Paul Krugman: Euro Delusions: "I’ve been browsing… Olli Rehn… the face of denialism when it comes to the effects of austerity… [to] pinpoint what [they].. see as the evidence that their view is right…. [T]he decline in interest spreads against Germany…. I see these moves as indicators of the effects of… the LTRO program… and the… willingness to buy sovereign debt…. But they see it as proof that the confidence fairy has arrived. Second, they see adjustment in unit labor costs. I see that too — but… only a fraction of the needed adjustment…. [T]hey have seized on the ECB’s success at stabilizing debt markets… a demonstration that extreme austerity was unnecessary and unwise as a vindication of austerity; and they have taken the slow progress of grinding deflation as a sign that all will be well."
Alice Dreger: .@davidgraeber Well, if Sahlins can't face the facts about what Chagnon didn't do, then maybe he shouldn't be in the Nat Acad Sci anyway | Raymond Hames: Sahlins' Invention: "Sahlins’ review of Darkness in El Dorado in the Washington Post entitled 'Jungle Fever'…. The fundamental falseness of part of Sahlins’ review… can be easily concluded by reading Chagnon’s ethnography…. I posted the following response…. [Q]uote of Sahlins' review: 'As for the dead, they are completely excluded from Yanomamö society, ritually as well as verbally, as a necessary condition of the continued existence of the living. But for the sake of science, Chagnon had to know--and so set in motion an opposition between their humanity and his epistemology that developed progressively through his professorial career.' This statement by Sahlins is categorically false. The dead are not excluded from Yanomamö society. In fact, I would argue that the Yanomamö remember and memorialize their dead more than most societies… much like the custom of widows dressing in black in parts of southern Europe. Even more to the point is the most important Yanomamö religious event, the reahu ceremony… ashes of the deceased are consumed in a plantain soup by close kin, in-laws, and members of allied villages who have traveled to help memorialize the dead. If the deceased is especially prominent and was killed in battle or through sorcery a ceremony will be preformed time and time again over a period of many years until his death is avenged in a counter raid…. I have no idea what possessed Sahlins to say what is exactly the opposite of the truth. Perhaps it was a ill-advised rhetorical flourish designed to put Chagnon in the worst possible light."
- The New Yorker: Ted Cruz Responds: Harvard Law Was Full of Communists: "Senator Ted Cruz has responded to The New Yorker’s report that he accused Harvard Law School of having had 'twelve' Communists who “believed in the overthrow of the U.S. Government” on its faculty when he attended in the early nineties. Cruz doesn’t deny that he said this; instead, through his spokesman, he says he was right: Harvard Law was full of Communists… 'the Harvard Law School faculty included numerous self-described proponents of "critical legal studies"—a school of thought explicitly derived from Marxism—and they far outnumbered Republicans'. As my story noted, the Critical Legal Studies group consisted of left-leaning professors like Duncan Kennedy, who is a social democrat, not a Communist, and has never 'believed in the overthrow of the U.S. Government'. Among those who have taken issue with Cruz’s castigation of the Harvard Law School faculty are his former law professor, Charles Fried… former Solicitor General to Ronald Reagan."
Adam Posen: The UK is very European – in its mistakes | Sally Gainsbury, Andrew Whiffin and Russell Birkett: Financial pain in Europe | Wolfgang Münchau: Austerity obstructs real economic reform | MMT Basics: You Cannot Consider the Deficit in Isolation | Anne Laurie: Bob Woodward is Still A… Hack | Jeff Spross: VIEWPOINT: The Debt Everyone Is Freaking Out About Does Not Exist
On February 24, 2013:
- NOTED FOR FEBRUARY 24, 2013 http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/02/noted-for-february-24-2013.html
- Liveblogging World War II: February 24, 1943 http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/02/liveblogging-world-war-ii-february-24-1943.html
- WHY OH WHY CAN'T WE HAVE A BETTER PRESS CORPS?: BOB WOODWARD OF THE WASHINGTON POST WRITES FISHWRAP EDITION http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/02/why-oh-why-cant-we-have-a-better-press-corps-bob-woodward-of-the-washington-post-writes-fishwrap-edition.html
