New York Times reporter interviews Yale economist Ray C. Fair. Hilarity ensues.

Comments

[Jake]

I remember when the media used to cover politics as a battle of ideas. Now they cover politics as a battle of tactics.

It wasn’t that the NYT didn’t believe his information, they could not believe his tactics.

[Adrian Spidle]

WHY DO VERY SMART PEOPLE MAKE VERY STUPID DECISIONS? Part 2
Public Enquiry Project ^ | 8/16/04 | Adrian Spidle

I agree with kevkrom with one caveat. In most cases, the authorities that we choose as information sources also don’t look at all the data, and this is often ON PURPOSE. I happen to count as a friend a lefty economist who advised Clinton and advises Kerry now. When I point out factors to him that contradict his lefty assertions he displays considerable knowledge of those factors and even agreement on their importance. However his public utterances totally ignore contradictory factors.

Since he his the smartest person I’ve ever met it has become obvious to me that he speaks in two very different voices, one voice is the brilliant economist and the other voice is the Lefty activist.

I suspect that this two-voiced, two facedness applies to all disciplines that have a political component such as ECONOMICS...

http://pep.typepad.com/public_enquiry_project/2004/08/why_do_very_sma_1.html

[John Palmer]

so, how much money has Ray Fair "invested" in the Tradesport and Iowa futures markets, betting on the results of his econometric study? The answer to this question gives me a better idea of "confidence" than any so-called confidence intervals in his estimates and forecasts.

[tee bee]

I wish I were able to stick with the hilarity part of this interview. econometrics is intriguing. and everyone needs a good laugh about now, given the bitter reality underlying Solomon's assertion of polarity: the country is constantly told, and therefore genuinly concerned about the truth that it is indeed polarized, and often levity is the cure that delivers a breath of fresh air.

it is ironic that she charges Fair with undue influence, not-so-neatly stepping over her own biased attempts to undo this travesty -- "it saddens me that you teach this," she says; when that flubs, she seeks to brand him as a vile Republican, or perhaps a Democrat traitor! if the results had been pro-Kerry, would she have asked Fair his political leanings? it makes me ill that she posed the two non-questions in this less-than-legitimate interview, and that her editor failed to excise them from the article. it displays a willful ignorance of the topic under discussion. Fair is laudable for not returning the line of fire or terminating the interview in the face of such monumental narcisism and stupidity.

Solomon's likely response? since economics is generally perceived as boring, you have to spin it somehow for your readers in order to make it "germane," don't you? [rhetorical Q; A: NO! you DON'T! under NO circumstances should you JUDGE for the reader! stick to the story!]

this is one of the more heinous articles I have read in this year of unparalelled election bias, which confirms my concern that journalism is a dead science veiling its objectivity more and more thinly as it attempts to weild its art. it does indicate the underlying truth about Fair's prognostications, however: a significant block of voters are capricious, and may be miffed enough by someone's assertions that they will do one thing that in fact leads them to do the opposite. as some odd show of independence. but the press is well aware that the "swing" vote is really the "lemming" vote, waiting for something to lead them to a cliff.