« I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords | Main | Radley on Ron Paul » Will the economy decline in 2008?11 Jan 2008 10:44 am Paul Krugman is voting for doom. It's worth keeping in mind, however, that Paul Krugman has predicted eight of the last none recessions under the Bush administration. I think it's obvious we're in a slowdown, and a recession seems likely-ish, but Britain's skirted recession for over a decade now, so I can't be too fatalistic. TrackBackTrackBack URL for this entry: Comments (67)
On the other hand, Krugman did damn Bush and Cheney for predicting the one recession that actually happened. 
More like 50 of the last one recessions. And we became a banana republic a long time ago. But, to be fair, Krugman's like most humans. I take prognostications seriously based on the amount of money deliberately staked on the outcome. Otherwise, there's too much influence on prognostications from validating your priors or grinding a political axe. I remember taking note when I heard Shiller got out of stocks and sold his house. As a money manager, getting people's current capital (as opposed to future lottery dollars, which provide a different motivation) into the game is critical to sound decision-making.
Golly, brooksfoe, by your demanding standard, no economic forecaster need ever again fear being accused of being incorrect. How do I get into that line of work?
I am under the impression that the NBER now thinks that recession ended before Bush took office.
Is isn't better to have a nice recession and shake things out? It seems better to have a year of pain instead of muddling along waiting for the other shoe to drop. Nothing wrong with a little creative destruction, right?
Sorry "started" before Bush took office.
I am under the impression that the NBER now thinks that recession ended before Bush took office. I'm pretty sure you mean "started." There's really no way that it ended before 1/20/01.
I am sure brooksfoe and his comrades have put this down the memory hole, but the party line in early 2001, which Krugman dutifully recited, was that the economy was fine, and that Bush was seriously damaging the economy by suggesting that there was any trouble, which he was only doing to scare up tax cuts for his fat cat buddies. In the event, the economy was already in a recession, so once again, a Republican politician was a better prognosticator than a fancy professor.
brooksfoe wrote: Sorry - what happened to the recession of 2001-2? Has it been Unthought? In addition to the fact that the economy was already sliding before Bush took office, I seem to recall some sort of event in the fall of 2001 that artificially drove the recession much deeper. I'll have to go look up what it was and get back to you on that.
brooksfoe wrote: If I predict a train is going to come into the station, yet it fails to arrive for one minute, was I wrong fifty-nine seconds in a row and right only once? Change your math to something like 2.5E+8 seconds and let me know how that plan works out.
I like 8π*10E+8 better. Easier to remember :-) And Megan, why does the comment filter suppress the <sup> tag?
"Recession" is such a squishy term as to be virtually meaningless. Some people say a recession isn't a recession until it's been going on for 6 months, some say longer, some say shorter. For me, a recession is when my salary stays the same and my buying power goes down. By that metric, pretty much the entire Bush administration has been one prolonged recession. And that's the only metric that matters to me.
Look out, liberalrob's complaining about his standard of living again! Let's see: 1) we've already established that your salary has gone done this year, not stayed the same, and 2) you're describing inflation, which means we've been in recession for what, 70 years or so? So you're right that definitions are a problem, but yours is much weirder than everyone else's.
Sounds good liberalrob. Hope you're enjoying your 1 person recession. I can't wait to hear about the huge raise you'll get as soon as someone else takes office. On the other hand, perhaps your keen understanding of profitable business operations is the reason for your stagnant salary.
One thing is sure, I am shorting comic book publishers.
While brooksfoe runs the memory hold, liberalrob rewrites the language. Recessions are defined by the NBER, not by whether each commentator thinks the government is doing a good job. If you look at salaries for first year law firm associates and investment banking analysts, there sure ain't been a recession the past few years. Maybe liberalrob should get a real job; then his salary would keep pace with inflation.
