More than 200 economists have signed a letter of support for Joe Biden and KamalaHarris. Signers include Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, Laura Tyson,William Spriggs, Claudia Goldin, Robert Reich, Robert Gordon, Ebonya Washington, Jeff Sachs, and Emmanuel Saez. The letter contends that the U.S. is facing a series of simultaneous major crises — health, economic, and political — and that only strong national leadership from the Biden-Harris ticket supported by a grassroots democratic movement can address these crises and create an economy that works for all Americans.
From the letter:
The Biden-Harris program includes:
- Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and supporting worker rights
- Guaranteeing health care for every American by offering a public option and extending Medicare to those 60 or over.
- Investing in roads, bridges, water systems, airports, and rail systems, creating tens of thousands of well -paying jobs and assuring that federal procurement extends to minority owned businesses.
- Advancing racial equity as part of national economic recovery.Rolling back the Trump tax cut for big corporations, and making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes.
- Guaranteeing universal pre-school education and affordable quality day care, and supporting home care for aging parents.
- Providing relief from student debt and expanding tuition-free public college for working and middle class families.
- Increasing financing for black-owned small business and black home ownership.
- Establishing a green energy programthat reduces carbon emissions, creates jobs, and makes the US a global leader in renewable energy.
The full letter is here. Release of this letter preceded the letter in support of Joe Biden signed by 13 Nobel Laureates in Economics (post here).
I have not identified a corresponding letter in support of the Trump-Pence economic agenda.
It’s not surprising that economists have supported the Biden plan (while few seem to have signed onto the Trump agenda). Consider the analyses from several Wall Street research groups:
Source: Moody’s Analytics, September 23rd.
And here is Oxford Analytics’s assessment.
Source: Oxford Economics, September 26th.
and Goldman-Sachs’s estimates of impact on output gap.
Source: Goldman-Sachs, Top of Mind, October 1st.
In general, the Biden plan would result in higher output and employment than under a second Trump administration (to the extent one can discern his plans).
This optimism only makes sense if 1) Democrats win a majority in the Senate and 2) eliminate the filibuster. If not, Biden can do nothing that Mitch McConnell doesn’t approve. And McConnell doesn’t approve of anything on that list.
And I would add to those requirements that Democrats pack the Supreme Court. Otherwise any initiatives they pass will be tied up by the Supreme Court’s new conservative super-majority with years of lawsuits.
And this also assumes that Democrats do not succumb to the Republicans magically resurrected concern for deficits.
That list isn’t the campaign list, but made up by the author. Biden doesn’t do promises. Winning the Senate has some run arounds, that makes McConnell irrelevant. 2 get out of jail cards every 2 years.
The racial justice crap would be the first jettison
This would be an assumption of economists wouldn’t it!
Fair point. It’s telling that while there’s an overwhelming pro-Biden consensus among economists, the (reliably clueless) electorate continues to believe that Trump would be better on the economy…at least according to most polls. The idiocy of the crowds. We see it on display here every day.
I wonder how many current members/employees of the Federal Reserve wanted to sign this, but decided they couldn’t because of being “unprofessional” or “conflict of interest”?? Would be interesting to know I think.
I think they are simply forbidden from signing anything like this, Moses.
“I have not identified a corresponding letter in support of the Trump-Pence economic agenda.”
Donald Luskin is writing it now and he will get Stephen Moore and Lawrence Kudlow to sign. OK – they are not economists. But these Three Stooges will say they can beat up the actual economists.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/live-blog/donald-trump-coronavirus-treatment?entry=1336626
The SuperSpreader in Chief is back in the White House running around maskless.
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/sen-kennedy-coronavirus-not-nearly-as-lethal-as-the-experts-told-us-it-was-going-to-be/
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said in a Monday interview the coronavirus has not been “nearly as lethal” as experts originally believed, but that Americans should take President Donald Trump’s case as an indicator of its highly infectious nature. “Every time I’ve been to the White House, it’s sort of been a protected — super protected area. It was a bubble,” Kennedy said in the interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. “I think what that shows you is — it shows you what we have learned about this virus. We have learned two things, among others, but two things stood out in my mind. Number one, it’s very contagious. Number two, it’s not nearly as lethal as the experts told us it was going to be.
Yea this Senator from Louisiana is not the sharpest pencil in the box. But he is not as dumb as Senator Ron “moon bubble” Johnson who said we should have followed the Sweden model.
it’s not nearly as lethal as the experts told us it was going to be.
Except for all those dead patients. And how about the patients who recover somewhat, but seem to have heart and lung damage. They must be losers.
I also don’t care for the assumption all Americans have their own personal medical staff and no-cost-too-high access to therapeutic anything, all of which is cost free, like the chief clown.
The “it’s not so bad” propaganda has crossed an ethical line a long time ago. I’m not sure how/why that’s not obvious to all.
Here we go with a Public Health 101 calculation for Senators Kennedy and Johnson. Let’s assume herd immunity is achieved at 50% infection of the population of the US and that the case fatality rate is 0.3% which is about what the UK saw in the 1957-58 Asian Flu epidemic. Furthermore as per Senator Johnson, the US followed Sweden’s example. The total number of fatalities is pretty easy to calculate as follows: 330,000,000 million people * 0.5 IR * 0.003 CFR = 495,000 people dead from COVID-19.
As of today the IR is 2.3% and the CFR is 2.8% based on the daily numbers from the Washington Post. The CFR has been trending downwards and let us hope this continues. We are a long way from herd immunity.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/10/donald-trump-covid-19-mania
Thirteen tweets in 45 minutes-sounds like steroid induced psychosis is setting in.
