Wednesday 1 December 2010

David G. Blanchflower

I thought a Wikileaks level set of remarks on this man should be made widely available to us.  After all, we can all find someone who knows something that can be reported back on.  So here we go.

"An undistinguished economist.  His claim to fame is work on profit-sharing (in collaboration with others) on which he was particularly keen as part of his 'labor' and doubtless Labour agenda.  In this work he was  "over-enthusiastic about it at a time when enthusiasm was what profit-sharing attracted.  He may have done work on monetary policy that justifies his former position as a member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee but he is not known for it.  Probably I would have heard if he had been.  He seems to have associations with United States and German institutions of a kind that might signal government agency connections.  He's good enough for a professorial chair - I suppose - depending on who else might be competing.

A  Buiter he is not  by any measure."

This is what is going on with Wikileaks.  This why none of the information has a qualification higher than 'confidential'.  What these communications are is a betrayal of social trust - information elicited over a glass of wine given either in ignorance of circumstance and interlocutor's intention, or given in spite.

2 comments:

Bill Quango MP said...

I can't understand the Guardian going overboard on this non material. Have they no idea that what they are claiming are scoops, to the general public are just known observations.

"Cameron might not be as tough as Thatcher"
"Gordon Brown is a bit weird"
"Sarkozy is touchy about his height"
"India is still a very corrupt country by western standards"
"Turkey dippers aren't very good for your health"
"Marmite flavour crisps are poor sellers"
"Liberals are very keen on Apple. Even though its just as much of a 'corporation doing the man' as Microsoft.'

yawn....

hatfield girl said...

Someone at the Sunday Telegraph mentioned to me that we'd be in for lots of dull political news about Labour for a while, even with the Coalition in power, because journalists hadn't the contacts, even the social circle, literally don't know anyone in the new government circles. Quite true, it took ages for the media to begin reporting on the Coalition sensibly and the gossipy, interesting bit has barely started yet.

The idea that journalists should be out of jobs when a government goes out of office is very attractive, particularly for the BBC.