A commenter on Brad DeLong’s blog has a few questions for me, apropos of the snide opening line of a post I wrote a couple days ago:
Economist Brad DeLong, as part of his long-running campaign to persuade the world that journalists are flawed (and many are; unlike academic economists, who are right about everything and also smell great!) …
Anyway, here are wood turtle’s most excellent queries:
The burning issue is: exactly how does Justin Fox know that academic economists smell great?
Also, what kind of cologne does Brad DeLong wear? I’m sure that Justin Fox knows.
Finally, which academic economists smell the best- conservative, neoconservative, paleoconservative, liberal, or neoliberal? A ranking would be helpful.
I did have breakfast once, years ago, with Brad, but have no memory of any particular odor other than perhaps the smell of pancakes cooking at Kaffee Barbara. I’ve been to a couple of AEA annual meetings and can testify that things didn’t smell bad there at all. But I’m afraid I have committed the classic mainstream-pundit sin of extrapolating grand conclusions from meager evidence. Thanks to the magic of the blogosphere, though, I can now ask for help. Comments from economists’ spouses, friends, workout partners, etc. are all welcomed.