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GERALD_FRIEDMAN
November 17, 2016
A particularly strange phenomena February 16, 2016
in the Krugman/Bernie wars was a July 07, 2018
dispute about an economic
analysis of Bernie Sanders KRUGMAN_BERNIE_WARS
proposals from an economist named
Gerald Friedman...
There were a few different misdirection
ploys in play here all apparently intended
to support Krugman's message that all
Serious Economists were convinced Bernie
Sanders was crazy and his proposals were
worthless.
Keep that in mind if you decide to
follow this "debate" off into the weeds--
as always the real game is manipulating
how it looks from a few thousand feet up
to the great incohate mass of the undecideds.
Gerald Friedman had no connection
to Bernie's campaign (and
actually was a Hillary supporter,
for what it's worth). The Gerald
Friedman analysis found that the
big changes Sanders proposed
would have big effects, but
Krugman acted scandalized at the Krugman's blog: [link]
size of the claimed effects (5%
job growth, etc) and dismissed it "The point is not that all of
all as no better than voodoo, this is impossible, but it's
demanding that Bernie's campaign very unlikely-- and these are
dissociate themselves from this numbers we would describe as
post-haste or they were no better deep voodoo if they came from
than Republicans, etc. a tax-cutting Republican.
"Sanders needs to disassociate
himself from this kind of
fantasy economics right
now. If his campaign responds
instead by lashing out-- well,
a campaign that treats Alan
(For what it's worth, the Krueger, Christy Romer, and
Sanders campaign responded Laura Tyson as right-wing
by ignoring this nonsense enemies is well on its way to
and focusing on things sane making Donald Trump president."
people might care about.)
William K. Black makes the point
that Laura Tyson used to be
someone Krugman regarded poorly.
This "don't you dare talk back
to your betters" maneuver took
There were a number of curious some, shall we say, "chutzpah".
little twists and turns to this--
at no time did Bernie endorse this [link]
economic analysis: Bernie himself
was not making any extreme promises
about job growth rates.
However, a guy connected to the Sanders
campaign did cite the study favorably, Warren Gunnels,
and said Friedman's work deserved more campaign policy director.
attention.
Both Krugman (and Kevin Drum at
Mother Jones) acted like this was Drum later repudiated
the equivalent of an endorsement, his attack:
that there was a deep connection
between Friedman and Sanders... [link]
Just a little oopsie. Right
The "economists" attacking Gerald before the NY primary election.
Friedman's result were rushing to Not that i'm bitter or anything.
do so without actually looking at And these days I'm astounded if
the work-- the wheels of academy anyone conceeds they made a
may grind slowly, but politics mistake.
fears not to rush ahead.
Gerald Friedman's claimed that his
analysis was very conventional, given
the assumptions he started with.
(There was some back-and-forth about
this later, but I haven't seen any LOUD_ATTACKS_QUIET_APOLOGIES
really good argument that it wasn't.)
Gerald Friedman himself commented he
didn't defend these assumptions, and
was quite willing to look at others...
William K. Black, "Krugman and the Gang of Four
Need to Apologize for Smearing Gerald Friedman":
[link]
"If you depend for your news on the New York Times
you have been subjected to a drumbeat of article
attacking Bernie Sanders-- and the conclusion of
everyone 'serious' that his economics are daft. In
particular, you would 'know' that four prior
Chairs of the President's Council of Economic
Advisers (CEA) (the Gang of Four) have signed an
open letter to Bernie that delivered a death blow
to his proposals. Further, you would know that
anyone who dared to disagree with these four
illustrious economists was so deranged that he or
she was acting like a Republican in denial of
global climate change."
John Atcheson, "Voodoo Journalism: Dr. Krugman Strikes Again--
Risking His Credibility", February 21, 2016:
[link]
"Sanders is not, and never has, pretended that
his platform is primarily or even incidentally,
an economic platform. It is a moral and ethical
one. It is intended to assure a more equitable
and just allocation of wealth and income; to
get money out of politics; to restore sensible
regulation of the financial sector; to increase
access to health care and education; and to
generally move us from an Oligarchy back to a
democracy. ... So criticizing an ethical
platform on the basis of a poorly constructed
economic criticism of someone else's entirely
mainstream economic analysis has no relevance
to Sanders qualifications as a candidate."
Ryan Cooper, "Why are big-shot liberal economists
hippie-punching Bernie Sanders?", February 19, 2016:
[link]
"But they're not doing that. Instead of actually
lending their expertise to improve the
analysis, they're jumping directly to political
demands that Sanders humiliate himself and
Friedman by bowing and scraping before their
wonk overlords. ... This is classic
hippie-punching. It's policing the leftward
edge of the discourse, and in a way that is
deeply unfair to Professor Friedman. Even if
his analysis turns out to have some errors,
he's not remotely comparable to the Republican
hacks who cynically stamp out argle-bargle
claiming whatever handout to the rich is on
deck will create one bazillion percent growth."
James K Galbraith, February 18, 2016:
[ref]
"What the Friedman paper shows, is that under
conventional assumptions, the projected impact
of Senator Sanders' proposals stems from their
scale and ambition. When you dare to do big
things, big results should be expected. The
Sanders program is big, and when you run it
through a standard model, you get a big result"
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