The Roundup: Failed Criticisms of Obama Edition

A Full Fact-Check of Niall Ferguson's Very Bad Argument Against Obama
A MUST READ:
Matthew O'Brien's EPIC takedown on Niall Ferguson's fact-challenged criticisms of Obama, as well as Fergusen's doubling down of those same fact-challenged criticisms.

"In the world as Ferguson describes it, Obama is a big-spending, weak-kneed liberal who can't get the economy turned around. Think Jimmy Carter on steroids. But the world is not as Ferguson describes it. A fact-checked version of the world Ferguson describes reveals a completely different narrative -- a muddy picture of the past four years, where Obama has sometimes cast himself as a stimulator, a deficit hawk, a health care liberal and conservative reformer all at once. And it's a world where the economy is getting better, albeit slowly.

It would have been worthwhile for Ferguson to explain why Obama doesn't deserve re-election in this real world we actually live in. Instead, we got an exercise in Ferguson's specialty -- counterfactual history."

More on this article here, here, here, and here.

Paul Krugman: Kinds Of Wrong
Within this analysis lies an important point about different types of wrongness in terms of discourse. The diagnosis may be related to subjective claims. It may be related to objective claims too far above the head of the average person. Finally, it could be the kind of easily verifiable wrongness common in Niall Ferguson's column. It is this last one that is the most troubling. It is also where Paul Krugman directs his attention in this post.

Ezra Klein: The worst case against the Obama administration
A MUST READ on the failure of predictions made by Ferguson/WSJ/Ryan:

"Whatever you believe about Obama’s policies, the Ferguson/WSJ/Ryan theory has clearly failed in its main predictions, and it’s worrying to see that this hasn’t led to a more serious effort to rethink its premises. After all, Romney and Ryan might well win this election, and it would be nice if the people they were listening to were pushing them to fix what’s actually gone wrong rather than what they wish had gone wrong." (emphasis mine)

Debates don’t lead to deals
The sad truth about this election is that this big "debate" is trivial. This election will come down to a small number of minimally informed swing voters in a few battleground states. If Obama wins, we will look forward to two years of nothing happening since congress will be GOP controlled. If Romney wins, we may face disaster as the GOP pushes its ideology through and makes many of this country's worst problems even worse. An Obama win is about avoiding that kind of catastrophe and avoiding a dangerous change to the supreme court.

Paul Krugman: Saving Serious Ryan

"So Ryan gamed the system: he got CBO to produce a report which looks to those who don’t actually read it like a validation of his numbers, when in fact he prevented any actual scoring of his proposals. If you think otherwise, you’ve been snookered."

What Would Romney-Ryan Mean for FEMA?

"Just as Ryan's proposed Medicare expenditure would fail to keep up with rising medical costs, the GOP ticket's likely cuts to disaster management and weather forecasting budgets would come at a time in which, fueled by climate change, natu ral disasters are becoming increasingly more potent and expensive. There were 14 billion-dollar disasters in the United States in 2011—the most on record. For the GOP in Tampa, Hurricane Isaac isn't just a nuisance; it's the elephant in the room."

Update 8/27/12:

The Age of Niallism: Ferguson and the Post-Fact World
Nial Ferguson continues to defend his reality-free article criticizing Obama:

"Let's try a counterfactual. Say Ferguson hadn't made his big errors about Obamacare. Then his smaller errors of omission would not seem quite so serious -- or deliberate. But Ferguson did make his big errors. And he defends these omissions with more elisions. It makes it impossible not to read his entire piece as an effort to deceive. Ferguson should consider what kind of grade he would give an undergraduate who turned in a paper that treated facts and counter-arguments so cavalierly." (emphasis mine)

The Roundup: Taxes And Budget Debate Edition

Private equity firms: Job creators or job destroyers? 
The jury is still out. Why? Maybe because these firms aren't interested in creating American jobs. So are they afraid of the results?

Would an income tax hike hurt hiring? 
One thing not mentioned: A lot of these tax increases only happen on the portion of their income above $250,000. For a business making $250,001, only $1 would be affected the the rate increase. So I'm curious where the concentration of those businesses lie, close to the $250,000 mark or high enough for the tax increases to be significant.

David Frum: The Deficit Won't Go Down Till The Private Sector Goes Up 
Many economists have been saying large government deficits have come about as a result of the recession, NOT runaway government growth. The evidence to back this up is quite strong. Deficits for 2009 were originally projected to be ~$200 bi llion... until the recesion hit and deficits were then projeted to be ~$1.2 trillion. The Obama administration raised that to ~$1.4 trillion. This also further undermines the popular conservative belief that we need to jump into immediate austerity to fix out budget problem.

Bruce Bartlett: Will Defense Cuts Kill the Anti-Tax Pledge?

"Republicans are between the rock of defense cuts that they view as unpalatable and the tax pledge hard place. There is no doubt that Democrats would agree to a tax increase to offset the defense sequester, but would oppose any other altern ative except, perhaps, putting off the entire sequester, including domestic spending cuts, for a year. It’s doubtful that the GOP’s Tea Party wing would support that."

The Republican Plan to Tax the Poor

"According to CTJ, virtually all of these tax increases would apply to families making less than $50,000—people for whom a few hundred dollars can make a huge difference. Unfortunately for them, the media is focused instead on how Obama's tax increases on incomes above $250,000 will make life intolerable for rich people."

Paul Krugman: The Hobbled Recovery

"Business investment has actually gone up a lot; maybe you think it should have gone up even more, but it’s not the heart of the problem. On the other hand, we’ve had a lot of cutbacks in government — mainly at the state and local level, but federal aid could have avoided that. (emphasis mine)

This isn’t a picture of an economy hobbled by Big Government; it’s a picture of an economy hobbled by premature austerity."

