Preemptive Accusations of Hypocrisy
I thought this was a strange post from 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?
To recap, historically economic performance has been better under Democratic presidents than under Republican ones. It seems to me that if you are a partisan of progressive economic policies, you’d have to be insane not to mention that fact. But Megan’s concern is that if future growth is so poor as to make it no longer be the case that Democratic presidents have seen better performance than Republican ones, that liberal pundits will hypocritically cease to believe that presidents impact the economy. This seems to me like a bridge we can cross when we come to it. Meanwhile, among the progressive pundits I read there’s been a great deal of concern that the Obama administration’s policies may lead to unsatisfactory growth results.
But to look at the specific data that I’ve seen most recently, here’s Larry Bartels’ work on the different fates of different income brackets under Democratic and Republican presidents:
I don’t see any reason to expect this pattern to break down. Average incomes actually declined over the course of the Bush administration, the worst performance of any president ever. So even if Barack Obama were to turn in a very disappointing pattern of zero income growth over the course of four or eight years, you’d simply see the level of both lines decline, not the relationship between them shift.
But we’ll see—if Obama turns out to be a really crappy president, my expectation is that I’ll say things like “wow, things went really poorly when Obama was president.”
60 Responses to “Preemptive Accusations of Hypocrisy”
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July 7th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
For the sake of decency, please, just stop linking to your former colleague.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
She’s a disgrace, period.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
What post from McArdle isn’t a strange combination of idiocy and inepxlicable self-regard?
Don’t waste your time correcting the mentally deficient.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Democratic presidents are, like, totally awesome for the economy?
To steal a line from Frasier, Meghan doing ’snark’ reminds me of Bob Hope dressing up as The Fonz. Of course, Hope was about ninety at the time.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
I thought this was a strange post from Megan McArdle . . . .
Sound the redundancy alarm.
By the way, if you do the math, it is not at all clear Obama will “destroy their figures” in the long run, if by that you mean the relative averages.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Matt,
You know you make fun of the DC media village for treating people like Mika Brizinski like serious journalists, merely because she’s “one of us?”
That’s what political bloggers do with Megan McArdle.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Every time I consider resubscribing to The Atlantic, I remember that they employ and give a platform to Megan McArdle, and all consideration ceases. Stop it Matt. Just ignore her, like you should have done with Mickey Kaus the other day.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
McArdle resonates with that thirty something, mostly female, I’m smarter than everybody else crowd, but really. A few grad courses in economics does not an economist make. She has much talent chronicling the views of those like her, but unfortunatley doesn’t know her talent or her limitations.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Jeez, you guys are mean. I don’t read McArdle, but I just went and read three random posts to see if she’s a disgrace, and as far as I could see, she’s not a disgrace. Conservative and not my cup of tea, but…
July 7th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Ted, here is a blog that chronicles McMegan’s insipidness.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
So you’re basically saying that instead of talking about economic performance, they’ll switch metrics?
July 7th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
At some point you would think that Matt would realize that there is nothing at all strange about Megan McArdle penning a tendentious and flimsily reasoned post. But I’m not optimistic – she is, after all, a wonderful dinner guest.
But really, how can she, of all people, grouse about “armchair economists”? Christ almighty.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
@10: Not convinced yet. I looked at it, and came to the conclusion that it’s a mean blog. A lot of the accusation of “banality” seems based on a certain quotidian chattiness in McArdle’s style, which isn’t my cup of tea, but also isn’t something that I feel like policing or condemning.
Whatever, though. She’s far enough to the right that it’s no skin off my back.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
What on earth is an armchair economist? Don’t all economists do most of their work from armchairs?
July 7th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Well, the correlation between Democratic presidents and better stock returns is almost certain to persist…
July 7th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
To actually address the substance of McArdle’s post: no, I don’t think that if the economy stays sh*tty through Obama’s term in office, it will discredit the notion that liberal policies can lead to rising incomes.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
So even if Barack Obama were to turn in a very disappointing pattern of zero income growth over the course of four or eight years, you’d simply see the level of both lines decline, not the relationship between them shift.
Since Barack Obama is a Democrat and not a Republican, he doesn’t count toward the Republican average, and only the Democratic line would move down. (I don’t know if this chart already includes all of W.’s term or not. If not, then the Republican line is probably due to move down when the figures come in.)
However, it’s worth mentioning that under any remotely plausible situation (even Obama = Hoover), at *worst* you would see the lines cross at the highest income bracket and only 80% of the population would be better off under Democrats.
