Matthew Yglesias
Dear Matthew:
I think I understand what you were trying to say in your response to my post last week about The Fiscal Times.
I just disagree with it.
You say that, because you write a blog for an organization that has a definite point of view and you understand it without being told what it is, those who will be posting on TFT's blog -- Capital Exchange -- must, no doubt about it, absolutely, positively, be in a similar position. Therefore, TFT must reflect what Pete Peterson, who provided the initial funding for TFT, thinks and wants to happen.
Matthew, I get it: You don't like Pete Peterson, Peterson's politics, or Peterson's policies.
The pizza-loving Matthew Yglesias thinks my post yesterday characterizing the phrase "primary balance" as a communications ploy is too strong and that it has real meaning I shouldn't simply dismiss.
Economists and policy types may indeed recognize the concept of a primary balance (a balanced budget not including annual interest payments on the national debt) as valid and worthwhile as Matthew suggests. As a policy/budget person, I have no problem with that. Amen.
With firm tongue in cheek, Matthew Yglesias took me to task a week or so ago because I blogged about pizza instead of the world's problems. If you remember, he then used my post as an excuse to shamelessly blog about pizza himself.
Yesterday, economics professor, blogger extraordinaire, and friend Brad DeLong did Collender and Yglesias one better by posting about high-end restaurants in Berkeley and asking for recommendations. He lamented the fact that the person he is trying to recruit from the University of Michigan took him to Cafe Chez Pannisse and that there really wasn't much that was better. (Note to Brad...CCP was where you and Susan Rasky took me to lunch almost three years ago. The pizza was great.)
With what appeared to be his tongue firmly in cheek, Matthew Yglesias yesterday on his blog called me out because I had asked CG&G readers for pizza recommendations. He called it a "blogging gambit" and "tactic" to increase the number of eyeballs on Capital Gains and Games and then immediately added a paragraph about pizza that encouraged his readers to provide their own recommendations...which they did all day long.
Matthew...How about we plan a series of Pizza Public Policy (P3?) get togethers with readers at some of the places around the country everyone has recommended where we can talk politics and pepperoni?