Brad DeLong: Hopeless Unemployment

"The current balance of probabilities is that two years from now, the North Atlantic’s principal labor-market failures will not be demand-side market failures that could be easily remedied by more aggressive policies to boost economic activity and employment. Rather, they will be structural market failures of participation that are not amenable to any straightforward and easily implemented cure."

Paul Krugman: The Secret of Our Un-success

"The Wall Street Journal — yes, the WSJ — explains: Government Cutbacks Separate This Expansion From Others. Over at Angry Bear, Spencer shows that private GDP — GDP not including government spending — has risen almost exactly as fast under Obama as during the “Bush Boom”; of course, if government spending hadn’t been falling despite a weak economy, there would have been more jobs, and private spending would have risen faster." (emphasis mine)

Paul Krugman: Poles Apart

"So actually Poland’s success suggests that (a) big government isn’t so bad (b) sometimes its good to debase your currency. Doesn’t anyone tell Romney to do his homework?"

Paul Krugman: Dooh Nibor

"The question one might ask is, did TPC – which is actually painstakingly and painfully nonpartisan – make questionable assumptions to get its results, so that some other set of assumptions might portray Romneynomics in a more favorable lig ht? And the answer is no: TPC actually bent over backwards to literally give Romney every possible benefit of the doubt.

...

So they’re actually giving Romney every possible benefit of the doubt – and still his plan is a redistribution from the middle class to the rich. In practice it would surely be much worse." (emphasis mine)

WP Fact Checker: Obama’s new campaign ad on dueling budget plans

"Romney’s continued failure to provide enough specifics about his plans certainly lets the Obama campaign openly speculate about the impact. The president, by contrast, is required to present a real budget with actual figures — but as we ha ve shown, he can still play budget tricks to make the numbers add up. So even more detail from Romney might not make the budget dispute any clearer."

Why Washington Accepts Mass Unemployment 
A MUST-READ ON THE POPULAR VIEW OF THE RECESSION AMONG THE WASHINGTON ELITE!

"There are signs we’ve hit bottom. Nothing to worry about here. Why risk the possibility of a small outlay merely to provide relief to hundreds of thousands of des perate people? This is such a perfect statement of the way the American elite has approached the economic crisis. They concede that it is a problem. But there are other problems, you know."

FactCheck: Does Romney Pay a Lower Rate in Taxes Than You?

"“Bottom line,” said Eric Toder co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, “if you look at income taxes only, Obama’s statement is not true for most Americans. If you add in payroll taxes, however, it is probably true for lots of people.” (emphasis mine)

No matter how you slice it, Toder said, Romney’s tax rate is very low for someone with his level of income. The average income tax rate for the top 0.1 percent (which is where Romney falls) is 23.6 percent."

Nine takeaways on Romney’s tax plan 
Romney's tax plan will hopefully become his biggest handicap in this election. This is the bottom line. Surveys show the American population generally thinks Romney is more able to handle the debt and deficit than Obama. Understanding the f laws with Romney's plans for growth and fiscal reforms should help Americans doubt Romney's competency on these core issues. It will help ensure Romney either fixes the problems with his plan (doubtful, since the problems are fundamental), or loses this election for the right reasons.

AEI Economics: Better Late Than Never 
AEI is a bit late to the game, but they are early compared to many Republicans:

"In his podcast Pethokoukis asks the most important question conservatives will have when they hear about this policy for the fist time: Isn't this just promoti ng inflation? In response, Sumner clearly explains why short term inflation is not the same as the Carter-era inflation that many conservatives fear might repeat itself." (emphasis mine)

FACT CHECK: Social Security adds to budget deficit
a MUST READ Fact Check on the question of whether social security is adding to the national debt. It is more complex than most people realize.

Note: Most of our debt does not come from china. Former Sen Judd Gregg has presented a false dichotomy.

Both parties unfazed as ads fail fact-check
The Obama campaign is finally calling out the Romney campaign for its hypocrisy in their insults to Obama's political ads:

""Mitt Romney won the Republican primary only by tearing down each of his opponents with ruthlessly negative campaig ning," said campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith. "His campaign has questioned whether the president understands what it is to be American, attacked his patriotism, and is currently running an ad that a former president [Clinton] and authors of the welfare-to-work legislation have called a flat-out lie. When the Romney campaign finally reaches the high ground, we look forward to greeting them there."" (emphasis mine)

One interesting thing here is that these negative ads seem to be benefiting Obama much more than Romney:

"Political scientist John Geer of Vanderbilt University, who has been testing voter reaction to ads, has found that some of Obama's ads attacking Romney have moved voters. But Romney's attacks, so far, have not.

"People know what they think of Obama. Their judgments can't easily be moved," he said." (emphasis mine)

In addition, some of these political ads may be relying on fact checker debunkings:

"Indeed, with the ad about the cancer death, the Democratic super PAC, Priorities USA Action, appeared to have gone the fact-checkers one better — exploiting attention to the ad's veracity to get free air time for a spot that has not appeared anywhere as a paid commercial. The ad has been replayed extensively on television news segments that have debated it and has been viewed more than half a million times on YouTube. The largest number of views have come from five states — California and four election battlegrounds, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, according to Priorities.

The Democratic super PAC has raised considerably less money than its Republican counterpart, making the free publicity particularly valuable.

Asked whether the prospect of controversy leading to free publicity was part of the calculation, Paul Begala, senior advisor to Priorities, did not hesitate.

