4 ms·

Thompson is responding to a specific paper. 'One of the most detailed articles in this space is an analysis of the Dallas, Texas, housing market by the lawyer

Thompson is responding to a specific paper. 'One of the most detailed articles in this space is an analysis of the Dallas, Texas, housing market by the lawyer and writer Basel Musharbash. In “Messing With Texas: How Big Homebuilders and Private Equity Made American Cities Unaffordable”' Musharbash doesn't mention RealPage either, so go blame him, since he doesn't think RealPage contributes to Dallas's problems.

smcg 1y ago
Thompson writes these articles to deflect valid criticism.
evil-olive 1y ago
> Thompson is responding to a specific paper. yes, he's responding to [0] which was written by Musharbash and published in Matt Stoller's newsletter. and as I said, he's being selective about what criticism he's responding to and what he's ignoring. because Stoller has also published, in the same newsletter, articles about RealPage price fixing [1, 2]. Thompson says: > The antitrust left, however, claims... if he's going to say "here's what the antitrust left believes" and then proceed to debunk it, I think it's reasonable to point out that his response is cherry-picking only part of what that "antitrust left" believes. of course, if he wants to publish a follow-up article defending RealPage, I'd love to read it. 0: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/messing-with-texas-how-big-homebuilders https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/messing-with-texas-how-bi... 1: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/antitrust-enforcers-the-rent-is-too https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/antitrust-enforcers-the-r... 2: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/up-to-a-quarter-of-rental-inflation https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/up-to-a-quarter-of-rental...
- tptacek 1y ago
  It's not on him to rebut every single argument Stoller has ever made. Several arguments Stoller made were refuted by the authorities Stoller himself cited, which is both interesting to read and also telling. Stoller is free to find similarly decisive refutations of arguments Thompson had made (they're unlikely to be forthcoming).
  - whoknowsidont 1y ago
    >Several arguments Stoller made were refuted by the authorities Stoller himself cited That's not true. At all. That's what Thompson _claims_. Look at what was actually written. It's incredibly sleazy writing. It's so one-sided it might as well be a celebrity gossip magazine piece.
    - tptacek 1y ago
      I feel like not a lot of celebrity gossip consists of calls with economics professors who wrote cited papers discussing those citations, but we might just read different rags.
      - whoknowsidont 1y ago
        Notably, he never included the full conversation. It's almost like the question asked to the economic professors and their responses are completely different from the way the questions are presented in the article. Claims and questions the target article never mentions or implies. I think there's like, I don't know, a few fallacies named for such practices. But hey, don't take my word for it. Here's Musharbash very patiently dealing with this himself: https://x.com/musharbash_b/status/1950938130447479281 https://x.com/musharbash_b/status/1950938130447479281 Also just some general life advice, if reading Thompson's article didn't didn't set off any red flags for you (regardless of what you did or did not know going into this conversation) I would employ a little bit more skepticism and spend a little more time reading the source material in the future.
        freddie_mercury 1y ago
        Disagree with him if you want but calling Thompson a grifter makes it hard for me to take anything Musharbash seriously or want to dive deeper into whatever he's written.
        whoknowsidont 1y ago
        "If you point out that someone I like is doing something bad, that's too uncomfortable and I'll just stop listening" - You

smcg 1y ago

Thompson writes these articles to deflect valid criticism.

evil-olive 1y ago

> Thompson is responding to a specific paper. yes, he's responding to [0] which was written by Musharbash and published in Matt Stoller's newsletter. and as I said, he's being selective about what criticism he's responding to and what he's ignoring. because Stoller has also published, in the same newsletter, articles about RealPage price fixing [1, 2]. Thompson says: > The antitrust left, however, claims... if he's going to say "here's what the antitrust left believes" and then proceed to debunk it, I think it's reasonable to point out that his response is cherry-picking only part of what that "antitrust left" believes. of course, if he wants to publish a follow-up article defending RealPage, I'd love to read it. 0: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/messing-with-texas-how-big-homebuilders https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/messing-with-texas-how-bi... 1: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/antitrust-enforcers-the-rent-is-too https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/antitrust-enforcers-the-r... 2: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/up-to-a-quarter-of-rental-inflation https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/up-to-a-quarter-of-rental...

tptacek 1y ago
It's not on him to rebut every single argument Stoller has ever made. Several arguments Stoller made were refuted by the authorities Stoller himself cited, which is both interesting to read and also telling. Stoller is free to find similarly decisive refutations of arguments Thompson had made (they're unlikely to be forthcoming).
- whoknowsidont 1y ago
  >Several arguments Stoller made were refuted by the authorities Stoller himself cited That's not true. At all. That's what Thompson _claims_. Look at what was actually written. It's incredibly sleazy writing. It's so one-sided it might as well be a celebrity gossip magazine piece.
  - tptacek 1y ago
    I feel like not a lot of celebrity gossip consists of calls with economics professors who wrote cited papers discussing those citations, but we might just read different rags.
    - whoknowsidont 1y ago
      Notably, he never included the full conversation. It's almost like the question asked to the economic professors and their responses are completely different from the way the questions are presented in the article. Claims and questions the target article never mentions or implies. I think there's like, I don't know, a few fallacies named for such practices. But hey, don't take my word for it. Here's Musharbash very patiently dealing with this himself: https://x.com/musharbash_b/status/1950938130447479281 https://x.com/musharbash_b/status/1950938130447479281 Also just some general life advice, if reading Thompson's article didn't didn't set off any red flags for you (regardless of what you did or did not know going into this conversation) I would employ a little bit more skepticism and spend a little more time reading the source material in the future.
      - freddie_mercury 1y ago
        Disagree with him if you want but calling Thompson a grifter makes it hard for me to take anything Musharbash seriously or want to dive deeper into whatever he's written.
        whoknowsidont 1y ago
        "If you point out that someone I like is doing something bad, that's too uncomfortable and I'll just stop listening" - You