At 08:16 PM 1/15/2004 -0800 Doug Pensinger wrote:
>I'll also state for the record that, while we all make mistakes, Dan's
>data is usually pretty solid, and I can remember a few instances when he
>was mistaken and owned up to it. I don't think "fast-and-loose" describes
>his use of facts at all.
While this may be true in physics, I haven't found that to be so in
economics. In particular, Dan has been fond of declaring that "economics
is not a sciece" - largely on his critique that economics cannot produce
useful prediction. Yet, this never seems to stop him from using economic
data to make predictions that "Republicans are horrible for the country in
that the produce X effect." Well, you can't have it both ways. You
can't continually insist that economis is not a science and does not
produce useful predictions, and then insist that it predicts that
Republicans are just awful.
In addition, many of these predictions play fast and loose with the data.
One of the classic ones is to assign the economic peformance of the country
in 1980, when Jimmy Carter was President, to Ronald Reagan - never minding
that Ronald Reagan's economic policies really couldn't have taken much
effect until 1982 at a minimum. This is an egregious and repeated error,
which I just simply find to be inexplicable. Likewise, he never connects
his analysis to policies, such as, for insistance taking account of the
fact that George H. W. Bush raised taxes or that the recession of '81-'82,
which was produced in large part by Paul Volcker, is widely considered to
have been absolutely necessary for the long-term health of the economy.
Lastly, while making these mistakes once might be understandable, they have
instead been repeated time and time again.... and so sometimes i just let
my frustration show a little bit too much. And for that I apologize..
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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