It's time to bid a not-so-fond adieu to the New York Times columns of Ben Stein. ... Rather than admit his error, Stein went a completely different way: He blamed the sell off on traders. It was the last bit of idiocy from him anyone should tolerate.
Decius wrote: Apropos to the subject of disagreeing with Ben Stein.
To clarify: I'm not taking Stein's side. Clearly Stein's comments are not to be taken without healthy helpings of salt; we've covered that in previous threads: Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed / Stein has lost it? Ben Stein's final column
Bear in mind that Barry (Big Picture) Ritholtz is a hedge fund manager, so Stein's claims were in this sense directed at Ritholtz. (I noticed that Ritholtz links to an endorsement from Kudlow, Cramer's former co-host.) I accept Ritholtz's criticism that Stein's views are a bit on the tinfoily side of things. Yet my recollection is that Cramer has made superficially similar claims in the past -- in the narrower sense I referred to earlier, of temporarily pushing a particular stock or sector up or down. I was and am incredulous about anyone's ability to "control" the market, which is why I found Stephen Mihm's prescriptions for a regulatory remedy to be naive. I noticed that Paul Kedrosky is also complaining about Stein. In the process he makes a comment about liquidity which also relates to Mihm's silly "black box" story in the Globe. My original point in highlighting the "disagreement" between the views of Stein and Mihm was to say only that one of them must be wrong. On further and wider rereading it has become increasingly apparent that in fact both of them are wrong about the market -- and Stein about much else. | 
