the pilgrimamges to Karbala.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/11/news/shiite.php

I'd like to think that I'm the raving nutbag who is legitimated by posting here.

I just read the link.

It's nothing but whining by a guy (Brad DeLong)who is pouting that Larry Kudlow bested him in the debate.

I thank Kevin for linking to this example of an arrogant liberal having a hissy fit after losing an argument.

Creationists love these "debates" for the same reason.

It's nothing but whining by a guy (Brad DeLong)who is pouting that Larry Kudlow bested him in the debate.

I don't get it either Kevin. What's your point in the post?

Posted over at DeLong's because my point is just that good.

====

I used to go to hour long panels, in which 20 minutes were devoted to the speakers, and 40 minutes were devoted to Q&A.

Now it seems most panels are 55 minutes devoted to the speaker, with time for one question.

This exacerbates the problem.

And, while I know ahead of time the various speakers points of view, the value of the panel is not having them pontificate with each other, the value is in having people more knowledgeable than I asking them good questions and seeing their on the spot answers.

If you had ten minutes out of ninety on a nine member panel, than the panel's value was lost before it even began.

Did you really have something to say in ten minutes that could not have been said in five?

If Q&A on your panel had not been 0 minutes, but had been 45 minutes, what would have happened to Kudlow's position?

Brad DeLong has deleted a few comments I've left there in the past (preview.tinyurl.com/3anurr); yes, I know: he's done that everyone. Hopefully the objective reader will agree that - despite not being a Berkeley economist PhD - I kicked his ass from here to Sunday a decade hence.

If not for that, I'd point out how to discredit Larry Kudlow.

Warning: doing so requires you to act like you support what's in America's best interest.

Deleting comments on liberal blogs is common, TLB. Whenever you get too close to making points they can't refute, they simply delete it. It's similar to how conservative speech is censored on campuses by draconian 'speech codes'.

Warning: doing so requires you to act like you support what's in America's best interest.

Doint what's in America's best interest?

You mean like impeaching Bush and Cheney, withdrawing our troops from Iraq, restoring habeas corpus, supporting our troops by actually funding VA programs, rolling back insane tax cuts for the wealthy, enforcing EPA regulations, restoring our manufacturing base, implementing universal healthcare, addressing the issues around global warming and others?

That would be friggin' great, wouldn't it?

Advocating for the use of nuclear weapons is not "too close to making a point" and you have not had your free speech curtailed.

It's ironic that you criticize moderation here, when most conservative blogs either don't allow comments at all, or delete ALL opposing viewpoints.

Ah, Kevin.

Aw. Poor widdle Bwad DeWong. Did he have his feewings hurt by sitting on a panel with a wide range of experts, rather than a carefully staged PR campaign?

Thank G_d Kudlow was on the panel. It was stocked with lulu libby academics like Solow and Delong. They add only ONE person from the other side of the isle to argue the other side and Delong can't stand it?

Whoever says liberals are tolerant is a big joke. They're only tolerant for their multiethnic constituancies.

It's not irony when it's a deliberate tactic at changing the perception. At that point it is just thuggery.

By the way - "free speech zones" are the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard of. This is America. The whole fuckin' country is supposed to be a free speech zone.

The first time I saw one, when I was an undergrad, I organized a group to protest beside the free speech zone about what an un-American notion the concept was.

Jerry: True that.

I didn't get it at first Kevin, but now I see what DeLong is getting at.

Raving nutbags like Michael Moore and Al Gore are preventing people from taking liberalism seriously. I can see why liberals would be concerned.

But conservatives don't have to be worried because good money drives out bad.

egsmell: "Whoever says liberals are tolerant is a big joke. They're only tolerant for their multiethnic constituancies."

Didn't know liberals had constituencies, per se. But this is an interesting admission that egsmell has no ethnicity. Gray men are SO picked-upon in this radical country presided over by mean "liberals" at every turn.

The infantile troll stupidity here (aka "making points") sure is wearing at times.

The infantile troll stupidity here (aka "making points") sure is wearing at times.

Truly. 16 comments in this thread so far, almost half by asswipes intentionally trolling, as jerry said, in the name of thuggery. No real arguments, just inflammatory crap to drive "libruls" crazy and diminish the thread because frankly, they got nuthin' else. Cowards and they're dim.

Somebody refresh my memory about the time the converse to this happened at Redstate or Idiotarian Rottweiler? Oh yeah, it was never.

But the Little Green Footballers are kind and welcoming to opposing viewpoints. So civil and temperate in their debate methods. They truly are an example to us all.

