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

This is no surprise.

[Murdock037]

It's often satisfying in its own childish way to trash on Bush for all the personal reasons-- the fake cowboy stuff, manipulation of 9/11, etc.-- but most often, the strongest argument against him is purely economic. His numbers simply do not add up.

See Paul Krugman of the New York Times for the most compelling case. His book, The Great Unraveling, is invaluable.

Re:This is no surprise.

[TheLink]

I don't support Bush. But I'm no Democrat - I'm not even a US citizen. I don't support Bush because not only does he lie (or if you're charitable- make mistakes), but he doesn't apologize for his lies ("mistakes") when confronted with them.

To me it is scary that the World's Most Powerful Nation is led by a unrepentant liar/incompetent (either he is lying or incompetent) AND worst most of the citizens don't appear to be that bothered about it - in fact so many support him.

Whereas look at Spain. They didn't like their Gov lying to them so they kicked them out. It's not because of the terrorists despite what the US media say.

I don't know why so many here get the idea that the rest of the world doesn't want Bush because without Bush, the US will be weaker.

To most of us smaller nations, a stronger/weaker US makes not that much difference to us. What makes a difference is when the Worlds Most Powerful Nation attacks a country based on dubious/fake justifications (lies) despite practically everyone else saying don't do it - it's not justified (and later it's proven by the US itself it's not justified).

In fact a richer and prosperous US is better for us, since the US is more likely to buy our stuff.

Bush has definitely helped terrorist recruitment with his actions. I don't see how the US is stronger because of what Bush has done - the US has alienated many allies. After the 9/11 events, the US had lots of sympathy with most of the rest of the world. But after attacking Iraq despite the UN, despite almost everyone else in the World saying there is no proof of WMD, Iraq is not a threat, the US has lost much support.

Bush and his supporters have the cheek to blame the US "intelligence" and others for not giving good info about WMD - WTF do you think the UN weapons inspectors were doing, the US authorities were saying the inspectors weren't good and were easily fooled by Saddam, and now the inspectors have been vindicated. The inspectors said they needed a bit more time to check things, the US said - no the threat was _IMMINENT_, we have to strike NOW. Now after so long, still no WMD found, just "intent". Of course Saddam wants the weapons. But ain't it cheaper to keep the inspectors there as a thorn in his flesh, rather than spending billions in the war? There was so much nasty stuff said about the inspectors, the UN and France.

The people at the top have been _proven_ to be liars and hypocrites. And if the US citizens allow them to stay at the top, they are "aiding and abetting" their leaders.

I've heard the excuses for keeping Bush in power but as far as I see, the logic/reasoning for practically all of the excuses is muddled or absent.

Record deficits, and we still want tax cuts?

[mind21_98]

Something doesn't add up when one slashes taxes in the middle of a war, especially when we need the money to fight. Not that tax cuts are necessarily a bad thing, but having a deficit prevents the government from working effectively. Just my two cents.

Re:Record deficits, and we still want tax cuts?

[Yokaze]

> but having a deficit prevents the government from working effectively.

It only prevents the following government from working effectively.

Re:Record deficits, and we still want tax cuts?

[OYAHHH]

Having a deficit does not make government run ineffectively.

Actually one could make a strong argument that it makes government much more effective by providing a second way to manipulate the economy. A push versus pull sort of thing.

Without deficit spending the government could only spend what it had received from taxes in a particular year.

And due to a lack of perfect knowledge as to how much the tax coffers were going to bring in in a particular year the government would be pushed into spending very conservatively, lest it run a deficit.

Planning for long-term projects would be made far more difficult and emergency situations would tend to shutdown the government.

Deficit spending on the other hand allows lawmakers the leisure of knowing that they can start a long-term project and not have to pay cash for it today.

Emergency situations can be dealt with by using Uncle Sam's Visa card and accidental budget overruns (is there such an animal?) can be nullified.

Even more importantly the Federal Reserve can use it's enormous influence in borrowing power terms to micromanage interest rates. You wouldn't want to put Alan Greenspan out of business now would you?

Re:Record deficits, and we still want tax cuts?

