Scott Adams's Political Survey of Economists 939
Buffaloaf writes "Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, wanted to have unbiased information about which presidential candidate would be better for the economy, so he financed his own survey of 500 economists. He gives a bit more detail about the results in a CNN editorial, along with disclosure of his own biases and guesses as to the biases of the economists who responded."
Wait .... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now we actually turn to Scott Adams for actual unbiased information about economics? Or, at least an attempt to explain the biases up-front? That just hurts my head!! :-P
Where's the punch line?
But, seriously, good on Scott Adams for actually doing this on his own. I think had anyone else tried to do this, we'd all be screaming loudly that they were inherently biased and had an agenda.
No matter how it goes, Adams will get more material for the strips. ;-)
Cheers
The majority of economists are Democrats? (Score:2, Interesting)
That's a surprise. Maybe enomomists make less money than I thought.
Interesting Read (Score:4, Interesting)
Are there any other stat sites like this out there? When my wife was in High School her poly-sci teacher handed out papers describing the different platforms and the candidates. Then took the students down to get registered. Does anyone do this anymore?
Re:The majority of economists are Democrats? (Score:2, Interesting)
That shouldn't be a surprise. Just about every University only teaches Keynesian Economics which goes well with the Democratic platform.
If Universities instead primarily taught the Austrian School of Economics you'd see more economists being Libertarian or Republican.
Re:Wait .... (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA (the 2nd one, Scott's blog):
Re:inconclusive (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not exactly inconclusive either. Obama was granted higher marks on everything except international trade which is not surprising, but still dramatically skews the results due to that issue's importance to the economy overall. One could argue that international trade has the lion's share of effect on the gdp, but I'm not convinced the economists were taking into account exports.
Obama's platform for international trade is to import less and export more. I would say that's effectively going to bolster our economy by boosting our gdp in the long run. But can he actually pull it off? The desired effect could take a few years to reach our gdp.
Re:The majority of economists are Democrats? (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny, I had Keynesian Economics taught, and always saw it aligning with Conservatism and Libertarianism more than Liberalism.
Obama favored, 59-31% (Score:5, Interesting)
The plain fact is that the economists surveyed think Obama would be better for the economy, by almost two-to-one. It's kind of sad how Adams had to dress the fact up by noting how many were Democrats vs. Republicans, essentially declaring it a tie:
Despite his own strong evidence that the economists were being objective -- their own income levels did not correlate to whether they thought the rich should be taxed -- he doesn't even tell us the plain fact until after he dresses it up.
His CNN writeup was an excuse to repeat three times that he would have his taxes raised by Obama. Well yeah, he makes zillions of dollars. No mention of Obama's plan to cut taxes, for almost everyone, by more than McCain's plan.
I look forward to his next survey of economists, in which he asks which is better economically, capitalism or communism, and then weights the results before revealing them. ("Not surprisingly, 88% of market-favoring economists think capitalism would be best, while 80% of socialist economists pick communism. Our economists favor capitalism on 11 of the top 13 issues, but keep in mind that" etc.)
Scott Adams' Blog (Score:4, Interesting)
The fact that Adams has attached himself to a medium through which he distributes mockery as social commentary is really not surprising to me at all. I know smart people who are trying to make the world a better place by making positive things happen, so it frustrates me that Adams won't just drop all the grudges and stop acting so defensively. We need more smart people on the offense, starting awesome new projects and using their creativity to lift people up.
Tax bracket (Score:5, Interesting)
From the CNN article:
Moneywise, I can't support a candidate who promises to tax the bejeezus out of my bracket, ...
Then maybe you are in the wrong tax bracket. Try being in mine for a while. I think most people would prefer to be in a tax bracket that gets taxed like that and keep the rest, rather than where they are now.
Re:Wait .... (Score:1, Interesting)
I appreciated Mr Adams qualifying his survey with his own leanings, but the bias of the economists makes it very difficult to pull anything useful out of the results.
88% of Democratic economists think Obama would be best, while 80% of Republican economists pick McCain
And, since there were more than 3x as many Democrats in the pool as Republicans, I would assume that many of the "Independents" were also left-leaning. For whatever reason, apparently "economist" is a field that attracts liberals.
On a side note, for those of you that haven't read God's Debris: A Thought Experiment [amazon.com] , it's worth checking out from the library (or dropping the $10 at Amazon) and taking a look at Scott Adams's serious side - Nothing life changing, but occasional moments of insight.