It is terrifying to think that this is what my comments section would turn into if I didn't make my (feeble and pathetic) attempts to moderate it...

Let me see if we can refocus this: I gave seven reasons why NIPA savings rates are different from the change in measured household net worth, only one of which would--number 3--could lead anybody to think that the measured household net worth measure was superior for assessing trends:

1. There is a gap between the rate of return on the average investment made in a year and the cost of capital, which means that $1 of savings on average produces more than $1 of value.
2. The NIPA may well understate corporate savings and investment by counting a bunch of investments in organizational form as corporate operating expenses.
3. All of us free-ride on technological research and development, reaping where we do not sow and profiting where we do not save and invest.
4. Shifts in the distribution of income away from labor and toward capital increase measured household net worth--which includes the increased expected future profits from capital--but not true household net worth--which also includes the decreased expected future wages of labor.
5. Declines in interest rates make the future more valuable relative to the present and so raise measured household net worth today--which is measured in today's dollars--without any outward shift in the true consumption-possibilities frontier.
6. Government deficits that raise the debt lower national savings but not measured household net worth.
7. Good news about the future produces windfall gains and bad news windfall losses which alter this year's household net worth without telling us much about over-all long-run accumulation trends.

Any comments, criticisms, disagreements?

Don't get me wrong, trex, I think a good troll is a thing of beauty, and I think every forum needs one or two trolls just to deflate the groupthink and keep everyone honest.

But, some of the trolls here are more like bots, (Al, AH) and drive the s/n ration up. Like bad money, this bad talk can drive out the good talk.

The forums left and right that permit no trolls go far overboard and toss out plenty of good, interesting, honest discussion.

It seems certainly true that there are far more examples of this on the right than on the left.

The nutcases are legitimatize in more ways than just being present. One of the problems with what is coming to be the standard debate format is that it takes much longer to correct absurd claims by an opponent that it takes the opponent to make the absurd claim. This is an old trick in the creationists playbook. The loon can make a few dozen absurd claims in his 20 minutes and only a handful can be rebutted. The audience may well walk away with the impression that the unrebutted nonsense is valid.

"drive the s/n ration up"

way down is what I meant to say.

In general, I think people are called trolls way too quickly. On many boards, I have often found the so called trolls to be the ones that were correct, and the people calling troll were the ones that just had no argument and were wishing for a deus ex machina of banning.

It's all about type i and type ii error. Most troll filters have way too much type i errors. Way too many false positives.

So I enjoy an interesting troll.

Yes, including someone in a debate legitimizes him or her. That's why the Democrats work so hard to keep Green Party members out of debates. They don't want to legitimize a true progressive, and they fear that voters might actually like learning about an alternative to corporate-funded politics.

Brad: It is terrifying to think that this is what my comments section would turn into if I didn't make my (feeble and pathetic) attempts to moderate it...

Yes, you're just "Moderating" it, not censoring viewpoints you disagree with.

Say, when's the last time you deleted a comment from somebody who was agreeing with you?

That's probably correct, Larry, and it has the unfortunate blowback of making Dems look further left than they actually are—which is, in general, not very.

If the blowhards who troll here actually encountered someone from the far left—not the Christian Democrats they are in truth prattling about—they would never stop shitting themselves. Not that the smell would be any different.

I will once more point out that moderation is the blog owners right and censorship is a state function.

Do you need a Waaahhhmbulance, Hawkster?

Click Here for Hawks personal profile.

Brad:

Most economics is political nowadays, and since economics is more art than science anyway, one can cherry-pick any number of statistics to support almost any position. So, you're pretty much left holding the politics, like a paper bag full of dog crap.

"Household Net Worth" would be, if it were realistic, as complex to figure out as weather studies. Too damn many variables, which is pretty much your point in the first place, right?

Gresham's law only applies in cases where both good and bad currency be accepted as equal by the recipient. Clearly, readers of a blog can discern who is a troll and who is making an important statement. So, Gresham's law does not apply to blogs.

Maybe in debates, wherein a reasonable person has stand toe-to-toe with an idiot -- maybe here Gresham's law applies. But I still believe an audience can tell shit from apples.

It's ironic for DeLong to mention raving nutbags. DeLong is a very smart guy, but I'd call him a raving lefty nutbag. So, he balanced out the raving righty nutbag on the panel.

Let me see if we can refocus this: I gave seven reasons why NIPA savings rates are different from the change in measured household net worth, only one of which would--number 3--could lead anybody to think that the measured household net worth measure was superior for assessing trends...

