Saturday, March 17, 2018

The Brad DeLong Attack on Larry Kudlow, Part 2



Frist, we had Berkely professor Brad Delong speculating as to whether Larry Kudlow's bad news drug life of more than 25 years ago had damaged his brain.

Now, DeLong has launched another drive-by shooting Kudlow's way.

He writes:
There has long been discussion of whether Larry Kudlow believes what he says. (1) Is he one of the professional Republican commentators like Stephen Moore, James Glassman, and Kevin Hassett who knows that what he says is wrong, but says it because it is just a game—that feeding one's readers and viewers something that is not bullshit is simply not a goal, and telling the truth will serve when it does not conflict with one's goals? Or (2) is he just not aware of the world outside him, in the sense in which people are usually oriented toward reality?

Well, why not both?...

I do see a sharp contrast between the Kudlow of the 1980s and the Kudlow I have run across since, say, 1992: the later Kudlow seems to know much less, and to have a much more difficult time figuring out that he needs to alter his range and rhythm whenever he is speaking to an audience that is neither Fox News viewers nor right-wing investors who are easy prey to affinity fraud...
Look, it does appear that Kudlow has joined the Baghdad Hasset cheerleading team (He is now forecasting 4% to 5% economic growth). DeLong does have a point here but DeLong continues to be pretty vicious when making his point. Kudlow, on the other hand, with his cheerleading.is making himself an all too easy of a target for DeLong.

-Robert Wenzel 

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