Paul Krugman has an abysmal forecasting record. And his policy advice has been even worse. He was, after all, deadset against the Bush tax cuts, which did so much to aid the recovery from the bursting of the Clinton stock bubble and the terrorist attacks. And now, once again, a softening economy provides a good opportunity to push for big tax cuts--and once again Krugman and his liberal friends are opposed to it.
the Bush tax cuts, which did so much to aid the recovery from the bursting of the Clinton stock bubble.. Yes, yes. I seem to remember those dark Clinton years when the economy was in shambles and everything looked so gloomy. wait a minute..
the Bush tax cuts, which did so much to aid the recovery from the bursting of the Clinton stock bubble.. Yes, yes. I seem to remember those dark Clinton years when the economy was in shambles and everything looked so gloomy. wait a minute..
"I seem to remember those dark Clinton years when the economy was in shambles..."-RR On the contrary, some of Bill Clinton's economic policies were good. He had a pretty good record as a free trader, he signed welfare reform into law, he cut the capital gains tax, government spending actually shrank relative to the overall economy, etc... But he also helped to create moral hazard with various bailouts around the world. And that moral hazard helped to create the bubble. So there is a mix of good and bad. Really though, mostly what Bill Clinton did right was not to interfere too much with the Reagan policies that were so conducive to growth (low marginal tax rates, deregulation and sound money).
rwe, I believe RR was being sarcastic. (Hence the "wait a minute")
Liberalrob, whatever your personal feelings, there is a technical definition of "recession", which is "two quarters of contraction". Bush hasn't had that yet, and the recession that was ongoing at the start of his presidency was not, IIRC, forecast by Mr Krugman
One thing is sure, I am shorting comic book publishers. Always the smart play.
Look out, liberalrob's complaining about his standard of living again! Somebody has to try to keep you amateur theoreticians out of your respective economic cloudcuckoolands... Would you rather I complained about yours?
On the other hand, perhaps your keen understanding of profitable business operations is the reason for your stagnant salary. Doubtful, since I don't run the business here. I am just a wage-serf at the mercy of the winds of capricious fate, or at least my bosses' opinion of me at annual review time.
whatever your personal feelings, there is a technical definition of "recession", which is "two quarters of contraction" Yes, that's the technical definition I've heard, but you watch: unless things just go completely in the tank in such an obvious way that to deny it would provoke gales of laughter, there will be more than a few economists arguing about "whether this really qualifies as a recession." It's happened before and will again I'm sure. I hold economist punditry is slightly higher regard than I do that of the media at large. Which is to say, not very high. My wallet therefore trumps all.
"rwe, I believe RR was being sarcastic."-ryan Gee thanks, Ryan. Next your going to inform me that Bill Clinton is a Democrat and the Pope is Catholic. Even with my humble intelligence, I had grasped that RR was ridiculing my post (which implicitly criticized Clinton), which is why I was responding to him and explaining my "Clinton bubble" remark. Really, I think you should help poor liberalrob, though. Recently he was having trouble with bond yields and now he's confused about recessions.
Would you rather I complained about yours? Feel free. While not all that I could dream of, I really have no complaints. What I need is not more money, but more time. But thanks to the Fed and its counterfeit Daylight Savings Bank operation, I'm being deprived of the fruits of my leisure! Oh, wait, wrong thread.
If one were to take Bill Gross seriously*, we entered a recession in early December. He may be that guy liberalrob is taking about. *as opposed to assuming he's trying to use his clout to pay off his bet.
I like liberalrob's definition. Since W came into office, my income has gone from $0 as a college student to a figure that enables me to live quite comfortably. That's a very high growth rate... it is definitely not a recession in Howard-land.
liberalrob wrote: I hold economist punditry is slightly higher regard than I do that of the media at large. Which is to say, not very high. My wallet therefore trumps all. Based on some of the things your wallet has said recently, I'm guessing it's made of weaselskin.
