And if A-list econobloggers like Barry think that way, just imagine what the rest of the financial world thinks

From Reuters:

"Felix Salmon

quantitatively easing

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May 19th, 2009

Barry Ritholtz’s book: Where are the bloggers?

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Posted by: Felix Salmon

Tags: blogonomics

Barry Ritholtz’s book just landed on my desk, and I’m looking forward to reading it, since I think that bloggers in general, and Barry in particular, have been very much ahead of the curve in terms of identifying and comprehending the contours of this crisis.

As befits a book from such an assiduous source-citer as Ritholtz, Bailout Nation comes with 17 pages of endnotes, most of them with URLs. But here’s the funny thing: the number of blogs cited is tiny. Paging through the notes, I see Barry citing himself a couple of times, there’s one reference to TPM Muckraker, and that’s about it. A blog entry by John Carney does make it into the book, but is cited at its Yahoo Finance address, complete with annoyingly auto-playing video. Occasionally bloggers appear — me, Arianna Huffington, Paul Krugman — but never for our blog entries, only for more formal things we’ve written (in my case, my NYT op-ed). And we’re all more or less part of the mainstream media anyway. “Pure” bloggers are I think entirely absent from the book. Meanwhile, columnists in more mainstream outlets get cited quite frequently.

I suspect that what’s going on here is akin to the “cultural cringe” that was first diagnosed in Australia in the 1950s: an internalized inferiority complex whereby bloggers tend to consider blogs to be lesser than newspaper and magazine articles and columns. And if A-list econobloggers like Barry think that way, just imagine what the rest of the financial world thinks."

Me:

I think it’s more like writers feel that bloggers, and even people who comment on blogs, don’t need to be quoted or acknowledged. I’ve seen arguments and comments and facts on blogs and websites go unattributed, even though I’m fairly sure where they came from. However, I’m not going to spend any time investigating this.

After all,and this is just a hypothetical in my case, if you quote Don the libertarian Democrat as your source, it doesn’t convey a lot of gravitas and knowledge, even if I turned out to be the world’s foremost expert on Godel’s Proof, which I’m not.

It’s kind of like this Fed Ex add:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNCrMEOqH pc

I’m not saying Ritholtz does this, but I do believe that it occurs, along with your explanation.

- Posted by Don the libertarian Democrat

By the way, I’d take down that ‘Quantitatively Easing’. It makes me think that you’re referring to your bowel movements.

- Posted by Don the libertarian Democrat

Why does anyone comment on a blog?

The past couple of weeks have been very unkind to me, and that includes blogging. Today, I noticed that one of the few blogs that linked to my blog had ejected me from the list. Another blog took my comment down. Yet another blog didn't answer a question I had. True, my blog is for me, and no one needs to find my comments worthwhile, but it does make me wonder about why I comment on blogs. I don't have a good answer anymore. It used to be to help me write my novels, but I doubt that it does anymore. I suppose it helps me clarify my own thoughts on various topics. Why does anyone comment on a blog?

But it takes time to appreciate a Felix Salmon.

From Free Exchange:

"Blogs you can bank on

Posted by:

Economist.com | WASHINGTON

Categories:

The econoblogosphere

A STORY in the New York Times which begins by discussing the Obama administration's attitudes toward engagement with elements of the Taliban concludes with a passage that has touched a nerve in parts of the economics blogosphere. It reads:

“Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,” he said, “is because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another — well, you just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they’ll be fine.”

Simon Johnson speculates that president Obama is trying to make a deeper point concerning the complexity of the financial system:

Perhaps the financial situation - e.g., in and around derivatives - really is too complex for anyone to understand, unless they have the inside knowledge of regulators. This would mean, of course, that going forward no one can question Treasury about anything important.

But that, in turn, makes congressional oversight impossible - even if we move to closed door hearings. And it raises the question: if our financial system has become so economically complex that President Obama is right, then is it also too complex to be politically sustainable?

My take on this is different. It's true that many prominent bloggers have advocated for nationalisation without any real acknowledgment that the implementation of the policy could be very tricky and risky. At the same time, there have been innumerable opinion columns in prominent newspapers doing the exact same thing. And meanwhile, there are economics and financial blogs out there which have provided coverage and analysis of the current crisis with a depth and clarity unmatched by mainsteam press outlets (with certain possible exceptions that needn't, I assume, be named).

The problem is that bloggers must establish their reputation by writing well consistently, and appreciating that reputation requires a fairly substantial investment on the part of the reader. Mr Obama stays in touch by "perusing newspapers and thumbing through weekly newsmagazines". This is fairly easy to do, as most informed readers can quickly skim the Wall Street Journal or The Economist and process the information accordingly, since there is no question as to the viewpoint and the reliability of the publications in question. The same is true for the New York Times or the New Yorker. The perspective and reputations are well known, and so any particular story can be absorbed, and the appropriate discounts for ideological bent made.

