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How to run a successful blog
...They understand that public opinion matters...they understand that it’s a little harder to criticize someone after you’ve met him and he’s given you free cookies...they couldn't possibly have expected to change anybody’s mind, they understand that it’s better to talk to your critics than to avoid them. Waldman talks about some of the techniques used to make the attendees [readers] feel like they were being treated as special guests.
Whoops! That's not advice for running a successful blog. Those are James Kwak's comments on how Treasury tries to trick visiting bloggers. We bloggers should know. We give away lots of free stuff too, more than cookies even if it is sometimes sour rather than sweet.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 6, 2009 at 01:57 PM in Political Science, Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
I would have taken the cookies
Posted by: Eapen Thampy at Nov 6, 2009 2:37:05 PM
By the way, your having met with Treasury and reported favorably on the experience effectively makes you "The Man" now...
Posted by: Ryan at Nov 6, 2009 2:38:08 PM
He was already the man when he was promoting the Paulson bailout plan as "better than nothing". You know because the world would end if Goldman Sachs didn't get paid for the CDSs it bought from AIG.
Posted by: Gabe at Nov 6, 2009 2:58:33 PM
You really shouldn't go to these things. The state makes fools of intellectuals.
Posted by: Mario Rizzo at Nov 6, 2009 3:17:16 PM
You can start by saying "Treasury met with bloggers..." and everything you say after that simply obscures the main point.
Isn't it odd that we'd rather strangle babies in the crib than see how important they might become in adulthood?
The government has implicitly taken on the responsibility for bruised relationships. Wouldn't it simply suffice to say caveat emptor?
Isn't it as simple as the government defining a priority to derivatives in bankruptcy? Is it possible that people hate derivatives because they might eliminate the need for an AIG?
Posted by: Andrew at Nov 6, 2009 3:35:19 PM
What is the new Marginal Revolution icon supposed to be?
Posted by: Doug at Nov 6, 2009 4:14:07 PM
It's fascinating to read the bloggers' take on the meeting. Ultimately, everyone understood that the details of what Treasury said was unimportant--I don't see much more than a cursory look at that. With that out of the way, the value of the meeting boils down to two simple questions:
1. Why did the meeting take place? What is the stated goal of the meeting, who was invited, who was not, and assuming that Teasury would know that these details were immaterial, does the event have the effect that was planned to be signaled?
2. How were the cookies?
Posted by: IVV at Nov 6, 2009 4:36:24 PM
The State doesn't make fools of intellectuals. Politics makes a fool of intellectualism.
My site: wpeconomy.com.
Posted by: WPEconomy at Nov 6, 2009 7:11:16 PM
Dale Carnegie 101.
Posted by: libert at Nov 6, 2009 7:25:55 PM
the recent pop-up balloons from the book ads on the side of this site are annoying and make it much harder to read. particularly by phone. they aren't cookies. they are more like colliflower.
Posted by: rob at Nov 6, 2009 8:10:37 PM
OMG, the GMU Economics department should totally have "Meet Our Bloggers!" open houses with free cookies. That would rock.
Posted by: Jacqueline at Nov 7, 2009 2:08:02 AM
When Disney offered refunds for their Baby Einstein videos I was shocked to rediscover that there actually are people in this world that still believe what other people say.
Posted by: Andrew at Nov 7, 2009 3:33:26 AM
Do you all not realize that not "recapitalizing" the banks would have led to the mother of all shadow bank runs?
Posted by: josh at Nov 7, 2009 8:35:35 AM
Yes, josh, we are painfully aware of that claim. And then we'd all be cooking dogfood over twig fires, so everything the gov't did, exactly how they did it is beyond question. They should have let Lehman, and only Lehman go, because that was the exactly right amount of fear and ambiguity to inject into the system. Yeah, we get it.
I'm also pondering how the health insurance we have today transitioning from risk to pay-as-you-go is quite like a slow motion bank run.
Posted by: Andrew at Nov 7, 2009 11:17:55 AM
Andrew,
You understand but you do not understand.
Posted by: josh at Nov 7, 2009 6:11:31 PM