Posted by: Brad DeLong on March 11, 2007 at 10:59 PM

So, in summary, your position is...
budget and trace deficits DO matter as opposed to supply-siders that insist that they don't because your position is that NIPA makes a better barometer of assessing future trends while the supply-siders focus on household net worth which happens to be convenient and rising (recently)? So, what does the busting of the housing bubble doing to household net worth and the supply-siders arguments now? What is Kudlow's motivation for his zeal?

Isn't it interesting that not one of our trolls (Al, Hawk, egbert, ex-liberal, Kenneth, TLB, et. al.) actually has an answer for Dr. DeLong? Not one of them can actually engage him on the facts. Instead, and as usual, they go for the usual ad hominem attacks, devoid of substance, facts, or thought.

"So I enjoy an interesting troll."

As you can see from this thread, our trolls aren't interesting.

"What is Kudlow's motivation for his zeal?"

The same thing that always motivates Kudlow: Krugman.

"As you can see from this thread, our trolls aren't interesting."

Sigh, I definitely agree with that.

I notice that the trolls have stayed far away from Kevin's post on the subprime mortgage implosion. The topic is too scary for banter. I hope that AmHawk has a 2/28 loan that is resetting about now.

The nutbag is always legitimated by being there.

Not unlike Kevin's comment section, I might add.

Of course Brad DeLong was at a disadvantage against KRudlow - He didn't have a line of white in front of him.

It's ironic for DeLong to mention raving nutbags. DeLong is a very smart guy, but I'd call him a raving lefty nutbag.

It's ironic for "ex-liberal" to mention raving nutbags, since he/she/it is a raving neoconservative nutbag, and dishonest to the core on top of it.

Your use of the term 'legitimated' outragifies me!

Doesn't anyone see that this is symptomatic of a larger issue: the right always trots out extremists to extend the boundaries of acceptable discourse. That way, we spend all our time de-bunking the crazies, and then their regular- crazy position seems like a compromise. It's nothing more than negotiating 101: If I want to sell my rug for at least $500, I need to start by asking for $10,000.

Lefties are terrible at this because to them, the world of policy and government is too important to play games with. They won't legitimize crazies on the left because they can't get past the fact that they are crazy, and legitimizing them would be cynical and craven. The right has no such qualms. (It's a big part of why the Lefties are the good guys in this narrative.)

Leave it to a college professor to point out that some of the students are cheating and how.

The lawyer comment makes it sound like Solow is a leftie. Solow knows as much about this subject as anybody--wrote a truly great book Growth Theory on the topic many years ago. I have no idea what his politics is, but he is a mainstream neo-classicist with a huge dose of common sense.

The overall point is correct, though. Discourse descends to the least informed panel member.

The recent trend for people to flat out lie has made this a bigger problem.

Any comments, criticisms, disagreements?

#1 seems to be making two points, and I don't see how the conclusion follows from the premise.

#6 might be why so many individuals do not see trade and budget imbalances as important. Should they see those trade and budget imbalances as important?

You might be drawing too general a conclusion from one particular panel.

Mathew, how is Brad making two points in #1?

1. There is a gap between the rate of return on the average investment made in a year and the cost of capital, which means that $1 of savings on average produces more than $1 of value.

Are you reading something into that statement that isn't there? Now, you might be right about the conclusion that Brad draws since, all things being equal, a gap between the return of the average investment and the cost of capital might result in the return on savings on average produces a loss instead of a gain. But that's just splitting hairs.

television itself is the intellectual Gresham's law.

"...Doesn't anyone see that this is symptomatic of a larger issue: the right always trots out extremists to extend the boundaries of acceptable discourse..."
Posted by: Jim Pharo on March 12, 2007 at 11:04 AM

I think the problem lies with the forum makers. I remember watching John Kerry and the Swift Boat guy (can't remember his name) debating in 1970 on the Dick Cavett show a couple of years ago and rebroadcast on C-span. Wow. They spent an entire hour (with FEW commercials mind you) between two prime debaters and Dick Cavett moderating the two. They even split the studio audience into even halves of supporters. Excellent debate. Where is that now? The "debate" itself is now infotainment value. That's the problem. This crap started around the time Jerry Springer and Limbaugh started getting popular. "Real news" for kicks. Lurid Shout TV pap. There are people DYING as a result of policies not being properly debated in public and nobody gives a shit because there is too much $$$$ involved. If you have a chance.. watch 1976's "Network" some time soon. What happens now, makes that shit look simple by comparison.