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EXPERTISE

                                             November 7, 2011

There was an odd dispute out on the web, where
Yves Smith accused Paul Krugman of trying to
co-opt the "Occupy Wall Street" movement.

In the early days, the quote
Mainstream unquote opinion concerning
the Occupiers was that they couldn't     Actually... to an old Critical
be taken seriously because they had      Mass rider like myself, that
no definite position or demands.         seems rather familiar, and
                                         unusually wise for a protest
Paul Krugman responded that              movement.
the problems with Wall Street
are really pretty obvious,               The very existence of Critical Mass
and it's a bit much to expect            carried with it a definite message:
the demonstrators to be able             suddently bicycles went from
to fill in the details on                invisible to front page news.
plans to fix them.
                                         The lack of any definite leadership
   Hassling them about being             conveys immense advantages: there's
   vauge is besides the point,           no top of the hierarchy that can be
   and he closed with a remark           targeted.
   about how really it was the
   responsibility politicians and        The lack of a definite position
   academics (including                  statement means there's nothing out
   economists like himself) to           there they can try to poke holes
   come up with the detailed             in or beat back with a counter-spin.
   schemes.

Yves Smith (the alias used by the
author of the "Naked Capitalism"         It's a rather brilliant
blog, and the book "Econned")            alias at that: she's not
posted a one-liner accusing              "Adam Smith", she's
Krugman of elitism; he just didn't       "Eves Smith".
get that the elites are all
corrupt and can't be trusted to do
the right thing.

   Even after Paul Krugman's
   attempt at clarifying what
   he meant, she was unrepetant:
   his position "only looks benign".

      This seems really bizarre, coming
      from someone as evidentally knowledgeable
      as Yves Smith.  Who exactly *is* going
      to propose new financial legislation          E.g. is all we need
      except for some sort of expert in the         a restoration of
      field, like Krugman or Stiglitz, or           Glass-Steagall?
      for that matter Yves Smith herself?           Does it need to be
                                                    updated to cover new
                                                    financial markets?
                                                    Should those financial
                                                    "innovations" just be
                                                    outlawed?

            The problem of the need
            for experts, and for leaders,
            should be well-known...

            The idea that we can simply
            do away with them also has
            it's problems, a point which    THE_PROFESSIONAL_GOODMAN
            should also be well known.



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