February, 2007

Red Herrings Can Be Interesting

In the context of a discussion about the distribution of income and consumption, Mark Thoma brought up a new issue of questionable relevance – namely, the reported share of national income going to employee compensation under a hypothetical change in accounting conventions. I criticized his reference to a newspaper article because all other participants in [...]

Read: Red Herrings Can Be Interesting

Sometimes You Do Need to Be a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Is Blowing

by Richard Burkhauser
The Conversation
February 22nd, 2007

It strikes me that there is often an inverse relationship between the heights of an essayist’s rhetorical flourishes and the depth of the scientific evidence they marshal to support it. I give Mark Thoma high marks for raising the rhetorical stakes in this debate to the point where those who remain more skeptical of the [...]

Read: Sometimes You Do Need to Be a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Is Blowing