"Absolutely," he said. "We're provocateurs."" (emphasis mine)

 The Case of the $100 Billion Error¹

"Multiple members of Congress have warned that slashing defense spending by $600 billion would devastate the military, with Sen. Lindsey Graham this month predicting the cuts would deal "a death blow to our ability to defend ourselves."

There's just one problem: The number they cite is wrong.

The law triggering the cuts does not slash the military budget by $600 billion. That figure — which has also been widely cited in the media — overstates the amount of military cuts by more than $100 billion." (emphasis mine)

Paul Ryan’s imaginary expertise¹
Professor Mark Thoma of the University of Oregon explains how Paul Ryan doesn't uderstand basic monetary or fiscal policy. His budget makes unre alistic assumptions which are backed by few details. Is this what we should expect from the "intellectual leader of the Republican Party."

 "Only about one-third of American families will surpass their parents in wealth and income and climb to a new rung on the economic ladder, a new study out today from The Pew Charitable Trusts concludes."

The NFIB is now only representing at most 2% of small businesses.
 
The Tax Foundation is dishonest about income inequality.

Economists who once supported austerity in the UK are changing their minds   

Paul Krugman makes the case that markets are allowing the US to borrow for free, meaning now is the time for short term stimulus and long term austerity.

Paul Krugman explains the euro crises: a central currency with no central government. He then presents potential solutions to the crisis. He Ends by suggesting the euro should be saved but probably won't.

Why does the middle class let politicians get away with unfavorable tax plans? They trust politicians just wouldn't do such a thing. 

Charts: America Has the World's Luckiest Billionaires

Arthur Laffer on income inequality, raising taxes

 Six Policies Economists Love (And Politicians Hate)<sup>1

1</sup>: Update 8/18/12

The Roundup: Economics Needs Reform Edition

Paul Krugman: Sticky Wages and the Macro Story

"So when I emphasize nominal wage rigidity, I am defending an analysis of how the economy works, which is not at all the same thing as saying that this rigidity is the problem. On the contrary, for the US (though not for countries like Spain), wage stickiness is if anything good for us right now, helping stave off destructive deflation."

The Problem with Microfoundations: Bad Micro 
This underlies one of the biggest problems I've noticed about rationalist economics (such as the austrian school). The microfoundations are completely devoid of insights from psychology, neurology, and other appropriate disciplines.

The claim that companies have growing worries about future inflation is demonstrably wrong.? 

Brad DeLong: Mark Thoma Worries at the Question: Why Didn't Economists Do a Better Job?

"The continued push from some economists for austerity, interest rate increases, and other policies that satisfy political and ideological goals but work against the recovery, and the failure of economists in charge of monetary policy to ad opt policies consistent with the Fed’s mandate undermine any attempt to fully defend the economics profession"

Paul Krugman: Making Ourselves Useless

Arthur Laffer, Anti-Enlightenment Economist
Art Laffer's EPIC FAIL in the WSJ. The numbers he uses are mysterious, and his conclusions are shaky at best (he is guilty of economics fally 101: post-hoc, ergo propter hoc)
another VERY IMPORTANT statement in this article that helps explain the massive deficits we have had since 2008

"Because almost all countries have some sort of social safety net, recessions automatically increase government spending through programs like unemployment insurance, food stamps, Medicaid and others that provide services and benefits to people who lose their jobs in recessions. The worse the recession, the greater the automatic increase in government spending. Thus, the negative correlation between government spending and economic growth that Laffer purports to uncover is easily explained by the existence of automatic stabilizers. The worse the recession, the greater the induced increase in government spending." (emphasis mine)

Brad DeLong shows that, for some reason, Laffer's column is devoid of even economics 101.

New Posts Coming This Summer

Well I am finally done with classes for a while so I think it is time to start posting again. My plan is to start posting on a weekly basis, although this is not written in stone. I have a few posts started I've been working on and hopefully I should have them out in the next few weeks. Among these are:

• David Frum suggests that working class individuals shouldn't be so quick to embrace Obama's new Immigration Policy. Does he have a point? 
• I am going to look at the healthcare systems of the top countries in the conservative Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom. How do they compare to ObamaCare? Is socialized medicine really a threat to individual freedom, as well as the free market in general?
• I am going to write a defense of what has been colorfully called "Slacktivism." Is it generally a good thing? Does it breed laziness? Or is criticism of slacktivism just pretentious?
• I am going to find out just how consistent Politifact.com is about using net job figures, verses other figures, when deciding ratings.
• I may also list some things to remember about fact checking sites (or media altogether) when trying to detect bias.

In addition to these posts, I will include a list of a few articles I think may be worth reading from the previous week. These will usually be unrelated to the post itself. It is mostly my attempt to resurrect a simplified version of my old "Weekly Roundup" articles.

Weekly Roundup
 

Politifact: Is the NRA right that Obama is 'coming for our guns'?

"Gun talk has been almost anathema at the White House. Obama signed a bill in 2009 that allows people to carry loaded guns into most national parks; in 2011, he largely avoided a discussion -- to the anger of many activists -- about strengthening gun laws following the shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Obama received a failing grade from the nation’s preeminent gun control group, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence."

So why again is the NRA campaigning so fiercely against Obama? It can't be because he is a liberal now could it...? 


FactCheck.org: Why the Truth Still Matters

"If unpleasant truths would get candidates elected, they would state them frankly. But they seldom do that, because so few of us in the public want to hear unpleasant truths. Stating such things is considered a gaffe.

Furthermore, humans naturally filter out evidence that weighs against what they want to believe. It’s called “confirmation bias,” and we all have it. So candidates tell us what we want to hear."

