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- "I'm not going to put my lot in with economists," Clinton said in an exclusive appearance on a special edition of "This Week" from Indianapolis.
In light of fierce criticism from economic experts, Clinton said, "We've been, for the last seven years, seeing a tremendous amount of government power and elite opinion basically behind policies that haven't worked well for the middle class and hard-working Americans. ... I know if we get it right, if we actually did it right, if we had a president who used all the tools of the presidency, we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively."
This annoys me a lot. It's a typical political smear. Economists have been saying for a very long time that reconing is coming. It's partly because economists are do darn funny. For example: Unsustainable conditions eventually end. That's hilarious. What Hillary's doing here is equating economists with "government power and elite opinion". To my knowledge, there's no connection. Bush doesn't care what economists say. "Elite opinion" is not the opinion of economists. But it's a smear that will sell, just like her foolish gas tax plan is populist pap that won't help. We need a sensible person in charge. Smearing economists--who are essentially scientists--is quite similar to the sort of smears Bush enjoys. You won't "put your lot in" with economists? Do you know who else loves that angle? Zimbabwe's Mugabe, Cuba's Castro, and Venezuela's Chavez. It's not that these people have bad intentions. It's that they think economists are selling flim-flam. They need only apply their iron fist of decree to complicated problems. But you know what they say about unsustainable conditions...
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Not that I have any love for the McCain-Clinton gas tax roll-back, but there are economic theories other than capitalist ones - and economists to go with them. Saying one disagrees with the opinion of economists is like saying one does not wish to consume the sort of food that is prepared by chefs.
I'd like to know how you reason that Sens. McCain and Clinton are close politically. They certainly are not in voting records or policy pieces. I'm also curious why you think the two being friendly with each other affects their politics.
The gas tax holiday is small potatoes relative to everything else. But it’s so economically stupid (it would increase demand for gas and cause prices to rise, eliminating any benefit to consumers while costing the Treasury more than $9 billion, and generate more pollution) and silly (even if she won, HRC won’t be president this summer) as to be worrisome. That HRC now says she doesn’t care that what economists think is even more troubling.
Of course, there's also some economic axiom that greater efficiency leads to greater consumption. Talk about doom. I'd love to pick-and-choose scientific facts, too!
Robert Reich agrees with me:
I construe this to mean that Robert Reich does not see economists as scientists either.
For the record, I agree that axing the gas tax is a waste of time at best, and without a countering fuel management policy would be environmentally counter productive.
I disagree with your assertion that Economists are scientists. I think that they are more like a sudo-science, not quite as bad as psychology, certainly more practical. The more I learn about economics and particularly economists and their role in politics the more I feel that they do not deserve the title "scientist". No, I am not saying that they have no idea what they are talking about or that they can be ignored... I think that the assumptions that economists tend to hold about human behavior and its predictability is arrogant, and worse, the tendency seems to be to place too much emphasis on what they are thinking and ignoring other sudo-sciences.
Either way, the economists win.
Oi, stuff it.
Sorry, I'm not interested in starting a flame war. My response to you was too flippant. I was expressing my frustration in being called out on my poor spelling, which given the fact that I am posting on a casual web site to someone I have virtually known for years didn't seem that important. However, your response felt like a personal attack, which seemed a bit more out of the ordinary because I don't know who you are. Please forgive me for my dismissal of you, and be more sensitive in the future.
The "oi" was a nice touch, though.
Ok, yeah. My criticism is the notion that economics is a science, not that economists are not serious researchers and theorists. I have worked at AAAS in the Science and Human Rights program, in what is definitely a sudo-science [sic]. That is definitely a subset of Social Science, and the person I worked for had a PhD in Sociology and knew himself that it was a sudo-science. All we could to was strive to make the field more scientific, and I must say, this fellow has made significant contributions toward that goal.
Without that context, an economist might have viewed my reference to economics as a sudo-science as an insult, but it was not.
obviously i have no comment. some things go without saying.