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TechnoratiLies, Damn Lies, and (Conservative) Statistics
Is it revealing of how little the Republicans have to offer during these tough economic times that they have to distort economic statistic after economic statistic?
It might be useful, during an election campaign, if the Democrats called them on it.
Recently, a Republican informed me that Bush's employment record was better than Clinton's. Where could he get that idea?
Well, how about from the September 3rd Wall Street Journal ("Bush Has a Good Economic Record") and conservative economist Keith Marsden: "The U.S. unemployment rate averaged 4.7% from 2001-2007. This compares with a 5.2% average rate during President Clinton's term of office..."
Hey, Keith, buddy, let me show you how misleading averages can be (or maybe this is no accident). See, when Clinton took office in 1993, the unemployment rate was 7.3%. When he left office eight years later, it was 4.2%. Thus the rate could be the 5.2% that you describe.
When Bush took office, the rate was 4.2%. When you wrote your article it had grown to 5.7% (and is now 6.1%).
So, during Clinton's term in office, unemployment fell dramatically. During Bush it has risen dramatically. (How could it be otherwise when Clinton was creating 165,000 more jobs each month than Bush?) But averages don't tell you that, so it's a bit misleading to use them, right?
OK, Marsden isn't really a prominent conservative, and we all make mistakes. But on September 15th, two stars of conservative economics, Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore, took to the Journal's editorial pages to defend the Republican economic record regarding the poor ("New Evidence on Taxes and Income").
You see, the after-tax income of the poor increased an inflation-adjusted 25%, from $12,500 to $16,000, over the past 25 years, which the authors think is "special". (If you're wondering, you won't learn how this compares to the income of other classes in this article.)
Fine. To the authors' credit, they detail the various factors that they pinpoint as the basis for the income increase. To their discredit, it includes the "earned income tax credit", a tax subsidy of up to $4,700 for low-income families (depending on the size of family and level of income) that has grown considerably over the past 25 years. From the data provided, we can't pinpoint exactly how much, given the range of family sizes and filings, but we know it's a significant portion of the increase--or the authors wouldn't have included it. .
Meanwhile, unmentioned in the article is that the minimum wage also increased during this time, from $3.35 to $5.15, an increase of nearly 60%. Now the Moore/Laffer stat is "inflation-adjusted" so we can't determine the precise impact of the tax credit and wage increases.
But we can determine this: it's not conservative economic policies that are critical to the poor; it's liberal tax and wage policy.
OK, but unemployment and poverty really aren't the economic statistics closest to a conservative economist's heart. Stock market appreciation is.
So, on September 12th, Donald Luskin, chief investment officer at Trend Macrolytics LLC., set out to analyze which political party has a better record at raising stock prices-again in the Journal.
Any bets as to what headline Mr. Luskin, who is also an advisor to John McCain's campaign, foresaw? Here's my bet:
Stock Market Grows Most Under Republican Presidents.
Except for one thing...it doesn't.
Mr. Luskin and The Journal didn't want the headline "Not Only Do Workers Do Better Under Democrats, So Do Investors", which is what they would have gotten from a straightforward study.
Luskin explains: "I've run the numbers myself. ...(T)he Democratic claims are true: Since 1948, the Standard & Poor's 500 total return (capital gains plus dividends) has averaged 15.6% when a Democrat was in the White House and only 11.1% when a Republican was in the White House."
"You get a similar result if you look at growth in real gross domestic product. Under Democratic presidents, the average since 1948 has been 4.2%. Under Republican presidents it has been only 2.8%."
I want to direct your attention to the ellipsis. That's mine. I deleted from that paragraph "Superficially at least". Mr. Luskin was probably discomfited by the fact that Dems had the better record, so the data manipulations needed to begin, er...I mean Luskin strove to get beyond "superficiality".
Now, not all manipulations are created equal. First, Luskin starts by declaring that John Kennedy was "an enthusiastic supply-side tax cutter". The Republicans are always quick to claim Kennedy as one of their own as he reduced the highest personal income tax rate from 91% to 70%. It never occurs to them that Kennedy may have thought that 70% was the correct tax rate on the rich. If Obama announced tomorrow that he was increasing the highest rates to 70%, would the Republicans consider this to be "Kennedyesque"?
In any case, Luskin engages in all kinds of maneuvers, some quite creative: Turn Richard Nixon into a Democrat (he imposed price controls) and the Republicans come out on top; turn Kennedy into a Republican along with free-trader Bill Clinton (notice, not "tax-raiser" Bill Clinton) and count George H.W. Bush and Nixon as Democrats and the Republicans win again; a Democratic President and a Republican Congress generate the best results of any option. (Hence the article's actual title: "Divided Government Is Best For Market".)