Counting the present crisis against Obama is kind of unfair because the crisis started before his inauguration and is taking time to unfold, but presumably that’s the point McArdle was trying to make in the first place: the same thing applies to Clinton prosperity, the “Bush boom”, etc. Until you have a good handle on what the time lags actually are, you can’t connect presidents to economic outcomes (even assuming a rubber-stamp Congress so that the president is actually the driving factor) and a time lag of 0 is clearly incorrect. But the pattern charted here is striking enough to make a strong case that there is a sufficiently strong effect to be perceived *despite* applying the objectively clearly wrong time lag of 0.
Anyway, if Obama wins a second term, presumably his second term would more or less resemble one of Clinton’s terms (better if there is a post-recession rebound effect) and both his average and the Democratic average would regress toward the long-term norms.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
If Megan was just another obscure Republican hack blogging away in the right wing echo chamber, I wouldn’t find her noteworthy. What I find irksome is that she has somehow gotten a position with The Atlantic, and gets people like Matt to periodically link to her.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
I thought this was a
strangetypical post from Megan McArdle.July 7th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
“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.”
Based on historical data, it would have to be no-to-negative growth to pull Democratic average growth (including Obama)below Republican average growth (including Bush).
Seriously, does Megan McCardle even understand how to calculate a mean?
July 7th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
When I came to, I was dangling 50 feet above the jungle floor, my parachute caught in a tree. I felt around to make sure I hadn’t broken any bones, then slipped the knife out of my boot and cut myself out of my rig.
I used the tuck-and-roll technique they’d taught us at Wharton when I hit the forest floor. When I stopped tumbling, I found that my ToughBook had landed just a few feet away, in some brush. My heart pounding – the Austrian insurgents could be on tope of me any second – I booted it up. A feeling of relief flooded over me as I realized my spreadsheets hadn’t been lost, but I could see the sun would be down soon, and I had no food or shelter…
July 7th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
The thing is, McArdle’s coming in the middle of a long-term argument, thus missing the point. (There should be a name for this move/fallacy but I don’t know one.) Up until a few years ago, the idea that Republicans were better for the economy was just treated as a given of American politics — you know, slump under Carter, Morning in America under Reagan. Then, someone went looking at the actual numbers, and pointed out “no, looks like that’s not true”. And that’s the context of the new claim. So it’s a bit annoying to hear her think she’s scoring a clever point with “Are we in for a resurgence of belief in exogenous growth factors?” Sure, but where were you when the shoe was supposedly on the other foot?
July 7th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
I thought this was a strange post from Megan McArdle . . . .
Sound the redundancy alarm.
Maybe it was strange in that its stupidity was condensed into a small enough space that quoting it doesn’t require flaming one’s own blog…
July 7th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
As Chris notes, without the requisite snark, Matt doesn’t understand the graph he links to. A Democratic president moves only one line Matt, and moving only one line means that the relationship between the two lines shifts. My god, Matt can be such a fucking moron on this stuff.
Matt says he doesn’t see any reason for the pattern to break down, which is just a way of saying that he expects the Obama presidency to suceed on Matt’s terms. What Matt doesn’t give us is reasons for expecting the “pattern” to persist, or for thinking there is in fact a pattern.
And Matt’s final comment–that if the Obama presidency isn’t successful on Matt’s terms, that he expects he’d say that “wow, things went really poorly when Obama was president” demonstrates that he’s missed the point. What he should say, to be consistent with the hypothesis he endorses, is that Democrats are really shitty at managing the economy, or some such. He has to draw lessons about the parties from a really small sample size.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Since Barack Obama is a Democrat and not a Republican, he doesn’t count toward the Republican average, and only the Democratic line would move down.
Um, exactly.
Megan’s post makes absolute sense. Matthew’s post is nonsensical.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
(I don’t know if this chart already includes all of W.’s term or not. If not, then the Republican line is probably due to move down when the figures come in.)
The chart appears to have Bush’s first term only, since it says “Income growth by Income level under Democratic and Republican presidents, 1948-2005″ (at least I think it says 2005). I am not sure how the line would move if Bush’s second term is added in – 2005-2007 were relatively good economic years, while 2008 was bad.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Megan’s post makes absolute sense.
Al so crazy.
No, Megan’s post about the imagined responses of liberal pundits in reaction to economic data from years that haven’t actually happened yet does not, in fact, make sense.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Folks, the graph is from 2005. If you graph the last Bush years, the Republican line will go down. So even if Obama has a couple of really flat years, as Megan suggests, if we re-do this graph in 2012, we’ll see that both lines have gone down from the graph above but have maintained their relation to each other.
Admittedly, Matt didn’t phrase that all that well, but it’s simple stuff.
Now, if Megan had suggested that Obama was going to lead us into another Depression, then her snark would have at least matched her prediction. Instead, it matches neither her prediction nor reality.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I like how McCardle, the economics writer with no formal background in econ*, derides “armchair economists.” Her existence makes me lose faith in humanity.
