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You’re Entitled to Your Own Opinion, But Not Your Own Facts

[ 44 ] June 20, 2011 | Scott Lemieux

Becker does seem to forget this from time to time.

Comments (44)

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  1. arguingwithsignposts says:
    June 20, 2011 at 9:02 am

    You’re Entitled to Your Own Opinion, But Not Your Own Facts

    You know, I keep hearing this, and yet they keep clinging to their own “facts” like rabid dogs. And the Koch-funded “think”-tanks keep putting out b.s. non-stop, and it’s parroted on FoxNews, and reported in he said/she said fashion in mainstream publications.

    Apparently, that truism isn’t as true as people in the scientific/reality-based community like to think it is.

    Reply
  2. DrDick says:
    June 20, 2011 at 9:13 am

    You keep forgetting that conservatives create their own reality. Of course the DSM-IV has a name for people like that.

    Reply
  3. actor212 says:
    June 20, 2011 at 9:20 am

    Becker will merely blame Pelosi.

    Reply
  4. howard says:
    June 20, 2011 at 9:48 am

    the lengths to which these fresh-water types will go to avoid acknowledging the problem is demand is quite remarkable.

    Reply
  5. David Nieporent says:
    June 20, 2011 at 10:28 am

    Unfortunately for that argument, Yglesias can’t read. Here’s what Yglesias quotes Becker as saying; Yglesias even boldfaces it for emphasis: “It is no surprise that this rhetoric and the proposed and actual policies discouraged business investment and slowed down the recovery.”

    Here’s what Yglesias then says, in a complete non-sequitur: “Neither Obama’s rhetoric nor his policies can possibly be responsible for the Obama-era drop in investment for the simple reason that no such drop occurred.” Since Becker never said anything about an Obama-era “drop in investment”, Yglesias’s “facts” are completely non-responsive.

    Moreover, Yglesias’s analysis would be wrong in any case, since the relevant consideration — and what Becker is talking about, if one follows the link and reads what he writes — is not Obama-era investment compared to 2008, but Obama-era investment compared to what it would have been in the absence of the policies that Becker is concerned about. We would expect investment to improve from the trough of a recession; that’s called the business cycle. The question is whether it’s improving as fast as it should be.

    Reply
    • dave3544 says:
      June 20, 2011 at 10:45 am

      How the hell can we know what the recovery “would have been in the absence of the [largely proposed, but not enacted] policies Becker is concerned about”?

      The best that Becker does is offer that growth and re-employment is not happening at the same rate as 1982-1984 and that it is not happening at [very limited] historical averages.

      Given all the variables and given that Becker offers absolutely no facts or data to back up his assertions that business are too frightened of those out of control Dems (so liberal they passed the Republican health care plan of 1996!), I think MY and everyone else is right to call bullshit.

      Apparently plenty of people had a lot of reason to be plenty wary of investing in the US economy long before cap-and-trade had a hearing in a committee.

      Reply
      • Warren Terra says:
        June 20, 2011 at 11:27 am

        It’s worth pointing out that part of Becker’s argument is that a morbid fear of a vertiginous rise in the income tax prevented the Movers And Shakers from working harder to boost the economy. Why bother, when Uncle Sam might take a bigger bite?

        The tax rise threatened was a return to Clinton-era rates (top bracket: 39.6%). In 1982-1984, the top bracket was 50%.

        Reply
      • David Nieporent says:
        June 20, 2011 at 11:59 am

        How the hell can we know what the recovery “would have been in the absence of the [largely proposed, but not enacted] policies Becker is concerned about”?

        The same way we can know how many jobs the stimulus saved or how much money that Medicare will cost in 5 years or anything else: we can’t know with certainty, but we can analyze present and historical data and form conclusions.

        (so liberal they passed the Republican health care plan of 1996!),

        You can tell that it was “the Republican health care plan of 1996″ by the fact that the Republican-led House and Senate passed it in 1996.

        Reply
        • timb says:
          June 20, 2011 at 12:16 pm

          are you disputing that the ACA originated with the Heritage Foundation or just being needlessly argumentative (not to mention, pretty pleased apparently with 30 million uninsured)?

          Business investment follows demand. No demand, no investment. No middle class, no demand. 35 years of anti-union, anti-public sector, oligarchy creating policies coming to fruition = no demand

          Reply
          • joe from Lowell says:
            June 20, 2011 at 1:57 pm

            I think he’s disputing that the Heritage Foundation plan was actually the Republicans’ plan in 1996. The Republicans certainly didn’t act like it was their plan.

            I’ve heard tell that Republicans will sometimes throw out bogus proposals that they don’t actually support, just to try to throw a monkey wrench into the effort to reform health care.

            Reply
        • dave3544 says:
          June 20, 2011 at 12:44 pm

          we can analyze present and historical data and form conclusions.

          Would that Becker did this. He apparently “analyzed” the hell out of one set of data, used that as his one point comparison, then argued without citing any evidence whatsoever that Obama’s policies had anything to do with where he dreams the economy “should” be.

          And you should really change “conclusions” to “hypotheses.”

          Reply
    • howard says:
      June 20, 2011 at 11:32 am

      the straight fact is that business investment has not been discouraged; that’s what matthew pointed out.

      as for the speculative assumption that investment must have been better in some parallel universe: not without demand. period. end of story.

      Reply
    • DrDick says:
      June 20, 2011 at 1:18 pm

      Excuse me, but as Krugman, DeLong, Stiglitz, and many others have pointed out, the lack of investment is a product of the lack of demand in the economy. Businesses are awash in cash and could easily expand their operations, but nobody is buying their products. Unfortunately things like 9% (actually more like 15% if you look at the U6) unemployment, a lack of job security, and declining wages tend to depress demand.

      Reply
      • joe from Lowell says:
        June 20, 2011 at 2:01 pm

        No, no, that’s crazy, Doctor!

        Developers from Bakersfield to Central Florida would be throwing up subdivisions just like the old days if it weren’t for Dodd-Frank.

        Demand-shemand. You need to take Econ 101.

        Reply
    • wengler says:
      June 20, 2011 at 1:34 pm

      Which part of the business cycle includes the theft of trillions of dollars?

      Reply
  6. James E. Powell says:
    June 20, 2011 at 10:46 am

    We would expect investment to improve from the trough of a recession; that’s called the business cycle. The question is whether it’s improving as fast as it should be.

    Wrong. The question is why investment is not improving faster.

    Reply

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