Sinclair Davidson and 10 years of wrong

Yes!!   Today is the 10 year anniversary of this article by Sinclair Davidson, published at the ABC and still available there, I suppose as a public service to show which economists are best ignored:

Stagflation looms for the Australian economy

The photo, by the way, is a screenshot (with a minor but accurate addition) from an appearance on the ABC - I wonder what year they stopped having him on anything, and the relationship between that and his pet hobby of trying to get the wingnut conservative membership of the Liberal Party to force the government to stop funding it.   Is it all a plot to hide this really, really wrong call?  Because this is what inflation actually looked like after 2011:

Looking around the internet, I see that his influence amongst other economists might also have diminished by, you know, sounding like a jerk in interactions with them.  Look at this exchange that still comes up in a search of a Catallaxy thread:

I don't think Peter Whiteford - who strikes me as one of the politest economists around - bothered with engaging further.

There's also this old post by monty about being banned in 2014 for reminding Sinclair that his stagflation call was obviously a dud.   I get a mention in it too (as well making a comment which remains entirely accurate.)  Monty is now back at Catallaxy, pretty much as the one pet troll.  (Sorry, monty, but that's the way it seems.)   Other people who make the occasional appearance to tell the throng of commenters that they are gullible and foolish and part of a self-gaslite cult regarding Trump still get the boot.   It's Sinclair's little club of Australian wingnut commentators and he won't have anyone, except for one participant, be there to tell them they're being idiots, even though that is what the rest spend their time doing (and much, much worse - many share the view that anyone to the Left of them is literally evil) against their perceived political and cultural enemies.   

The comment I made at the last link still has no answer - and if anything, the puzzle has only gotten worse.

The blog, for example, now routinely features posts by CL which dismiss COVID as a serious problem and pooh pooh vaccination.   Steve Kates, a hopeless nut in love with Trump, is similarly forever posting bullshit from Fox News and other Right wing news sources about vaccination dangers.   Yet Sinclair Davidson made a comment in a post that he considers vaccination the only way out of the current cycle of lockdowns.

So why does he let a blog that he can control actually read like a Right wing anti COVID  vax site?   Does he think providing an outlet for people who are hopeless victims of culture war driven Right wing media agendas is that important?    Why does he think he has to be part of an information outlet that promulgates ideas that he thinks are wrong?   

It's weird.   I suspect sometimes it's the same as a lot of wingnut behaviour -  a case of  being happy to hurt himself to own the libs.   He has made occasional reference to some trouble he got into with (I think) RMIT some years ago, but I never heard or read anywhere what it was about.   I thought it would quite possibly be to with something that appeared at Catallaxy, but I could be wrong.  (He has let appallingly racist, homophobic, sexist and defamatory comments stay in the threads for years.)   Anyway, I assume it was some sort of quasi disciplinary action about the appropriateness of stuff he could be associated with as a member of RMIT staff, and he survived.   I would love to know the details.  Anyone with knowledge, you can always tell us anonymously in comments!

So, did that experience make him want to up the ante, so to speak, with what Catallaxy could get away with?   Because it has become nuttier and nuttier, following the path of the terrible state of US Right wing politics, over the years, and he clearly will not use any editorial control even on something like the anti-vax line taken by some of his most popular contributors.   

What a weird way to behave - actually against the public interest and what he believes in.  But congratulations on making the world a stupider place, all in the name of free speech.  

BIG UPDATE:   not long after posting this, I noticed that Sinclair has posted that Catallaxy is closing down.

This is undoubtedly a Good Thing.   A blog that has promulgated ideologically driven climate change denial as one of its core functions for (I don't know) 15 or so years - and refuses to ever concede error on that -  is against the public interest.   And that's not to mention the myriad ways it has been offensive and corruptive of civil discourse on political and cultural matters.   

He could have set rules and at least tried to enforced them, but wouldn't.  It's a wonder he hasn't gotten into legal trouble over thousands of comments.   I don't know why he would let his own reputation be sullied by having control of a blog in which racism, homophobia and really intense sexism can run free.   

So, good riddance to bad rubbish.