Flex Salmon and Jayson Lusk, among others, have written similar and more detailed pieces detailing Kocieniewski's reporting slight of hand. I really thought this sort of thing was beneath the NY Times. The editors there certainly deserve some of the blame.
Journalistic malfeasance aside, where is this attack coming from? Why does Kocieniewski and NY Times go to such great lengths to attack two relatively innocuous academic economists? Why do they seem to have a bee in their bonnet about commodity price speculation?
I don't know the answers to these questions. But I'm wondering if momentum on financial regulatory reform may be a bit less innocent that Paul Krugman seems to think. Some might note that the Mike Konczal article that Krugman references mentions the heavy influence of Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. I wonder if old powerful commodity interests may be an unlikely ally of Elizabeth Warren in the fight to regulate Wall Street banks more tightly. The commodity groups aren't fans of regulation, and I doubt they share Warren's concern for consumers and market stability. But presumably they don't like growing competition from Wall Street. There would seem to be big private interests that favor financial reform.
Yes, I'm reading tea leaves here. Does anyone have better insight?
Yes, I'm reading tea leaves here. Does anyone have better insight?
