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What if they held a class war and nobody noticed? For decades, liberals and progressives have been bashed for conducting a "class war" every time they suggest that it would be appropriate for the extremely wealthy to shoulder a bit more of the burden of paying for government. Meanwhile, a swarm of far-right think-tanks and political action committees have been working tirelessly to promote the idea that taxes on the wealthy should be lowered further from their historic lows, and that entitlement programs such as social security and medicare are too expensive to sustain (and in any case, immoral). The latest attempts to delegitimize public employee unions are the logical next step in what genuinely appears to be the systematic dismantlement of the middle class. This blog will highlight some of the more extreme examples of this activity that may not always show up in your news feeds.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Hacktacular

I don't have much to add about this incredibly hackish piece in Newsweek by Niall Ferguson.  James Fallows at The Atlantic has blasted both the content and it author, most effectively.  Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman also raised welts.

I have to confess to having held academics at elite places such as Harvard in high regard.  In my own field, most of them really are superstars, worthy of such admiration.  Clearly, as one moves to more subjective disciplines such as history, such distinctions become blurry.  This fellow has a long history of getting important things wrong in his articles, yet Harvard actively recruited him as the "Laurence Tisch Professor of History."  I will need to recalibrate my thinking on the relative quality of Harvard faculty.

Update:
Here's a nice summary of the whole Ferguson crap show, from John Cassidy at the New Yorker.
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