*A couple of graduate classes aside.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
The Republican attack on Democrats is always hypocrisy. If they can’t come up with some present-day hypocrisy, they will imagine a future in which some Democrat somewhere is hypocritical and attack that. This isn’t about rational argument. It’s about reinforcing a narrative. If I say, “McArdle didn’t blow any goats today, but who’s to say what she might do tomorrow?” I’ve just put the idea of McArdle blowing goats in your mind, haven’t I? That’s the idea here. Trying to argue with it is completely unproductive.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
What WoofWoof said. There would have to be a true second (and even a third) Great Depression for her statement about Obama destroying their figures to come true.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Megan’s “graduate” classes in econ would be MBA classes, right? Not exactly heavy-duty stuff.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Thomas, you’re either intentionally misreading Matt or you’re an idiot. Matt’s point is that Bush’s performance was so bad, especially towards the end, that a bad performance by Obama would simply maintain the pattern in Bartel’s graph that goes through 2005. Otherwise, we’re looking at the trend becoming more pronounced b/c Bush was the worst ever, and the full Bush-era has not made it into Bartel’s numbers. Clear?
Re: Megan, I think she’s a living, typing Straw-man for progressive bloggers, which ironically helps her get links. Her posts are so easy to disprove and rip to shreds that a lot of bloggers like linking to her as the subject for a post.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
If you graph the last Bush years, the Republican line will go down.
What makes you say that? There were several relatively good economic years prior to 2008.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
The alternative is the party of Hoover,Nixon and Bush.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Marie as I like to call her, after Marie Antoinette, is forever fighting a rearguard action against her common sense using her preferred tool, libertarian ideology. The tool of choice of millions of upper middle class white Gen X’ers in order to justify and explain their pretty nice life. Thankfully MY avoided this trap, pretty much.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Seriously, does Megan McCardle even understand how to calculate a mean?
She was apparently unaware of the dimensions of a 2×4. What do you think?
Seriously, linking to McAddled is tantamount to trolling your own blog.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
McCardle is a complete clown. Why even bother to read her let alone discuss what she has to say or link to her. She lacks the common sense and real life experience to even wash my car.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Does John Galt know that McMeghan borrowed his time machine?
July 7th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
What makes you say that? There were several relatively good economic years prior to 2008.
Keep telling yourself that, Al!
July 7th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Keep telling yourself that, Al!
You do realize, don’t you, that “the economic cycle that began in March 2001 and ended in December of 2007″ was mostly already included in Bartel’s graph, since the graph goes through (or, perhaps, to) 2005. I’m not sure why this is so difficult to figure out. Economic growth in 2006-2007 =/ economic growth 2001-2007.
July 7th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
You do realize, don’t you, that “the economic cycle that began in March 2001 and ended in December of 2007″ was mostly already included in Bartel’s graph,..Economic growth in 2006-2007 =/ economic growth 2001-2007.
True. GDP growth in 2006 was 2.78% and in 2007 a barn-burning 2.08% I haven’t seen how that growth was distributed by income level, but I’d wager the bulk went to the top, like it did in the earlier parts of GW’s tenure, as has been extensively documents. Care to take me up on that wager, Al?
I’m not sure why this is so difficult to figure out.
Lolz.
July 7th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Wait, Megan McCurdled is accusing OTHERS of being “armchair economists”?
What. The. Fuck?
July 7th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Matty -
I love you but I have bad news for you: your pal Megan is a laughingstock. She uses eco-data when she thinks it helps her lightweight arguments, and ignores data when she thinks it doesn’t. Problem is, she doesn’t know the difference.
Over here on Wall St we laugh ourselves silly when she pontificates on the workings of the mkts.
July 7th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
That’s a mighty big presumption, considering Obama is a mere 6 months into his tenure at the White House. If you were to chart our economic growth based on the first 6 months of W. Bush’s tenure in the White House, what would our econometric charts look like?
This is the presumptuous arguments that Republicans are making right now. “Let’s assume that the economy will stay bad for a long time and roll into 2012 with both guns blazing”. Question for the conservatives: what if the serious economists are correct and the economy recovers by the end of 2009/beginning of 2010? How will Republicans ever win elections?
July 7th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Question for the conservatives: what if the serious economists are correct and the economy recovers by the end of 2009/beginning of 2010? How will Republicans ever win elections?
The opportunity for them is that many of those same serious economists are saying that the recovery is likely to be weak, with poor job growth. I find it very believable that in Nov 2010, the news will be bad enough that voters will be in a sour enough mood that they listen to the loony voices who got us here in the first place.
What the outlook is 2012 is anyone’s guess.
July 7th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
I actually don’t find it plausible that by the fall of next year, voters will have forgotten who caused this mess in the first place. I think it will be a VERY long road back for the GOP on economic issues, and they aren’t doing what it will take yet to get that process started.
