The Artist Replies

In his post complaining about John Cochrane, Brad DeLong says

The problem is that there are a lot of influential bullshit artists out there. Cochrane is at least willing to try to engage. Lucas, Fama, Prescott, Posner, etc., etc. are not even willing to do that.

Seems to indicate some desire to engage with people on discussions concerning serious economic questions of the time, right? Wrong. In response to my appeal for engagement (combined, you might add, with some mild admonishment), DeLong responds with this old news, from 17 months ago. So much for that. This is my family's favorite joke, actually. Second-stupidest man alive. Always gets a good belly laugh around the dinner table.

Speaking of jokes. It's a little late for college admission essay-writing, but here's an essay assignment. Suppose your plane crashes in the mountains. You're trapped in the snow and have been waiting months for help. You have eaten all the food, and have long since abandoned the taboo on cannibalism. Brad DeLong and Newt Gingrich are on the plane, and both alive and well. Which one do you eat first? 200 words or less.*

Addendum: Seriously, though. Krugman in particular wants to propagate the view that what he calls "freshwater macroeconomics" (which has actually ceased to exist, but whatever) is hermetically sealed and unwilling to engage. DeLong seems to feel the same way. Thoma fancies himself to be an open-minded individual, but goes along. Why am I singling those three out? They seem to lead the Old Keynesian blogosphere. If you are an economist and interested in blogging, in a way that might be controversial from the point of view of those three people, don't think they want to engage. They do not. Their interest is in reverse-engineering policy recommendations, not in thinking seriously about new ideas. Their arguments consist of calling people stupid and/or making out that their opponents are somehow morally reprehensible. They are engaged in political journalism, not economic discussion.

*Let me explain further, in case you don't get it. The whole situation is totally disgusting, in many ways, just like this blog exchange. But you're faced with a quandary, and have to weigh the costs and benefits. There are the costs and benefits to society. There are personal costs involved. You're going to have to sit in the snow for a long time with the one who lives, and they are both REALLY hard to be around.