Re:Wait .... (Score:5, Interesting)
> You get much better information from someone you know is biased than when their bias is hidden, even if your own biases don't match.
Exactly. Which is why the MSM will continue to bleed until one of two things occur:
1. They admit their biases like newspapers of old did. I want to see "Wolf Blitzer (D)" on the screen. Then he would be freed from the transparent lie that he is objective and could get on with it. We as viewers could then accept what he does and where he is coming from when he is 'reporting.'
2. Really become objective. Primetime news with real journalism where you get the who what when why and how without mixing in commentary and bloviating. No talking points, no spin, no talking heads shouting, almost no horserace coverage. Real backgrounders on issues and where candidates have voted in the past, where they stand now and their explanation for any change.
Number two has less odds of occuring than monkeys flying from my butt so if the MSM plans on surviving it is option 1 or bust.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Interesting)
Who was in charge of Fannie Mae when they "misreported" $10.8 billion in 2006? Washington Times [washtimes.com]
For those too lazy to find out, consider that Obama, despite being in the Senate for only 2 years, is the #1 recipient of donations from FM/FM at $112,000. (McCain has also taken $16,000, Joe Biden also got $500.)
"Fannie Mae Chairman Franklin Raines last week called for continued efforts by Fannie Mae and mortgage lenders to reach out to those 'at the margins' of home ownership. Blacks, Hispanics and immigrants trying to buy homes would be a major focus of outreach, Raines said." Raines made no mention of assistance for the millions of white families who have difficulty purchasing homes.
And who is Franklin Raines? Why, Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget under Bill Clinton. (He was the chairman of the same department under Jimmy Carter.) He's currently under investigation by several different groups, including the SEC, the OFHEO [ofheo.gov], and others.
Re:Wow (Score:2, Interesting)
I know it's encouraging that someone is trying to get 'unbiased' information about expert opinion on the candidates, and, as an Obama supporter, I would like to put some faith in this survey.
That said, I wouldn't put a lot of stock in this survey.
Unfortunately, the terrible response rate (about 8%) means that there is huge probability of non-response bias. In other words, we're probably not getting a representative group of economists. It may very well be that mostly pro-Obama supporters felt like responding (perhaps out of a sense of a need to defend his economic policies).
Additionally, there is no testing for statistical inference. For example, in the PowerPoint, there's a question of who has provided more advice to candidates (Democrats or Republicans). The authors make it sound as if the Republicans did, but the difference is almost certainly within the margin of error.
Finally, there's this common misconception that things are either "good for the economy" or "bad for the economy." In reality, there's more than one way of thinking about the economy as a whole. For example, some think of it merely in terms of GDP, while others consider the distribution of wealth as well. It's not clear from the survey what was meant, exactly, by "the economy."
Re:Interesting Read (Score:2, Interesting)
Both campaigns are right. The next president is a one-termer since the economy is going to completely implode during their term. There's nothing they can do about, being politicians they will both make it worse (in their different ways) but even an economic miracle worker is going to have a collapse of the economy and the end of America's "economic superpower" status on their hands.
Thank you Greenspan, and Bernanke, and Bush, and Clinton. Especially Greenspan and his wonderous put.
2003 NY Times article (Score:3, Interesting)
It appears that the Bush administration did see a train wreck coming:
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae [nytimes.com]
So see why the free market couldn't correct earlier check this commentary out:
Financial Markets Are in a Mess [foxnews.com]
Re:Wait .... (Score:5, Interesting)
Tell it to Milton Friedman.
Economists are (nearly) all in favor of free trade, which is generally considered to be conservative.
Some believe in the government using money to drive the economy by investing in local projects and social programs(a la Keynes), and this is pretty "liberal". Others believe in low taxes and small government, which is "conservative".
I think the real problem is that the true fiscal conservatives are all independents these days, so while it's clearly acceptable to be an economist and a democrat, it's not so acceptable to be an economist and a republican. If you add up the libertarians, independents, and republicans you come pretty close to a 50/50 split. That's pretty representative of the academic split between Keynes and Friedman these days.
If you're Keynesian, you believe that government spending and stimulus is a good thing (and are thus more inclined to the Dems), and if you're more inclined to Friedman (small government, low taxes, non-intervention), then you're pretty much forced to the Independents, since the Republicans are (for the last 20 years) irresponsible spenders, and that's hard to justify if you're an economist.
I think also academics and other intelligentsia types tend to skew democrat (since the dems don't call them elitist for doing all that thinking), so that will add to the bias as well.
