Over at HuffPo there is a recent story by Zach Carter entitled, “The Fight Between Bernie Sanders And Hillary Clinton Is Officially Super Ugly,” with a subheading of “Even elite economists are throwing punches.” Most people paying attention on here will already know what this is about: the Friedman analysis of Bernie’s economic plans and the completely-spontaneous-I-swear reaction to it by the New York Times group, which has in turn been flogged by the beyond-reproach Dr. Krugman.
Yes, I’m being sarcastic. As it turns out, these Very Serious Economists that have been hammering Friedman & Sanders didn’t even analyze the data. They simply went off on it because...who knows? Political allegiance? Wrong side of the bed? Krugman gets paid based on how many times he uses the word “unicorn?”
Regardless of the reason, these five Very Serious Economists have been called out by the JEC Executive Director, James Galbraith:
"You write that you have applied rigor to your analyses of economic proposals by Democrats and Republicans," Galbraith wrote in a letter to Krueger, Romer, Goolsbee and Tyson. "On reading this sentence I looked to the bottom of the page, to find a reference or link to your rigorous review of Professor Friedman's study. I found nothing there."
Friedman, who is a political supporter of Hillary Clinton, had projected a 5.3 percent economic growth rate under Sanders' platform. That rate is high relative to recent years' growth, but Galbraith said it is clear from the paper that Friedman reached the figure by relying on "standard impact assumptions and forecasting methods."
Whoops.
"What the Friedman paper shows, is that under conventional assumptions, the projected impact of Senator Sanders' proposals stems from their scale and ambition," Galbraith wrote. "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."
But...but...the unicorns! The puppies!
“When you dare to do big things, big results should be expected.”
This is a stark contrast to all the “oNOEZ! IZ 2 MUCH!” fearmongering we’ve been hearing about, and very nicely supports what many Sanders supporters have been saying here and other places on the Internet.
I’m of the belief that in this following paragraph, where Galbraith points out what the four Very Serious Economists have actually done, he in turn gets to the point of the whole ratfucking article in the first place:
"What you have done, is to light a fire under Paul Krugman, who is now using his high perch to airily dismiss the Friedman paper as 'nonsense.' Paul is an immensely powerful figure, and many people rely on him for careful assessments. It seems clear that he has made no such assessment in this case. Instead, Paul relies on you to impugn an economist with far less reach, whose work is far more careful, in point of fact, than your casual dismissal of it."
I’m not an economist, and quite frankly economic talk makes my head spin pretty quickly. I think this is a trait I share with the majority of Americans. Because of that, we rely on people who are gifted enough to analyze the data and then present it for public consumption in a way that is easily digested. Obviously this relationship only works if the people presenting the data have honored the public trust and put in the work to make an informed decision in the first place.
That didn’t happen here. This was nothing but a group with obvious business and political allegiances writing a piece to hit Sanders. I would call it an “artful smear,” but in hindsight it isn’t really artful at all. Brazen? Sure. Crass? Yeah. Not artful, though. Just ugly.
UPDATE: By request, here is a link (PDF) to James Galbraith’s full letter.
ON EDIT: Change title to correctly indicate James Galbraith is the former JEC Executive Director.
