a well known racist/xenophobic/sexist/fascist who was allowed to pollute the infirm board with all manner of hate speech while his axis of fascism pal Plated deleted yours truly.

You're a real dull wit Taxwonk, you are. Hardee hahaha.

When you have an ethical duty to disclose something, say a crime you know will be committed, you need to disclose it to the proper authorities. A chat with a reporter in a parking garage after midnight isn't really enough.

I hope the guy writes a book and makes a buck.

Felt is just as much as convicted criminal as Liddy, only Reagan pardoned Felt. Spare me the hero claims, Felt was as much a part of the corrupt imperialistic military fascist regime in Washington as Nixon, but it gets ugly when one mad dog turns on another.

My guess is the brouhaha over anonymous sources in last week's Newsweek scandal. I figured he wanted to highlight that anonymous sources really do have a shit load of relevant, accurate information. The timing seemed right to me.

A zebra can't change its stripes. Why in hell would a zebra change his stripes? The entire physical construct of a zebra and its striped body is a wondrous culmination of a long-refined evolutionary process, and is close to perfect within the context of nature.

Similarly Felt was a longstanding corrupt public official, closely aligned with the criminal Hoover, so why would he change his stripes? Secret leaks, bribery, intimidation-all part and parcel of the man's stripes.

I doubt he's writing anything except a will. Anyone have him in the Death Pool?

You should go back and read through some old posts to learn a little about your audience. Hank doesn't believe in evolution.

Who would have been the proper authority in that case?

Nixon. Duh.

Hoover wouldn't wear stripes. Monochromatic cloth dresses, nothing flashy.

Letter to Congress? He could have called a news conference himself. I'm just saying telling chubby "follow the money" isn't exactly full disclosure of criminal activity.

Hypo: What would happen if Loberry read PB?

1 I wouldn't be tied for best, I'd be #1 on my own Baby!
2 You would have a lifetime achievement version of dumbest.

This doesn't sound right to me at all. I don't think Felt is proud of what he did. His motives were more self-interested than altruistic -- he was, inter alia, angry that Nixon did not appoint him to replace Hoover.