But it takes time to appreciate a Felix Salmon. His posts sound informed, but it's only after reading him for a while—and reading the comments and criticisms of him by a wide range of other economic and financial bloggers—that one can understand the quality and reliability of his opinions. And sure, if asked, I could put together an RSS feeder for the president containing subscriptions to what I consider to be the very best blogs for crisis coverage. But Mr Obama is likely to question my filtering decisions, at least a little bit. By contrast, he doesn't need to rely on the opinions of anyone else to judge a piece that he finds in the Financial Times. He knows where it's coming from.

This is a point that media critics often make in trying to assess the future of print publications. They seem to be seeking to emulate bloggers wholesale, when their most valuable asset is their public reputation, which has been established over the course of decades. They are a known quantity, and that's a good thing, as far as busy readers are concerned. Not everyone has the time to learn which bloggers to read. That, it seems, includes the president of the United States."

Me:

Don the libertarian Democrat wrote:

March 9, 2009 20:02

"because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another"

I was under the impression that arguments stand or fall on their cogency and evidence, not on the amount of time spent considering the problem.

"really is too complex for anyone to understand, unless they have the inside knowledge of regulators"

I don't buy this. For one thing, there are investors that do seem to understand these investments, at least as well as regulators.

"without any real acknowledgment that the implementation of the policy could be very tricky and risky."

This makes it sound like there should be a general disclaimer about human fallibility with every column. I take this to mean that the people who don't agree with nationalization want the people for it to drain all risk from it, which isn't possible. I'd like the people favoring the current plan to admit that it's a pig's breakfast of a plan, and that they're terrified of doing anything much different because at least it's a breakfast.

"And I've been realizing lately that it hasn't been fun for a long time."

This is sad. From L'Hote:

"Tuesday, January 6, 2009

bye for now

I could go into a big spiel here, but to be simple about it, when I first started doing this I said that if I ever stopped having fun with it, I would stop. And I've been realizing lately that it hasn't been fun for a long time. So I'm gonna stop.

You can always drop me an email if you feel like it, and maybe I'll catch you in the comments on other blogs. All my best. Cheers. "

As my friend Cate says, my blog is really a diary, of sorts. I simply comment upon or mention events or blogs or anything else that interests me. Since a small handful of people follow my blog, I don't receive many comments. I do seem to receive a fair amount of investing ads. What's that all about? Anyway, the most controversial comments I've gotten so far are about the silly debate over who is or isn't a libertarian. That's earth shattering stuff. So, I don't know how Freddie feels. But I do believe that if people are reading your blog and responding to it, it is a very positive state of affairs.

I'm hoping and predicting he'll come back. Taking on topics like the Israeli-Palestinian war can be quite exhausting, but, if people are reading what you write, then you might well have a positive impact on at least a few people. Isn't that enough?

"As a blogger, I am an amateur. Perhaps, as one commenter noted, you think I’m “nuts.”

From Positive Liberty:

"In Praise of Amateurs

Jim Babka on Dec 28th 2008

This post is in praise of amateurs, so many of whom choose to blog( I'M ONE ). And the world is better for it.

While reading the January 2009, “The Year in Science” edition of DISCOVER magazine, I came across this wonderful quote( I AGREE ) by Robert Proctor — the world’s leading agnotologist:

Something is lost when people specialize. I like to see things like an amateur. The word amateur is literally “lover,” it’s from amore. Professionalism is often the death of intellectual inquiry. So I think there’s a kind of virtue in systematic amateurism that really needs to be rekindled. If you don’t love and hate and play and joke with your objects of study, then you’re really not treating them properly. I tell my students if you’re not angry and excited and enthralled by your topic, you should choose a different one.

As a blogger, I am an amateur. Perhaps, as one commenter noted, you think I’m “nuts.” But he gets what he’s paid for. Many bloggers are nuts — about their topic. They write about things that passionately engage them, even if they aren’t yet experts. They write about…

* Things for which they did NOT get a degree.( YES )
* Things they do NOT do professionally. ( YES )
* Things about which they are still learning.( YES )
* Things they want to others to help them learn more about.( YES )

In fact, they might write and post as much for the feedback as anything. I love getting praise and critique (the former makes me feel good, the latter teaches me). Much of what is put on blogs like PL and other blogs I frequent is wonderful, informative, and best of all, fun. It’s also free! It’s presented by people who are not yet bored or worse, jaded by their topic. They are still in that pre-mastery “amore stage.” ( TRUE )

Like most folks, the people I socialize with tend to be like me. We’re in pretty much the same class, same race, and with similar values. But blogging has permitted me to meet and become friends with folks who differ with me in significant ways( TRUE ). It’s helped me to see their perspectives and understand them better. Did I mention that blogging is cool?( I'M NOT COOL )