This is exactly why we need non-partisan fact checking operations.
Another thing I noticed that is worth pointing out:

"the federal government accounted for 43.6 percent of all U.S. health care spending in 2009, before the law [ObamaCare] was signed, and government actuaries predict that in 2015, when the law [ObamaCare] is fully effective, that will rise to 47.4 percent. What’s more, much or most of that 3.8 percentage point increase would have happened anyway as the postwar baby boom generation reaches age 65 and goes on Medicare. So the law is no “takeover.” Rather, it’s a modest, incremental change in the existing system."(emphasis mine)

Tom Smerling: Glimmer of hope? A conservative tackles climate change.

Conservative Professor Jonathan Adler makes the case for action to combat climate change in accordance with conservative principles. This is the kind of conversation we should be getting from the right.

“This is of particular concern because these effects will be most severe in those nations that are both least able to adapt and least responsible for contributing to the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. 

It is a well established principle in the Anglo-American legal tradition that one does not have the right to use one’s own property in a manner that causes harm to one’s neighbor. . . 

My argument is that the same general principles that lead libertarians and conservatives to call for greater protection of property rights should lead them to call for greater attention to the most likely effects of climate change.

I believe the United States should adopt a revenue-neutral carbon tax, much like that suggested by NASA’s James Hansen. . . [and] that is fully rebated to taxpayers on a per capita basis. This would, in effect, shift the incidence of federal taxes away from income and labor and onto energy consumption and offset some of the potential regressivity of a carbon tax. For conservatives who have long supported shifting from an income tax to a sales or consumption tax, and oppose increasing the federal tax burden, this should be a no brainer."

The carbon tax solution has actually been embraced by more conservatives than you may realize, including Romney adviser Gregory Mankiw.

Paul Krugman: Still A Phantom Menace"
 
Although this recession continues to surprise Economists of all stripes, none have been more off-target than Austrians.

David Frum: Why Americans Hate Politics

"The Democratic message is shaping up as: "The Republicans/the Fed/the Europeans wrecked the recovery, and we weren't smart enough or tough enough to stop them. Vote us."

The Republican message: "Obama could not fix the mess we made. Vote us.""

Paul Krugman: Reagan, Obama, Recovery

"So, more than four years ago I predicted a very slow recovery. Why? Because recessions like those of 1990-91, 2001, and 2007-2009 have very different origins from recessions like 1974-75 or the double-dip recession of 1979-82." (emphasis mine)

David Frum agrees:

"Yet in almost every way, today's economic problems are exactly the opposite of those of 30 years ago. Then we had inflation, today we are struggling against deflation. Then we had weak corporate profits, today corporations are more profitable than ever. Then we had slow productivity growth, today it is high. Then the to-individual income-tax rate was 70%. Today it is 36%. Then energy regulations produced energy shortages. Today the removal of banking regulations has produced an abundance of debt." (emphasis mine)

AP: Obama a socialist? Many scoff, but claim persists

"...to many historians and political scientists - and to actual socialists as well - the persistent claim that Obama is a socialist lacks credence."

And what has been the right's latest silver bullet?

"When President Barack Obama's re-election campaign unveiled its new slogan, some conservative critics were quick to pounce. "Forward," they asserted, is a word long associated with Europe's radical left."

So I'm assuming the same can be said of Republican Governor Scott Walker:

"Scott Walker: Moving Wisconsin Forward"

That crazy Bolshevik!

AP: FACT CHECK: Looming tax hike not the biggest ever

"...the tax increases would pale in comparison to those imposed to help finance World War II. Before the 1940s, the individual income tax applied to only a small percentage of the population. By the end of war, the income tax was levied on most working people, with a top tax rate of 94 percent on income above $200,000." (emphasis mine)

And my favorite part:

"House Republicans have passed a budget for next year - which Romney has embraced - that would raise just $7 billion less in taxes than Obama's budget in 2013. That's the equivalent of a rounding error, when you're talking about revenues of $2.7 trillion." (emphasis mine)

FactCheck.org: Romney’s Solar Flareout

An ad from the Romney campaign strains facts to make its point that federal grants and loans to green-energy companies were improperly steered to Obama’s political backers, and that federal money was wasted on failing companies that are now laying off employees.

• It claims the “inspector general said contracts were steered to ‘friends and family.’ ” But that’s not exactly what the inspector general said. And in the year since he said he was investigating such alleged “schemes,” no public charges have been made, at least not yet. 

• The ad highlights the struggles — company losses, nose-diving stock and layoffs — at several companies that received substantial Department of Energy loans and grants. The ad fails to note, however, that most of the layoffs at those companies were overseas, or that the projects backed by DOE are largely moving along as planned. An independent review of the DOE program says its failure rate has been better than anticipated. 

• The ad uses an inflated figure from a partisan source to quantify loans and grants that went to Obama donors. (emphasis mine)

Paul Krugman: We Don’t Need No Education

Conservatives love to pretend that there are vast armies of government bureaucrats doing who knows what; in reality, a majority of government workers are employed providing either education (teachers) or public protection (police officers and firefighters). (emphasis mine)

WP Fact Checker: A wrong-headed question on ‘Obamacare’

"...cutbacks in federal government spending — precisely what Republicans such as Romney have demanded — led to the closure of the Nemschoff facility in Iowa, not the health care law.

"As for that Chamber of Commerce survey, we suggest that Obama skip reading that. This is yet another one of those online surveys from which you can draw virtually no broader conclusions.

