Cactus and his merry band of madmen…and Megan McArdle
I googled the title phrase and ‘Behold!’, here are the three links. Mike also sent them.
Cactus and his merry band of madmen and Megan McArdle
What happens to the cottage industry among Democratic-leaning armchair economists grinding out analyses proving that Democratic presidents are, like, totally awesome for the economy? Presuming that we’re stuck–as seem very likely–in at least a couple of years of really grinding low-to-no growth, Obama is going to destroy their figures. Are we in for a resurgence of belief in exogenous growth factors?
Now, of course, it may be that the economy starts growing like gangbusters in the next year. In which case I expect that Cactus and his merry band of madmen will continue with their arguments. But if, as most people expect, growth continues to stall for the next few years, it seems I can look forward to more explanations of why Democrats–and only Democrats–can be thrown out of the sample if they have low growth and betray The Faith; and why the economic results of Democratic presidential administrations–and only Democratic presidential administrations–are sensitive to exogenous starting conditions.
Response to Megan McArdle again
“Going back to 1952 at least, every Democrat, every single one, has increased the tax burden. Every single Republican lowered them.”-McArdle
I had some posts after that, perhaps time to revisit them, that showed that not only did the change in the tax burden correlate with growth, the change in the tax burden in the first two years of an administration’s term correlated with the growth rate in the final six years. And not in the direction McMegan likes to see. Sure, correlation does not imply causality, but it just so happens that Presidents under whom growth in years 2 – 8 was fastest also were the Presidents who found a way to go back in time to years 1 & 2 and raise the tax burden. Or something like that. Go figure.
Cactus
one can tell from McArdle’s rhetoric that she is not being honest.
on the other hand facts have a huge handicap in the battle against rhetoric.
while i don’t like Obama and think his policies even re the economy could be better… that is less “wall street” and more “main street” (see how useful rhetoric is), i am persuaded that is two biggest problems are
the degree to which the economy was f.u.’d by his predecessor and what looks to me almost like a conspiracy to bring down the economy in order to destroy government
and, second, the fact the Obama listens to the same advisors who helped bring down the economy.
so, yes, Megan is just inoculating her readers against the almost certain charge that Obama is not a real Democrat.
of course, neither is anyone else these days.
I don’t know exactly who she is disparaging, but the studies that I have seen that indicate better economic growth during Democratic administrations have bent over backwards by throwing out Hoover and FDR.
As for Obama, he is Hoover lite.
One thing to note (now that it’s been revealed that Meagan was trained for propaganda in the Koch Brothers’ school for wayward girls) is the nature of the claim she is making. Meagan is not identifying Lefties who have argued for tossing out the Obama years. She’s claiming that Lefties WILL toss out the Obama years. It’s understandable. She knows what she’d do, and is simply claiming that Mike would do the same. As Min noted, Meagan has also asserted that nothing like dropping a president’s economic record from comparisons has ever been done before, when in fact the rebound after the Great Depression is routinely dropped.
So what we really have is a graduate of Koch’s school for wayward girls blaming Mike for something she is pretending he will do someday, while also pretending the thing that Mike did (Did? How fictional time flies when telling lies!) is unprecedented.
If I were a graduate of the Koch school, I’d probably claim that the dishonesty Meagan has displayed is unprecedented. I know it’s not true, though, bacause I’ve read some of her other stuff.