One wee edit suggestion on your bullet point:
Advancing racial equity as part of national economic recovery. Rolling back the Trump tax cut for big corporations, and making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes.
These are two different policy recommendations so this should be two separate bullet points as it is presented in the source document.
Our great leader, the orange creature, Sergeant Bonespurs, has done it again. Somebody phone up CoRev, sammy, and Bruce Hall, not to mention international trade policy expert Rick Stryker:
https://twitter.com/BEA_News/status/1313456710284128258
Mary Lovely, Chad Bown, Eujin Jung, Yiwen Zhang, eat your hearts out, CoRev, Rick Stryker, and Ron Vara have beaten you again.
https://www.bea.gov/news/2020/us-international-trade-goods-and-services-august-2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/01/opinion/trump-biden-economic-policy.html
October 1, 2020
The Very Strong Case for Bidenomics
The former vice president’s tax and spending claims are credible; Trump’s aren’t.
By Paul Krugman
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/05/opinion/joe-biden-health-care.html
October 5, 2020
Bidencare Would Be a Big Deal
Don’t dismiss it because it isn’t Medicare for All.
By Paul Krugman
Your output gap is a waste. You do realize this isn’t a debt bust aka 2008 with the long prime debt bubble since 1983 bursting…….don’t you???? By the end of 2021, you may finally get it.
Please, tell us more. Do you have a newsletter to which I can subscribe?
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-10-05/The-lies-that-infected-Trump-UlAHECE5gI/index.html
October 5, 2020
The lies that infected Trump
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
Unlike tens of millions of people around the world who have contracted COVID-19 because of their poverty, bad luck, vulnerability as essential workers, or poor decisions by policymakers, U.S. President Donald Trump’s infection is of his own making.
Trump’s disdain for science and his brazen disregard for public-health advice led directly to his own illness; far worse, they have fueled America’s soaring COVID-19 death toll – now at more than 214,000.
Since the pandemic began, public health experts around the world have begged the public to wear face masks, avoid large gatherings, and maintain physical distance from others, in order to stop the transmission of the virus. Leave it to Trump, a man of pathological disposition, to reject all such advice.
Barely two days before announcing that he and the First Lady had tested positive, Trump was mocking Joe Biden for wearing one. “I don’t wear a mask like him,” Trump said at the first presidential debate. “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away…and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”
Rejecting appeals by public health experts and local officials, Trump had been holding large rallies both indoors and outdoors in recent months, with non-masked attendees standing close together. And Trump spurned basic precautions in the White House, including physical distancing of staff and requiring face masks in meetings.
Trump’s recklessness not only exposed himself, his wife, and his entourage to COVID-19; it also encouraged his supporters across America to mock public-health warnings and threaten infectious disease experts, thereby contributing to the spread of the disease. Many Americans lack basic scientific literacy and are easily swayed and encouraged by manipulators like Trump and his allies at Fox News. Trump not only blocked an effective federal public-health response, but incited dangerous behavior by his followers nationwide.
Sachs continues by discussing what is going on in other nations but this captures an important message. Many thanks for the link.
Cannot stop laughing at this letter.
I wonder what these profs really teach in their Econ classes.
Just in the first bullet point on the minimum wage, perhaps they should read Steven Landsburg’s article in the WSJ yesterday.
Or the literature on minimum wage effects on the poor. These profs care so much about the poor, that they prefer to forget them.
And the rest of the bullet points, a collection of left wing wishes and platitudes divorced from reality.
Maybe all this profs and the 13 Nobel winners (who signed a separate letter apparently) should read Thomas Sargent’s (a Nobel winner!) commencement speech at – where? – Berkeley. Oh no, Berkeley of all places. But all these signing dreamers would probably like to never have heard of it.
One of these 13 Nobel Prize winners was Edmund Phelps who was about as good a labor economist as it gets. Manfred – please do not comment on topics that require more than a kindergarten degree as you are way over your little brain.
pgl: Manfred has a simple algorithm. If the person’s view is not congruent with his, that person is *not* a real economist. That Weltanschauung makes life very simple for some people.
I love how Manfred lectures us on those who have published on the minimum wage. Like there are only two labor economists on the planet. OK – there are only two he follows.
“Thomas Sargent’s (a Nobel winner!) commencement speech at – where? – Berkeley. Oh no, Berkeley of all places.”
How did I miss this dumbass comment. Sargent did not get his Nobel Prize in labor economics. Try monetary economics dumbass. No link to this paper? I wonder why. Did you read it? Even if you did – I doubt you understood what Dr. Sargent was saying. But if you want to know who teaches labor economics at Berkeley – check out this list of distinguished economists:
http://cle.berkeley.edu/
Not that you would know who they are.
And by the way…
Menzie says: “I have not identified a corresponding letter in support of the Trump-Pence economic agenda.”
Why should they? To then, for example, get the treatment that Harald Uhlig got?
No thanks.
“The University of Chicago is investigating claims that a professor who once chaired its renowned economics department mocked Martin Luther King Jr. and his namesake holiday and then asked a black student in his class if the comments were offensive. Harald Uhlig, a tenured professor who has worked at U. of C. since 2007, has also been placed on leave from his role as lead editor of the Journal of Political Economy, one of the field’s top academic publications. The journal will determine “whether it would be appropriate for him to continue in that role given recent accusations of discriminatory conduct in a University classroom setting”.
Hey Manfred – when is your next KKK meeting?
Just a few thoughts/questions:
• Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and supporting worker rights [how many small businesses go out of business; how many jobs are lost; what is the impact on inflation; the end of “entry level jobs”? … not every place is San Francisco with its outrageous cost of living]
• Guaranteeing health care for every American by offering a public option and extending Medicare to those 60 or over. [cost? who pays? does this eliminate requirement for hospitals to accept patients without insurance?]