"As the American Association for Public Opinion Research warns: “Surveys based on self-selected volunteers do not have that sort of known relationship to the target population and are subject to unknown, non-measurable biases. Even if opt-in surveys are based on probability samples drawn from very large pools of volunteers, their results still suffer from unknown biases stemming from the fact that the pool has no knowable relationships with the full target population.”" (emphasis mine)

John Avlon: Jeb vs. Grover: Battle for GOP's soul

"In pursuit of a reality check, take a look at this quote: "We're going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that have allowed some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. In theory, some of those loopholes were understandable, but in practice they sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10% of his salary, and that's crazy. It's time we stopped it."

That might sound straight out of President Barack Obama "Buffett Tax" playbook -- which conservatives routinely attack as "class warfare" -- but in fact it is the sainted Reagan speaking in 1985."

Bruce Bartlett: Why Ronald Reagan Would Not Lead Today’s GOP

Gavin Baker: Obama Plans to Further Harness Technology for Government Transparency
 
Politifact.com: In Context: 'The private sector is doing fine'
 
Yahoo News: Top conservative says read my lips: Don’t sign ‘no new tax’ pledge
 
Michael Tomasky on Obama’s Gaffe and How His Campaign Lost Its Groove
 
Michael Stafford: Why I Gave Up On Being a Republican David Frum: The "Wealth Creators" Are Winning

Book Review: Krugman's Rallying Cry to Liberals

I just finished Paul Krugman's 2007 book, The Conscience of a Liberal. I actually liked this book much more than I initially expected. It is a very entertaining and mostly easy read (I actually listened to the audible audio book). Paul Krugman details America's transition from the "Long Gilded Age" (pre-New Deal) to the "Great Contraction" (post New Deal til 1980s) when America's income distribution became more egalitarian. He then details the switch back, starting in the late 1970s, when the top income earners saw large gains in real income while mid and lower income earners saw only modest gains, if any at all. This was due primarily to the growth of "Movement Conservatism." He then makes the case that it is now (back in 2007) possible to once again to work towards closing the income gap.

There are a few noteworthy points to make about this book:

1. This book was written back in 2007, before the election of Barrack Obama. It is interesting to see that many of the proposals given by Krugman have been played out these last 4 years, most notably health care reform. However, It is also interesting to note that his most important recommendation for Liberals was largely ignored: At the end of his book, he made the case that partisanship was necessary at the moment. Movement Conservatives will reject Liberal proposals no matter how far to the right Liberals have made them. This turned out to be largely true, as seen with the strong conservative objections to the mostly conservative plan known as "Obamacare." One of the biggest threat to Krugman's vision was the election of Barrack Obama who, despite being personally far to the left, has governed almost center-right. This helps explain why Krugman is currently a major critic of Obama's policies. To a certain degree, Barrack Obama ruined Krugman's plan.
2. This book gives a great sense of the difference between being a Liberal and being a Socialist (in the egalitarian sense). At one point, Krugman shares a statistic that makes this point quite well. He complains that average CEO pay, while once 40 times what the average worker made (during the Great Contraction), is (at the time of writing) over 300 times what the average worker makes. Just how accurate this statistic may be is irrelevant. Krugman has essentially stated that he is fine if CEOs make 40 times what the average worker makes. Given today's numbers Krugman is fine is CEOs make, on average, $1.6 Million a year! Krugman, as a liberal, has no problem with CEOs being millionaires. This is likely not what most people think of as a Socialist opinion.
3. This book contains very little political philosophy or real arguments for Liberalism itself. As a result, it will not persuade any hard core conservatives to move leftward. However, I do not get the impression this book was ever even intended to do that. It was meant more as a rallying cry for Liberals, similar to Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative, which helped rally Movement Conservatives to a generation of prosperity. However, this book may convince a few people out there that they ARE actually themselves Liberal. Based on a few of the polls cited in his book, Krugman thinks this includes a substantial amount of the population.

As always, whenever reading a political book such as this, don't ever take the statistics for granted. For example, Krugman cited a questionable study from the World Health Organization about the quality of health care in the US. Make sure to have your skeptical hat on when reading this book, as well as any other "work of non-fiction."

Overall, I would recommend this book to most Liberals and Progressives, as well as any person who generally thinks income inequality in this country is not optimal. I would also recommend this book to Conservatives who want to understand a bit more about Liberalism.

.

Weely Roundup - Fact Checks, Rational Conservatism, Perry's Blunders, End of CSA, Minecraft (8/21/11-8/27/11)

I have decided to attempt a weekly roundup of some of my favorite Facebook posts for the last week. I understand I do post a lot of things Facebook and, for anyone who is interested but doesn't have the time to read them all, this will give them a chance to see the most important. I will also get a chance to elaborate a bit more on certain posts. I will try to do this on a weekly basis but we will see if it works out. I am busy with school so I may not get a chance to do this every week. At the very least, most of them won't be as long as this first one. In the future I am thinking of keeping these down to 10 (minus support links).
Note: Some of these articles/posts may be more than a week old. I'm including them here because I linked to them on Facebook this week.


Rick Perry is becoming the new Bachmann:
Texas Gvoernor Rick Perry, who officially entered the 2012 Presidential Race recently (Despite the fact that he said he would definitely not run for president in 2012), has been trash talking Obama, the Fed, and Liberalism quite a bit lately. However, he often does not get his facts straight. Michelle Bachmann has been criticized for playing fast and loose with the facts. Now it seems as though Perry wants to take her place as the Candidate divorced from reality:

Fact Checker: "Fact checking Rick Perry’s announcement speech":
Once again, more examples of Rick Perry playing fast and loose with the facts, although not quite as patently false as other times.

"On a blended basis, we would rate this as a Two Pinocchio speech, similar to many of the other announcement speeches — a mishmash of high-flying rhetoric and facts sometimes tethered uncertainly to the truth."

