Ask Paul Krugman, and he'll tell you a former senator has a few things in common with one of the biggest con men in history.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning economist wrote in a blog post Thursday that like major Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, former Senator Alan Simpson is benefitting from "affinity fraud" -- a dynamic where people ignore evidence indicating someone is obviously wrong because they view them as "their kind of guy." Simpson and former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles make up the deficit fighting duo President Obama tasked in 2010 with coming up with a plan to reduce the nation's debt and they recently released the latest version of their proposal.
"Simpson is, demonstrably, grossly ignorant on precisely the subjects on which he is treated as a guru, not understanding the finances of Social Security, the truth about life expectancy, and much more," Krugman wrote. "Yet he remains not only respectable among the Beltway crowd; as Ezra [Klein] says, he's lionized in a way that looks from the outside like a clear violation of journalistic norms."
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