DeLong Smackdown Watch...
Surely there must be more things worthy of being immortalized in the DeLong Smackdown Watch, mustn't there? Anybody have any favorites? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?
DeLong Smackdown Watch archives:
Grasping Reality with Both Hands: Economist Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: DeLong Smackdown Watch: From D-Squared Digest: The unique Daniel Davies writes:
D-squared Digest -- FOR bigger pies and shorter hours and AGAINST more or less everything else: This is such a big heap of partisan right-wing bullshit that there must be a pony in there somewhere! Just before this slips down the grating; Brad DeLong waves the waggy finger of disapproval at anyone who slurs Milton Friedman's name...
Grasping Reality with Both Hands: Economist Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: Mendacious Wacko of the Right Nominated as Undersecretary--DeLong Smackdown Watch: I was saying that James K. Glassman--author of Dow 36000 and now Undersecretary of State-Designate--was the worst of the mendacious wackos of the financial right in the late 1990s. "No, no, no," somebody said. "George Gilder was the worst." Others agreed. They are right...
Grasping Reality with Both Hands: Economist Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: DeLong Smackdown Watch: Brad Setser: Brad Setser agrees with Jeff Faux that China's exports to the United States must be cut--but for very different reasons:
Brad Setser: DeLong’s position – that the US needs to position itself as a friend of China’s economic development -- is an appealing one. But it is also one that I suspect glosses over some big issues...
Grasping Reality with Both Hands: Economist Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: DeLong Smackdown Watch: Dani Rodrik Strikes Back: The learned and thoughtful Dani Rodrik has a good response. He writes:
Dani Rodrik's weblog: What's different about international trade?: UPDATE: Brad DeLong does not express my views accurately...
Semi-Daily Journal Archive: DeLong Smackdown Watch...: Why oh why haven't I been reading Blake Hounshell regularly?
Whither Free Trade? - American Footprints: Brad DeLong scoffs at Jacob Weisberg's contention that "free trade is the real election casualty." The good professor says:
Normally, these days, Republican presidents are better on free trade than Democratic presidents. But George W. Bush is not a "normal" president. WCI is right that the appropriate response of other countries to Weisberg's spin is "hollow laughter."
But this is dodging the question...
Semi-Daily Journal Archive: DeLong Smackdown Watch! ("Are My Methods Unsound?" Edition): Matthew Yglesias demonstrates that he is Il Maestro di Color che Sanno as far as quotes from "Apocalypse Now" are concerned:
Health Care as Opportunity | TPMCafe: An interesting perspective from Brad DeLong.... Brad steals a page from my book, quoting "Apocalypse Now" to describe the Bush approach to public policy, but he mangles the lines. Willard says, "They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound." Kurtz asks: "Are my methods unsound?" And Willard replies: "I don't see any method at all, sir." (They're surrounded by deep-jungle tribespeople, decapitated heads on sticks, all sorts of corpses, etc.) I think that about sums it up.
In comments, Robert Waldmann piles on as well. Clearly I need to buy a DVD of "Apocalypse Now" if I'm going to run with big dogs...
Brad DeLong's Website: DeLong Smackdown Watch: Julian Sanchez gives an effective critique of (i) DeLong's version of preference utilitarianism and of (ii) attempts to figure out how to implement it by asking people what makes them happy.
Notes from the Lounge: No problem, say the utilitarian theorists (and economists), we'll switch to preference utilitarianism, wherein "utility" or "happiness" are defined in terms of the satisfaction of preferences. This has the virtue of realigning the object of maximization with what people subjectively value, which makes for a sturdier fact/value bridge. It has the disadvantage of making it much less clear whether that appealingly simple maximizing structure is still a good fit for the task. Even rendering the very different forms of satisfaction and dissatisfaction people are capable of feeling comparable seemed a bit of a stretch. (How many of the bon vivant's wild nights on the town does it take to equal the same amount of "utility" in the monk's serene satisfaction in a day of contemplation?) Preferences over states of the world that need not be experience by the subject who prefers them make things a much bigger tangle. And should we think it's better for people to have more (and more intense) preferences, so that more of them can be satisfied? But I digress.
DeLong's problem seems to be that he's using this second, preference-based sense of "happiness." But this isn't the colloquial sense of the word.... DeLong is like a Ptolemaic astronomer who... [claims] the proposition that the earth revolves around the sun... [is the same as] the absurd proposition that the earth doesn't exist, since "the earth" is defined as the thing at the center of the universe...
Brad DeLong's Website: DeLong Smackdown Watch: A correspondent writes, challenging my claims about the Stupidest People Alive. I confess that I was in error:
Brad DeLong, you are a fool. Donald Luskin's claim to the "Stupidest Man Alive" crown cannot be shaken...
Grasping Reality with Both Hands: Economist Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: DeLong Smackdown Watch: Doug Elmendorf on the Subprime Meltdown: Hoisted from Comments: Doug Elmendorf writes:
Brad DeLong--Economics Only: What Is to Be Done? (About the Subprime Meltdown, That Is): Thanks for linking to my notes. I think you misunderstand my point #5, where the key word is "federal." Ned Gramlich pointed out that half of subprime mortgages in 2005 were issued by mortgage companies chartered and supervised by the states (compared with essentially no prime mortgages), and that the problem mortgages are heavily concentrated in that sector. He concluded in his book that all mortgage lenders should be covered by a federal supervisor. Others have argued that federal supervision is important for the Fed's ability to restore liquidity to these institutions.
However, in Ned's Jackson Hole remarks, he said that the same regulatory end might be achieved by collaboration among federal and state supervisors, which was already underway...
