2016 Postmortem

Uncle Joe

(58,389 posts) Sun Feb 21, 2016, 11:27 AM Feb 2016

The New York Times Invents Left-Leaning Economists to Attack Bernie Sanders

The newspaper provides a platform for wonks skeptical of Sanders' proposals, but does not hold Clinton to the same standard.

A New York Times piece headlined “left-leaning economists question cost of Bernie Sanders’ plans” may have misled readers about the extent of skepticism among economists who consider themselves left-leaning. I can say this as a card-carrying left-leaning economist who often talks to other card-carrying left-leaning economists.

(snip)

These are all big ideas, each of which will face enormous political opposition even if Bernie Sanders were in the White House. Sanders has not given a fully worked out proposal in any of these areas, nor is it reasonable to expect a fully worked out proposal from a candidate for the presidency. His campaign platform outlines general approaches. In the event Sanders got to the White House, it would be necessary to draft fully worked out legislative language which would almost certainly amount to hundreds of pages, and quite possibly thousands of pages, in each area. In addition, whatever he initially put on the table would have to be haggled over with Congress, even assuming that he had a much more sympathetic group than the current crew.

While it is nice that The New York Times is subjecting Sanders’ views to serious scrutiny, it would be good if it also subjected the views of other candidates to the same scrutiny. For example, Secretary Clinton has indicated a desire to give more opportunity to African Americans and Hispanics, yet she has not commented on the decision by the Federal Reserve Board to raise interest rates at the end of last year. This rate hike was intended to be the first of a sequence of rate hikes.

The purpose of raising interest rates is to slow the economy and the rate of job creation, ostensibly to prevent inflation. The people who will be disproportionately hurt by slower job growth and high unemployment are African American and Hispanic. New York Times readers would likely be interested in knowing how Secretary Clinton can reconcile her commitment to helping African Americans and Hispanics with her apparent lack of concern over the Fed’s decision to raise interest rates and deny them jobs.

Whatever standard of scrutiny The New York Times chooses to apply to presidential candidates it should apply to them equally. It is not good reporting to apply one standard to Senator Sanders — even inventing credentials to press its points — and then apply lesser standards to the other candidates.

http://billmoyers.com/story/new-york-times-invents-left-leaning-economists-to-attack-bernie-sanders/

3 replies

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The New York Times Invents Left-Leaning Economists to Attack Bernie Sanders (Original Post) Uncle Joe Feb 2016 OP

It's standard "bare plural" usage. Igel Feb 2016 #1

The fact is none of those economists actually did their homework to dispute the numbers. Uncle Joe Feb 2016 #2

Economist kick. Uncle Joe Feb 2016 #3

Igel

(35,337 posts)

1. It's standard "bare plural" usage.

Reply to Uncle Joe (Original post)

Sun Feb 21, 2016, 11:56 AM

Feb 2016

If I say "Teachers like Doctor Pepper" I can mean

1. all teachers like Dr. Pepper
2. the prototypical teacher likes Dr. Pepper, with atypical teachers who don't
3. there's a set of teachers who like Dr. Pepper, and I'm not going to give percents.

When we like assertion and want it to be universally true because it's what we want to believe or need to believe, we figure it's the the first is what's intended and is true. It makes us the most correct. We luvs us some more ego. This interpretation is very common in some quarters, when it suits us.

When we don't really care, we tend to think it's the 2nd. That's the default meaning of this construction in standard educated American English, according to the literature. "Cats have four feet." Well, most cats do, and counterexamples don't piss us off. The snarky among us will race to find images of 2-footed cats with little scooters propping up their backsides.

Politicians, used car dealers, PR folk, newspaper folk, lawyers, and misc. others not worth a quarter cup of warm spit sense or know we're going to assume (2) is the case and want to exaggerate their claims use the bare plural like in 3. They know that those who agree will assume it's universal and preen themselves; they know that those who disagree will do likewise and spit nails. And they know that they can always defend themselves with the facts--it's not bare bones logic that's at play, it's how we listeners construe meaning; it's not on them, it's on us. Either way, the speaker's manipulated the audience. As intended. Supporters pull out their long knives to defend their idol, attackers have more ammo against the molten image, and boundary lines are drawn so it's hard to be neither pro nor con. You're on the way to 198 Ford status and like your ride.