By and large, I think it's pretty clear that the majority of economists are solidly pro-Obama...Even the independents went for Obama by more than 2 to 1 (according to the breakdown), and on the rest of the issues, the independents side with Obama on everything but taxes and international trade (I myself like Obama, but I think his stance on international trade sucks.)
Re:Interesting Read (Score:3, Interesting)
I think asking a panel of computer scientists about databases would be at least moderately more successful than, say, Political Science majors.
What other large group of people should Adams have interviewed? (I'm open to suggestion here if I'm stupid and missing a large group of people that deal with the economy).
Re:How many are longtime party-members? (Score:3, Interesting)
It doesn't matter who is in the White House, since all that person can do is propose a budget.
I'm not sure which country you live in, but in the U.S. the President gets to either sign, or veto the budget. That's a considerable amount of power, and I'd say it DOES matter who's in the White House.
(Oh, and you may have noticed that George Bush did in fact veto or threaten to veto budgets which decreased Iraq spending, so this power is more than a little theoretical)
Re:Wait .... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Not Reassuring at All... (Score:2, Interesting)
Woah, what? How is this subjectivity so surprising? Let Uncy DanOrc451 tell you a story here from the frontlines of objective academic science from the perspective of a bemused non-scientist observer.
I was at MIT a few months ago picking up my brother to go play tennis, and I witnessed a practical fistfight break out between two teams of scientists. Apparently, a physics experiment of some kind was being run by two academic teams across some departmental boundary, one focusing on theory and the other focusing on actually conducting the experiment for the theory guys.
Bypassing the technical gobbledygook they were (literally) screaming at each other and focusing on the English bits, it became apparent that the situation was this: the experiment failed to confirm the theory. The theory folks were furious at the experimental folks since they clearly must have been incompetent and done the experiment wrong; their theory was perfect and beautiful. The experimental folks were furious at the ivory tower theory folks for refusing to accept the results of their clearly valid experiment, since that was what the scientific method was all about in the end.
What was striking about it was the fury and the absolute certainty that their work and worldview on either side was right, and that each thought the other half didn't really "get what science was all about."
I really thought we were going to have some broken glasses on our hands. It was quite a scene, and "objective" would be about the last conceivable word you'd apply to the situation.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Add to that, researching the 2005 bill that forced FM/FM to give out loans based on racial profiles instead of financial stability, and you'll have a good idea who to blame.
I'm gonna call bullshit unless you can back this up with a link or two including one pointing to the actual legislation.
Loans favoring people of a certain income class and demographic with interest rates that might not otherwise be available to them under conventional market proceedures, aren't particularly controversial, but *requiring* them to loan to a candidate who wouldn't qualify under normal market conditions would be.
However, anyone familiar knows that "normal market conditions" in 2005 included No Income, No Job, No Asset loans, which should make one *highly* skeptical about the assertion that congress twisted lender's arms.
Who was in charge of Fannie Mae when they "misreported" $10.8 billion in 2006?
The connection of Fannie Mae to Walter Mondale's campaign manager is supposed to be evidence of Democratic malfeasance here? It's been 20 years since Mondale ran. Focusing on Enron and its spectacular collapse that took down a colluding Big 5 accounting firm instead of FM's *understating* their earnings? I guess that's evidence of a massive media conspiracy... especially since the media DID report on problems with FM.
For those too lazy to find out, consider that Obama, despite being in the Senate for only 2 years is the #1 recipient of donations from FM/FM at $112,000.
A bit of further research reveals that this is out a total of a recent $390 million in lobbying dollars. So, Obama's the largest recipient... at .02% of FM donation dollars. I guess that means he's tight with FM, although he's also raised more money than anybody else from just about everybody.
"Fannie Mae Chairman Franklin Raines last week
That "last week" has got to be pre-2004, then, since that's when he was pushed out over the accounting issues.
called for continued efforts by Fannie Mae and mortgage lenders to reach out to those 'at the margins' of home ownership. Blacks, Hispanics and immigrants trying to buy homes would be a major focus of outreach, Raines said." Raines made no mention of assistance for the millions of white families who have difficulty purchasing home
Raines also made no mention of his support for the troops, ending Islamic Terrorism, and the state of Israel, which means he is against these things.
And yet
Re:Interesting Read (Score:5, Interesting)
Where are you getting your unemployment numbers from? Clinton started with high unemployment and ended with the lowest unemployment. Growth was consistent. Compare that with Bush where there was a clear increase in unemployment when he took office and even now hasn't recovered.