• Investing in roads, bridges, water systems, airports, and rail systems, creating tens of thousands of well -paying jobs and assuring that federal procurement extends to minority owned businesses. [this is new? sounds like the same cliches that are spouted every election]
• Advancing racial equity as part of national economic recovery. [what on earth does this mean? and how would it be implemented? and is this different from “affirmative actions” toward which billions have been poured?]
• Rolling back the Trump tax cut for big corporations, and making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. [since 47% of Americans pay virtually no federal income tax, what is a “fair share”? how about a flat 18% for everyone, isn’t that fair? why not? those who make good decisions are obligated to support those who do not?]
• Guaranteeing universal pre-school education and affordable quality day care, and supporting home care for aging parents. [sounds noble; who pays?]
• Providing relief from student debt and expanding tuition-free public college for working and middle class families. [again, sounds noble; who pays; why are students left off the hook for something that provides personal economic advantages; ever hear of merit scholarships; how about working while attending college … many in my generation did… too hard now?]
• Increasing financing for black-owned small business and black home ownership. [through what mechanism? different standards than for whites/Asian/Hispanics?]
• Establishing a green energy program that reduces carbon emissions, creates jobs, and makes the US a global leader in renewable energy. [yeah, that’s working well in California]
Are you prepping Pence for the debate? I hope so because if he starts down this road Harris is going to destroy the poor boy.
I am impressed that Kelly Anne Conway jotted off so many stupid bullets points given that she is infected with this virus too.
On min wage, probably this will need to be phased in with a slower rate of movement to that level in poorer rural areas where cost of living and nominal wagres are lower.
Offering a public option is not that big of a deal. As it is, Trump’s changes to ACA have led to cost increases. “Medicare for all” would cost a lot, but this is much more achievable without the sort of spending explosions put in place by Trump.
Yes, infrastruture is a boring cliche, but it is a cliche because everyvody agrees it is a good thing that done properly will pay for itself in the long run. Indeed, Trump promised to do it, but failed to because he was too busy with things like his silly non-wall and caging children and keeping refugees out and lying about almost everything.
There clearly remains racial inequity in lots ot parts of the system. The current admin has moved away from undong those things. Just undoing their policies along such lines, see HUD policyi changes, would be an improvement.
Pre-school and elder care will cost, but we did not need that massive increase in military spending. We already had way more than any other nation.
Same for dealing with student debt and college costs. Probably will not go all the way on those, but we could see much more substantial action on them than we have for not all that much.
Green energy works. We already have more people working in renewable energy than in coal. it is dying no matter what. Time to move on.
Sorry, Bruce, your critique is not very impressive or convincing.
Bruce writes his stupid garbage on the orders of Kelly Anne Conway. BTW – when are they going to give Kelly Anne that Nobel Prize in economics?
@ pgl
I thought Kelly Anne Contwat was supposed to share the Nobel in Physiology or Medicine with Barkley Junior for their co-authored research paper “Lab Created Pandemics Located Very Near To Wet Markets” ?? [subtitled “Never Eat Chow Mein From Serving Dish After Asian Scientist”] It was a hell of a paper and has been cited several times by Mercatus Center and The Heritage Foundation.
Bruce Hall It’s unlikely that raising the minimum wage would increase inflation. Of course, it would be great if it did. And the economy could use some inflation right now. I don’t know of anyone who is advocating anything other than a phased-in increase over several years. And if you think the minimum wage is only for “entry level jobs”, then this just shows how detached your life is from the real world. The minimum wage is not just a teenager wage. You live a very sheltered life if that’s what you think.
As to extending Medicare to those over 60, it’s fair to ask who will pay for it. Ideally there would be some cost sharing across all age groups, but keep in mind that there would also be a big drop in insurance premiums for those under 60 because people in the 60-65 age group are a real burden on private insurance.
making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. [since 47% of Americans pay virtually no federal income tax, what is a “fair share”?
Keep in mind that FICA surpluses “funded” a lot of those income tax cuts for upper incomes. If you’re really interested in economics, then get smart on the difference between a tax “impact” and the “incidence” of a tax. A good top marginal rate would be a Rawlsian fair tax around 65%.
Guaranteeing universal pre-school education
Look at the labor force data. Women are fleeing the labor force because they don’t have childcare during the pandemic. Failing to provide childcare would be a supply side disaster; and pre-school education won’t help you much, but it will help the productivity of future generations.
Providing relief from student debt
I believe this actually refers to lowering student loan interest rates. There is no good reason why people shouldn’t be able to renegotiate student loans.
why are students left off the hook for something that provides personal economic advantages; ever hear of merit scholarships; how about working while attending college … many in my generation did… too hard now?]
I also worked while going to school. The cost to society was that it reduced the number of years that I made significant economic and productivity contributions. I think you’d be on firmer ground if you asked why college costs keep increasing. The traditional college model was on life support before the pandemic. Now we’re looking at colleges becoming yet another victim of COVID.
Establishing a green energy program that reduces carbon emissions, creates jobs, and makes the US a global leader in renewable energy.
Another goal that won’t benefit you, but failing to do so will greatly harm future generations. The hardest thing to get across to older conservatives is the notion that IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU. The world will still be around long after you’re gone. Unfortunately, so will the greenhouse gases you created.
