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

[Hal Finney]

> >>>See <http://www.openlettertothepresident.org/> and
> >>><http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_comment/release_bc04_economists.html>.

Eliezer writes:
> Hal Finney wrote:
> > The first group recommends "substantial reversals" of Bush's tax policy.
> > But the second specifically criticizes Kerry's proposal to roll back
> > the tax situation to what it was before Bush took office.  That looks
> > pretty contradictory to me.
>
> I admit that you have to look at this pretty closely, knowing in advance 
> what economists can be expected to agree upon, to see how both sets of 
> signatories managed to phrase their criticism without saying anything that 
> would depart from the standard model.

But still, they gave contradictory advice.  They may agree on some broad
principles, but they apparently apply them differently in the present
situation.  Do you think the anti-Bush signers would agree that rolling
back his tax cuts would "sap the economy's vitality, ...inhibit capital
formation, depress productivity growth, and make the United States less
competitive internationally"?

For another data point take a look at this Economist article,
<http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3262965>.
It has some nice bar charts showing the results of a poll of 100 randomly
selected academic economists.  Again, strong disagreements are present.
These economists appear to be as polarized as the uninformed public as
far as which policies are better.

my original point was how the average person should decide these issues.
Especially in the context of voting, how much study is worthwhile?
If even decades of study by the smartest people in the land lead to
contradictions, doesn't this suggest that studying the issues is not a
successful method for making better voting decisions?

> > If so, maybe someone did sign them both!
>
> Unlikely; how many economists are likely to be both partisan Republicans 
> and partisan Democrats?

Which came first; the partisan positions, or the economic opinions?
Did the ones who claim that the Bush tax cuts were disastrous say that
because they are Democrats; or did they determine that such policies lead
to disaster, and on this basis decide that they should become Democrats?

The first case would be intellectually dishonest, and I will reject
that for now.  The second case further shows the paradox that different
people, equally intelligent and following the same course of study,
can come to diametrically opposite conclusions on such issues as whether
cutting taxes in present circumstances leads to disaster.

In that case, if I decided that I was going to learn all there was to know
about economics and decide for myself the truth of the matter, it would be
entirely random which conclusion I would come to.  Maybe I would become
one of the people who believe that the Bush tax cuts lead to disaster;
or maybe I would become someone who believes that rolling back those
tax cuts would be harmful.  It apparently will be as random as flipping
a coin.  So wouldn't it make more sense just to flip the coin rather
than to expend all those years of study?  Neither approach is going to
bring me any closer to the truth, and the coin is a heck of a lot easier.

Hal