(Prof. Warren demonstrating Adam Davidson's level of understanding of the economy...)

HuffPo's Jason Linkins pointed everyone today to Ryan Chittum's Columbia Journalism Review piece on Planet Money's interview of Professor Warren.  Here's the Full Interview.  (The second half is where they start screaming...) 

Adam Davidson commits Journalism Malpractice in this train wreck interview (i.e., "the middle class is Warren's 'pet' issue" (paraphrased)).  I'm not saying this because she's one of my Top 3 heroes of all-time - right next to Bruce Springsteen and David Ortiz.  No, NPR's Davidson truly exposed himself as a complete and utter failure as an economics & finance reporter.  He's lost all credibility in my book.  She should have just called him "stunningly superficial" and walked out, but she's too smart and classy.

There are too many quotes documenting his superficial knowledge to list here.  Overall, Davidson simply doesn't understand economics.  Specifically, he thinks the banking crisis exists in a vacuum.  Fix it first, then move on to other lesser things.  You know, silly things, like families.

He's wrong, of course.  The very term "economics" means ""household management," from L. oeconomia, from Gk. oikonomia "household management," from oikonomos "manager, steward," from oikos "house".  And in this highly complex world of haute finance that we now all have to obsess over for the next 5-10 years, he doesn't realize that the American family has itself been securitized.  The work of the American family is precisely the underlying asset of all securities -- especially the Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (RMBS) that exploded.

Perhaps he's a self-flagellating liberal journalist that needs to kowtow to the riotous-right to prove he's not a bleeding heart? Or perhaps he's recently read Atlas Shrugged and has decided to hate the middle class.  Either way, this interview should heard by everyone because:

1) It illustrates the deeply entrenched rightwing bias in media and the mainstream "serious" discussions -- they've infiltrated NPR (!) for crying out loud.  (Does anyone remember's Josh's term for this?  Something about the "Pull" or "Gravity" or "Structure" or "Embeddedness" of Washington's Rightwing Insiderism?),

and...

2) Liz Warren  b e a t s  h i m  t o  a  b l o o d y  p u l p . . .