Gee, Luskin forgot: Republicans have a better record at ethics if Richard Nixon is considered a Democrat.
Even Luskin's conclusion is suspect given that there has been a Democratic President and a Republican only 6 of the 60 years that he examines.
But all of his endeavors miss the point. The Republicans hold themselves out as the party of the shareholders. Yet, Republicans don't manage the economy any better than the Democrats from an investor perspective-and much worse from a worker's (median income increased $6,000 under Clinton and has dropped $1,000 under Bush).
OK, Moore and Laffer and Luskin aren't big enough for you? How about Karl Rove, in (where else) the Wall Street Journal (October 2): "The Tax Foundation...found last year that 91% of Americans thought the maximum anyone should pay in taxes was 30% or less of their income. Mr. Obama wants to raise the top marginal rate by nearly a fifth to about 40%. (Bad Math Alert: Obama wants to raise the top marginal rate by 13%, closer to 10% than 20%). With Medicare taxes and his proposed increases in Social Security taxes on the wealthy added in, this would result in over 50 cents out of every additional $1 earned in the top income brackets going to government."
Rove is confusing nominal and effective tax rates. In fact, despite the 35% top nominal tax rate, those making over $5 million annually have actually paid less than 25% of their income in federal taxes recently. Meanwhile, Social Security taxes are capped and don't lead to any cents out of every additional $1 earned in the top income brackets going to government, depending upon any future changes. Looks like there's more room for Obama's tax increases than Rove admits (even assuming that 30 per cent is the right number).
Elections are opportunities for citizen education. Democrats should be educating the American people on Bush's unemployment record, what the rich are really paying in taxes, and the superior Democratic stock market record.
Is the economic crisis is so severe that the Democrats shouldn't take advantage of this opportunity? They don't conflict...
But if not, they should at least encourage the Wall Street Journal to hire a copy editor.
29 Comments so far
Show AllWhat kills me is how Martha Stewart went to jail for selling $40,000 in falling stocks without burden of proof that she had not been forewarned, while everyone inside the beltway has been taking way more than $40,000/month from Freddie and Fannie and every other corrupt Wall St operation in broad daylight! Nobody even talks about putting anyone in jail or investigating them! No rioting in the streets? No Boston Tea Party?
Congressman Jim Traficant from Ohio went to prison for a long long time for accepting $13,000 from a friend who wanted Jimbo to bring some pork his way. Which congressman isn't doing this these days without so much as a gasp from the "liberal" media?
We have become de-sensitized. Is this what it was like when Hitler took over Germany? We are morally dead. Were the Germans as crazy as we are today? Go to Walmart you crazy fukkers! Eat cheese puffs and get ready to nuke Iran when Palin takes McGeezer's spot.
There is plenty of blame to go around and over the last 30 years, not 8. This entire fiasco was made possible by the Republican Congress passing a bill by Phil Gramm and signed into law by Democrat Bill Clinton repealing Glass-Stegall. Without repealing that sensible law this simply could not have happened here. But every political group has lent a hand to this. There are no innocent parties. Only those that carry more guilt like the lasst 8 years.
"bligh4 Statistics can be made to lie- both sides know that and use it to their advantage."
Absolutely correct. And a lie told by a Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative, radical right or radical left is just that, a lie. They all do it. But only fanatics will accept their lies at face value or always insist their group is always being lied about or wouldn't do anything dishonest.
Talk about misleading. Most corporate jobs are mired in unsustainable practices. The only thing Clinton did was create less environmental integrity in the Earth community of beings. He was one of the great GREEN WASHERS and still is!
He was president for eight years and never did squat for our Earth Mother other than pay lip service to the issue. He provided no leadership on climate change, offering nothing more than crumbs off the table.
Here is your wake up call, folks: Obama will do nothing either except perhaps increase coal, nuclear, and bio all inimical to the Earth.
To understand McCain's logic, you have to know the GOP mantra:
"Say whatever you have to get what you want. It doesn't matter if it's the truth."
Alaska Barbie knows how to do it. The only problem is that everyone knows she is full of moose sh*t.
This site, Shadowstats, provides "alternative" data; alternative in that it measures the main economic indicators in the manner the government did before it manipulated them to show better performance than was true.
The postal rate is another very good proxy for the rate of inflation. This site has good graphs and a narrative explaination, that while dated somewhat is still prescient. And the page bottom graph here shows the actual CPI rate since 1972 is 31% higher than the proxy postal rate.