Fact Checker: "Rick Perry’s claim that Obama has ‘killed more jobs’ than any other president":
"We gave Romney one Pinocchio because his statement lacked context even though it was technically accurate. Judging from Perry’s statements in his first week as a candidate, he doesn’t seem to care all that much about even technical accuracy; he just shoots from the hip."
As a caveat to this, the Fact Checker was corrected for a mistake he made on a similar post regarding his definition of job creation:
"The Post Fact Checker Gless Kessler writes yesterday: “By the standard definition of job creation during a presidency, [Obama] is on track to be the first president to have negative job growth in the modern era.”
This is all arbitrary and stupid, since boom/bust periods and presidential administrations don’t magically align their cycles like Smith College roommates....

The “standard definition” cited by Kessler is a link to this WSJ 2009 analysis, showing that job creation under George W. Bush was the worst under any president since WWII.... there is so rarely any very significant change in employment from month to month, and never has there been a very large change in the month a new president was inaugurated.
Until, of course, January 2009.
In the four transitions before 2001, job growth from December-January ranged between 0.24% and 0.3%.  In 2001, it was close to zero.  But during January 2009, the U.S. economy shed more jobs – 820,000– than in any month since WWII, and 0.61% of all jobs....
So the “standard definition” Kessler cites is fundamentally incorrect because of the dates used...
It’s also fundamentally flawed because it doesn’t take into account population growth.... A fair assessment of job creation has to incorporate population growth. A much better assessment of job creation is the change in employment as a share of the population, the employment ratio.  Using that measure, half of the previous 10 presidents saw the employment situation decline during their tenures. This should not come as a surprise; hearing that Obama would be the first president in history with bad job creation numbers should raise a red flag about the qualify of the analysis." (emphasis added)

Fact Check: "FactChecking Perry":

"In his announcement speech, Perry said the U.S. cannot afford four more years of "rising energy dependence on nations that intend us harm." But U.S. reliance on foreign oil has dropped under President Barack Obama, and it is expected to decline again this year...
Perry also incorrectly claimed in his speech that Obama's economic policies "have given us record debt." U.S. public debt as a percentage of the nation's economy is at its highest level since World War II, but not at a record high...
Last November, Perry exaggerated the financial problems of the Social Security system...
Also in November, Perry exaggerated how much Texas' share of Medicaid costs would increase as a result of the new federal health care law. Perry said the new law would cost Texas "$27 billion more, over and above what we’re already paying over the next 10 years... the federal government will pay most of the extra cost... The total Medicaid cost for the state would be $4.5 billion — but that's only 5.1 percent more, or $219 million, than it would have been without the new law."

Paul Krugman: "The Texas Unmiracle": 
Although this article isn't a "fact check" of Rick Perry, it does make a few good points clearing up Perry's various claims to fame about job creation in Texas:

"the Texas miracle is a myth, and more broadly that Texan experience offers no useful lessons on how to restore national full employment. It's true that Texas entered recession a bit later than the rest of America, mainly because the state's still energy-heavy economy was buoyed by high oil prices through the first half of 2008.
So where does the notion of a Texas miracle come from? Mainly from widespread misunderstanding of the economic effects of population growth.
For this much is true about Texas: It has, for many decades, had much faster population growth than the rest of America -- about twice as fast since 1990. Several factors underlie this rapid population growth: a high birth rate, immigration from Mexico, and inward migration of Americans from other states... the high rate of population growth translates into above-average job growth through a couple of channels. Many of the people moving to Texas... bring purchasing power that leads to greater local employment...
What Texas shows is that a state offering cheap labor and, less important, weak regulation can attract jobs from other states. I believe that the appropriate response to this insight is ''Well, duh.'' The point is that arguing from this experience that depressing wages and dismantling regulation in America as a whole would create more jobs... involves a fallacy of composition: every state can't lure jobs away from every other state.
In fact, at a national level lower wages would almost certainly lead to fewer jobs -- because they would leave working Americans even less able to cope with the overhang of debt left behind by the housing bubble, an overhang that is at the heart of our economic problem."(emphasis added)

Herb Silverman: "Science is not democratic":

Although this article is not a "fact check" of Perry, it points out the absurdity of Rick Perry's comment, "In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution. I figure you're smart enough to figure out which one is right." 

"Apparently, Perry’s theory of science teaching is to tell children they are smart enough to figure out what is right and what is made up. Here are other scientific questions to ask small children: When you walk around, does the earth look flat or round? When you look at the sun in the morning and evening, does it look like the sun is moving around the earth or that the earth is moving around the sun at approximately 67,000 mph? Never mind the scientific consensus, you’re smart enough to just know...
We don’t take polls asking people if they “believe” in gravity, though the theory of evolution is better understood by scientists than is the theory of gravity...
...we are becoming one nation undereducated. "

Fact Checks:
This week, my favorite posts have been from the Washington Post Fact Checker, Glenn Kessler.

Fact Checker: "Obama’s denial that Biden called tea party activists ‘terrorists’":  
The evidence to suggest that Biden called TEA Party-ers "terrorists" is sketchy at best.

"On balance, then, we are going to give President Obama a rare Geppetto [pass] for his denial that Biden uttered those words. There is no firm evidence to believe Biden did" 

 Also note what George W. Bush’s former Treasury Secretary, Paul H. O’Neill said:

“The people who are threatening not to pass the debt ceiling are our version of al-Qaeda terrorists. Really. They’re really putting our whole society at risk by threatening to round up 50 percent of the members of the Congress, who are loony, who would put our credit at risk.”

Seems a bit hypocritical for conservative to complain...

