Friday, February 4, 2011

Why I love to read Naked Capitalism

I enjoy reading Yves Smith's blog, Naked Capitalism, but have to skip many articles because they get pretty deep in the weeds, and those weeds are over my head (pretty easy given my stature).  But here is a perfect example of what I like about the blog:
Now to Norris’ truly bizarre column, in which he argues that circumstances now are very much like those of 1983, when forecasters were not optimistic about the odds of unemployment falling quickly, when lo and behold, it did.
The problem is that there are some of us who are old enough to remember 1983, like yours truly. And 1983 has about as much resemblance to today as a merely badly out of shape athlete does to one who is in the hospital and is refusing surgery (or in our case, structural change). Even though I do have the bad habit of reacting strongly to nonsense in the MSM (it’s such a frequent occurrence that I should be used to it by now), I expect more from Norris, who has to know better. I sent a short set of comments to a jaded economist colleague who also remembers 1983 well (and has also analyzed that period), with my message starting, “This is complete horseshit and Norris should be embarrassed.” His reply, “Yup. Totally stupid.”
No punches pulled there.  The rest of the post destroys the offending column.  That kind of stuff, whether directed at the media or investment banks or mortgage brokers or anyone else, is informative and enjoyable. Seeing somebody viscerally react to the stupidity and criminality which has plunged us into this mess is cathartic.

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