[Hard_Code]

No it doesn't, it prevents YOU from working effectively. The government can loan money from itself forever. It's your children and economy that have to pay the piper. That's why the talk of "tax cuts" is so aggravating. They aren't "tax cuts", they are "tax debts and burdens" on our future generations.

Re:Record deficits, and we still want tax cuts?

[bersl2]

Having a deficit does not make government run ineffectively.

Correct. However, having a gi-normous, constantly-growing deficit is not.

Legally the Government is still obligated to pay back those bonds they float. However, if they don't start running surpluses, they keep floating bonds to pay for the old bonds, on top of increased gov't spending. This leads to too much inflation, which is bad.

Ivory Tower Partisanship?

[Nagatzhul]

Odd how they don't acknowledge that the economic deterioration began before he took office. Without that major acknowledgement, that makes their statements looks suspiciously partisan.

Re:Ivory Tower Partisanship?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Odd how they don't acknowledge that the economic deterioration began before he took office

Bush has been in office for nearly 4 years, don't you think it's time he took responsibility for his own policies now instead of blaming the previous administration?

If the economy was doing GOOD, Bush would try to take credit. So why not take responsibility for his actions?

(For the record, I didn't vote for Clinton).

Re:Ivory Tower Partisanship?

[TykeClone]

I think that the real Y2K catostrophe was the recession. All businesses threw out their normal upgrade cycle in the late 90's and upgraded a lot of hardware and software that would have normally been done later rather than sooner.

As soon as 1/1/2000 passed, businesses took stock and saw that everything was working - and running on shiny new hardware and software. At that point, they didn't need to spend their normal upgrade budgets because they were good to go for a couple of years. So they reduced spending and cut back on staff - helping out with the recession.

Re:Ivory Tower Partisanship?

[mc6809e]

but I think that Clinton-Gore helped the US public become Internet-connected ahead of other nations and thus gave the country an edge up on establishing itself.

Bah.

The public got interested in the internet when was added to HTML, and modem makers figured out how to make cheap 14.4K modems so images would download at a reasonable rate.

The average Joe thinks text is boring and isn't going to pay for it, no matter what Clinton-Gore might have said.

Ok, I read the article, and I have an MBA

[Mycroft_514]

These guys are blaming Bush for things he has no control over. They want to cut waste out of the budget, but fail to admit that he has no facility to do so.

They fail the partisan test.

Re:Ok, I read the article, and I have an MBA

[phyruxus]

So, you're smarter and more expert than 169 professors, including 50 from Harvard? I don't think so.

You fail the partisan test.

Re:Ok, I read the article, and I have an MBA

[Anonymous Coward]

He's a Republican president with a Republican Majority in both the House and Senate and you're saying that he doesn't have control over the budget?

Unfortunately it is you, not these profs that fail the partisan test.

The US Federal Gov't Will Always Deficit Spend.

[c.ecker]

Look, it doesn't matter how much money the Feds take in, there will never be enough, and they'll always spend every cent they have. If they don't, that's only by accident -- don't worry, they'll make up for it the following year.

There's plenty of people in the US with their hand out ready to jump on the dole. Ride the Federal gravy train. There's plenty of Career Politicians up on Capitol Hill buying votes for their next term.

Therefore, I'm all for squeezing the Congressmen to try to cut costs from the Federal Budget by requiring a balanced budget, and then taking in as little in taxes as is possible to get passed through the Congress.

Unless the deficit gets way out of control with respect to GDP, it matters little one way or the other. The Federal Gov't is always the least efficient entity to get anything done -- and any taxes that get there are always a drag on the economy.

Unavoidable Partisan Answers

[DesScorp]

Harvard and the Ivy League are bastions of the Democratic Party. If you had asked business professors from a conservative college (like, perhaps Hillsdale College in Michigan), I'm pretty sure they'd say Bush's policies are just fine, thanks.

Like it or not, we're in a partisan age, and everything is looked at through a political prism now.

Veto.

[DAldredge]

Yes, he does. If he was true to what the GOP says they believe in he would veto every spending bill till he got what he wants.

