Talk:Randal O'Toole

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Economist?

I am not sure if O'Toole can be called anything but a polemicist. Referring to this author as an economist confuses O'Tooles polemical writings with academic empirical research. Besides, if you look at http://www.urbanfutures.org/otoole.html, you can see that O'Toole was trained in forest management and geology. The graduate work he supposedly undertook in economics in the 1970s doesn't make him an economist--not by training and certainly not by accomplishment. --Kim--~~—Preceding unsigned comment added by Kimwell (talk • contribs) 03:07, August 14, 2006

Not an Economist

O'Toole does not hold a graduate degree in economics. Holding a BS in Forest Management might pass the Cato Institute's sniff test for an economist, but it would not get him hired on an economics faculty at a reputable university. 24.21.99.110 21:05, 28 July 2007 (UTC)Brian[reply]

Perhaps passing the sniff test at a "reputable" university would not get someone hired at the Cato Institute, either. Academic and government institutions tend to be either Keynesian or Monetarist, while Cato tends to be more Austrian or Libertarian. That difference in fundamental philosophy makes it less likely that an adherent of one would take an adherent of the other seriously. For example, I sometimes want to put the word "economist" in quotes when I talk about academics or people running the Fed or Treasury. (I see their success as coming from the use of force [taxes, etc.] rather than from having the best ideas.) This is the counterpart to your not wanting to call someone an economist unless they've gone through the academic filter. SkyDot 17:12, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism

I removed the single line criticising O'Toole as it didn't fit the article well, nor did explain why O'Toole is an "idiot." Criticism in this article should cite articles addressing O'Toole's arguements and actions, rather than making broad (and unverifiable) claims about O'Toole's intelligence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.107.0.77 (talk) 21:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I removed some more criticism - it was written in a non-neutral manner, stating the arguments of his opponents as fact, and sourced to self-published sources rather than reliable ones. Robofish (talk) 00:05, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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"Thoreau Institute"

The page contains a dead link to the Thoreau Institute. While there is a website for O'Toole's "Thoreau Institute"http://www.ti.org/ there SEEMS to be another completely separate institution in MA with exactly the same name https://www.walden.org/locations/thoreau-institute/ which has nothing to do with O'Toole and has a different focus. If these are different a note could be added to clarify. Also I mainly know of O'Toole from the antiplanner blog. I think some mention of this should be made. If I can figure out what to say I will add it Tjej (talk) 05:26, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]