But since the 1946 Full Employment Act made the President resonsible for economic performance and thus keeping the labor force fully employed, unemployment has been the key metric, and the Shadowstats chart linked above--and even the BLS's own U6 figure--show chronically high levels have existed for a long time now. And I rather doubt the deception will change with Obama.
"This site, Shadowstats, provides "alternative" data; "
I would be very interested if you could link to where on his site he explains his methodology. I have never been able to find that. In any case, he does seem to start with numbers provided by the government, there is no way that he duplicates the survey work done.
There is no specific "methodology" page. The "Primers" and "Reporting/Market Focus" together reveal some aspects as do his newletters and the C-SPAN item. If you are really interested, email him and ask; the link is at the bottom of the main page. And as he notes in the first link under Primers, economic data and report manipulation by the US government has occured for decades and is quite bipartisan.
Thanks, I've already read through the primers.
Bring America Back !!!!
I'm sorry, Mr Rofsky, but your thousand words could all be summed up
in a couple sentences==== Republicans lie ! Bush Administration lies !
They lie with statistics, they lie without statistics !!
****So what really is New ??????
Since the Wall Street Journal was far right even before Rupert Murdoch
purchased it, does it really surprise that the Journal would slant
its economics to make right wingers look like angels in the outfield??
Did not Al Franken write an entire book about this exact thing entitled:
...Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them... covering Karl Rove and
King George the 'W' and the Repubby cabal who don't know the Truth from
a hole in the ground !!
When you cite Richard Nixon, you just gotta recognize that Repubbies never
learned any morality or lesson from Watergate, except how to do it better.
The guide on that should be John Dean's "Worse Tnan Watergate" book !
To suggest to the loyal Progs in here that Republicans are Liars, is to
insist that the Pope is Catholic !!!!
I mean if they will Lie about weapons of mass destruction, what else is
left to the imagination that they would NOT lie about ??? The Big Bailout
Lie is our financial shock & awe, just as Iraq was our military shock & awe!
If this is news to Mr Rofsky, I may hint that he has been hibernating in
some cave on Tora Bora.
Figure lie and liars figure. Here on Common Dreams it's usually done by 3rd party supporters and/or anti-Obamites. They like to cherry pick donation figures to show Obama has been bought by one industry or another.
I imagine this post will inspire a few of them.
For complete information on Presidential campaign contributions see:
www.OpenSecrets.org
Business shapes and controls our world! Do you believe this?
Why have we allowed business, whose principal objective is to make a profit by any means, to run our world? And us.
Are there other options, more laudable one? Have you thought about it or do you just go with the flow? Baaaaa!
Has it always been thus? I beg to differ. Check out:
www.dangerouscreation.com
bligh4
Statistics can be made to lie- both sides know that and use it to their advantage.
"Statistics can be made to lie"
Just a quibble, lying is something that humans do. Humans might lie when they present statistics without proper context, but the statistics themselves are just numbers. So let's make sure we aren't letting lying humans off the hook.
That's why I went step by step explaining how you can check the government's OWN figures for yourself... but most people are too lazy and prefer not to learn they are wrong.
Got news for this guy and everyone else... our dauhghter used to be a managing economist for the Department of Labor.
Since Bush took office, the Department of Labor has been ordered to CHANGE the way they count the unemployed at least four times at last count... first they stopped counting those people whose unemployment had run out... then they stopped counting those people whose unemployment had run out and had stopped looking for a job.... and on and on.
Our daughter said a better way to judge the REAL unemployment figure was to first be aware that the U.S. workforce grows about 1.8 million people every year from high schools and colleges after subtracting for attrition... (people who had died or retired).
Next of all, go to the private sector charts of the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics and bring up the running totals of EMPLOYED people over the age of 16 and NOT SEASONALLY ADJUSTED.
Bear in mind, that these charts will NOT show the estimated 3 million people a year who have crossed our borders illegally or failed to leave the country when their visas expired.
Here is what you will find:
1. From 1992 until 2000, about 18 million people were added to the workforce.
2. From 2001 until 2003 the number of employed SHRANK BY NEARLY 3 MILLION!
3. From 2004 (Election year) the number started growing by about a million a year, not nearly enough to keep up with the number of people entering the workforce, but enough that the politicians could say "New jobs are being created".
At this point, there has been a shortfall of new jobs of almost a million per year... not even counting the 18 to 25 million illegal aliens in the country.
Finally, the average median pay and benefits of the new jobs has steadily DROPPED since 2001... because many skilled workers are now doing jobs that require them to say "Do you want fries with that?" or "Thank you for shopping at Walmart!"
