On Being A "Very Serious Person"

Paul Krugman and many others, including me, have long made fun of the category of people labeled "Very Serious People"(VSPs).  They have been identified as those in Washington especially, but also their close allies and sycophants in Europe (not too many in Asia, but a few), who have made numerous predictions and related policy prescriptions over recent years on various topics, with those that have had a chance of being proven true or not to have been found to be false, but, unfortunately those people having great power in many nations.

This VSP cult has been centrally allied with those calling for ever lower budget deficits, with many forecasting either massive slowdowns of growth (see the discredited hysteria over the 90% debt/GDP cliff of Reinhart and Rogoff), or some imminent outbreak of inflation, in the more extreme ranks even hyperinflation (our more clubbable and think tankable not going along with the worst of this nonsense, of course).  In Washington in particular, this has also gone along even among supposed liberals at the Washington Post and certain think tanks with constant demands for cutting Social Security and Medicare, because, well, heck, by 2030 the US might have the demographic ratio of young to old that Germany has right now, whom we must all support against the loonies currently running the Greek government, obvious disaster that Germany clearly is right now economically.

Which brings us to a curious development.  After all these years of ridicule, the takeover of the Greek government by a group seriously challenging the currently established practices of the Eurozone are being declared to be so bad that they must be replaced by "Very Serious People," because, heck, imitating Chuchill, the only thing worse than VSPs is non-VSPs.  It is Tyler Cowen who has suddenly stepped forth in the face of the current challenge to world rationality and order to enunciate this doctrine, thereby making respectable the previously unrespectable, not that those previously unrespectable have remotely admitted what a bunch of failures at analysis or forecasting they have been, and only now facing actual threats to their stranglehold on world economic policy.

For whatever reason, I have been unable to link to Tyler's specific post successfully, but, this is a general link to his site.  The title of his post is "The new Syriza goverment is against all-inclusive resorts," now third on the queue, but will move down shortly.  As of right now, the big revelation is that the new Greek PM used to criticize all-inclusive resorts, but, noticing as if they had not known it that tourism is the single biggest contributor to the Greek GDP, they have now backed off doing anything to those places, just as they are backing off some other positions previously articulated by current members of the government, such as super opposition to EU sanctions against Russia.  

It is from this sort of nonsense, where in fact the current Greek government is showing that it is in fact in touch with reality, that somehow Tyler declares that it should be overthrown so that "Very Serious People" can be in charge.  I really am not sure if he is being ironic or what.  Really.  Calling for the overthrow of a government for not doing something he disapproves of, well, this is not serious. Really.

Barkley Rosser