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Scott Adams's Political Survey of Economists
Buffaloaf writes "Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, wanted to have unbiased information about which presidential candidate would be better for the economy, so he financed his own survey of 500 economists. He gives a bit more detail about the results in a CNN editorial, along with disclosure of his own biases and guesses as to the biases of the economists who responded."
its actually surprising how forthcoming he was about his own biases too. A nice change from the majority of statistics that show up on the internets.
That's like saying you should ask burger flippers at McDonalds what the long-term growth strategy for the company should be.
Economics is fundamentally different from accounting, they are barely even related fields.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
How about this (according to Michael Kinsley, Larry Bartels, etc.): Democratic presidents have consistently higher economic growth and consistently lower unemployment than Republican presidents. If you add in a time lag, you get the same result. If you eliminate the best and worst presidents, you get the same result. If you take a look at other economic indicators, you get the same result. There's just no way around it: Democratic administrations are better for the economy than Republican administrations.
Unless you are already independently wealthy, you will do better under a Democratic administration than a Republican one. Plain and simple. And if you are independently wealthy, well then you probably don't really care about a GDP percentage here or there. Bottom line, if you are voting "with your feet" on the economy, a Democratic vote is the clear choice, according to historic performance.
It's a racist epithet referring to black people.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
All universities teach Keynesian economics because it was a leading theory of economics at one time. But monetary policy and supply-side economics are taught as well. That doesn't nearly explain why most economists are Democrats. Since the 1950s, Keynesian economics has fallen out of favor as Monetary Policy under Friedman took a more prominent role. In the 1980s the rage was supply-side (Reaganomics) which most critics dismiss as woefully incomplete. Previous Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has followed a more monetarist view in his tenure as Chairman.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Wow, the economists have joined the parties that they think are best for the economy. Shocking.
Not even this is surprising:
In January 2009, the total national debt will be the same, regardless of whoever is going to become president. This is a massive drag on the economy.
Furthermore, this is just a president, not a central committee chairman. The president obviously has some power, but he's definitely in second place. The part of government that has the most influence over the economy (congress), isn't getting nearly as much media coverage for their elections, as the president is. The next truly economy-related election is in two years, not in two months.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Maybe, long-term, Democrats have been better for the economy
There's certainly evidence for that.
To summarize:
Since 1933, Republican administrations have averaged 1.25% annual job growth, while Democrat administrations have averaged 3.25%. Even after removing FDR's terms the Democrats still average 2.9% annual growth.
Since 1978, Republican administrations have increased government spending by an average of 3% annually, while Democrat administrations have averaged 2.5%.
Since 1978, Republican administrations have increased the national debt by an average of 9.1% annually, while Democrat administrations have averaged 1%.
Since 1978, Republican administrations have increased the GDP by an average of 2.7% annually, while Democrat administrations have averaged 3.1%.
It's quite a testament to the GOP's marketing skill that the average American associates them with smaller government, stronger economic growth, and more jobs.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
A "fucking cartoonist"?
How many books have you written? Have you started your own food company yet?
Wealthy people don't get that way by being lazy, son.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Not the way we do it. In the Keynesian model a country is supposed to only run a deficit during times of recession while during periods of economic prosperity a country is supposed to pay off any debt they have accrued and maybe save a little money for the next bust period. Our model goes more along the lines of running a deficit all the time.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
I'm gonna call bullshit...
...should make one *highly* skeptical about the assertion that congress twisted lender's arms...
The Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005 (H.R. 1461/S. 190). Google is your friend. Use your friend. This gave the power to HUD to include "fair affirmative action", HUD then ordered Fannie Mae to increase it's percentage of high-risk mortgages. The Globe and Mail
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not just any lender. They are government backed "corporations" that operate under restrictions passed by law. They are holding The People's money, taken by force at the end of a gun barrel (see definition of taxation.) As such, they must be much more risk averse than a private mortgage firm with investors who willingly take risks. The change to the law opened the floodgates for making bad loans on a "corporation" that just got investigated for making years of bad decisions and poor financial choices. Which brings us to...
The connection of Fannie Mae to Walter Mondale's campaign manager...
James Johnson was Walter Mondale's campaign manager. He is also Barack Obama's Campaign Advisor. Relevance is up to you...
That "last week" has got to be pre-2004, then...
Wow, if only I'd set off that part as being a quote from a news article, perhaps by putting it all in italics. Shame on me. Maybe this style will help.
ARTICLE QUOTATION FOLLOWS
Fanie's lobbying efforts paid off as liberal politicians such as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.T.) and Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.) worked to kill any real reform of Freddie and Fannie. The Washington Post reports: "In an internal memo in 2004, Fannie Mae executive Daniel H. Mudd affirmed what the company's critics had long contended: In the political arena, 'we always won' and 'we took no prisoners.'"