As a fairly skilled mathematician, I would estimate that there are at least 9 million American citizens that are not being counted... plus any of the 18 to 25 illegal aliens who happen to be unemployed.
Here's a FAQ from BLS:
http://www.bls.gov/cps/faq.htm
"first they stopped counting those people whose unemployment had run out..."
Not true.
"then they stopped counting those people whose unemployment had run out and had stopped looking for a job."
Why would they "then" do this if they had already stopped counting them because their unemployment had run out, as supposedly done in the first statement?
They count unemployment two ways, the Household Survey and the Payroll Survey. They don't look at the unemployment benifit roles. That's a completely different stat, the number who apply every week.
Perhaps your Nation & govt is nothing more than a lie & one lie after another? Perhaps it is the same for all or most other Nations upon the earth?
What on earth is this article talking about? The economic crisis is this severe exactly because Democrats helped Bush create it, why should they take advantage of the mess they helped create?
Democrats have approved each and every one of Bush's endeavors in the last 8 years, two illegals wars, bailouts, tax cut for the rich, not to mention his supreme court judges, the FISA bill, etc. Now CommonDreams is not even pretending to be a real progressive force anymore, with two-dimensional articles like this, they're now explicitly pro-Obama.
You're being intellectually dishonest here. The democrats have barely controlled congress for about 20 months out of the last 14 years. That control has been by a razor thin margin, meaning their ability to actually pass any legislation has been crippled, not ot mention the fact that real legislative work takes months -- most bills, thank heaven, do not pass overnight, like the so-called Patriot Act.
Saying both parties are to blame, at this point, is tantamount to putting your head in the sand. It's time to recognize that the regressive tax policies, aggressive monetary policies and reckless fiscal policies of the GOP since 1980 have put us in this precarious position, and that the Dems have largely just hung on for the ride.
Remember Clinton accomplished what he did while being hounded and impeached for dozens of manufactured "scandals" that went nowhere, including an incident of adultery that only Hillary had standing to pound him for.
By shifting the blame to a pox on all their houses, you also deny us the remedy, which is electing someone with policies that will reverse the destruction, and then bolstering their cause to get the policies carried out.
Patriots defend the constitution!
I'm sick of you liars for the Democratic Party.
Democrats have had at least 40 senators during every second of the 8 Bush years and could've filibustered each and every one of his crimes. Yet, they have chosen to aid and abet all of his wishes.
Don't give me this BS propaganda of democrats barely controlling congress.
And speaking of destruction, it started under Clinton (who went further than even Reagan to stab the working poor in the back) with NAFTA, bank deregulation and welfare "reform." Stop lying.
.Minus the venom I completely agree with this assessment. One needs only look at how the Republican minority these last two years has controlled the legislative process to glimpse what Democrats could have and should have done!
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
If the Dems have approved the total and infinite Fuck ups by that side of the aisle, the first 6 was what, huh? Republican President, Republican Manority Congress, last 1 3/5 years a Senate that had a true tad of a majority for about 6 months in the 109th, and albeit spineless lot of Dems as well an Executive that has > 800 signing statements.
I do believe you should rethink Congress authorizing the Illegal Invasion of Iraq, so Progressive you call it "war", Iraq was absent a Declaration of War from Congress, please. You know everyone has become quite nasty and unconstitutional in much, no civility. All we have been hit with, but damn a little less screwing with our First.
BillofRights
Correct, but don't call Dems spineless. They're not. They're criminally complicit.
It takes a lot of spine to stab Americans in the back while using rhetoric to the contrary.
Nietzsche
ridrury, George Lakoff says that letting the meaning choose the word is an idea from the enlightenment that has no power of persuasion. We think in constructs he says and if constructs can be linked through repetition people can be manipulated.
Example: tax-and-spend-liberal
This is not honest. I suggest speaking clearly and plainly and waiting for people to wake up.
Sioux Rose
RTDRURY: Profound post! I need to meditate on it. Definitely helps put this theater of the dangerously absurd into perspective. Thank you!
Now Repugs are blaming the Wall Street debacle on Democrats. If Dems don't sink to Repug level, they lose. Go figure.
You think we should not engage in a good game of deception? Don't you realize that our economy is driven by the energy of conflict? How can you sustain conflict, and thus the economy (and the empire), when you seek the truth? Resolution of the truth leads only to complacency, idleness, and ultimate defeat at the hands of the more energetic warriors and enslavement to more profound idiocy.
AKA-Voodoo Economics.