Suluman the Economist: Episode II

I went over the travails of Suluman the Economist in the addendum to last week's Hurriyet column. Although I discovered him only recently while playing with Sabah's Ipad application, he seems to have established quite a fame, as noted by reader Tahsin in a comment to the addendum:

I remember him saying that Turkey ,in fact,had a positive growth in 2009(in nominal terms).he even said that national income increased in Turkey in 2009.Ekonomiturk calls him "amigo yazar suleyman". if anyone wants to read things funny about him, have a look

I thank Tahsin, whose link I transformed into a hyperlink, and an anonymous poster from earlier, who may be Tahsin as well, for pointing out the earlier achievements of Suluman the Economist. I also thank the bloggers at Ekonomiturk for providing me with good old entertainment.

It also seems that my spider senses were right: Suluman the Economist does indeed seem to have a problem with TEPAV: First, he comes out labeling TEPAV as the crisis lobby and accusing Ozan Acar, the author of the paper I discuss in last week's column, as using unsubstantiated data to prevent Turkey from getting a ratings upgrade. By the way, he is doing this after the weak December budget turnout, using the yearly figures while opting to stay silent on last month's figures. Then, he makes use of Tunisia by asking what TEPAV, the think-tank trying to prevent Turkey from getting a ratings upgrade, would say about the fact that Tunisia is rated above Turkey. Finally, he attacks TEPAV again in today's column by openly suggesting that it is employing bureaucrats in the high interest-low exchange rate lobby.All of this is in the couple of weeks following his highly intellectual analysis of Ozan's paper.

I will not waste my time to discuss the latest budget data or to explain that there is no high interest-low exchange rate lobby in Turkey. Nor will I try to ask him again to separate his personal feelings from his columns by inviting him down the ethics highway. I am just pulling back my meyhane invitation, as I don't think I would be able to last a couple of hours with him, even with plenty of raki. But the sad thing is that he seems to be quite popular; each of his columns gets several "likes" in Facebook- his masterpiece on the budget has managed over 50! Am I jealous? Absolutely! But I cannot help but say "Cry, the beloved country", as I had noted a couple of times, although in slightly different contexts (or maybe not, now that I think about it)...

Finally, loyal readers know that I can not do without linking everything (or anything) to football. Besides, my perennial spammer left a comment today saying that my football insights were even better than my movie ones. So, in order not to disappoint her, I should add that all this reminds me of the rows between legendary! TV commentator Erman Toroglu and legendary footballer Sergen Yalcin. Erman, who was a rookie in the TV world at the time, used to tie everything to Sergen. For example, when Hagi's age was mentioned, he would say "They talk about Hagi's age, but I wonder how much Sergen will be able to run when he is at Hagi's age?". I think the hatred came from Sergen's mockery of Toroglu once by saying "There is this dude who has been criticizing me. I have no idea if he is a TV star or ex-referee, so his comments do not mean much to me". So, now I am wondering: TEPAV, what have you guys done to hurt poor Suluman the Economist?:)