Toby the Economist - Not......
Our Toby writes a column for the Telegraph and presents right wing views on a range of topics no doubt to the delight of his audience. He quite often comments on economic policy and seems to think he is a bit of an expert.... A week ago he spent 3000 words criticising a recently written ebook ‘The Debt Delusion’ by Mehdi Hasan who writes for the New Statesman.This week Mehdi has struck back and carefully takes apart Toby’s review, not only with sources, facts and figures but also by identifying deep holes in Toby’s approach and intellectual rigour. I won’t quote at length (the links are below) but Mehdi has a couple of digs about the Free School.‘Is this going to be the approach at Young's new free school, I wonder? Ignore academics! Ignore evidence! Make it up as you go along!’‘Young prefers speculation and counterfactuals to facts, figures and studies,......... Really? How does he "know" this? Is this the crystal-ball theory of economics that will be taught at the West London Free School?’‘18 months after Young's hero, George Osborne, entered Number 11, the results are in: austerity has failed. The cuts aren't working. The private sector hasn't stepped in to plug the gap.It's time for Young to stop living in denial. He writes plays and movies for a living; he has set up a free school. But economics clearly isn't his strength.’Both articles are worth reading as they portray the two sides in the debate on economic policy and in my view explain why the coalition are wrong. Beware, there are lots of facts and figures but like Toby you can always ignore the ones you do not like...... Iain Muirhttp://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100119735/new-statesmans-political-editor-is-wrong-about-the-debt-crisis/http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2011/11/public-debt-young-ebook-fiscal
Iain Muir ● 5404d5 Comments