Lisa Cook, as a nominee for the Fed; Stephanie Kelton, as a leader in macro; and Jeanne Smialek as an economic journalist, came under attack this week. Economics is a disgrace: Feb 2022 edition.
The video isn't working for me, but what's shameful about having your ideas subject to harsh criticism? Economic policies affect peoples lives, it's an important area. Take something else important like cars, is it shameful that cars undergo crash testing?
The attacks on women economists this week were not limited to their ideas. In your example, note, we use crash dummies and not human beings to test in car crashes. Why? Because the goal of a test should not be to destroy human beings. The attacks on Lisa, Stephanie, and Jeanna were meant to destroy them as people too.
Why would an attack on your ideas destroy you as a person? "Fundamentally not qualified", people said far worse about Margaret Thatcher or Ruth Richardson and that didn't stop either of them. People say far worse about male politicians every day. Lawrence Summers was criticising MMT as an intellectual movement, and having engaged with MMTers I think they deserve it.
Thatcher & Richardson didn't need to be stopped - they self destructed. The last straw in Thatcher's term was her mad dog Poll Tax policy. Richardson lasted only 1 term after her vile Mother of All Budgets deliberately reduced the living standards of the poorest in NZ society. The toxic legacy of Thatcher & Richardson was to entrench poverty in both the UK & NZ & destroy the aspirations of hundreds of thousands of citizens.
I thought the first 18 minutes, on Cook, were really good, and learned a lot. I was unaware of almost all of it.
I thought the last 10, on Kelton and the NYT, was an interesting perspective, but it was hard to understand what exactly was being argued, vis-a-vis "criticism of MMT' versus "criticism of women" versus "criticism of people who are close to me."
You're dong a lot of meandering here, Claudia. I'll you spot you 5, best case 7, min of my time. Not 28 min, unless you are really funny (see for example Cillizza https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqGEbdEtb2k) or have something truly groundbreaking to say in a structured 'I didn't know that' kind of way. So, please stick to the facts, make a succinct case, and let us make our own judgment as to how shameful something may have been.
But video is good, and you can do a lot with it. For example, you could assemble a group of women in economics in the private and public sector and have a weekly roundtable on women in economics and economic issues from the women's perspective. Or you could do 'Economics Inside Baseball', which talks about the economics profession from the economist's point of view, along the lines of the Kaleb interview.
In any event, fewer qualifying adjectives, tighter argumentation and shorter videos unless you really have something to add on a topic. And think about your audience and the approach you want to take. I think you have an opportunity to do something really unique here.
I don't agree with everything which reader Kopits is saying. But I do have to acknowledge that I don't have the time or inclination to watch 28-minute-long videos or follow Twitter threads, even on subjects I am quite interested in. I subscribe to blogs such as this one precisely so that I don't have to go to YouTube or Twitter. So I hope that later this week Claudia Sahm can do a write-up of the issues discussed in the video.
Thanks to both of you for the feedback. Btw several posters on EJMR also didn't like the style or the format. I like to experiment and some people like videos. I will be writing later in the week on economic policy. Thanks!
The video isn't working for me, but what's shameful about having your ideas subject to harsh criticism? Economic policies affect peoples lives, it's an important area. Take something else important like cars, is it shameful that cars undergo crash testing?
The attacks on women economists this week were not limited to their ideas. In your example, note, we use crash dummies and not human beings to test in car crashes. Why? Because the goal of a test should not be to destroy human beings. The attacks on Lisa, Stephanie, and Jeanna were meant to destroy them as people too.
Why would an attack on your ideas destroy you as a person? "Fundamentally not qualified", people said far worse about Margaret Thatcher or Ruth Richardson and that didn't stop either of them. People say far worse about male politicians every day. Lawrence Summers was criticising MMT as an intellectual movement, and having engaged with MMTers I think they deserve it.
Thatcher & Richardson didn't need to be stopped - they self destructed. The last straw in Thatcher's term was her mad dog Poll Tax policy. Richardson lasted only 1 term after her vile Mother of All Budgets deliberately reduced the living standards of the poorest in NZ society. The toxic legacy of Thatcher & Richardson was to entrench poverty in both the UK & NZ & destroy the aspirations of hundreds of thousands of citizens.
Thanks for the video.
I thought the first 18 minutes, on Cook, were really good, and learned a lot. I was unaware of almost all of it.
I thought the last 10, on Kelton and the NYT, was an interesting perspective, but it was hard to understand what exactly was being argued, vis-a-vis "criticism of MMT' versus "criticism of women" versus "criticism of people who are close to me."
You're dong a lot of meandering here, Claudia. I'll you spot you 5, best case 7, min of my time. Not 28 min, unless you are really funny (see for example Cillizza https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqGEbdEtb2k) or have something truly groundbreaking to say in a structured 'I didn't know that' kind of way. So, please stick to the facts, make a succinct case, and let us make our own judgment as to how shameful something may have been.
But video is good, and you can do a lot with it. For example, you could assemble a group of women in economics in the private and public sector and have a weekly roundtable on women in economics and economic issues from the women's perspective. Or you could do 'Economics Inside Baseball', which talks about the economics profession from the economist's point of view, along the lines of the Kaleb interview.
In any event, fewer qualifying adjectives, tighter argumentation and shorter videos unless you really have something to add on a topic. And think about your audience and the approach you want to take. I think you have an opportunity to do something really unique here.
I don't agree with everything which reader Kopits is saying. But I do have to acknowledge that I don't have the time or inclination to watch 28-minute-long videos or follow Twitter threads, even on subjects I am quite interested in. I subscribe to blogs such as this one precisely so that I don't have to go to YouTube or Twitter. So I hope that later this week Claudia Sahm can do a write-up of the issues discussed in the video.
Thanks to both of you for the feedback. Btw several posters on EJMR also didn't like the style or the format. I like to experiment and some people like videos. I will be writing later in the week on economic policy. Thanks!