Daily Archives: January 6, 2015

The Wall Street Journal and the Troika Fear they Have Not Adequately Terrorized Greece

By William K. Black
Washington DC: January 6, 2015

I’ve written recently about the embarrassing nature of the New York Times’ coverage of Greece (and the eurozone more generally), so it is time to describe the even more appalling coverage by the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ has published a series of articles that contain facts that demonstrate how self-destructive the troika’s infliction of austerity has been to the eurozone, but those articles do not express that conclusion.

Worse, the WSJ publishes a steady dose of articles by Simon Nixon that are presented (at least on the web where I read them) as if they were news articles. Nixon’s job title with the paper is “Chief European Commentator,” but that title is not stated in the series of recent articles about Greece and the eurozone. He appears to have a B.A. in History and once worked as an investment banker. I assume that the WSJ’s defense of his columns is that he is a “commentator” rather than a reporter of the news though on the web I see no indication that readers are warned that they are not reading a news article.

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In Appreciation of Lord Robert Skidelsky–Presentation for Economists for Peace and Security

By L. Randall Wray
Cross posted from Economonitor
Updated 01-10-2015: Added video links

I just returned from the annual ASSA meetings in Boston. This is largely a front for the American Economics Association to produce an appearance of pluralism. The ASSA is actually run by the AEA, which allocates to itself the prime locations and biggest conference rooms—and then offers a few slots and tiny rooms for most of the heterodox groups that also hold their annual meetings with the ASSA.

This is the closest economists come to a pornfest. As you walk by the typical AEA panel presentation, you’ll see a tiny audience in a darkened room, titillated by a powerpoint slide filled with obscene mathematics.

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