Josh Marshall nails it. Trump has to display dominance because he is a very weak person:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/rage-against-the-dying-of-the-light
President Trump seems to be knocking off iconic (and not in a good way) moments in rapid succession now: the Lafayette Park Church stunt in June, the slow speed base runabout in his armored SUV two days, and then last night’s Triumph of the Will manque set piece with Trump, bathed in light but also clearly struggling to breathe, triumphantly reentering the White House and confidently tossing off his mask. While the June incident long predated Trump’s personal health crisis, each moment shares a common theme: Trumpian efforts to demonstrate strength and dominance which fail because they claim too much, because Trump is in fact weak. And it shows.
Is it just me, or is their economic platform just a poor rehash of Obama administration policy? Maybe I’m just old, but I feel like I’ve seen this all before:
– Excel charts showing the projected economic impact of their proposals? Check – Remember the forecasts showing unemployment with and without the Obama recovery plan? Remember when some joker put the actual unemployment rate on it? Good times…
– Guaranteed and affordable health care? Check – I remember when Democrats solved this with the Affordable Care Act
– Infrastructure? Check (I remember shovel-ready jobs)
– Renewable energy? Check – I remember Obama’s pledge to create 5 million “Green Collar Jobs” from 2009-2019, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was the “biggest energy bill in history” according to the New York Times with $80 billion going to renewable energy.
– Student loan forgiveness? Check – Obama did that in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010
– Support for minority owned businesses? Check
– Rolling back the Bush tax cuts, er I mean the Trump tax cuts? Check
– Raise the minimum wage? Check – Obama tried that in 2014. The last minimum wage increase was in 2009, but was from a bill passed in 2007 under Bush Jr.
– Affordable daycare? Check – that even made it into Obama’s 2015 State of the Union.
– Reducing CO2 emissions? Check – Obama even signed the Paris Accord, and today CO2 emissions are only 1.8% above 1990 levels according to the EIA, as reported by Ars Technica (See article: “Last year’s US emissions went down after 2018 uptick”). Though to be fair, the real credit goes to natural gas driving coal fired generation out of the market. Democrats talk about renewables, Republicans talk about nuclear and coal, but natural gas gets the job done.
Why does it feel so… familiar? Lets see who signed on:
Roert Reich – was a member of President Barack Obama’s economic transition advisory board
Laura Tyson – was a member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board
William Spriggs – was assistant secretary for the Office of Policy at the Department of Labor, having been appointed by President Barack Obama
I know, I know – its Democrats supporting Democrats, Obama administration alumni courageously standing up to support Biden. But still, in the 12 years since Obama was first elected, the same Democrats are talking about the same problems and proposing the same solutions. I guess this is why I don’t bother voting.
Menzie,
How seriously should the rational voter take the endorsement of these Democratic economists, who are backed up by the models of the forecasting firms they believe to be accurate? An obvious question to ask is what they claimed about Trump’s economic policies in 2016 and how accurate their assessments turned out to be. Of course, there predictions were laughably bad.
For example, Moody’s put out its paper The Macroeconomic Consequences of Mr. Trump’s Economic Policies, which projected their assessment of the consequences of Trump’s policies. As Table 1 shows, they expected that real GDP growth would average 0.6% and employment would decline over 2016-2020 (with no assumption that a pandemic would hit). They projected the unemployment rate to be 5.7% in 2019. And look at their prediction for the stock market under Trump’s policies! They predicted that the S&P500 would decline about 18% from 2016 to 2019. We know now how wrong they were. The got everything backwards about the effects of Trump’s policies.
Similarly, Oxford Economics got the Trump analysis badly wrong. Oxford predicted that under Trump’s policies the economy would lose $1 trillion and 4 million jobs by the end of 2020. Trump adviser Peter Navarro at the time presciently called the Oxford Economics analysis “ludicrous.” Navarro was, of course, exactly right.
I’m amazed that these Democratic economists are not ashamed to sign another letter like this in 2020 similar to what they signed in 2016, given how badly their analysis and predictions turned out to be. But arrogance and hypocrisy are not in short supply among progressive economists.
“How seriously should the rational voter take the endorsement of these Democratic economists, who are backed up by the models of the forecasting firms they believe to be accurate?”
We have a new candidate for dumbest comment of the year. Rick – Edmund Phelps is certainly not a Democrat. And since you mentioned Moody’s their chief economist is Mark Zandi who was McCain’s economic adviser back in 2008.
Has Donald Luskin asked you to sign his stupid Republican economists for Trump? The four stooges – you, Luskin, Kudlow, and Moore!
pg13,
As usual, you can’t get your facts right. Phelps supported Obama, then Clinton, then Biden. Zandi is a registered Democrat and donates to Democrats. He was not McCains economic advisor in 2008–that’s a widespread myth. Read this to educate yourself.
It is all politics to you. Which is cool as your lack of knowledge of economics would embarrass a 3 year old.
pg13,
As usual, you can’t get your facts right. Phelps supported Obama, then Clinton, then Biden. Zandi is a registered Democrat and donates to Democrats. He was not McCains economic advisor in 2008–that’s a widespread myth. Read this to educate yourself, if that’s possible.
13? Writing the same stupid comment twice? Are you taking the same roids that have rotted Trump’s brains?
I enjoyed reading Robert Farley’s latest take downs on Trump. You should. OK – Farley had it in for Hillary four years ago but guess what troll. She ain’t running.
Zandi is a well respected economist and you have nothing on him except your pathetic and dishonest attack on that 2016 document. But hey – I work for a competitor of Moody’s so if you can tarnish his reputation my bosses would be happy.
Of course I’m not forwarding to the bosses your insane rants as they might think I was impressed with your stupidity even if you THINK you are tarnishing their chief economist. Snicker.
