Harvard Business School Critical of Bush Economics

gregorantic writes "From BusinessWeek Online: 'George Bush, America's first President with an MBA, has been slapped on the knuckles by 169 concerned business-school professors.'"

Comments

Poll of economists

[ratsnapple tea]

Also see The Economist's poll of academic economists, which puts Bush against Kerry and finds Kerry's policies by and large coming out on top. The article notes that while academia may rightly be considered leftist (heh), the poll isn't obviously biased against Bush in its assessment of the economy's recovery and of the president's role in it.

Highly recommended.

Re:Poll of economists

[TheCarp]

Exactly.

Its like LA Franken said in terms of the liberal media (I don't have his book in front of me so I am not quoting) Basically the media is not liberal.

Ok, certain issues sure. Journalists have all been to college, and when you go to college, or spend time near one, you will meet a much wider range of people than you will in other places. (I live in Boston, where if you throw a rock, chances are it will land on University property). So Journalists have generally met gay people, and probably even have had gay friends.

So, journalists generally are aware that gay people don't have some cohesive gay agenda, and generally arn't trying to "turn everyone gay". So In that sense yes, the media is very liberal towards gays, and you have seen much more acceptance of gays there than in society at large (unless your in Boston or osme other city with a very large gay population)

-Steve

Re:This is no surprise.

[BoomerSooner]

Exactly. Bush is full of shit. I have a degree in Finance and MIS and I'm going for a Masters in Economics. The situation is simple to see for what it is, bad policy regardless of your political beliefs (I'm very liberal).

Normal GDP Tax rate is 20%
Normal Spending compared to GDP is 21% (Govt spending)

Bush Spending = 20% (this is good since it is lower than normal)
Bush Income (Tax Income) = 16% (this is very depressing and is the reason we have record deficits)

Bias?

[kajoob]

Just for full disclosure's sake, one of Harvard Business School's former Professors is Yoshi Tsurumi. Yeah, the guy that came out and tried to say that Bush, while a student there, came up to him and said something to the effect of, "My daddy got me into the guard despite the waiting list".

Think he's telling the truth? Well he went on Air America to further smear the President and got caught in other lies....

In the beginning of the interview they ask:

Seder: Alright, let's start with something simple. How was his attendance?

Tsurumi: Well attendance was not that bad. But his attention span was very short.

But then later on he says this about Bush's attendance:

Seder: '73-74. Now when we left. I posed the question to you. I would not let you answer. How many times did George Bush come drunk to your class, as a student?

(silence)

Seder: He's counting on his fingers. He's counting

Garofalo: Hangovers count as well, because sometimes there is residual.

Tsurumi: Well certainly he missed quite a few.

SederS: He missed quite a few classes?

Tsurumi: And when he came to classes some times he stays half-drunk.

...and another quote

Tsurumi: The lack of leadership quality we like to expect of any president. Certainly presidency of the United States. For example, lack of compassion, lying, indulging self-denial. Blaming the victims there are others. Certainly in trying to justify his own prejudices as if they are the American Way. Now a days he is trying to justify his prejudices as if they are given by God.

So just because it's Harvard Business School doesn't mean they don't have an ax to grind.

Re:Bias?

[demachina]

Uh, where in this did you prove anything Tsurumi said was untrue?

"My daddy got me into the guard despite the waiting list"

George's dad did get him in the guard ahead of a waiting list with 500 or so candidates, there was only a handful of openings. Even worse George outright flunked the aptitude test, and should have been disqualified immediately. Instead he was pushed to the head of the list over people who actually passed the aptitude test.

The only question here is if George had the bad judgement to brag about it. Privileged kids, and I went to college with a bunch of them, often do brag about their privilege.

"Tsurumi: Well attendance was not that bad. But his attention span was very short."

Uh, I imagine most professor can assess the attention span of their students. This doesn't qualify as a smear campaign/agenda.

"How many times did George Bush come drunk to your class, as a student?"

Its no secret George was a massive partier during this period to put it politely. To be impolite about it he was probably an alcoholic, cocaine abuser and a skirt chaser. Its a near certainty he did go to class hungover, most college students do, and its certainly plausible he may have gone to class under the influence. Again you haven't got made a case that Tsurumi was being untruthful. What he is saying is plausible and you can't prove its not, unless maybe you can find someone with sterling credentials in all the same classes who disputes him.

Either Tsurumi doesn't like Bush and has an agenda or Bush had deep character flaws especially around this time. He and his whole family admit he was a very troubled young man, at least until he quit being a drunk, quit doing Cocaine, found Jesus and decided he was going to be President though he clearly isn't qualified for the job.

My favorite Bush quote of the week, when is in White tie and tux giving a speech to the "the haves and the have-mores." Bush smirks: "Some people call you the elite. I call you my base."

Its bad enough that most politicians serve the elite and not the people, but George had the poor judgement to admit it in front of a camera, smirk and make a joke out of it. This is not a person who should be President of the United States.