Fact Checker: "Michele Bachmann’s too-good-to-be-true stat on federal workers":
The major raises in federal pay came from Bush. Obama, on the oher hand has had both the smallest pay increase since 1975 and an actual freezing of government pay. This is another fail for Michelle Bachmann.


Fact Check: "Obama’s Canadian-American Bus":
Actually, the Bus was purchased from a Tennessee bus-conversion company who got the bus from Canada. The bus was thought to be the only one with the required specs. It's 1/2 to 2/3 American made, by cost. I wonder if the Republican presidential nominee will turn down his/her own Canadian-American bus? My dad also pointed out:

The only American-owned company that builds over-the-road buses is Motor Coach Industries (MCI), based in Schaumburg, Illinois, and that company was actually founded in Winnipeg, Canada. GM and Flxible used to be the two big intercity bus manufacturers, but their operations were sold and subsequently discontinued. Gillig Corporation of Hayward, California, is the only American-owned company making transit buses.

Fact Check: "Front Group Claims EPA Threatens 7 Million Jobs":
Industry studies that donb't undergo thorough peer-review should always raise red flags.

"[The group] also answered our questions about the source of the ad's claim that 7 million jobs would be "at risk" because of the EPA's proposal. The basis turns out to be an economic study produced by the Manufacturers Alliance and financed by the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute...
...the industry study's projection of 7 million lost jobs is disputed. Laurie Johnson, chief economist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, calls the study "junk analysis" and states: "No serious economist would consider this study valid." She also asked Professor Richard B. Howarth of Dartmouth College to evaluate it. Howarth called the industry study "fundamentally flawed, resting on an analytical framework that is scientifically unsound." He said it would rate a grade of "incomplete" if handed in as an undergraduate honors project." (emphasis added)

Eric Levine: "The Weekly Standard still thinks long division is a good substitute for critical thinking [Defending the Truth-O-Meter] ":
In my current Edition of Defending The Truth-O-Meter, I take on a rebuttal from The Weekly Standard against a Politifact Ruling. You may have seen a few politicians claim the Stimulus cost taxpayers $278,000 per job. Politifact Texas attempted to explain why this was inaccurate, yet TWS didn't understand. So i take a shot at explaining it to them.


Rational Conservatism (Surprisingly not an Oxymoron)
Rcently I have become a fan of the FrumForum. This site gives me a chance to get a conservative perspective from a source that seems to care at least a bit about reality. David Frum is Republican of the Reagan era. He has very little patience with today's modern Tea Party movement. He is quick to criticize the movement and it's ideas. He yearns for the day that Republicans return to the days of Reagan, when they actually had a positive relationship with reality yet still held true to Conservative ideals. If you are a conservative, I highly recommend reading his posts. I also suggest Liberals read these posts as well so that they can understand that one can be conservative AND rational. I may not agree with everything he says. But we do have common ground. Anyone interested should first listen to this interview from Discover columnist Chris Mooney.

David Frum: "Can Romney Believe What He Says?"
David Frum has often appeared to support Mitt Romney. However, he spends this article criticizing Romney for pledging  "himself to policies that will squeeze jobs in the near term, at least according to conventional economic theory." He looks at four possible reasons for why Romney would do this, but none seem likely. His first possible explanation is the most interesting:

"1) Romney has become a true believer in the “confidence” theory of job creation. Unemployment remains high (according to this theory) because big government and loose money detract from business confidence. By cutting spending and tightening money, we can restore confidence and inspire business to hire again. This theory has been endorsed by many Republicans including Speaker Boehner. Maybe Romney has joined the crowd?
Problem with Answer 1: Romney just seems too damn smart to believe something so at odds with reality."

David Frum: "Huntsman 2016?" 
Even the most moderate candidate for the Republican Party is more concerned with cleaning up after the crisis is over than actually ending the crisis itself. ...though Jon Hunstman seems to be the only Republican with even a half-way serious plan.

David Frum bashes the Wall Street Journal:
David took note of the Wall Street Journal's recent attempts to bash the Fed. David Frum clears up the misinformation created by the Wall Street Journal in a series of posts. Here are a few I've linked from this series (don't know if that's all of them):
"Time to Downgrade the Journal’s Editorial Page": The WSJ continually has to make up pseudo-facts in order to continue promoting their idea of "sound money," despite how much it hampers near-term job creation.
"The Journal’s Memory Hole": Frum continues to point out the Wall Street Journal's pseudo-facts and revisionist history about this recession. He again points out the soulless bitching of those in favor of "tight money," as millions of Americans are currently out of work.
"Nice Central Bank You Have Here"

David Frum: "America's imagined inflation problem":
Why are Republicans still so concerned with inflation (let alone Hyper Inflation)? They are either delusional or they are trying to ensure the price of Gold continues to rise. If that is their plan, if is failing. The price of Gold finally fell this week.

Climate Change and Scientific Philosophy:
Skeptical Science: "Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels":
This article gives a simplified rundown as to how we know increasing atmospheric CO2 levels are man-made (with links to more sophisticated detailed explanations). This article is a must-read for any layman interested in the science of climate change. I would also highly suggest this site as a standard resource when investigating the science of climate change.

The Economist: "We have a winner: British Columbia’s carbon tax woos sceptics":
From Greg Mankiw's Blog:
British Columbia has successfully instituted a Carbon Tax. The economy is still doing quite well and the public loves it. Maybe we can learn from them. For example, we could fund a cut to the payroll tax and/or corporate tax. We could also fund tax cuts for green energy in order to obtain a revenue neutral Carbon Tax.

