Via Brad Delong, here is some egregiously bad work by Dana Milbank, The Washington Post reporter sent to cover stories the newspaper doesn't take seriously.
The crux of the piece is this: Larry Summers, by trade an economics professor, gave a speech on economics to a bunch of college students. And he TALKED LIKE A PROFESSOR. From this, Milbank concludes that Summers is out of touch and that Obama has no good spokespeople for his economic policies. That gem of an observation came after Milbank noted that the president's political opponents are "screaming about socialism," but it's the White House that needs more credibility.
The article is headlined "Summers needs to take Explaining Econ 101." Sigh. Milbank should take reporting Econ 101. As Delong points out, Summers' speech is comprehensible to those who have taken rudimentary economics classes. Indeed, it's comprehensible to those who have followed the events of the last year with some care. However, it baffled Milbank, and apparently would "only baffle Americans worried about finding or keeping a job." Here's a quote from the speech:
And behind these statistics lie millions of stories of Americans who have seen the basic foundations of their economic security erode. Beyond the economic projections and equations we economists make lie the struggles of communities devastated by the impact of this recession.Whatever the judgments of groups of economists about the official parameters of the recession and the growing signs of recovery, for millions of Americans the economic emergency grinds on.
The challenge we must thus confront is the imperative both to do everything in our power to accelerate the momentum behind recovery so that it addresses the imperative of job creation and also addressing the challenge to growth and prosperity of budget deficits in the medium to long term that cannot be ignored.
I think most Americans would understand that, but maybe I have more confidence in Americans than Milbank.
You walk away from this column with the impression that Milbank finds all this serious talk about economics too confusing, and won't someone please dumb it down for him, just a little? More disconcertingly, you also get the impression that his problem with Obama's economic policies is that they are not being spun convincingly enough, not that they may not be working or don't have enough resources behind them, which is a story far more worthy of the Post's column inches.
-- Tim Fernholz