In response to... "On the other hand, perhaps your keen understanding of profitable business operations is the reason for your stagnant salary." ....liberalrob says..... "Doubtful, since I don't run the business here. I am just a wage-serf at the mercy of the winds of capricious fate, or at least my bosses' opinion of me at annual review time." Which is as accurate, and damning, an indictment of unimaginiative labor and management that one can conjure. I can't tell you how many companies I've encountered who do nothing to educate their employees as to the fundamentals of the business they are in, and what makes it profitable, and what needs be done to increase profits, and then reward them for using that knaowledge. I also can't tell you how many employees take little interest in expending any energy to learn these things. As a result, one ends up with masses of people milling around, leaving substantial money that can be figuratively picked up off the ground, if anybody took the time to do it. Now that my business doesn't take me into those settings anymore, I am far less frequently annoyed. What passes for leadership ( and I fundamentally fault the people being paid to lead) in many businesses is an insult to money.
Based on some of the things your wallet has said recently, I'm guessing it's made of weaselskin. I don't know, but it does say "Made in China."
I don't know, but it does say "Made in China."-liberalrob Now "comparative advantage" is confusing liberalrob, as it does many on the left. I would recommend the following website to him (since he seemed to appreciate my last recommendation): http://www.econlib.org/library/CEETitles.html
For consistent economic illiteracy and absurdity, liberalrob would be hard to beat. Among his recent gems: We can have a functioning society without rich people, we can have a functioning health care system where anyone gets any health care service they and their doctor might want without limit, and now recession is "such a squishy term as to be virtually meaningless." If it does have a meaning, it refers only to liberalrob's personal economic circumstances.
I don't know, but it does say "Made in China." Ah. So all that bizarre honking about welfare queens, bond yields, recessions, etc. was actually unrelated Cantonese, with a complex phonetic coincidence upon those topics? Sounds like the "infinite monkeys with typewriters" theorem has finally converged upon something!
brooksfoe, 1. If I predict a train is going to come into the station, yet it fails to arrive for one minute, was I wrong fifty-nine seconds in a row and right only once? When Krugman changes his prediction to "There will be a recession some time within the next 60 years," let us know.
Now "comparative advantage" is confusing liberalrob... LOL, oh no, I'm being dissed by the Three Stooges... It's hilarious, what tangent are you going to go haring off on next just to try to get my goat?
I'd be a lot more open to Megan's taunting of Krugman if she ever said somewhere: yes, he was right about Bush and I was wrong through two elections. Has she written something like that? I remember her reflection on the Iraq war. Even though she admitted she was wrong, she also concluded that there was nothing that could be learned from the people who were right, because they were just right by chance. For the record, I do believe Krugman is frequently too harsh on the Bush administration. I don't know how often he has predicted recessions in the past. Tom
Re: I seem to recall some sort of event in the fall of 2001 that artificially drove the recession much deeper. I have to say that I am skeptical that 9-11 had anything more than a transient and/or localized effect: a pretty serious local effect in NYC (DC seems not to have suffered much despite the attack on the Pentagon) and a transient effect nationwide due mainly to the shut down of air travel and the fact that people were sitting glued to their TVs for several days afterward. Blaming 9-11 for the recession of 2000-2001 is a major cop-out. Neither the economic losses nor the loss of life were of a magnitude to have a large scale national effect. Re: But he also helped to create moral hazard with various bailouts around the world. And that moral hazard helped to create the bubble. Nonsense. The bubble, such as it was (and it too is overhyped) resulted from the rapid development of a new technology which transformed business functions and daily life. Of course a lot of money got sunk in bad ventures: that's pretty much par for the course when something massively transformative comes on the scene. Clinton did not cause it, indeed, even Alan Greenspan (with more control over the economy than the President) had little to do with it. But most IT spending during the period was actually productive spending. The bubble was an epiphenomenal effect. The real problem was the fact that a lot of R&D money got spent upgrading everything and everyone in the late 90s, not to mention preparing for the truly overhyped Y2K bug, on which far more money was wasted than on bubble activities. When the cycle wound down the cupboard was bare, and a serious cool down was inevitable.
