Herbert Catches Krugmania
What is it with being a New York Times columnist? Something in that institution nurtures a blithe disregard for the facts. Times columnists have unlimited budgets and fact-checkers at their beck and call. So why do they continually make stuff up?
I've always thought Bob Herbert was a poor columnist, but I haven't put him at the Krugman/Dowd level of depravity. Reader Jesse Malkin, however, caught Herbert in a bold-faced lie in his most recent column. Jesse--who, by the way, has the immense good fortune to be married to Michelle--was kind enough to copy us on his letter to Herbert:
"Mr. Herbert,
"You wrote: 'Drug company stock prices soared with the passage of the Medicare bill.'
"Here are charts showing how a broad basket of pharmaceutical companies' shares performed during the past year and 2 years, respectively. There was an uptick of roughly 5 percent in mid-November (1-2 weeks before the Medicare legislation passed Congress), but I can find no indication of 'soaring' share prices. In fact, as the second chart shows, drug company shares are currently well below where they were 2 years ago.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=PPH&t=1y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=PPH&t=2y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=
"Sincerely,
"Jesse Malkin"
This kind of thing mystifies me. Whether pharmaceutical company shares have "soared" during the last few weeks is an empirical fact. Either they have or they haven't. And it isn't hard to find out which; with five minutes of internet research, anyone can see exactly how share prices have performed. So which is it? Either Herbert knows that pharmaceutical shares haven't soared, and he simply lied, or he has no idea what the market has done and is too lazy to find out. In either case, Herbert's contempt for his readers is astonishing.
The bottom line is that only a fool relies on the accuracy of anything he reads in the Times.