But there’s more to being an amateur than just blogging. Amateurs are abundant, and to paraphrase an old saw, “God must’ve loved amateurs; he made so many of them.” I think that amateurs are absolutely necessary, and I tend to prefer reading them, instead of the professionals. And here are a few of my reasons why…

1) Professionals tend to write to their colleagues. That means they write in insufferable jargon and insider lingo. ( TRUE. I TRY AND CUT THROUGH THAT. )
2) They tend to communicate in and about abstractions. Their work often feels irrelevant to me. Why should I invest the time in their field if first, they’re not writing to me, if second, it’s hard, and if third, it doesn’t seem like it will enhance my life to do so? ( I ENJOY SOME ABSTRACTION AND THEORY. )
3) The pros are non-interactive. Professionals may write books, and perhaps you can only communicate with them through their publisher. They also publish in professional journals, but only their colleagues can critique them there. Frequently, amateurs can only get your attention by giving you an outlet to communicate with them. Their audiences are generally smaller, and they love the attention, positive and negative. Maybe you want to learn something with them? What fun!( TRUE )
4) Professional writing is often sterile. It lacks life. I have a hard time, for example, reading legal briefs. So much wasted motion. So little compelling narrative. Legislation itself is far worse. In my day job, I’m required to read that garbage. It’s so bad even members of Congress won’t read the stuff. Yuck.

Here are some great amateurs in history, as complied by John Malone, author of a book on amateurs, for the program NOVA.

• Gregor Mendel
• Thomas Jefferson
• Arthur C. Clarke
• Michael Faraday
• Joseph Priestley — perhaps the ultimate “dabbler.”

A great amateur of history (and blogger) is our own Jonathan Rowe. From time to time, Jon has been criticized, by those who disagree with him, for not being part of the credentialed caste. He has no history degree. He’s not a theologian. He doesn’t do his work by according to The Official Historians of the World Rules and Guidelines Manual. He probably wouldn’t be permitted to publish in professional journals.( SO WHAT ? )

I don’t know about you, but I’ve read some of that dross, and I’d much rather read Jon’s stuff. And I find the people who criticize him in this fashion to be so passé. I’ve learned quite a bit from Jon, in bite size chunks. He’s one of my favorite amateurs, and I can tell he’s still in that “amore stage.”

Hail the amateur — the man or woman who loves his subject so much he does without regard to power, fame, or fortune.

And with anti-professional zeal, I write, “Hardball delenda est.”

As I say on my profile: Amateur, Flaneur, Poseur. A very nice post.

"All one needs is a modicum of technical and writing knowledge and a website": Do I Have A Modicum? If Not, Where Can I Get One?

No sooner do I begin a blog than the blogoshere is over. Via Andrew Sullivan, Nick Carr plays seer:

"Blogging seems to have entered its midlife crisis, with much existential gnashing-of-teeth about the state and fate of a literary form that once seemed new and fresh and now seems familiar and tired. And there's good reason for the teeth-gnashing. While there continue to be many blogs, including a lot of very good ones, it seems to me that one would be hard pressed to make the case that there's still a "blogosphere." That vast, free-wheeling, and surprisingly intimate forum where individual writers shared their observations, thoughts, and arguments outside the bounds of the traditional media is gone. Almost all of the popular blogs today are commercial ventures with teams of writers, aggressive ad-sales operations, bloated sites, and strategies of self-linking. Some are good, some are boring, but to argue that they're part of a "blogosphere" that is distinguishable from the "mainstream media" seems more and more like an act of nostalgia, if not self-delusion."

Well, I am middle aged and much given to existential gnashing-of-teeth, and gnashing-of-teeth in general, which is why I had to get one of those mouth guards from the dentist. However, I'm way out of the realm of commercial venture or popular, so I don't really have anything to worry about.

"All one needs is a modicum of technical and writing knowledge and a website like Blogger or Wordpress.com to host a blog for free." I think there's a lot of truth to that - it's considerably easier, assuming you have a computer and net connection, to become a blogger than to become a ham radio operator, and that should, in theory, mean that a fairly steady stream of new bloggers should continue to enter the field (even if they don't stay in it very long). Still, though, Flood exaggerates the death of amateur radio. There are about 3 million amateur ham radio operators worldwide. That doesn't seem to be radically different from the number of active bloggers, despite the fact that blogging is new and sexy while hamming is, well, old and dusty."

Well, I least I'm new and sexy instead of old and dusty. I'll take that, and so will my team of writers and researchers. Take a bow.

Reminds of this scene from "Almost Famous":

Lester Bangs: Your writing is damn good. It’s just a shame you missed out on rock ‘n’ roll.
William Miller: It’s over?
Lester Bangs: It’s over. You got here just in time for the death rattle. Last gasp. Last grope.

At least I'll get a last grope.