I won't make you take my word for it though. Link here [miseryindex.us]
All of this also coincides with salary decreases which are only now starting to recover although when adjusted for the fact that the dollar is worth 30% less now than it was four years ago and reality doesn't seem to reflect your statements. Can you please support it in some way? Carter and Reagan years were definitely not the era of responsible spending but Clinton left office with a balanced budget with a projected surplus so it is hard for anyone to take your argument seriously off hand.
Please enlighten me as I'm clearly missing some key information.
Re:Wait .... (Score:3, Interesting)
The confusion lies in the fact that a republican is not necessarily a republican politician; republican politicians have betrayed the GOP in the same way the democrat politicians have betrayed the party since the 1960's.
Perhaps each party ought to actually have a mission statement they follow, and if they don't they are kicked out of the party.
Fact of the matter is that you no longer know what you are getting when you vote along party lines.
Dilbert Died in the Bubble Pop (Score:4, Interesting)
Scott Adams is an idiot. He had a funny take on the other idiots who surrounded him in his PacTel cubicle in the 1990s, but that's just the idiot leading the idiots. Read his "Dogbert management books" for business insights that aren't even funny, in ways that show he actually knows as little about business management as the idiots he mocks.
Here's Adams' latest demonstration of his idiocy, in this stupid (and not funny) editorial:
The surge escalation has failed. Of course throwing tens of thousands of new US troops at a civil war will succeed in beating back the enemies, making them less likely to try attacks than when the US military was spread too thin to intimidate. No one questions whether our military is good at killing and intimidating enemies, when Washington (run by Bush and McCain's Republican Party) isn't keeping them too weak to do the job.
But the surge's job wasn't just to drop the killing. That was a means to an end, to create a political opportunity that was totally squandered. The Iraqi government is a farce that hasn't governed anything, even when we give it a break in the action during which it can concentrate on governing. It has failed. And since the purpose of the surge escalation has failed, the surge has failed. Anyone saying any different just thinks that the purpose of war is to kill. It's not, and those people have lost the Iraq War since they started it.
But hey, if the surge worked, then we won. Let's get the hell out of there already. Not stay the "100 years, maybe forever" that McCain thinks equals victory. If we've got to keep troops there, we're losing. Only getting out of there is any real measure of victory.
Yeah, and then he totally ignored that most economists are Democrats. Because people who understand the economy vote for Democrats. Even among Republican economists, more Republicans support Obama than Democrat economists for McCain. That speaks much more than what Adams' single datapoint survey says.
Of course, that is what every single American (who isn't crazy) says about their political bias.
And there we have the basic evidence of Scott Adams idiocy. Or rather, his lying. Obama might be raising Adams' taxes, if he makes over $250,000 a year. He's almost certainly not going to raise yours. You can see for yourself with the Obama Tax Cut Web Calculator [alchemytoday.com], which takes 15 seconds and 3 status facts about you to show you the dollar amount of your Obama tax cut.
Adams is a rich guy who makes his money satirizing incompetents running big orgs. His pocketbook is threatened by Obama because he's made so much more money than most people, benefited so much more than most people, from the exact kinds of idiots he needs in power for him to sell more books and cartoons. He's as scared of McCain as he is of Obama, because though he believes McCain won't tax him (but the country would fall apart, an expensive proposition even for a cartoonist who has to live in it), because McCain is boring. Which means he won't be a good c
Re:The majority of economists are Democrats? (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh it's worked quite well, compare life expectancy for example or education. As the federal government got stronger, things got better for the majority of people. It was massive govenrment spending that created the middle class as we know it. And crime rates today are actually lower than than they were during the great depression, we just have a more pervasive mass media so what crime that happens crime just gets more press.
Putting it bluntly there's no way you'd truly enjoy living in the economic realities of even a century ago.
Re:Wait .... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of 7 years since WWII that had reduction in the overall debt, 5 were done under a Democratic president, and 5 were done under a Democratic house and congress. The last president to reduce the debt was Kennedy, under a Democratic house and congress.
Until Reagan, the trend of the debt as a % of gdp was downward. During his time and George H. Bush, the trend has been massively upwards. Bill Clinton stopped that trend and reversed it. For the first time since Reagan, in 2000 the debt as a % of gdp actually fell. With the induction of George W. Bush, the trend returned to Reagan trends of increase in debt as % of gdp.