"LOL, oh no, I'm being dissed by the Three Stooges..." Liberalrob has confessed to us that he doesn't understand bond yields, comparative advantage or Ricardian Equivalence. What is the relationship between risk aversion and the shape of the utility curve? Liberalrob doesn't know, and yet he confidently lectures us about economics and calls us "stooges." Socrates thought that the beginning of wisdom is the recognition of what does not know. I suppose Socrates would have called liberalrob a fool then, though I am too polite to be so harsh. Sometimes people to live in a dreamland rather rather than the real world. So for the likes of liberalrob, Cuba is a flourishing paradise while the United States is decaying and poor. Such people often prefer comforting falsehoods to unpleasant truths. Who am I to pull him out of his pleasant self-delusion--to tell him that people respond for incentives, that ratonal people think on the margin, that in general people are paid in accordance with their producitivty and that trade is not a zero sum game. It would be like telling a child there's no Santa Claus. To do so would be cruel. And I have no wish to be cruel. So in future I'll try to humor liberalrob--to avoid telling him that his socialist utopia is a fantasy and that he can't afford a Lexus because he isn't very productive (or doesn't save enough). Again, I want only to be kind to the man.
There has been no recession under GWBush, despite his inheiriting the dotcom implosion and the Islamofascist/EU war against the US. (al Qaeda attacking the WTC, the EU attacking Microsoft!) The economy has done well - better than respectable - and wealth (wealth of the average homeowner) has certainly grown faster than under the Clinton years, even if incomes have not grown as fast. How well the wealth holds up remains to be seen in the housing swoon, but the wealth creation and largely phoney "dot-com" income creation of the Clinton era was just more hype by a fellating press corp Will we have a recession, probably - if we let takes GO UP as the Democrats want. We do not have to have a recession, it is not inevitable
Good God, doesn't anybody, research anything anymore in the slightest before they shooting their mouths off? I went to Google, and typed "recession 2000 2001". Since everybody seemed to agree that the NBER were the go-to guys, I checked here: http://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html And here is what they said: On November 26, 2001, the committee determined that the peak of economic activity had occurred in March of that year. For a discussion of the committee's reasoning and the underlying evidence, see http://www.nber.org/cycles/november2001. The March 2001 peak marked the end of the expansion that began in March 1991, an expansion that lasted exactly 10 years and was the longest in the NBER's chronology. On July 16, 2003, the committee determined that a trough in economic activity occurred in November 2001. The committee's announcement of the trough is at http://www.nber.org/cycles/july2003. The trough marks the end of the recession that began in March 2001. The 2001 recession thus lasted eight months, which is somewhat less than the average duration of recessions since World War II. The postwar average, excluding the 2001 recession, is eleven months. It took me, oh, about 8 seconds to find this. Not hard to do, folks. Looking around a bit more, I see people like The National Review tried to backdate it, but no go so far from the NBER. I think that's got to be taken to be definitive unless someone has a recent update. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2000s_recession
Economist Jim Hamilton of UCSD explains why the revised data show that the recession actually began in 2000, before George W. Bush became President. http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2006/08/dating_business.html He also explains why the question of when precisely the recession began is not as important as partisans like SoV like to think. Bill Clinton did create a moral hazard problem that contributed to the bubble and the consequent recession, but it's quite possible the recession would have happened anyway. What's clear is that George W. Bush had nothing to do with the recession, though his tax cuts helped to bring us out of it. That's something that every competent economist would agree with.
So, I'm quoting the official folks at NBER, and using the official definition of a recession, but I'm a 'partisan'. Tell me, do you have any theories as to why the NBER hasn't adopted this position yet? Are they 'partisans' too? Or is it woo-woo, that doggone reality is showing 'liberal bias' again? This is just insane.
