When I decided to launch a column to disseminate my economic analysis, I pitched The New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. on printing it for me. What I didn’t realize was that Pinch (that’s Arthur’s nickname) didn’t quite understand what the Fed did, but he was a big fan of the old Comedy Central show Win Ben Stein’s Money. The long and short of it was I had to host my blog here on News Groper while Stein got the NY Times column Everybody’s Business.

Everybody’s Business is essentially a populist guide to economics that preaches business ethics as can only be imagined by a Nixon apologist.

In Stein’s latest gem, he begins by striking fear into the hearts of his unfortunate readers by saying Goldman Sachs is “the closest I have recently seen to such a world-running body” (i.e. Jews [aside from Stein] run the world). Then he criticizes Goldman economist Jan Hatzius for “selling fear” by predicting further downturn in the real estate market.

Stein goes on to say in reference to Goldman “It is far worse when the sellers were, in effect, simultaneously shorting the stuff they were selling, or making similar bets.” Of course, Stein innocently points out that he’s simultaneously a shareholder in the company he’s criticizing. Why not have it both ways?

Now, I’m not defending Jan’s doomsday report. He neglects what I’m told economics students like to call “the Bernanke factor”. Jan should have called me up first so I could explain to him how I’m going to fix the economy, and how it could never fall that far under my watch. If anyone’s going to critique Goldman, it ought to be by an economist with more qualifications than a brief role in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.