But he hasn't vetoed anything yet.

numbers that don't add

[phyruxus]

Bush's federal budget was full of numbers that didn't add up... He counted some money twice, slating the same money for Iraq and Social Security. There was lots of stuff anyone could see was the worst kind of deceitful trickery. We're not talking about little mistakes either, we're talking systematic abuse.

They're smarter than that

[metalhed77]

Look, these people come up with the models that everyone uses. If it weren't for them there would be no crap shoot. They know damn well that a single president is not responsible for the entire economy. The extremely anti-bush (though not extreme) economist brad delong at berkely goes on at length over the media's focusing on a president as the sole actor in an economy's performance.

All this being being said, it is entirely possible for a president to issue economic policies that are nothing but terrible; and that is what these professors are angry over.

Whooaaaaa there, horsey...

[DesScorp]

"The educated and knowledgeable tend toward the left?"

The parent post said ACADEMIA, but while academics are certainly intellegent and knowledgeable, where is it written that they can't be biased? During the cold war, some of our brightest minds failed us miserably by either willfully overlooking the horrors of communism, or even outright embracing it.

An advanced degree doesn't neccessarily equal wisdom. In fact, it seldom does.

Re:Whooaaaaa there, horsey...

[Mattcelt]

The USSR's economic policy was built on a house of cards - which is what eventually caused their demise. At the height of the cold war, the Soviet Union spent more than 70% of their GNP on war materiel (not a misspelling) and military operations. The United States never spent more than 10% of its GNP on the same. And when U.S. weapons finally went head-to-head with Soviet weapons during the liberation of Kuwait, Moscow knew that our M1s could kick the snot out of the Russian T72s, for example. Everything they threw at us was easily defeated by the advanced weaponry we had. That was what precipitated the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the fall of the communist state.

The Soviets kicked ass in WWII? The USSR lost almost 28 million lives (9 million military and 19 million civilian) - compare that to Germany's losses at 5.5 million (3.5 military/2 civvy). I'd say the Germans came out on the better end of that deal. It was only the fact that Germany was fighting the war on four fronts (Eastern Front, Western Front, African Front, Italian Front) and Stalin's paranoia that allowed the Soviets to make the progress they did toward Berlin at the end of the war.

Another example would be Kruschev's first visit to a U.S. supermarket. It took a lot of convincing before he would accept that it wasn't just for show, that it hadn't been set up just to impress him. The ordinariness of it was the kicker, the fact that there are tens of thousands of supermarkets just like it across the U.S. He held his head in his hands the entire flight back, as the enormity of the disparity between western prosperity and Soviet survival came crashing down on him.

Did you know it used to take two to five years to get an apartment in the USSR? There was a waiting list for almost anything you could afford to buy - cars (6-12 months), refrigerators (3 months), vacuums (3 months), etc. A friend of my fathers said that their lettuce used to look all the way through like the sometimes brown outer layer we throw away.

So I think we can safely say that the capitalist and Soviet-style communist economies isn't really equivalent.

Now, if you want to have an interesting discussion, consider the differences between Chinese and Russian communist economies. (Though the Chinese economy is starting to look more and more capitalist...)

You're relying on Krugman???

[DesScorp]

Krugman is a democrat first, and economist second. He's abandoned any pretense of fairness or objectivity in his columns. You might as well go to James Carville for economic advice.

Oh, and thanks for at least being honest about the pettiness of the Bush-hating (" It's often satisfying in its own childish way to trash on Bush for all the personal reasons").

Re:Poll of economists

[DaoudaW]

I'm not trolling...

I consider myself a liberal, and expect most intelligent, well-educated people to have similar views. Some of the comments above make it sound like academia is a left-wing conspiracy to corrupt the country. I simply believe that when a person is exposed to a broader range of knowledge and theories that their ability to understand nuances and appreciate differing opinions grows. In a word, they become more liberal.

Slashdot is not as liberal as you think

[phyruxus]

>>"It's scary admitting that you support Kerry here."

