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

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.

[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)

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?

[moof1138]

So I guess you'd agree that Nixon's horrible econoic policies were what we were seeing under Carter, and Carter's thoughtful economic policies were what caused the growth in the Reagan Administration, while Reagan's disastrous policies brought us the awful Bush I economy.

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.

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.

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:Bias?

[demachina]

"I suspect you may be a Kerry supporter... ;-p"

Well you guessed wrong. Gotta love America, you are either Repubulican or Democrat and there is no third option. The only thing I'll say in Kerry's favor is he is the lesser of two evils compared to the crony capitalists and liars currently occupying the White House, though just barely. Kerry is a prep school elitist, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Yale Grad, Skull and Bones exactly like little George, sure to serve the elite first and the people second if at all. There isn't really a dimes worth of difference between them deep down. The American people were denied much choice in this election when Kerry locked up the nomination.

All I can say about the rest of your post is its straight out of the Bush propaganda book, which is little more than trying to explain away why invading Iraq wasn't a war based on lies when it clearly was. "Oh sure we lied about all the original reasons for it but we are bringing "Freedom and Democracy" to the world, and thats what God put me on Earth to do, he told me himself, so its OK, trust me, lock and load".

If you were to really apply this strategy here is what you need to do. You need to take out the governments of:

- Saudi Arabia
- Pakistan
- Egypt
- United States

The first two, in particular, have for years worked with, funded and harbored muslim extremists. When the Taliban fell the U.S. had to let Pakistan evacuate hundreds of its secret service and military people from Afghanistan that were working with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The tribal area of Pakistan is still Al Qaeda's home base and they are largely unhindered by the Pakistan government there. Pakistan's military seldom goes in there except to put on a show to keep the American's happy. Pakistan is harboring Al Qaeda far more than Saddam ever did.

The first three on my list are dictatorships, and the forth is heading that way. Why don't we take them down because, I'll tell you because those dictators are our friends, and the Saudi's own a big piece of the American economy. While your at it our biggest trading partner China is a dictatorship and Russia is pretty much back to one. Why don't we take them out if "Freedom and Democracy", at the point of a gun, is the solution to the worlds problems.

Pakistan has the single biggest proliferater of nuclear weapons on the planet. It appears they single handedly jump started the nuclear weapons programs in North Korea and Iran. The Bush administration likes to brag about the great work they did busting up the A.Q. Khan. They forget to mention the let the ring run for years, Pakistan's current government was thouroughly aware of it too, and its done grievous damage on the nuclear proliferation front. The forget to mention A. Q. Khan received a full pardon in Pakistan, is free as a bird, wealthy, and a revered hero in the Muslim world for giving the Muslim world the bomb. By contrast we leveled Iraq and jailed Saddam over a vague supsicion of nuclear proliferation, though Iraq didn't have any nuclear program, let alone actually proliferate nuclear technology to rogue states or terrorists.

Saddam was a secular dictator, Iraq was unique in the Arab world in that its men didn't have beards. Why, because Saddam outlawed them as a way to obstruct fundementalist Islam. He in fact aggressively suppressed fundementalist Islam, he gave women more equality than they got in the rest of the Arab world, and their rights are rapidly eroding in the new Iraq which is rushing towards an Islamic government. It defies logic for Al Qaeda and Saddam to have worked together, Saddam was an infidel in the eyes of Al Qaeda, and Saddam hated fundamentalists.

Despite all of your rambling about "Freedom and Democracy" its going to take a miracle for Iraq to not end up with:

- An islamic government, potentially a harsh one modelled after Iran
- A puppet government like Allawi's installed by the U.S. through rigged elections. You wer

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

[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.

Re:Veto.

[foniksonik]

It has been stated that Pres. Bush has specifically requested that the republican controlled Senate and House should not send him legislation regarding spending that he will need to veto. Because both houses are republican controlled they have been able to withhold bills of spending until they were at the point where no veto would be needed.

If you are a coder you might understand this analogy...

Imagine coding a application with no bugs in it.

Then imagine being judged, performance reviewed based on the number of bugs that you fixed.

Do you see my point?

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.

Re:spin elsewhere, bush apologist!

[DesScorp]

I hate to ape O'Reilly, but sorry, no spin here. Look up any survey of academics in this country. See where they overwhelmingly vote.

As for Bush going down, care to make a friendly wager on that? I say he wins the popular vote 51-47 percent, more for the electoral college vote.

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").

go read this.

[maxume]

http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/004940.htm l

clicky link

200 economists ain't barely nobody...

Re:spin elsewhere, bush apologist!

[DesScorp]

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

Here?? At Slashdot???

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

This is one of the most Bush-hating sites on the Internet. Please. The only reason you have to fear voicing support for Kerry here is criminally insane Nader supporters. If it wasn't for Pudge, the Politics section icon would be circle-slash over the letter W.

Is gi-normous similar in meaning to huge-gantic?

[Futurepower(R)]

"Correct. However, having a gi-normous, constantly-growing deficit is not." (I agree with that.)

Is that word gi-normous similar in meaning to huge-gantic?

U.S. Government: Borrowing money to kill Iraqis. 140 billion borrowed. With interest, you pay 200 billion.

Maybe I've been wrong about Bush

[DaoudaW]

Maybe Bush is cut out to be president after all.

He ran an oil business and he spent more money than he took in and, well, he's not running an oil business anymore.
He bought a baseball team and he spent more money than he took in and, well, he's no longer running a baseball team.
He got elected president and he spent more money than he took in and, well, he may get elected president again.

Maybe he has finally found his calling...

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:Those that can, do...

[Temporal]

And win Nobel prizes, apparently.

Re:Whooaaaaa there, horsey...

[Planesdragon]

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

"Wisdom" would be seperating the political label from the ethic. The evils of the USSR were many--intolerant atheism, tyranny, despotism, facism, war-mongering, etc., etc.--but "communism" was by far the least of them.

Remember: the USSR beat the snot out of the Germans in the latter part of WWII, and then went boondoggle for boondoggle with the USA for close to fifty years. There has to be SOMETHING to their economic policy.

Some of our brightest minds may have betrayed us during the Cold War, but many of our leaders betrayed us by turning what should have been a right-angle dispute into a head-on staring contest.

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...)