Rick Stryker You’re being less than forthright here. PGL did not say that Zandi was a Republican; he said that Zandi advised the McCain campaign:
their chief economist is Mark Zandi who was McCain’s economic adviser back in 2008.
At worst what PGL got wrong was in referring to Zandi as the McCain campaign’s “chief economist”, although there was no shortage of big egos on that economic team all claiming the title of “chief economist.”
Your factcheck.org link is about the Clinton campaign’s claim that Zandi was not a Democrat, which they rated as false. That’s not the same question as to whether or not Zandi advised the McCain campaign. In that same article it quotes Zandi as saying that while he was not McCain’s principal economic adviser, he did provide reports, data and economic advise from time to time. And I do recall that the McCain campaign put Zandi out front and center as one of its advisers, so it’s not like he was just some backbencher. As to Zandi’s political affiliation, it appears that he plays both sides. He admits to donating to both parties, although I suspect that he probably hasn’t supported a Republican in the Trump era. I mean…seriously…who would?
I mean…seriously…who would? Not Greg Mankiw or Edmund Phelps or Thomas Sargent. This is why Trump ended up elevating a complete village idiot named Lawrence Kudlow.
2slugs,
My point was that it’s false that Zandi was McCains economic adviser in 2008. He was not. First of all, he’s a registered Democrat who supports Democrats, both financially and otherwise. Second, Zandi was hired to provide some data to the campaign. They did not hire him for policy advice nor did he given any to McCain.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen pg13 get any fact right.
Rick Stryker: From PoliFact:
See WSJ, July 13, 2007:
Rick Stryker First of all, he’s a registered Democrat who supports Democrats, both financially and otherwise.
Well, you worded that in the present tense, which might be true…in the present tense. But Zandi himself has told us that in the past he has contributed to both Democratic and Republican campaigns. Believe it or not, there was a time when I would vote for the Republican candidate for this or that office. Of course, that was back in the day before the GOP all boarded the Crazy Train.
Hey Rickster – did you get past the first paragraph? Apparently you did not see this:
‘Quantifying Mr. Trump’s economic policies is complicated by their lack of specificity. The publicly available information is not sufficient to fully quantify all of his proposals. Thus, a number of assumptions are laid outmin the paper. The assumptions are our own, but they are based on discussions with some of those working on economic policy for the Trump campaign.”
A little required homework before you write another one of your patented stupid rants. Go through what Moody’s assumed policy would be versus what it turned out to be. Without this your critique of their forecasting lacks any foundation.
Rick,
don’t even try to reason intelligently about this letter. Menzie posted it, because he is a Democrat ideologue.
The letter is a barrage of left wing wishes.
Start with the first bullet point, the minimum wage one, which is stupid. I wonder what these profs really teach their students.
Apparently, they missed Steven Landsburg’s piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday (Monday). And of course, they missed the long list of academic papers of the effects of increasing the minimum wage. So much for Econ profs.
As a larger point, these profs (and Menzie apparently) need a refresher read of Thomas Sargent’s commencement speech at Berkeley (of all places) in 2007.
Sargent is also a Nobel winner, he did not sign the famed letter of the 13 Nobel winners, apparently. I wonder if it is because Sargent understands incentives much better than those profs and Nobels. Sargent’s points in his speech is basic innocuous stuff, that used to be taught in good departments of Econ, but apparently, it got lost along the way to the left wing Nirvana.
Come on Manfred – your rant is dumber than ever Bruce Hall’s rant especially this one:
“Apparently, they missed Steven Landsburg’s piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday (Monday). And of course, they missed the long list of academic papers of the effects of increasing the minimum wage.”
WTF is Steven Landsburg? There are a lot of paper on the effect of increasing the minimum wage and most of them cast doubt on that simpleton demand = supply model. If you want to cite the literature – may I suggest you actually READ these papers? DUH!
Hey Manfred – try this from your new guru
https://www.thebigquestions.com/2013/02/18/thoughts-on-the-minimum-wage/
Let me make this easy for you. Raising the minimum wage does not reduce employment that much unless we are talking about 16 year old kids. Seriously Manfred – this is the best you got?
No pgl, or whatever your name is.
It’s not the best I got. The best is from economists far, far brighter than you, like Jonathan Meer and David Neumark and others.
Economists that look at trade-offs and incentives, as any good economist should.
And not dwell in left wing paradise wishes, as the letter of the “200 econ profs” does and Menzie so proudly parades.
Manfred tries to impress with two names he pulled from the Google machine but does this troll have a clue what either wrote. David Neumark is a decent labor economist but the Manfred can’t cite one of his publications? OK! Jonathan Meer focuses on the economics of charitable giving but he did co-author this:
https://www.nber.org/papers/w19262
The voluminous literature on minimum wages offers little consensus on the extent to which a wage floor impacts employment. We argue that the minimum wage will impact employment over time, through changes in growth rather than an immediate drop in relative employment levels. We conduct simulations showing that commonly-used specifications in this literature, especially those that include state-specific time trends, will not accurately capture these effects. Using three separate state panels of administrative employment data, we find that the minimum wage reduces job growth over a period of several years. These effects are most pronounced for younger workers and in industries with a higher proportion of low-wage workers.
Even had the Manfred read this singular paper, it does not exactly make him the expert on this voluminous literature. But I’m being generous in assuming Manfred can even read.
Manfred,
Yes, I agree. I didn’t bother to comment on the substance of the letter. Their incredibly poor track record in predicting the consequences of Trump’s policies already disqualifies them.
This from the dimwit who lied about what the 2016 Moody’s report said? No Rick – you have disqualified yourself from being anything more than chief troll.
