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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."
Now we actually turn to Scott Adams for actual unbiased information about economics? Or, at least an attempt to explain the biases up-front? That just hurts my head!! :-P
Where's the punch line?
But, seriously, good on Scott Adams for actually doing this on his own. I think had anyone else tried to do this, we'd all be screaming loudly that they were inherently biased and had an agenda.
No matter how it goes, Adams will get more material for the strips. ;-)
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Funny, I had Keynesian Economics taught, and always saw it aligning with Conservatism and Libertarianism more than Liberalism.
antipaucity
The plain fact is that the economists surveyed think Obama would be better for the economy, by almost two-to-one. It's kind of sad how Adams had to dress the fact up by noting how many were Democrats vs. Republicans, essentially declaring it a tie:
Despite his own strong evidence that the economists were being objective -- their own income levels did not correlate to whether they thought the rich should be taxed -- he doesn't even tell us the plain fact until after he dresses it up.
His CNN writeup was an excuse to repeat three times that he would have his taxes raised by Obama. Well yeah, he makes zillions of dollars. No mention of Obama's plan to cut taxes, for almost everyone, by more than McCain's plan.
I look forward to his next survey of economists, in which he asks which is better economically, capitalism or communism, and then weights the results before revealing them. ("Not surprisingly, 88% of market-favoring economists think capitalism would be best, while 80% of socialist economists pick communism. Our economists favor capitalism on 11 of the top 13 issues, but keep in mind that" etc.)
From the CNN article:
Moneywise, I can't support a candidate who promises to tax the bejeezus out of my bracket, ...
Then maybe you are in the wrong tax bracket. Try being in mine for a while. I think most people would prefer to be in a tax bracket that gets taxed like that and keep the rest, rather than where they are now.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Add to that, researching the 2005 bill that forced FM/FM to give out loans based on racial profiles instead of financial stability, and you'll have a good idea who to blame.
I'm gonna call bullshit unless you can back this up with a link or two including one pointing to the actual legislation.
Loans favoring people of a certain income class and demographic with interest rates that might not otherwise be available to them under conventional market proceedures, aren't particularly controversial, but *requiring* them to loan to a candidate who wouldn't qualify under normal market conditions would be.
However, anyone familiar knows that "normal market conditions" in 2005 included No Income, No Job, No Asset loans, which should make one *highly* skeptical about the assertion that congress twisted lender's arms.
Who was in charge of Fannie Mae when they "misreported" $10.8 billion in 2006?
The connection of Fannie Mae to Walter Mondale's campaign manager is supposed to be evidence of Democratic malfeasance here? It's been 20 years since Mondale ran. Focusing on Enron and its spectacular collapse that took down a colluding Big 5 accounting firm instead of FM's *understating* their earnings? I guess that's evidence of a massive media conspiracy... especially since the media DID report on problems with FM.
For those too lazy to find out, consider that Obama, despite being in the Senate for only 2 years is the #1 recipient of donations from FM/FM at $112,000.
A bit of further research reveals that this is out a total of a recent $390 million in lobbying dollars. So, Obama's the largest recipient... at .02% of FM donation dollars. I guess that means he's tight with FM, although he's also raised more money than anybody else from just about everybody.
"Fannie Mae Chairman Franklin Raines last week
That "last week" has got to be pre-2004, then, since that's when he was pushed out over the accounting issues.
called for continued efforts by Fannie Mae and mortgage lenders to reach out to those 'at the margins' of home ownership. Blacks, Hispanics and immigrants trying to buy homes would be a major focus of outreach, Raines said." Raines made no mention of assistance for the millions of white families who have difficulty purchasing home
Raines also made no mention of his support for the troops, ending Islamic Terrorism, and the state of Israel, which means he is against these things.
And yet
Tweet, tweet.
Where are you getting your unemployment numbers from? Clinton started with high unemployment and ended with the lowest unemployment. Growth was consistent. Compare that with Bush where there was a clear increase in unemployment when he took office and even now hasn't recovered.
I won't make you take my word for it though. Link here
All of this also coincides with salary decreases which are only now starting to recover although when adjusted for the fact that the dollar is worth 30% less now than it was four years ago and reality doesn't seem to reflect your statements. Can you please support it in some way? Carter and Reagan years were definitely not the era of responsible spending but Clinton left office with a balanced budget with a projected surplus so it is hard for anyone to take your argument seriously off hand.
Please enlighten me as I'm clearly missing some key information.