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Josh Barro Profile picture
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31 Oct, 5 tweets, 1 min read
Wait, they hired Ruth Shalit to write this??
And then let her use a different byline??
And then she made shit up (no double question mark on that one, it’s not a surprise)
Journalism fabulists are just a specific kind of pathological liars. You can’t be like “oh she probably grew out of it.”
The vivid and astonishing details that made for such a fun lead in that Atlantic story are exactly what you should be afraid of getting if you assign a story to someone with a history of making things up.

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More from @jbarro

Josh Barro Profile picture
2 Nov
So here’s what I don’t get about all the Florida analyses. They focus so heavily on turnout rather than persuasion. And outside the Miami area, we’re seeing these district level polls showing persuasion is providing big gains for Biden. Does he even need to improve turnout?
For example, here’s Biden up 14 points in a central Florida district that Clinton won by 4. Obviously the same turnout as 2016 here would not produce the same result as 2016. stpetepolls.org/files/StPetePo…
Obviously there are some countervailing losses for Biden among Cuban voters. But white seniors are a much larger chunk of the Florida electorate than Cubans.
Read 4 tweets
Josh Barro Profile picture
16 Oct
I've been thinking more about the president's still-pretty-strong poll numbers on the economy, and they make even more sense to me than they did already just from the usual observation that the economy was good pre-COVID and voters think he's a business guy.
I suggest you think about it this way: Are there aspects of the president's economic performance you approve of? I can make a pretty long list of economic choices Trump has made that I approve of -- big ones, not just little ones.
What has Trump done right? He made good appointments to the Fed, including Jay Powell. (He then started making bad choices but Congress blocked those.) He also has been right about monetary policy, pushing for lower rates at a time when lower rates were appropriate.
Read 7 tweets
Josh Barro Profile picture
16 Oct
She is remarkably successful at interrupting the president. She cuts in and he yields. I don't know what the secret is.
well, sometimes he yields. more than usual.
I think one thing is that her follow-up questions are short.
Read 4 tweets
Josh Barro Profile picture
15 Oct
Yes. This isn't 2009, household balance sheets on average got stronger during the crisis, banks are in good shape, and the *macroeconomic* risks from delay or reduction in the stimulus aren't as large as people think. The primary case for relief is helping individuals in need.
The crisis has put many households in a stronger position to spend -- people who kept their income, cut spending, and got relief funds -- even as others struggle to make ends meet. At a macro level, that can sort of come out in the wash. But there's a lot of individual pain.
These are both important issues and people sort of conflate them. Cutting off unemployment checks will put a lot of people in dire economic positions -- true. Cutting off unemployment checks will cripple economic growth as a Biden admin starts -- eh, probably not true.
Read 4 tweets
Josh Barro Profile picture
14 Oct
Who cares?
“Oh no, the president will gloat about his ratings.”
The idea that two extra channel positions will drive the “crushing” viewership here also strikes me as wrong as an empirical matter — we all know how much habitual prime-time MSNBC viewers love to look at Trump’s face, right? — but again, who gives a shit.
Read 5 tweets
Josh Barro Profile picture
11 Oct
Being "pot committed" is a useful poker concept that should be used more in non-poker contexts. It's especially useful at times like this, when we approach an election where one candidate is strongly favored to win.
You are pot committed when you are highly unlikely to win, but there is such a large number of chips in the pot relative to the number of chips you have left in front of you that you might as well keep betting and hope for the best.
How does this relate to our current situation? Suppose you're a commentator who's made some large bets on a hand that isn't looking so great. Maybe the cards you're holding say "Joe Biden is senile." Or they say "Joe Biden can't win because of enthusiasm." Sucks to be you. But!
Read 5 tweets

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