On Monday, August 17, 2009 at 14:22:19 (-0700) Michael Perelman writes: >I thought Dean looked just fine. A more animated presentation would have >lost some people.
They both appeared to be reading from teleprompters and since they are not trained actors, their affect was somewhat flat. But it's rather sad that this should be interesting rather than what they actually said. When I watched these videos yesterday, I noticed that the NY times claimed that about 1,700 persons agreed with Dean Baker, while 800 or so with Casey Mulligan. I certainly think Baker is an astute fellow, with the facts on his side in this one, but I don't think this exchange if fairly judged should be given to Baker, and the numbers really reflected preconceptions, not outcomes of the debate (no surprise, really). Mulligan for example gave a very credible rebuttal to the ENTIRE IDEA OF A STIMULUS --- talk about going for the jugular! From memory, he cited Robert Barro, claiming that World War II did not pull us out of the depression, and that 90% of the money spent in World War II was well after unemployment dropped to around 4%. Here's what Baker should have said, and I'm just guessing at the facts here: What Casey Mulligan doesn't seem to understand is that WE WERE FIGHTING A FUCKING WAR DURING WORLD WAR II, not just stimulating the economy! First, it's convenient for Mulligan and Barro to date the start of the war from the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but we were already spending money on the war before that. Second, ask Mulligan if the drop in unemployment came only after or before government spending --- the answer is ONLY AFTER --- the notion that government spending "crowded out" private investment is ludicrous --- private spending had gone crying to momma from the playing field and sat pouting on the sidelines while our economy crumbled. Mulligan and Barro know that the government spent WAY more on the war than was needed merely to stimulate the economy because WE WERE FIGHTING A FUCKING WAR AGAINST GERMANY AND JAPAN! We only needed a tiny fraction of war spending to stimulate the economy. Mulligan and Barro should have their PhDs revoked and whoever handed out PhDs to these two clowns should be deported. Anyone who makes these kinds of bogus arguments is a disgrace to the economics profession. So, can economists here edit the above paragraph for factual accuracy and decorum to get it exactly right? Am I on the right track here? Bill _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
