[extropy-chat] POLITICS: 537 Economists Criticize Bush and Kerry

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

Hal Finney wrote:
> In recent political news, 537 economists have blasted the policies
> of Bush and Kerry, for both raising and lowering taxes.  The helpful
> economists, who include 8 Nobel laureates, also advised the candidates
> to both increase and reduce government social programs.
> 
> See <http://www.openlettertothepresident.org/> and
> <http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_comment/release_bc04_economists.html>.
> 
> Well, of course this advice did not all come from the same people.  Some
> of them criticized Kerry and some Bush.  Neither praised any candidates.
> (Actually I didn't look to see whether anyone signed both letters.)
> 
> Consider that these people are among the greatest experts in the world on
> economic topics, that they have devoted their entire professional lives,
> countless hours of intensive study, and intensive intellectual scrutiny
> and debate to these issues.  And yet they come to diametrially opposite
> conclusions.

I'm not sure that follows.  Why might not both criticisms of both 
candidates be wholly correct, if, as you say, neither praised any 
candidates?  I am proud of these economists, who are so steady as to not 
praise either candidate, despite their biases.  For it would seem to me to 
indicate that while their political polarization might lead them to 
criticize one particular candidate, it has not gone so far as to make them 
praise the other.  On what matter of fact do these scientists disagree?  I 
have reviewed both letters and they seem to target different follies by 
both candidates; there is no incompatibility between these disasters.  (The 
statement on the National Review website praising Bush is from a Bush 
flunky, not part of the signed letter.)

> Given this reality, what hope have any of us in deciding what is the
> truth here?  Should taxes be raised or lowered?  Entitlement programs
> revised up or down?  If study and intelligence would lead to answers to
> these questions, why do the people who have applied both, to the highest
> degree possible, still have such sharp disagreements?

I saw no disagreement, save over the unscientific question of who to vote 
against in the next election.

> And yet, I'll bet many politically oriented readers, especially those
> who have pledged their allegiance to an ideological system, believe
> that they actually know the truth of the matter.  They think that they,
> with their cursory and amateur levels of study, know these issues better
> than hundreds of hardworking, brilliant experts.  Or perhaps, prompted by
> ideological certainty, they will comfort themselves that those hundreds
> of experts on the other side are evil, wicked liars.

I've studied economics only peripherally, on my way to other things - the 
kind of economics I'm familiar with is the kind that's more strongly 
resembles cognitive psychology, or math questions in decision theory, than 
anything about interest rates.  But I will venture that the following 
opinions seem to be standard, and I saw no contradiction of them in either 
signed letter:

Higher taxes are bad.
Massive deficits are bad.
Trade protection is bad.
Entitlements in the US are a huge ticking time bomb.

I think most economists would also agree that if you make a massive tax 
cut, the estate tax and capital gains tax were probably not the best taxes 
to cut first; and that increasing concentration of income is bad; but some 
economists might say otherwise, I'm not sure.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence