March 24th's Daliy Snipe Winner is...

One of our usual faves...Mr. Black (Eschaton).

He's always been one of our favorite of the original bloggers, but lately he's devolved into very limited content...and what is there is pretty much completely unhelpful sniping. The primary qualification for the Daily Snipe award.

This is not to suggest that Duncan doesn't add valuable insight 99% of the time...but lately, specifically today, it was just being bitchy to be bitchy.

There are several examples today:

Trojan

Sadly, I agree with Yves that the pleasing sounding noises about getting more authority to deal with too big to fail institutions is at best just a bit of noise to try to soothe critics and at worst just a desire for more authority to bail out the banksters.

Yes, of course. They're not trying to fix things at all...it's just a big trick/game.

OR

Deep Thought

One would've thought that buying 80% of AIG suggests that the federal government had, in some sense, the ability to take over AIG.

Um, the government has preferred, non-voting rights, shares. The government didn't want to get in the business of running an insurance company. Why is this hard to understand. Yes, the original AIG bailout by Bush/Paulson didn't put enough control in...but that's what Obama/Geithner/Summers asked about today.

But the best, most illustrative snipe, the one that got the award, is:

Optimism

Krugman expresses a tiny bit of optimism that they're just pretending to be fools.


I know it's accepted conventional wisdom that Larry Summers is a very smart guy, but that doesn't make it true.

I dunno, but I imagine the same thing applies to Krugman...unless he is, in fact, the second coming. I know, I know...the Krugmaniacs will hate me for daring to question my one-time nerd crush, but I'm actually just questioning their and Duncan's obession with him lately, as if he's ever solved a huge financial crisis. Oh wait, that probably won't make their reaction better.

So, a very good Snipe for early in the week. Can he hold on for the best of the week???

Or, will he go back to adding to the discourse? We can only hope.

A Challenge to Dr. Krugman, Mr. Taibbi, etc.

Ok, I'm not an economist. I'm a statistician, who oddly, when you put a $ sign in front of numbers, loses all mathematical ability.

BUT, I do know governmental and political reality. I work in government. I have a Ph.D. in a science. I'm not an idiot.

I have read almost every one of Dr. Krugman's articles. I've used him to rail against conservatives as he explains things clearly.

I've enjoyed Matt's pieces on Real Time, though I will acknowledge I always go the sense he was the type who voted for Nader, so always some sense of annoyance with him.

So, that's setting the context, here's the challenge:

The Challenge is...to all sniping from the sidelines...offer up your plan. Make your plan very perfect. Swear that it would work 100%. It would be cheaper and quicker. No doubt. Obviously, no plan is 100% perfect, but if that is true, you have to acknowledge that no plan would make you 100% happy.

You see, I thought Paul was sniping at Bush because he was an idiot who couldn't explain his way out of a paper bag. Now I see, he just likes to snipe.

"This plan won't work, that plan won't work."

No one knows what will work, but I don't see your plan. Yes, you have a Nobel Prize. That doesn't mean you're the most intelligent economist on the planet...because other people have them too.

So, offer up your plans. Put them on a website and let people model them out and see how they play.

BUT, remember this...your plan has to get votes from both sides of the aisle...there's the kicker. Your perfect plan that is 100% fair and 100% assured to work, has to please at least a couple republicans or it doesn't matter how smart and fancy it is.

I know some people will hate me for questioning Paul. But, even though people used to say i had a nerd crush on him, he's not god. he should be questioned, just like the President, and anyone else.

The easiest thing in the world, and its exacerbated in academia, is to tell others what they did wrong in their work/study, but not offer any suggestion about how they should have done it, given the realities they faced. It's time for academics, and even journalist, to change that paradigm. Don't just have fun telling people they're wrong...tell them why, and how they can make it better. That takes thought and time, especially when it's not in a perfect world vacuum.