Manfred Start with the first bullet point, the minimum wage one, which is stupid.
So what is “stupid”? Are you saying that any minimum wage is stupid, or just that a $15/hr minimum wage is stupid? There are very good economic reasons for having a minimum wage. Now if you are simply arguing that a $15/hr wage is too high and would be too binding on employment, that’s at least a defensible position. That’s the kind of argument that can and should be addressed empirically. Maybe it should be $12/hr instead of $15/hr. Or whatever. I doubt that you’ll find too many people who believe it should still be $7.25/hr.
Also, a lot of studies focus on what happens to the unemployment rate when there is an increase in the minimum wage. That’s really the wrong variable. We would expect the unemployment rate to increase for the simple reason that a higher minimum wage will tend to increase the size of the civilian labor force. Work becomes relatively more attractive when the minimum wage goes up, which would mechanically increase the unemployment rate . It’s exactly the opposite effect of what we’re seeing today in which the unemployment rate appears to be falling sharply largely because so many people are exiting the workforce. It’s the same principle only in reverse. What you really want to watch is the employment level rather than the unemployment rate.
In Manfred’s world there is no such thing as monopsony power. And I bet Manfred thinks the wage rate is the only issue in a labor contract even if there is an entire literature on the role of fringe benefits in part due to conservative economist Walter Wessel. Manfred pretends to be an expert on labor economics but he comes across as dumb as Bruce Hall.
Rick Stryker Your characterization of the Moody’s analysis of Trump’s economic plan is less than fully honest. As the authors make very clear, they offered four different scenarios. The outcomes you cited all came from the most extreme “Trump Unbound” version, or as they call it “Trump at Face Value”. The most realistic scenario, and the one that most closely matches what happened is something in-between the third and fourth scenarios. And those predictions were not all that far off from what actually happened, except that the Moody’s analysis assumed Trump’s proposals would be effective Jan 2017 when in fact they were effective Jan 2018. So if you slide things by one year, the Moody’s analysis lines up fairly well. There is one huge supply shock that was in Trump’s plan that never occurred; viz., deporting 3.5 million undocumented immigrants. The Moody’s analysis assumed that something like that would happen. I think we can agree that deporting anything like that many people would have had a huge negative supply shock.
It’s good to remember that the economy was already teetering on the cusp of recession even before the pandemic hit. Interest rate spreads, while not infallible indicators, were clearly flashing amber a year before the pandemic. Industrial production index was flat to slightly decreasing from late 2018 up to the eve of the pandemic.
The Rickster should thank you for doing his homework assignment for him. I sorted of suspected that when I asked him to do so, he would punt.
Trump at Face Value (the scenario you cherry picked):
“The large tax cuts and bigger deficits actually support stronger consumer spending and economic growth, particularly early in
Mr. Trump’s term, before the negative impacts of the higher interest rates caused by the large deficits take hold. Since the economy is operating at full employment when the tax cuts take effect, the so-called crowding out effects from the larger deficits appear quickly. That is, the increased government borrowing causes interest rates to increase, crowding out private sector activities such as business investment, housing, and consumer spending on vehicles and other durables.”
Standard macroeconomics. Of course the Rickster does not understand basic economics. Should we note this describes the early Reagan years to a tee. And Trump said he wanted to be Reagan II. Of course the actual course of fiscal policy was not as extreme as the BS Trump was babbling back in 2016.
Now maybe you are not as stupid as I am assuming. Maybe you get all of this. Which means the Rickster choose to lie to us again.
“Navarro was, of course, exactly right.”
Navarro? Have you read the nonsense this clown has written on international trade? Exactly wrong.
OK the Rick misrepresents some CNN/Money story to attack an Oxford analysis he has not even read. But what did CNN really say?
“Trump’s tax cuts could be an initial boost to the economy, Oxford says, but eventually they would need to be met with reductions in government spending.
If government spending isn’t reduced at the same pace as tax cuts, Trump’s tax policy stands to hurt the economy because it would increase the federal deficit.
But Trump’s other proposals actually increase government spending, whether it’s on infrastructure, or building a wall on the Mexican border.
Navarro says Trump’s tax cuts would be met by increased economic growth, taking away the need to lower government spending. The stimulus from lower taxes would add trillions of dollars to the economy over 10 years, he argues.”
Let’s call this the Navarro-Laffer curve. And it is truly a laugher. What Oxford said is standard macroeconomics – a subject that the RICK will never understand.
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/this-place-is-a-cesspool-trump-official-fumes-that-our-spouses-and-kids-will-pay-price-for-trumps-insane-return-to-white-house/
A Trump administration official called the White House “a cesspool” after President Donald Trump — who tested positive for Covid-19 last week — returned following a brief stay at the Walter Reed Medical Center.
The unnamed White House official told Axios, “It’s insane that he would return to the White House and jeopardize his staff’s health when we are still learning of new cases among senior staff. This place is a cesspool.”
“He was so concerned with preventing embarrassing stories that he exposed thousands of his own staff and supporters to a deadly virus. He has kept us in the dark, and now our spouses and kids have to pay the price,” they added. “It’s just selfish.”
On Monday, the New York Times reported that the White House is “making little effort to investigate the scope and source of its outbreak,” and has “decided not to trace the contacts of guests and staff members at the Rose Garden celebration 10 days ago,” despite the fact that a number of attendees have now tested positive for Covid-19.
There are currently more active cases of Covid in the White House than the entire country of Vietnam with nearly 100 million people.
It seems that President Bone Spurs has finally met his personal Vietnam.
Why are Bruce Hall’s medical gurus angry at Trump?
