I’m not familiar with Ross Douthat, but I can make a couple guesses. We have someone who changes jobs during a recession and chooses for his new employer ... a company that is losing money so fast they just had to sell their building. Would I be going out on a limb if I guessed that Ross Douthat is not an economist?
Douthat is a Harvard graduate.
He was paid to write a book about being a Harvard graduate, when he was 23.
This is how he got to be a famous pundit.