July 7th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
DTM, you have more faith in the memory and intelligence of the average swing voter than I do, but I hope to hell you are right!
July 8th, 2009 at 2:08 am
I do want to remind everyone that Megan McArdle actually went to graduate school at the University of Chicago, one of the most rigorous institutions in the world.
Whatever that she can be justly accused of, stupidity and insolence are not among them.
July 8th, 2009 at 2:09 am
In fact, I think graduate training at Chicago is more than anything that most, if not all here, can speak for; certainly I would not claim to do so.
July 8th, 2009 at 2:54 am
Yes, she got a master’s in business administration from the University of Chicago. And she was an English major as an undergraduate who put her MBA to good use by becoming a professional blogger.
But I love how her fans fetishize training in economics.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:07 am
Myles, did you mean “indolence” (laziness) rather than “insolence” (impertinence)? I don’t see why having gone to a prestigious school implies that one is not insolent.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:10 am
And, no one seriously thinks that McArdle is stupid in the sense that she is truly unintelligent. Rather, she writes stupid posts, owing to laziness, intellectual dishonesty, misinformation, or some other vice. Hell, George W Bush went to graduate school at Harvard University, and has arguably exhibited even greater stupidity and indolence (and insolence, for that matter) in recent years than McArdle.
July 8th, 2009 at 5:57 am
17: You can introduce a time lag of 1-2 years and get the same result, from what I understand.
34: The post 2005 period only looked good compared to the post Y2K crash. The stock market (and housing market) did okay, but there was very little real income growth (perhaps none, in fact).
A lot of the final accounting here will be pretty time sensitive. If you switch the counting from Bush to Obama even 3 months after the start of Obama’s presidency, there is very little chance Obama’s presidency won’t show robust growth. Unless, of course, disaster really does strike worldwide. Endless exponential economic growth is not assured, of course.
July 8th, 2009 at 5:59 am
Also, I’m not sure 2010 matters that much. The Dems aren’t going to do poorly in the Senate and, at worst, they’ll lose a few house seats. But if the economy has recovered by 2012, Obama will be reelected. If he does a good job with the economy through 2016, Reaganism and Republican economics as they are currently preached/practiced will be permanently dead. The contrast will be too ridiculous not to notice.
July 8th, 2009 at 6:53 am
I’m beginning to understand what’s meant by the phrase “a My Pretty Pony version of the Khmer Rouge.”
July 8th, 2009 at 8:17 am
I do want to remind everyone that Megan McArdle actually went to graduate school at the University of Chicago, one of the most rigorous institutions in the world.
Business schools are not graduate schools, and are rarely rigorous.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:21 am
The correlation between the party of the president and various economic measures of growth is just that, correlation, not causation. One might turn it around and propose that economic cycles tend to produce presidents of the different parties at particular points in the economic cycle and I think that makes a bit more sense although it is no more likely to be proven as fact.
Then too there are big cycles and small. The granddaddy being being the 40% or more drop in GDP from 29 to 33. I’ll go out on a limb and say growth from 33 to 52 was a sure thing baring some really bizarre alt history outcome no matter which party held the White House.
The Clinton years were marked by the complete adoption of GOP macro economic theories and policies. The result was the credit fueled bubble era which laid the foundation of our current woes. It felt and looked pretty good at the time, as long as you looked at the shiny stuff. It was due to come unraveled and started to in 2000 but one more mad cycle of credit and monetary madness extended the cycle until 2007. Unluckily for Obama who by the way along with his party has no alternate economic model still today.
The question now is how is the cycle that is in an obvious down phase. Crackpots like me say as big or probably bigger than the one that ended in 1929. Stay tuned.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Isn’t the University of Chicago particularly known as the citadel of the “freshwater” school of economics, a notorious pseudoscience with all the intellectual rigor of creationism? It’s hard to imagine that not infecting their business school. But, in any case, if McArdle had a good education she ought to be able to construct an argument that stands up well to scrutiny and counterarguments. This one doesn’t.
Some Democrats preside over good times, some over bad times, just like Republicans. The chart shows the effect that remains after the fluctuations of the business cycle are averaged out. Crony capitalism is terrible for most of the population and isn’t even that great for most of the rich. (If you could chart specifically the *well-connected* ultra-rich, I’m sure they would make out like bandits, but it’s hard to get statistics on insider dealing.)
July 8th, 2009 at 11:12 am
I’ve just put the idea of McArdle blowing goats in your mind, haven’t I?
And thanks a hell of a lot for that.
Whatever that she can be justly accused of, stupidity and insolence are not among them.
Hogwash. McArdle routinely posts stupid blog posts — and now, she gets paid for it. She’s entitled to the criticism.