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/hydroxychloroquine-advocates-are-pissed-trumps-not-taking-it-for-covid
Now that Trump is fighting his own case of COVID-19 without his miracle drug, the hydroxychloroquine advocates who followed his lead are pretty frustrated. Dr. Stella Immanuel, the Houston-based doctor and preacher who specializes in demons and alien DNA, was part of a group of doctors who in July falsely declared hydroxychloroquine a “cure” for COVID-19. Trump shared a video of the group on his Twitter account and subsequently called mmanuel “very impressive.” So Immanuel was understandably disappointed when hydroxychloroquine wasn’t mentioned on the White House press release detailing Trump’s treatment plan. “Whoever told the president to stop taking HCQ should be punched in the face,” she wrote on Twitter Friday.
Stella’s full tweet:
Whoever told the president to stop taking HCQ should be punched in the face. This did not have to happened. I am so upset. This is our president for crying out loud. No one need to get sick or pcr positive.
Darn. Again nobody asked me to sign. Clearly I am out of the loop. Hey, Mose, shop me back to ole Virginny!
@ Barkley Junior
No worries. You can still get some of that attention you desperately seek as one of those old people endorsing “MyPillow” in the late night infomercials. You could tell them in the TV ad that you ran nonparametric tests on the pillow and you confirmed that it is skewed when users are incontinent. You could do a live demonstration to prove MyPillow is skewed. Your live demonstration would be powerful, as TV viewers are tired of seeing the blue liquid in feminine pad commercials.
You want input from economists who teach at real universities like Western Idaho A&M, East Texas State, and Utah Baptist. They’re out there in the real world where they grow potatoes, dodge cottonmouths, and set Mormons on a straight path to the Bible AND the economy.
@ noneconomist
Chad Daybell’s representative just phoned me and told me he objects to your assertion. Chad says he is masterful in attaining cashflows from lonely and easily aroused middle aged Idahoan women and rejects the contention he has any need for real world economic education. Chad says things have the possibility to get complicated when tossing small children into a backyard bonfire, but he’s using death swaps to “spread the risk out to ‘counterparties’ “.
I don’t know, seems strange…… but all the Idahoan girls I’ve chatted with say Chad is a hell of a guy, so I see no point in arguing otherwise. Plus Chad’s lawyer threatened me with litigation…… so I’m kinda scared now.
Last I checked the faculty at North Carolina State had 100 agriculture economists. And I bet CoRev and his soybean research has not been peer reviewed by any of them.
I think Not Trampis is referring to an assumption of economists in the same sense as a murder of crows.
I like it.
Manfred wants us to believe Thomas Sargent got a Nobel Prize in economics for his work on labor economics. No Manfred – try monetary economics. Manfred wants us to believe Sargent is a Trump guy, which means he missed this condemnation of Trump’s trade policies when I put it up here.
Nobel-winning US economist Thomas Sargent disagrees with tariffs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUbXPm1Ycf8
Manfred also wants us to believe that Sargent criticized minimum wages in a commencement speech at Berkeley. Of course, trolls like Manfred do not provide links so I will. The address is only 297 words and never mentions the minimum wage issue:
https://www.vox.com/2014/4/19/5631654/this-graduation-speech-teaches-you-everything-you-need-to-know-about
Economics is organized common sense. Here is a short list of valuable lessons that our beautiful subject teaches.
1. Many things that are desirable are not feasible.
2. Individuals and communities face trade-offs.
3. Other people have more information about their abilities, their efforts,
and their preferences than you do.
4. Everyone responds to incentives, including people you want to help. That
is why social safety nets don’t always end up working as intended.
5. There are tradeoffs between equality and efficiency.
6. In an equilibrium of a game or an economy, people are satisfied with their
choices. That is why it is difficult for well meaning outsiders to change
things for better or worse.
7. In the future, you too will respond to incentives. That is why there are
some promises that you’d like to make but can’t. No one will believe those
promises because they know that later it will not be in your interest to
deliver. The lesson here is this: before you make a promise, think about
whether you will want to keep it if and when your circumstances change.
This is how you earn a reputation.
8. Governments and voters respond to incentives too. That is why governments sometimes default on loans and other promises that they have made.
9. It is feasible for one generation to shift costs to subsequent ones. That is
what national government debts and the U.S. social security system do
(but not the social security system of Singapore).
10. When a government spends, its citizens eventually pay, either today or
tomorrow, either through explicit taxes or implicit ones like inflation.
11. Most people want other people to pay for public goods and government
transfers (especially transfers to themselves).
12. Because market prices aggregate traders’ information, it is difficult to forecast stock prices and interest rates and exchange rates.
2slugs and pg13,
You really can’t spin the poor forecasting about Trump away (and I notice you have not commented on Oxford Economics).
Forecasters are responsible for the assumptions they make as well as the modeling. You have to get both right. The Moody’s paper wasn’t even close in any of the variations of the Trump presidency it ran, partly because it misunderstood the Trump phenomenon and thus got their assumptions wrong. But beyond that, their economic assumptions were wrong. In the Trump at face value and other versions, a good bit of the projected weakness came from their rate model assumption that larger budget deficits from the tax cuts would significantly increase rates, which would drive down growth.
Nope.
Back in November 2016, the progressives were predicting an economic disaster, which wasn’t consistent with the equity markets, as JDH noted at the time. I mocked the widespread belief that a disaster was coming. I also explained how to think about the coming Administration.
Progressives have no credibility when they talk about Trump. Sorry.
“Forecasters are responsible for the assumptions they make as well as the modeling.”
God you are a complete moron. They made their assumptions clear. You simply misrepresented what they said. I would call you a liar but something tells me you did not understand the plain English they wrote.