The Intersection: "Michael Mann Cleared Again":

"Yet another organization, this time the National Science Foundation, has cleared climate scientist Michael Mann of wrongdoing (here is a pdf of the report closeout memorandum)...
The NSF also studied the university emails related to “climategate” and found “nothing contained in them evidenced research misconduct within the definition in the NSF Research Misconduct Regulation.”

Cosmic Variance: "What Can We Know About The World Without Looking At It?":
Physicist Sean M Carroll explains a common problem with Theologians think when dealing with God and Cosmology:

"Believing that something must be true about the world because you can’t imagine otherwise is, five hundred years into the Age of Science, not a recommended strategy for acquiring reliable knowledge. It goes back to the classic conflict of rationalism vs. empiricism. “Rationalism” sounds good — who doesn’t want to be rational? But the idea behind it is that we can reach true conclusions about the world by reason alone. We don’t ever have to leave the comfort of our living room; we can just sit around, sharing some single-malt Scotch and fine cigars, thinking really hard about the universe, and thereby achieve some real understanding. Empiricism, on the other hand, says that we should try to imagine all possible ways the world should be, and then actually go out and look at it to decide which way it really is...
But the intellectual history of the past five centuries has spoken loud and clear: the dream of rationalism is a false one. The right way to attain knowledge about the universe is ultimately empirical: we formulate all the hypotheses we can, and test them against data...
The temptation of rationalism can be a hard one to resist. We human beings are not blank slates; not only do we come equipped with informal heuristics for making sense of the world we see, but we have strong desires about how the world should operate. Intellectual honesty demands that we put those desires aside, and accept the world for what it actually is, whatever that may turn out to be."(emphasis added)

Note: A great site dealing with modern Rationality (informed by Empiricism) is the site Less Wrong. 

Common Sense Atheism: "Why I Don’t Care about Atheism vs. Theism Arguments Anymore":
This used to be one of my favorite sites dealing with the topic of Atheism/Naturalism vs Theism. Luke Muehlhauser (a.k.a Lukeprog) has created a great resource for anyone tired of the sloppy arguments from Dawkins or Comfort. He instead promoted Martin, Carrier, Loftus, Dawes, Craig, Swinburne, Plantinga, Copan and other sophisticated philosophers/historians. He provided a great reading list (as well as an easier version) for anyone seriously interested in the subject. His two podcasts were intellectually stimulating and entertaining. He didn't just merely attack theists for being irrational. Instead he actually engaged their arguments, admitting where he was wrong, and ultimately arguing his case for Metaphysical Naturalism.
However, in this recent article, Luke decides he no longer cares about these arguments anymore:

"The reason I’m an atheist isn’t because of the argument from evil or from unbelief or from inconsistent revelations or anything. No, the reason I’m an atheist is because theism drastically fails Solomonoff induction.
If I want to pull somebody away from magical thinking, I don’t need to mention atheism. Instead, I teach them Kolmogorov complexity and Bayesian updating. I show them the many ways our minds trick us. I show them the detailed neuroscience of human decision-making. I show them that we can see (in the brain) a behavior being selected up to 10 seconds before a person is consciously aware of ‘making’ that decision. I explain timelessness.
And if they have time to consume enough math and science, then The God Question just fades away as not even a question worth talking about."

As a result, Luke has instead dedicated his site to "math and the cognitive science of belief-formation and decision-making." His new slogan reads:

"Atheism is just the beginning;
now it's time to solve the harder questions."

I will have to admit I do find it ironic that, after bashing the new atheists, Luke finally succumbs to a similar line of reasoning about religion.

What? More Politics?
Brookings: "Will Obama Ever Say What He Should About the Jobs Crisis?":
Here, William A. Galston expresses many of the same feelings I have about what direction Washington should be going:
"we became infatuated with financial manipulation at the expense of the real economy. Not only did a rising share of profits go to the financial sector, but also many of our most talented young people were diverted from other careers in the productive sectors of the economy. We focused too much on financial innovations, some of which severely damaged our economy, and not enough on innovations in products and services...
Budget deficits this year and next are much less important than what happens over the next decade. We need a balanced, binding, and enforceable plan to stabilize our debt as a share of the economy within the next ten years, not the next two....
We need pro-savings, pro-investment, pro-growth tax reform...
To win the future, we need to make smart, targeted investments in those areas where the market won’t—in education, basic research, and infrastructure. And to do that, we’ll have to reduce spending in areas less directly related to growth and innovation...." (emphasis added)


Summer Ludwig: "10 Reasons Not To Vote For Ron Paul":
Although I posted this before last week, I thought it would be important to include. Anyone who considers themselves liberal, centrist, or anything other than a right wing nut-job, should not vote for Ron Paul. He is further to the right than any other candidate. I seriously regret ever supporting this wacko!
Many social-libertarians may be attracted to his message due to the fact that he often sounds more dedicated social-libertarian principles than liberals. However, a deeper dig should give liberals and social libertarians pause over whether or not this man supports their priorities or not.

That's It:
Well that wraps it up for my first "Weekly Roundup." However, I'm sure I will have to shrink these articles in the future, significantly. I may also add a few more things as well, such as any new podcasts I think may be worth mentioning. I also think I will wrap these up with a little bit of "brain candy:"

I, along with millions of others, have recently given up significant amounts of our lives playing a game called Minecraft. This "lego game" is amazingly fun and addictive. Right now, it is still in the Beta stage of development. However, a long anticipated "Adventure Update" is soon to appear. Needless to say, almost every player is excited. The new features will fundamentally change many of the aspects of this game, rewarding exploration and combat. So for the Minecraft fans currently reading this, i leave you with ""Revenge" - A Minecraft Parody of Usher's DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love - Crafted Using Noteblocks":


Note: I originally posted the "sped up" version of this video on accident. The original is now posted