The Ravings of Niall Ferguson, the Real World, and the Needless Suffering of Tens of Millions

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/11-0


Niall Ferguson. (Photo: The Aspen Institute)

For reasons I cannot imagine, Niall Ferguson has achieved some standing as an intellectual with interesting things to say about the economy. Whenever I have read one of his pieces I almost always find it so confused that it would take a blogpost at least as long as the original to set it straight. This is why I generally ignore Ferguson, except when prodded by friends and readers.


For this reason I was struck to see that my occasional Niall Ferguson corrections got me on the list of Paul Krugman’s

“like-minded bloggers who play a sinister game of tag with him, endorsing his attacks and adding vitriol of their own. I would like to name and shame in this context Dean Baker, Josh Barro, Brad DeLong, Matthew O'Brien, Noah Smith, Matthew Yglesias and Justin Wolfers.”
This was in the concluding segment of a three part tirade from Ferguson directed at Krugman. Krugman is of course highly visible, and has been especially effective in calling attention to some of Ferguson’s more absurd claims.

I have great respect for Paul Krugman and consider him a friend, but Ferguson’s list of “like-minded” bloggers seems more than a bit bizarre. There is certainly overlap in the views of this group of bloggers, but not all that much. For example, I believe that Josh Barro considers himself a libertarian. The only attribute that we really have in common is that we took offense at some of the ridiculous pronouncements from Ferguson and used our blogs to correct them.

[Jim__]

1. Niall Ferguson is a historian, not an economist.

Taking 5 minutes to read Ferguson's drivel on economics confirms that he is completely unqualified to participate in an economic debate with experts. He should know enough to keep his goddamn mouth shut.