"Left-leaning economists support Sanders" doesn't imply that "Left-leaning economists reject Sanders." Both can be true because both sentences are ambiguous. "Today the sky is blue." "Today the sky is grey." So, which is it? Well, both are true where I live. It's currently partly clear, it was overcast 2 hours ago and will probably be all blue by 3 pm. I have failed to define my terms adequately and the semantics are what you want them to be, just not where you want them to be.

Uncle Joe

(58,389 posts)

2. The fact is none of those economists actually did their homework to dispute the numbers.

Reply to Igel (Reply #1)

Sun Feb 21, 2016, 12:16 PM

Feb 2016

Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712

The Honorable Alan Krueger
The Honorable Austan Goolbee
The Honorable Christina Romer
The Honorable Laura D'Andrea Tyson

Dear Alan, Austan, Christina and Laura,

I was highly interested to see your letter of yesterday's date to Senator Sanders and Professor Gerald
Friedman. I respond here as a former Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee – the
congressional counterpart to the CEA.

You write that you have applied rigor to your analyses of economic proposals by Democrats and
Republicans. On reading this sentence I looked to the bottom of the page, to find a reference or link to
your rigorous review of Professor Friedman's study. I found nothing there.

You go on to state that Professor Friedman makes “extreme claims” that “cannot be supported by the
economic evidence.” You object to the projection of “huge beneficial impacts on growth rates, income
and employment that exceed even the most grandiose predictions by Republicans about the impact of
their tax cut proposals.”

Matthew Yglesias makes an important point about your letter:

“It's noteworthy that the former CEA chairs criticizing Friedman didn't bother to run
through a detailed explanation of their problems with the paper. To them, the 5.3 percent
figure was simply absurd on its face, and it was good enough for them to say so, relying
on their authority to generate media coverage."

So, let's first ask whether an economic growth rate, as projected, of 5.3 percent per year is, as you
claim, “grandiose.” There are not many ambitious experiments in economic policy with which to
compare it, so let's go back to the Reagan years. What was the actual average real growth rate in 1983,
1984, and 1985, following the enactment of the Reagan tax cuts in 1981? Just under 5.4 percent. That's
a point of history, like it or not.

You write that “no credible economic research supports economic impacts of these magnitudes.” But
how did Professor Friedman make his estimates? The answer is in his paper. What Professor Friedman
did, was to use the standard impact assumptions and forecasting methods of the mainstream economists
and institutions. For example, Professor Friedman starts with a fiscal multiplier of 1.25, and shades it
down to the range of 0.8 by the mid 2020s. Is this “not credible”? If that's your claim, it's an
indictment of the methods of (for instance) the CBO, the OMB, and the CEA.

(snip)

What you have done, is to light a fire under Paul Krugman, who is now using his high perch to airily
dismiss the Friedman paper as “nonsense.” Paul is an immensely powerful figure, and many people
rely on him for careful assessments. It seems clear that he has made no such assessment in this case.

Instead, Paul relies on you to impugn an economist with far less reach, whose work is far more careful,
in point of fact, than your casual dismissal of it. He and you also imply that Professor Friedman did his
work for an unprofessional motive. But let me point out, in case you missed it, that Professor Friedman
is a political supporter of Secretary Clinton. His motives are, on the face of it, not political.

(snip)

Yours,
(Jamie)
James K. Galbraith
Executive Director, Joint Economic Committee, 1981-2

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/ResponsetoCEA.pdf

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511277974

Uncle Joe

(58,389 posts)

3. Economist kick.

Reply to Uncle Joe (Original post)

Sun Feb 21, 2016, 01:26 PM

Feb 2016

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