>>Here?? At Slashdot??? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Yes actually, admitting that you're liberal here can get you modded troll/flamebait/overrated real fast. It's been extreme over the past month. I'm glad you think it's funny, because it means you haven't noticed it, and so it could be worse. But from a liberal point of view, slashdot has been or is being assimilated by the far right. Conservative leaning comments are modded insightful when they are nowhere near; insightful comments that have substance but are liberal get modded way down real fast. I'm not saying that no liberal comments are modded up or that all conservative comments are modded up, but it's a running battle.

The pressure and hostility are very real. I've very recently decided that I'm going to be as loud and openly pro-democrat as I can on slashdot, to do my part to keep the liberalness alive or at least half alive. You republicans may not realize this, but your party is very very good at propaganda. And liberals in general seem to have a hard time dealing with conflict based on raw emotion; we'd rather avoid the fight. Especially on a geek site like slashdot, lots of us avoid conflict.

Aww crap, I think I just bonded a little with you, DesScorp. If only because you don't know how much propaganda and suppression of dissent is going on, right here on /. let alone across the country on mainstream media (which are one step away from being state propaganda machines). Not just Fox News, but all the players repeat what they're told by the administration without question; there is no journalism, let alone investigative journalism.

Fellow liberal slashdotters, rise and criticise! Don't let the pro-bush people push their message here! If this is a liberal site, let's take it back! To arms! *dah*doot*dah*doot*! Don't back down! We're going to be called partisan anyways, let's go ahead and be partisan! There's a lot of complaining about Bush bashing, but I don't hear any, so either let's start rebutting the partisan conservatives who think anything liberal or critical is bush bashing, or let's *gasp* Talk About Bush's failures (which are legion)!! We've got a politics section, now let's rally! There's an election to be won! To arms! To arms! The Red states are coming! The Red states are coming!!

Re:Bias?

[demachina]

Christ there is no contradiction there. "Well attendance was not that bad." is an extremely relative term and its depends on your idea of what "bad" is. It in no way, shape or form suggests he had a stellar/perfect attendance record in fact is suggests his attendance was not great, it just wasn't THAT BAD. "He missed quite a few" says exactly the same thing. He did miss some classes but he did show up most of the time, if his attendance was bad he would have said "he missed a lot of classes" and "his attendance was bad".

I'm dumbfounded you all are willing to hang this guy's credibility out to dry over this zealous parsing of two very vague phrases. I sure wish you could be so zealous about Bush administration statements about Saddam's ties to 9/11 and his WMD's all of which have proven to be outright lies, lies that have gotten a lot of people killed. Even worse they are at various times denying they said them or are still making the same assertions in the face of overwhelming reality. If you want to parse some statements and paint some people as liars why don't you work those over because they weren't even remotely vague and are increasingly, provably false.

Re:Those that can, do...

[Temporal]

And win Nobel prizes, apparently.

Right on

[bitwiseNomad]

Nice post.

Cheekiness aside, you have a valid point about the way criticisms of the bush administration are recieved (not just on slashdot, either). I'd like to add to it.

The fact is everyone is partisan in some respects, and anyone who expects to recieve a netural, objective analysis of what's going on is only fooling themselves. That said, if I took the attitude of dismissing everyone whose comments were even remotely colored by political leanings, I wouldn't have learned anything at college.

Someone who's really concerned about having a dialog about politics will try to strip away the political bias (since it will be there anyway) and look at the underlying message. It is irresponsible of an adult to reject criticism because it is coming from a biased source. Instead, an adult would try to understand the criticism and then provide a rebuttal to it.

For the past four years, there has been a thick "us or them" stigma around anything related to the policies of this administration. I'd like to remind everyone that the working class of this country is made up of both liberals and conservatives, and that they all contribute to the well-being of our economy and culture. To say that a person's opinion is unimportant because they happen to be a Democrat is foul play in a dignified discussion.

If somebody says something you disagree with, tell them that you disagree, but also tell them why. If you really believe in your own viewpoint and believe that it is just, then you should be itching to get into a conversation where you have the chance to tell people your opinion, explain it and then hear theirs in return.

This liberal-conservative schizm has got to go. We're all adults here, and should act like adults. There's still time to stop it.