Off-the-beaten path AND a blogger.
Bill Keller in a piece where he is trying to understand economics and partially blames loud mouth bloggers for the lack of compromise in DC:
The other day House Speaker John Boehner put out a list of 132 economists who signed a statement endorsing a Republican menu of spending cuts, tax cuts and deregulation. All of these are legitimate things to propose, but the statement claimed the Republican list “will do more to boost private-sector job growth in America in both the near-term and long-term than the ‘stimulus’ spending approach favored by President Obama.” Reputable number-crunchers like Moody’s Analytics and some top-tier economists of both parties said Boehner’s statement would have little or no impact on the short-term employment problem. So who were these 132 economists? With a few exceptions they were academics from off-the-beaten-path colleges (no offense to Dakota State University), bloggers (the Calafia Beach Pundit?) and economists from devoutly libertarian think tanks. But the news had the right-wing tom-toms beating with excitement.
No offense to the buffoons at regional state universities? Really? You meant no offense? Hahahahaha.
I noticed a few environmental economists on the list of 132. I'll speculate about macro on this blog, and sign a statement related to environmental econ (e.g., ITQs are efficient), but you won't catch me signing a macro statement. In case anyone wants to know, that is where I draw the line at ignoring my ignorance.
