The Sports Economist

I was perusing through Rob Neyer's latest offerings today when I noticed down at the bottom a link to the Sports Economist blog. Rob particularly recommended the Dec. 2nd entry "Who's the idiot?" so I went to the archives and found it. It deals with the D.C. stadium financing mess, which I haven't personally found all that compelling, but I was certainly interested in the following two paragraphs:

Columnist Thom Loverro looks at the scene a different way. The vote allows Selig to arrive in town without having to declare that he's "an idiot." The mayor and the council chair don't have to walk around town wearing "idiot signs." But for having the courage to state the facts in this political maelstrom, economist Brad Humphreys gets Loverro's idiot award. Humphreys knows as much about the economic impact of stadiums as anyone in the country. But to Loverro he's a "clown," a "pencil necked geek" with "no clue" about "the economic benefits" of sports stadiums. And in the ultimate put-down, he works at the University of Illinois.

I don't know what to make of newspaper columnists. Their craft may appeal to the masses, but ignorance is a poor trait to put on display. For those of us who have bothered to think through the stadium subsidy issue, Loverro has declared himself to be a major league idiot.

Welcome to the party, Sports Economist! Glad to have you aboard this general train of thought.

And by way of reviews, let me add that I found the Sports Economist blog in general to be interesting and commensensical.