I normally pay no attention to David Brooks—life is too short—but was informed by one of my stateside correspondents that his NYT column the other day—which I ignored, comme d’habitude—praised a new book that pins the blame for the 2008 financial crisis on Fannie Mae and people like Barney Frank. As it sounded like a doozy I decided to give Brooks 90 seconds of my time and read his thing. Really, Brooks is just so batshit crazy wrongheaded here that I can’t believe any serious person would take him seriously. But as he is a power pundit and read by numerous people—far more than will ever read me—then I guess he merited a serious response. One was given here by Jonathan Bernstein, on the WaPo’s Plum Line blog. In his rubbishing of Brooks, Bernstein linked to a blog post by the excellent Dean Baker, who likewise took Brooks to the cleaners.
It’s always preferable to read stuff, of course, but sometimes documentaries say it all. If there is anyone who still hasn’t seen this one, do so.
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