As the work week staggers to an end, let's take note of the passing parade. The phenomenon in question is Simon Johnson, the extremely busy former economist of the International Monetary Fund and current economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Johnson has a number of sharply etched views on the financial crisis: As the blog he shares with colleague James Kwak, The Baseline Scenario, makes clear, he believes in bank nationalization, bank reorganization (fire the miscreants) and bank decentralization (break 'em up) as keys to alleviating the crisis; and he's actively urged replenishment of the IMF. But I want to focus less on the issues themselves and more on how Johnson and Kwak have organized themselves, using a variety of means to get their message out. It's a fascinating case study in 21st-century self-promotion, which is not meant to be critical.
Johnson and Kwak have worked to exploit every channel available to them to transmit and amplify their positions. The pair have an op-ed on the American International Group Inc. (NYSE:AIG) bonus mess in Friday's New York Times. They publicize the piece through a post on The Baseline Scenario, which sends out e-mail alerts (in a post today, they mention some problems with the alert service). They have an affiliation with the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, and they often share Baseline posts with its blog, Realtime Economic Issues Watch. Their polemical allies, like Paul Krugman at The New York Times and Adam Posen at the Peterson Institute, promote each other in their respective blogs, columns and interviews. And Johnson has had stints on shows sympathetic to his arguments such as NPR's "Fresh Air," Bill Moyers' PBS show or Web videos at Web sites like Talking Points Memo's TPMtv, the latter two of which are available on YouTube.
And on Friday, Johnson, in what he describes as a Housekeeping blog, makes his first foray into Twitterdom. He and Kwak will begin to Twitter, in order, he writes, "to announce new posts (but probably not all of them, since right now I don't know how to do it automatically), link to articles we find interesting but don't have time to blog about, and broadcast random thoughts about the economy. (Don't expect to find what we ate for lunch -- unless it's really good.)" Johnson admits he doesn't really understand Twitter and recommends that if you want to find out you ask someone under 30. Anecdotally, it feels like most of the folks that Twitter are over 30, but such is life.
All this is working pretty well if Johnson's increasing ubiquity is any measure. True, the Obama administration has not fallen in line exactly, but there's still time. And every channel (like Twitter) and every new ally the pair pick up, adds to the whole. In another post on The Baseline Scenario Friday, Kwak discusses a group that is offering to organize rallies behind positions that mirror their own. The group, he writes, "A New Way Forward," was formed by two people from another organization, "Participatory Politics Foundation," that is not officially related. More synergies. It does make you wonder when they have time to teach. - Robert Teitelman
See earlier story about Johnson from Dealscape
Robert Teitelman is the editor in chief of The Deal.
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