END OF ARTICLE QUOTATION
Oh, and Daniel Mudd was just the (is currently the transitional) CEO of Fannie Mae for the last six months. He'll be receiving a $5.64 million "retirement package" thanks to his friends in Washington. And Daniel Mudd has admitted that after 2005, they "stopped internally scrutinizing" their purchases of Alt-A loans and packages. That's a heck of an admission for a CEO of a "corporation" that's supposed to be about scrutinizing and packaging mortgage loans.
Raines also made no mention of...
Again, I must apologize for not setting off the article in italics or something. That was the reporter's comment. Please note that I just might have included this as a means of demonstrating the racial component of the push at Fannie Mae towards high risk loans. Raines being a major player in the Democratic party top brass might have had something to do with it as well. You might even want to use Google or another search engine to actually research the issue as I urged you to do in my initial message. Everything you complained about fell under the "if you're too lazy" block, which says more about you than about me.
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
This is a joke, right?
The only presidents since 1963 to have ever submitted balanced budgets to Congress are Johnson and Clinton. At no time since 1945 when Republicans have been in charge of both Congress and the White House have they ever reduced spending.
The vast majority of the national debt to date was accrued during the Presidencies of three men: Reagan, Bush I and Bush II, all Republicans. In Reagan's case, he was working with a Republican Senate for his first 6 years in office, and Bush had Republicans controlling both houses for 6 years as well.
The Bush II years have seen tax cut after tax cut that were, in theory, supposed to result in increased growth and therefore reduced deficit. Instead, he has posted record deficits year after year. And still, the fiction that large tax cuts will somehow reduce the deficit persists.
The idea that Democrats are the big spending party and Republicans are fiscally responsible is pure fiction, and it boggles the mind why people continue to believe it despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Even the "big spending" LBJ was more fiscally responsible than the Republicans of the past 28 years.
If people would treat politics less like religion maybe they would make decisions based on actual historical data rather than what their party keeps telling them is the truth.
The 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001 budgets had total spending for the year lower than total income for the year, not based on any sort of future payoff. Those were the first surplus budgets since 1969's small surplus. The deficit returned as soon as Clinton left office, as all of Bush's budgets have been in deficit.
See the CBO data, the past 15 years of which Wikipedia nicely graphs.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The President or Executive Branch is responsible for creating the budget. The house and senate do add their own amendments and appropriations to the budget, and also approve the budget. But, ultimately the President sets the style and tone of the budget, and ultimately has the power to approve or veto it.
New! Device Legs: These legs will help your poor OEM installed product escape any hamfistedness it may encounter. Ava
Clinton never had a surplus. My numbers indicate that he wasn't even close. Despite that, the numbers are extremely favourable for democrats.
Since the end of WWII, Democrats have been in office for 26 years, Republicans 36.
Since the end of WWII, Democrats have increased the debt by 2407 inflation adjusted million dollars, Republicans 7994.
Since the end of WWII, Democrats have increased the size of the budget by 687 inflation adjusted million dollars, Republicans 1450.
Thus, adjusted for inflation, every year the Democrats were in office, they increased the budget by 26 million inflation adjusted dollars, and the debt by 92 million inflation adjusted dollars, every year they were in power.
The Republicans have increased the budget by 40 million inflation adjusted dollars, and the debt by 222 million inflation adjusted dollars, every year they were in power. My numbers are charitable in that they don't take the wars in Iraq and Afganistan into account.
Here are the calculations, done with data available commonly off the Internet.
It's incredible to realise that the Republicans are incredibly fiscally irresponsible. They NEVER cut spending. They HATE cutting spending. They ALSO hate taxes. Basically, you're looking Republicans creating MORE government than Democrats, then NOT PAYING FOR IT.
It's been a long time.
Life is abundant near oil rigs, in fact, much more so than in open locations. The food chain begins with the platform's legs and goes all the way up to the top rung of predator fish. They are protected from over fishing because the trawlers can't get near, and sport fishing doesn't take enough to harm the population. Diving is usually pretty good, too, with lots of visibility. Some studies indicate that less oil seepage comes from off shore platforms than from natural leakage (Santa Barbara is a case in point).
Impetuous! Homeric!
The thing that tips economists is, I suspect, the same thing that tips most other analytical minds: the Republican party has been steadily tightening ties to the religious right. While religion is not uncommon among thinkers, secularism is more common, and evangelicalism is generally distrusted as too prescriptive and intolerant
nope, as a degreed economist, the thing which tips competent economists is the republican attachment to reaganomics.
reaganomics attacks the consumption side of the GDP equation, which also happens to be the largest portion.
It places implicit trust in agents who have no real liability, and are subject to moral hazard which republican economic policy-makers ignore.
It ignores the long-term consequences of allowing producers to put the squeeze on their labor (hint: you become unable to sell what you make, and... and this is a very relevant one today... people are financially unable to support a home purchase)
There are numerous other aspects of economic policy which incompetent politicians on both sides ignore: such as the fact that offshoring as a multiple-round game results in destruction of the middle class, but that's a discussion for another time.
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