Since the introduction of Reganomics into the Republican doctrine, the debt has increased 10,000%. A full third of that came about during the tenure of George W. Bush, during a time of a Republican Congress and Senate.
Science works, bitches!
Another study (Score:4, Interesting)
In Scott Adams's survey of members of the American Economic Association [wikipedia.org], he found 48% Democrats, 17% Republicans, 27% Independents, 3% Libertarian, and 5% Other or not registered. However, in this working paper [harvard.edu] by Gross and Simmons (at Harvard and GMU, respectively), surveying economists working in academia, they find 34.3% Democrats, 37.1% Independents, and 28.6% Republicans.
Anyone have ideas on what's up with the disparities in the statistics? The only explanation I can think of is that the AEA includes economists in the public sector, where (as one might expect) folks tend to favor government intervention in the economy.
(By the way, for anyone curious, the stats for academia as a whole are 45.2% Democrats, 38.9% Independents, and 15.9% Republicans. In English it's 51.0/47.1/2.0, in computer science it's 32.3/58.1/9.7, and in electrical engineering it's 13.2/55.3/31.6)
Re:Unbridled Capitalism - Monopolies (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's play the monopoly game. You have a market monopoly, and I'll name a monopoly propped up by government. Last person to name a monopoly wins. I'll go first, so the game will be over sooner. Your local water company is a monopoly. Now you go. You'll name Microsoft sooner or later. In spite of its being propped up by copyright law, I'll give you that one out of pity. Now I'll go. Your local sewer company is also a monopoly. Now it's your turn again.
I'm waiting....
Nothing? I thought not.
--
Oh, and did you know that the government FORCED banks to make CRA loans? "CRAP" loans are more like it. Countrywide was very proud of how well they complied with the law -- how many CRA loans they made .... and where are they now?
The dutch (Score:3, Interesting)
The Dutch, in general, are a fairly conservative people overall. (yes, I know - generalization....)
So we got to talking about the conservative people vs the liberal laws they have regarding social issues. I asked him about this apparent contradiction and I will never forget his reply: "Holland is a very very diverse country. The alternative to social liberalism is chaos. There are so many different groups with different beliefs that we have to have liberal laws".
Which is exactly opposite of what we seem to do here in America. There's a lesson in there somewhere.....
Re:Wait .... (Score:3, Interesting)
Another example is apple announces iNewAwesomeProduct and their stock prices go up because people are betting that they will make money in the future.
Actually the opposite happens for Apple, they announce iNewAwesomeProduct and the stock price drops 5%... don't ask me why... I don't even think the all-mighty Jobs knows why...
Re:Wait .... (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe that the individuals right to property is very important, but I don't extend that to artificially protected entities such as corporations, and I don't believe that the right to that property inherently includes uses of it that impact others.
For example, I believe that you have the right to own a Hummer, but that doesn't give you the right to drive it on the public road. For that, you have to demonstrate that you are capable of driving a vehicle that is more likely to kill other people in an accident, and presents a hazard to navigation for other drivers, safely. Something akin to, but not as difficult to obtain as, a CDL.
Wow, that was a long rant. Anyway, Liberal != Libertarian. Live and let live is a philosophy, and there are people who would force it on you just like any other. At the end of the day, the use of the word Liberal you speak of comes from people who, in the main, were trying to distance themselves from those ideas. The people so labeled simply wound up up keeping the label.
Re:Lag Time, Economics and Unintended Consequences (Score:2, Interesting)
This policy resulted in a greater flow of money throughout the economy - because when people who aren't rich get money, they are much more likely to spend it.
Clinton then invested the money received into infrastructure and programs for the poor and middle class - further empowering them to lift themselves up, and the economy with them.
THEN the Gingrich GOP started demanding tax cuts, and Clinton steadfastly refused - going as far as shutting down the actual government because Clinton kept vetoing them. They wanted trickle-down fantasy tax cuts - Clinton wanted to pay down the debt. Thus we got the surplus.
Every President that's tried trickle-down: massive debt. The one president so far that's tried tax cuts for the poor and middle-class: one of the greatest economic upturns of the last 100 years.
Thats' how it is. Reality actually may have a liberal bias.
Re:Wait .... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have to object to this notion. The student body at most universities is less diverse than most local communities. The students are generally the same age, listen to the same kind of music, and in large hold the same set of opinions and beliefs. The college community is a great insulator from the outside world (where the real "diversity" is).
I think the real problem that conservatives have with academia is the unrelenting push to make students conform to what the professors believe.