New Statesman vs Niall Ferguson – Who Wins?

The New Statesman has got an attack piece on Niall Ferguson today, I like Niall Ferguson so I thought I’d take a look and see what The New Statesman had to say.

The first attack was this

Noah Smith points out that the very paragraph quoted above, the third in the entire piece, isn’t quite accurate:

I’ll just quickly note that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act contained substantial funding for infrastructure. So Ferguson, when he says that Obama has not built infrastructure, is simply asserting something that is not true. In the parlance of my generation, he is “spouting BS”.

The New Statesman is implying that the US federal government is in the process of massive infrastructure upgrades. If they are this is the first I hear of it. I know of no infrastructure building programs currently underway in the USA that would warrant a mention in the Presidents inauguration speech. Whenever I watch the news the only thing I see is people complaining about the deteriorating US infrastructure.

So on this count I would say it is the New Statesman “spouting BS”

Niall Ferguson 1 – New Statesman 0

The New Statesman then tries to attack Ferguson on Obamacare

Paul Krugman, for instance, argues that Ferguson offers “just a plain misrepresentation of the facts” when discussing the effect of healthcare reform.

Ferguson says:

The president pledged that health-care reform would not add a cent to the deficit. But the CBO [Congressional Budget Office, the model for our OBR] and the Joint Committee on Taxation now estimate that the insurance-coverage provisions of the ACA will have a net cost of close to $1.2 trillion over the 2012–22 period.

The passage reads as though Ferguson is saying that the CBO thinks Obamacare adds to the deficit, when in fact they say the exact opposite; the insurance-coverage provisions cost money, but they are funded by other measures in the act. It’s difficult to work out whether Ferguson is deliberately misleading or just mistaken, but either way he’s wrong.

Ferguson has responded to Krugman’s criticism with an excuse which boils down to “I didn’t lie, I deliberately mislead my readers!”. 

He writes:

I very deliberately said “the insurance coverage provisions of the ACA,” not “the ACA.” There is a big difference.

Brad DeLong, at least, is not having it:

The “But” at the start of the second sentence in the quote tells readers two things: (i) that Obama has violated his pledge–that he promised that the ACA would not increase the deficit, but that it did–and (ii) that the rest of the second sentence will explain how Obama violated his pledge. . .

Now comes Ferguson to tell us that he lied.

Now comes Ferguson to tell us that his “But” at the start of the second sentence in the quote is completely, totally, and deliberately false. . .

And his only excuse–now, it’s not an excuse for the lie, it’s a “I can lie cleverly” boast–is: “I very deliberately said ‘the insurance coverage provisions of the ACA’, not ‘the ACA'”.

 

So the New Statesman believes insurance coverage provisions of the ACA and the ACA are the same thing. You notice the New Statesman do not say that Ferguson is wrong, the point they make is that they misread what Ferguson wrote so Ferguson’s point must be completely invalid.

In this case it is the New Statesman that is misleading readers.

Ferguson puts undisputed figures on paper. I personally believe for the New Statesman to call him a liar is, to use a British phrase, completely out-of-order.

What is in dispute is the CBO’s claim that this huge increase in cost is somehow covered by reduction in costs elsewhere. The track record of the US Federal government is to increase its burden on the US taxpayer massively over the past ten years, balancing books is not something that the US Federal Government is good at.

So quite rightly in my mind, Ferguson simply states the facts and not some fantasy figures that the government may come up with in order to make it look like Obamacare is not going to cost the government money. And I do not think anyone believes this.

So again, it is the New Statesman who are implying things that were simply not said.

Niall Ferguson 2 – New Statesman 0 – Ferguson Wins

And if there were any doubt that the New Statesman has an agenda, the piece finishes off like this

Fire his ass.

Fire his ass from Newsweek, and the Daily Beast.

Convene a committee at Harvard to examine whether he has the moral character to teach at a university.

There is a limit, somewhere. And Ferguson has gone beyond it.

If anything, it is the New Statesman that has crossed the line, at most they are criticising Ferguson for his use of the English language and yet somehow they believe this makes it justifiable for them to call Ferguson a liar.

I will say again, the New Statesman is completely out-of-order in calling someone a liar simply because they did not understand what the author wrote.

If the New Statesman want to dispute the figures I am all ears but if they best line of attack they can come up with is the wording of a sentence it would be better if they did not say anything, articles of this nature only serves to massively dent their credibility.

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