Writes Emily Peck at Axios in "Male economists are freaking out over a NYT profile."
You may remember I talked yesterday about that NYT article and the reaction to it and said "my feminist alarm went off," so I'm interested in Peck's discussion.
More from Peck:
“I am sorry to see the @nytimes taking MMT seriously as an intellectual movement. It is the equivalent of publicizing fad diets, quack cancer cures or creationist theories,” [Larry] Summers tweeted. ...
Noah Smith, a well-known economist and former Bloomberg columnist... calls the Times profile a "puff piece," noting that Smialek writes about Kelton's outfits. The phrase puff piece wasn't much used back when Summers was credited with saving the world from an economic meltdown on the cover of Time magazine in 1999, Mark Paul, an economics professor at New College of Florida, tells Axios.
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Gender dynamics, masculine vs feminine physical and mental attributes, and gender-oriented stereotypes in popular social convention correlated with the sexes: male and female, normalized under masculinist and feminist ideology.
"I am sorry to see the @nytimes taking MMT seriously as an intellectual movement. It is the equivalent of publicizing fad diets, quack cancer cures or creationist theories,” [Larry] Summers tweeted. ..."
Prove him wrong.
"And the gender dynamics — male economists piling on against a female economist and a female journalist, Times' reporter Jeanna Smialek, in ways distinctive from typical academic arguments — look terrible here."
Terrible = demeaning? You see what the likes of Lander and Summers are up against.
Male academics "pile on" against each other all the time, and more harshly, and have for centuries.
But feminism is the doctrine that women are special, so here we are.
The sexism argument is misleading for those who are relying on their layperson's understanding of economics. You are confusing legitimate criticism of bad ideas of MMT by people on the fringes of the profession with sexism. You will continue to make a lot of mistakes if you don't get up to speed on this…
The left wheels out Paul Krugman as an authority but amongst economists of many stripes he’s the intellectual equivalent of the drunk at the party that shits in the punch bowl…which is an intellectual step up from MMT.
Cry sexism all you want but it won’t help MMT…
Why does Biden choose far left nuts for his nominations ? Maybe president Klain can answer.
Lots of men favor MMT. They're just idiots, like the women. For example youtube Mark Blyth at Brown University.
Well, Emily Peck does raise an interesting question. Have we reached the point where hiring women in journalism is no longer Affirmative Action? Is hysteria actually a valid qualification for a modern journalist? Maybe the guys are AA hires, although it seems like a lot of them do hysteria pretty well themselves. They have less natural talent, but they try harder.
Larry Summers is a _____. He did more- in my eyes, to cause the 2008 economic downfall by repealing the Glass/Steagall act of 1933.
From Peck’s article:
This Twitter-based econ fight is about more than one economist. It's an argument over a natural economic experiment — the U.S. government spending unprecedented sums to keep the economy from free-falling during COVID.
Following which, Peck (and Althouse) try to make the criticism of Modern Monetary Theory by Larry Summers and Noah Smith (and others) into a sexist arrack on a woman. Heavens! Pearl-clutching time! Classical economics theory says that runaway spending will lead to inflation. MMT says there’s no price to pay for runaway spending. One of therm’s right and the other theory is wrong. If Althouse’s pension is fixed, and without a COLA, then she’ll learn — the hard way.
And the way to stop the economy from free-falling during COVID would have been for the federal and state governments to keep their promise of “two weeks to flatten the curve.”
MMT needs to find a black to be its advocate. None of those white male economists will say anything critical for fear of being cancelled.
MMT reminds me of this book:
The Secret® | New Book "The Greatest Secret" - Buy Now! As you travel through these pages, and you learn The Secret, you will come to know how you can have, be, or do anything you want. You will come to know who you really are. You will come to know the true magnificence that awaits you.
It's New Age economics, basically.
If men are pushing MMT, it's just to get laid.
So, "puff piece" was a term in use in 1999? Just not often? What is the point of that second paragraph, other than to make an allegation that doesn't hold?
At least somebody liked Kelton's outfits.
Larry Summers never got any compliments on his fashion sense.
I suppose it's misogyny to criticize Emily Peck (and, moreover, transphobic to assume Emily Peck identifies as female), but saying the following without any push-back is, as they say, highly problematic:
Kelton — and MMT — were taking a “victory lap,” as the surging economy seemed to confirm MMT theories about government spending.
If an economy rebounds because all the businesses that had to shut down due to Covid re-open, you don't need Critical Monetary Theory to explain it. You could equally well say it's a vindication of Keynesian Theory or Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Theory or any other theory that says "more people working = more output."
"Look"?! How dare she!
MMT is "Tinder Swindler" economics.
The NYT put out a casting call for the next Elizabeth Holmes. Kelton is the first one to audition.
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