It doesn't matter to the point whether it was 2000 or early 2001. Bush was sworn in as president in late January 2001. To attribute an economic slowdown that began in March 2001 to a president who was sworn in a month earlier is preposterous. But I've become convinced that ScentofViolets makes a point of believing six preposterous things before breakfast. Maybe he and liberalrob should write an economics text together. I'm sure it would be a fun read.
The truth is that different economists date recessions differently. The NBER uses its own method, not the "official definition" of two consecutive quarters of economic growth. Martin Feldstein, the head of the NBER, admitted that data revisions had shown the original determination to be incorrect: "It is clear that the revised data have made our original March date for the start of the recession much too late. We are still waiting for additional monthly data before making a final judgment. Until we have the additional data, we cannot make a decision."-Feldstein The third quarter of 2000 had negative growth. the fourth quarter saw very slight positive growth and the first three quarters of 2001 saw negative growth again. So it looks as though the economy started sputtering in 2000. The stock market crash began in early 2000 (Dow reached a high of 11, 792.98 on 1/15/2000 and fell from there) and the stock market crash was a chief cause of the recession, through a negative wealth effect. Anyway, it's clear that anyone who would try to blame Bush for the recession is playing loose with the facts. Some of his economic policies deserve some criticism, but they can't be blamed for something that clearly started before they were even enacted.
"Maybe he and liberalrob should write an economics text together. I'm sure it would be a fun read."-Mixner Mixner, I think they've already written it under a pen name. See here.
You guys take the cake, here's what was originally said, by Megan: I am under the impression that the NBER now thinks that recession ended* before Bush took office. *She made it clear, if it's not obvious, that she meant 'started'. So there's some going back-and-forth but no one, I mean no one, bothered to do even a tiny bit of digging. Sheesh. Low and behold, we find that no, in point of fact the NBER has officially stated that it started in 3/01. Do we get an admission of error? No. We get some harrumphing about having to perhaps adjust the figures, but if it's happened, I haven't seen it yet.[1] Note that this supposed need to make an adjustment was first voiced in 2004, so there's been three years in which this hasn't happened. But no, folks like rwe just can't bring themselves to say that they were - gasp! - wrong. What a bunch of weenies. I would also add that I don't particularly care if the recession is officially dated in March of '01 or three months or six months earlier. I do care that people can casually toss about claims without the slightest bit of research, mock others for being economicly illiterate, and then have the chutzpah to claim that they weren't really wrong. [1] Anyone who claims that what Megan has said is correct, that the NBER has officially changed it's dates for the recession is perfectly free to give cites and links. It would be something worth knowing.
Hillary: There is a recession. Here is my plan. Probably just a coincidence.
"Britain has skirted recession for a decade now"
"But no, folks like rwe just can't bring themselves to say that they were - gasp! - wrong."-SoV Hey SoV, I wasn't wrong. Megan McArdle apparently was. I never claimed that the NBER declared that the recession began in 2000. "Anyone who claims that what Megan has said is correct, that the NBER has officially changed it's dates for the recession is perfectly free to give cites and links. It would be something worth knowing." Again, I never made such a claim. Megan did. Attack her if you like. But don't attribute statments to me that I never made.
"But no, folks like rwe just can't bring themselves to say that they were - gasp! - wrong."-SoV Hey SoV, I wasn't wrong. Megan McArdle apparently was. I never claimed that the NBER declared that the recession began in 2000. "Anyone who claims that what Megan has said is correct, that the NBER has officially changed it's dates for the recession is perfectly free to give cites and links. It would be something worth knowing." Again, I never made such a claim. Megan did. Attack her if you like. But don't attribute statments to me that I never made.
Re: Bill Clinton did create a moral hazard problem that contributed to the bubble and the consequent recession, but it's quite possible the recession would have happened anyway. Unless you really do think Al Gore invented the internet it's hard to see what the Clinton administration did or didn't do that produced the recession of 2000-01. The president really does not have much power over the economy-- this isn't the Soviet Union after all. The Fed does have some influence over the economy so if you think government policy in the 90s had something to do with the recession surely you would be blaming Mr Greenspan?