Your problem seems to be that Moody’s took Trump at Face Value even though Trump lies more than anyone in history and has basically been a failure at getting any substantive change in policy beyond those stupid trade wars. Are you saying screwing up the global trading system, raising the price of intermediate goods for American manufacturers, and basically destroying our soybean exports have led to an economic miracle? Based on what assumptions, economic factors, or anything else which you are incapable of articulating.
OK – let’s try something elementary. Take their baseline real GDP forecast (no policy changes) for 2019 which is in 2009$ and compare to actual 2019 real GDP (warning FRED is now using 2012$) to see your alleged but unexplained Trump miracle.
We’ll wait as I bet you have no idea how to do this. But do check with your preK buddies to help you with the arithmetic.
Rick Stryker I would say that the worst forecaster was President Trump himself. How about that promised 4% real growth rate forever and ever? How about all that infrastructure spending that never happened? How about “repeal and replace” that never happened? How about that promised surge in investment spending that never happened? How about that surge in multifactor productivity that was supposed to happen but somehow never did?
The eventual Trump economic plan that was finally passed in the waning days of 2017 ended up doing what Macro 101 predicted. It increased aggregate demand in 2018 and petered out in 2019 while blowing a hole in the deficit. The secret to Trump’s economic “success” was to pull forward economic benefits and push out economic costs. Same secret sauce he used in the business world.
The only thing this strictly outhouse economist signed is a donation to the Biden/Harris campaign. It is money so it is economic and it is support.
“it misunderstood the Trump phenomenon”. I’ll give you this – the Moody’s paper only talked about obscene immigration policy but it missed the depth of Trump’s racism towards blacks, Muslims, and even Jews.
Hey Rick – you should be a chef as your word salad of late is just amazing.
Menzie,
It’s foolish to attempt to defend pg13. pg13 rarely says anything of any substance, but when he does he’s always wrong.
Let’s let McCain’s actual economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, explain how Zandi was involved in the McCain campaign:
“Holtz-Eakin said he reached out to Zandi during the 2008 campaign to ask him to provide reports on economic and financial market data. Holtz-Eakin said he — not Zandi — then used that data to inform his policy recommendations to McCain.
Holtz-Eakin said Zandi did not talk to, meet with or otherwise directly advise McCain.
Zandi “advised me and me alone,” Holtz-Eakin said.
Rick Stryker: Well, let’s say they disagree. But Zandi *was* listed as an official adviser.
Menzie,
They don’t disagree. Chip Reid of CBS News talked to Zandi and wrote:
“I talked to Zandi after today’s briefing and he said he too was tired of having his role with McCain mischaracterized, and appreciated that it had been clarified. He repeated what’s he’s told me before — that his role in advising McCain was “very modest” and that he was far from being McCain’s chief economic adviser.”
As Holtz-Eakin said, Zandi was hired to provide data and reports. He never talked to McCain.
Rick Stryker: The point is not whether he was McCain’s *chief* adviser – I never claimed he was, nor did Zandi. The question is whether he was *one* of McCain’s advisers, as listed on the campaign’s literature.
I was responding to your claim that Holtz-Eakin and Zandi disagree about Zandi’s role. They don’t.
We’re not talking about what you said about Zandi. We are talking about what pg13 said. In an effort to pretend that serious Republican economists had endorsed Biden’s plan, pg13 called Zandi “McCain’s economic adviser.” Not “one of McCain’s (very minor) economic advisers, but McCain’s economic advisor.” Zandi was no such thing. Zandi had a very minor role, which he himself acknowledges. He supplied some data and reports to Holtz-Eakin–that’s it. He never even talked to McCain.
I find it interesting that you defend trolls like pg13, who spends almost all of his time in the comment section name-calling, in order to drive people away. When he does, very occasionally, make a substantive statement, he’s wrong.
Zandi “advised me and me alone,” Holtz-Eakin said.
So when Zandi was helping Douglas Holtz-Eakin advice John McCain, he was really helping Obama? Are you serious?
Do you have a clue how the Council of Economic Advisers works. Let’s go back to 1982 when Reagan had to clean house at CEA for that horrific council in 1981. He put in Martin Feldstein and Bill Poole – both first rate. Feldstein called Lawrence Summers and Paul Krugman as he knew he needed top caliber talent. So yea Krugman was an economic adviser to St. Reagan. Of course at times one had to wonder if St. Reagan listened to his new CEA. McCain clearly did not listen to Zandi or Holtz-Eakin in 2008, which is why he lost to Obama.
But come on Rickster – you haven’t a clue what any of this means. So please go back to the Google machine and dust up something else you do not understand.
Hey Ricky Dickey – why did you not note this:
Clearly irritated, Holtz-Eakin told us in a phone interview that he was weary of and fed up with the false narrative about Zandi’s politics being “pushed for political reasons.” “This ends today,” Holtz-Eakin said. “It’s wrong. … It’s not fair to Mark.”
I’m glad Holtz-Eaton defended Zandi against unfair politics. But this unfair political attacks is exactly the point of your parade of dishonest attacks. So Holtz-Eaton would be irritated with your BS too.
“Rick Stryker
October 8, 2020 at 1:36 pm
I was responding to your claim that Holtz-Eakin and Zandi disagree about Zandi’s role. They don’t.”
This pointless rant hours after I noted the Rickster is playing the same type partisan garbage that Holtz-Eakin deplored. But the Rickster ducks this key point. Yes the Rickster is even misrepresenting that Holtz-Eaton’s point even was. A complete liar and scumbag partisan piece of garbage. And on top of that – an utter coward.