More Evidence on That Class Act, Brad DeLong
UPDATE Below
Readers may recall my brush with greatness when Brad DeLong decided to delete my comment calling him out for saying Mises’ work was “bats— insane.” Well, Mario Rizzo has been similarly blessed.
In a recent post with the neutral title, “Stupidest Party Alive,” DeLong named Steve Horwitz (as well as others) an “ethics-free Republican hack,” for the unimaginable crime of writing the following:
[Horwitz:] “The stimulus plans assume consumption is the source of economic growth. It is not. It is the consequence of said growth. The ‘stimulus’ is a redistribution of spending, at best, and will do little to help. The next Administration should avoid large scale programs and experimentation and allow the marketplace to correct the errors made by the last 8 years of misguided intervention.”
Well Horwitz mentioned this at his home court, and then Mario Rizzo reported:
BRAD DELONG DELETED MY COMMENT!!! I said ad hominem attacks were unprofessional and that calling critics “ethics-free” is terrible.
I am stunned and a little hurt, actually.
What is going on???
It’s funny because that was my reaction when DeLong deleted my comment. (I played it off like it didn’t bother me but “stunned” and “a little hurt” are actually very accurate.)
Now of course, just because Samuelson, Krugman, and DeLong are arrogant jerks doesn’t prove that their ideas are wrong. But it doesn’t help.
UPDATE: This is too funny. DeLong is such a con man. Before he called Horwitz (and my former undergrad advisor, Gary Wolfram) “ethics-free Republican hacks”–though in fairness, Wolfram would probably gladly put that on his consulting resume–DeLong wrote:
In fact, no current or former member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers–Democrat or Republican, living or dead, sane or insane–has signed up for the Republican House caucus’s list of economists opposed to the stimulus package. None. Zero. Nada. Sifr. Efes. Wala sero. Kosong sifar. ‘Ole. Knin. Pujyam. Mann. Dim. Nocht. Null. Meden. Hitotsu. Sifuri. Ling. Sunya. Mwac. Ataqan. Saquui. Hun. Illaq. Wanzi. Wanzi. Pagh. Na. Uqua.
Nobody.
That should tell you something about today’s Republican Party.
Snoopy in the comments said, “Ummm…hitotsu means ‘one item’.” I did some quick googling and it seems Snoopy is right.
Doesn’t that just epitomize DeLong’s style? I wonder if he bluffs a lot in poker too?