"Also, what do you mean by 'moral hazard'?-JonF You'll find the term in any decent introductory economics text, JonF.
At the start of every year my mother used to buy the "National Enquirer" to read Jeanne Dixon's predictions for that upcoming year. Well, Ms. Dixon would make about 187 different predictions, give or take a dozen. Foreseeing everything from the deaths of noted celebrities to major conflicts to, even occasionally trespassing on Krugman's territory, telling us how the economy would turn out. At the end of the year, Ms. Dixon would be right on about 4 or 5. Maybe 6 or 7, occasionally a good 10. The other 177 predictions? C'mon, who's keeping track? Ms. Dixon is now dead. I'm sure in a column somewhere Krugman predicted that.
The recession of 2001 cannot be blamed on Bush. However, I am of the opinion it cannot be blamed on Clinton either. Presidents rarely have the influence to affect the economy in large positive or negative ways- the Federal Reserve has far more power. In the case of the recession of 2001, the cause of that recession was the bursting of the stock market bubble of the period 1994-2000, and Clinton was not the cause of either the bubble itself, or the piercing of that bubble. And, the housing bubble that is deflating now was not caused by the policies of George Bush.
Ahhh. More Krugman silliness. No doubt about it: The man has a meme and he's sticking to it. Eventually his 'blind pig' moment will come. I think his 'prognosticating' would look pretty cool as milestones within a graphic showing what the LEIs did every time he opened his trap. I'm reminded of the old GB Shaw quote: "all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion."
JonF says, "I have to say that I am skeptical that 9-11 had anything more than a transient and/or localized effect: a pretty serious local effect in NYC" blah blah... The $20million (revenue) small business I used to work for, based out of Chicago, having nothing to do with travel/airlines went from being profitable every single September for the last 5 years, to losing $200,000 that September. 9/11 hit nearly every business pretty hard. No one was spending anything for that entire month, and it spilled over into September. I wouldn't expect everyone to know this unless they were in a position to know it in their respective jobs, etc, but ignorant people pontificating on things they don't have a handle on creates lots of problems.
whatever your personal feelings, there is a technical definition of "recession", which is "two quarters of contraction" I believe it's actually two consecutive quarters of contraction, which is why there was the dispute at NBER over whether there had been a recession in 2001-2. I think the problem was there had been three quarters of contraction spread on-off over five quarters; eventually people reasonably decided to stretch the definition, since it walked, talked, and quacked like a recession. Krugman's main point in 2001 was that Bush and his advisers, who had been justifying tax cuts in 2000 because the economy was so strong, started justifying tax cuts in 2001 by warning the economy was turning weak. The basic problem was one of honesty. Meanwhile, it is false to claim that tax cuts are a good way of using ficscal policy to fight recessions. The tax cuts of 2001 didn't put more money into people's pockets until 2002, by which time the recession had close to run its course. If you look at the multiplier effects of tax cuts vs. spending increases on GDP growth, you find that in the first year, increasing government spending leads to an essentially one-to-one increase in GDP. Equivalent tax cuts don't approach a one-to-one increase in GDP for several years. Several years out, the effects of tax cuts or spending increases on GDP are close to indistinguishable, but in that first year, when you're looking to have your recession-fighting effect, increasing spending is a vastly more efficient way to put money in people's pockets than cutting taxes.
JonF wrote: "I have to say that I am skeptical that 9-11 had anything more than a transient and/or localized effect: a pretty serious local effect in NYC (DC seems not to have suffered much despite the attack on the Pentagon) and a transient effect nationwide due mainly to the shut down of air travel and the fact that people were sitting glued to their TVs for several days afterward. Blaming 9-11 for the recession of 2000-2001 is a major cop-out. Neither the economic losses nor the loss of life were of a magnitude to have a large scale national effect." Well, first of all, it's hard to see how something that happened in late 2001 could conceivably have much to do with something that occurred in 2000 or early-mid 2001 (the supposed beginning of a recession). But if you think 9/11 did not affect the economy of this country much, you are just wildly, crazily, utterly wrong. 9-11 had a PROFOUND effect on the airline business and the travel business, for starters. If you feel like learning something, go look at what happened to the major airlines, hotel rates and occupancy, etc. immediately thereafter. Did you not hear of some Chapter 11 filings and bailouts? I took my family on a Disney cruise in late 2002 for HALF of what it had been 18 months earlier. Disney stock was lower on 9/11/02 than it was immediately after the attacks. Of course, maybe you have a different definition of "transient" than I do. Look at what "sam" posted a bit above. I run a couple businesses and the effect was SEVERE for a while. I could give you a hundred pieces of data and anecdotes, but my time is worth something, so you'll have to do some work of your own if you want to learn. 9/11 had a big impact, but I find it amazing that things didn't turn out far worse for far longer. The US economy is amazingly strong and resilient. Betting against it is usually wrong. And DC never suffers. They have a pipeline into our wallets, so why should they?
Megan, your colleague Matt has a few comments:
chester: "If you feel like learning something, go look at what happened to the major airlines, hotel rates and occupancy, etc. immediately thereafter. Did you not hear of some Chapter 11 filings and bailouts?" Yes, but the airlines were given massive subsidies by Bush. The workers were laid off and suffered, but they don't count for right-wing purposes.
Wow, I sure hope that this liberalrob character is just baiting you guys for laughs. It is hard to imagine someone seriously believes some of the things he does. What is worse is he actually writes them down for others to read! I started skipping over other posts just to get to the next train wreck by that poster. I was just passing by, and noted that this seems to be a long-running back and forth on this board. For those long-suffering folks dealing with liberalrob types, I encourage you to start ignoring him rather than engaging. In my experience, you have a better shot at getting a fundamental Christian to renounce God than getting a liberalrob to accept EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE that he is so uninformed he does not even rise to the level of being wrong. It is like showing fossil records to Huckabee during a discussion about evolution. The evidence will be met with rock-like denial, and eventually hostility. It saddens me how often left of center types will shake with rage at how science in some field is attacked by conservatives, all the while they deny even the most basic and similarly well-supported findings of economists. Surely it is because economics does to their faith what science often does to the thicker religiously-minded portions of the conservative coalition.
Re: You'll find the term in any decent introductory economics text, JonF. Yes, yes. But what "mporal hazard" factors existed in the late 90s that did not exist ten years earlier, or today for that matter? I see nothing in Clitnon economic policies that can be branded with that term. Re: 9-11
That was pretty good, Spartee...you can be Curly Joe Besser if you keep it up long enough. I have my beliefs and opinions, and I'm going to stick by them. I don't delve into the deepest darkest reaches of economic theory because a) I don't see it as necessary to defend my positions and b) it's not my area of expertise. rwe wants to argue that since I'm not a Ph.D. economist I should just go away and leave the field to those with the appropriate economic credentials. If you will notice, on the economics-specific threads I do exactly that. I did not post at all in the Ricardian Equivalence thread, I did not engage in the discussion of Efficient Markets. I do know my limitations. That said, when you start talking about things that are NOT strictly economics, like health care and social security and foreign policy, I'm going to speak my mind. Dismiss it if you want, but as an American citizen those things affect my life directly and I do not require a Ph.D. in economics to have an opinion on how I would like things to be arranged. I do in fact have a degree from an accredited university, so I would hope (vainly, I suppose) that I would be accorded some respect for not being some random street person venting from an Internet cafe or some such.
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Paul Krugman has predicted eight of the last none recessions under the Bush administration.
1. If I predict a train is going to come into the station, yet it fails to arrive for one minute, was I wrong fifty-nine seconds in a row and right only once?
2. Sorry - what happened to the recession of 2001-2? Has it been Unthought?
Posted by brooksfoe | January 11, 2008 11:04 AM