Varieties of Voodoo: Bernie Sanders needs to get real about his economic program - Paul Krugman

[Recoverin_Republican]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/19/opinion/varieties-of-voodoo.html?action=click&contentCollection=opinion&module=NextInCollection®ion=Footer&pgtype=article&version=column&rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fpaul-krugman

On Wednesday four former Democratic chairmen and chairwomen of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers — three who served under Barack Obama, one who served under Bill Clinton — released a stinging open letter to Bernie Sanders and Gerald Friedman, a University of Massachusetts professor who has been a major source of the Sanders campaign’s numbers. The economists called out the campaign for citing “extreme claims” by Mr. Friedman that “exceed even the most grandiose predictions by Republicans” and could “undermine the credibility of the progressive economic agenda.”

That’s harsh. But it’s harsh for a reason.

The claims the economists are talking about come from Mr. Friedman’s analysis of the Sanders economic program. The good news is that this isn’t the campaign’s official assessment; the bad news is that the Friedman analysis has been highly praised by campaign officials.

And the analysis is really something. The Republican candidates have been widely and rightly mocked for their escalating claims that they can achieve incredible economic growth, starting with Jeb Bush’s promise to double growth to 4 percent and heading up from there. But Mr. Friedman outdoes the G.O.P. by claiming that the Sanders plan would produce 5.3 percent growth a year over the next decade.

Even more telling, I’d argue, is Mr. Friedman’s jobs projection, which has the employed share of American adults soaring all the way back to what it was in 2000. That may sound possible — until you remember that by 2026 more than a quarter of U.S. adults over 20 will be 65 and older, compared with 17 percent in 2000.
(more)

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Bringing up this old debunked thing again? I guess you're not as 'recovered' as your handle. nt

[Recoverin_Republican]

4. would you please educate me, with a link/s? BTW Paul Krugman a GOP sympathizer? ROFL!!

[Recoverin_Republican]

8. unlike Sanders Supporters I do not parrot GOP propaganda. Still waiting for "debunking" link....

[Recoverin_Republican]

11. still waiting for "debunking" link...ROFL!!

[Hortensis]

2. Ouch. This is part of why I don't support Sanders, BUT

the numbers would only matter if he were elected. IF he were elected, it would mean a wave of support that would empower him to make at least some real change happen -- based on viable numbers.

I am not excusing false promises, I just believe that if he could be elected they would be adjusted as he worked to live up to the spirit of his promises.

[Carlo Marx]

3. Another Clinton partisan throws a dead fish at Sanders attempt to help working people.

What progressive agenda are you talking about, Krugman? NAFTA from Bill, TPP from Obama? Hillary's opposition to going after Wall Street? But, Paul Krugman, Barney Frank and a couple other bank employed people said Hillary's plan was tougher than Bernies. And more than 170 economists signed a letter refuting that crap. Along with others like Joseph Stiglitz and Simon Johnson and others. There's no argument against reinstating Glass Steagall in addition to other regulatory measures. Unless your on the Wall Steeet gravy train.

[farleftlib]

5. He's gone to the point of absurdity

His attacks lack substance, it's all a bunch of sophistry that isn't fooling anybody anymore, if it ever did.

He sounds like what he has become, a paid hack.

[Recoverin_Republican]

7. Joe Stiglitz Gives Thumbs Up To Clinton's Economic Plan - I couldn't find anything showing Stiglitz

approved of or endorsed Sanders economic plan. If he has I'd be interested to read anything on this you can provide.


Joe Stiglitz Gives Thumbs Up To Clinton's Economic Plan
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/07/joe-stiglitz-gives-thumbs-clintons

you said: "bank employed people" endorsed Clinton's plan. got any links?


Camden Fine, president of Independent Community Bankers of America has said they support a 21st century version of Glass- Steagall.


Gary Gensler, former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission: The campaign provided this statement by Gensler, who is now the chief financial officer for the Clinton campaign and helped craft her plan. “We are pleased to see that Senator Sanders is finally talking about the importance of dealing with risks posed by activities in the shadow banking system. Unfortunately, however, he failed to put forward a single new proposal that addresses those risks. We already knew that Senator Sanders wants to break apart financial institutions. What we haven’t seen is his plan to deal with the risky shadow banking activities that brought our economy to the brink of collapse in 2008. By contrast, a wide range of progressive experts has acknowledged that Secretary Clinton’s Wall Street plan is the most serious and comprehensive in this campaign.”

But the center of Krugman's criticism of the Sanders economic plan is the predictions of the magnitude of the benefits it would produce.. The four economists who wrote the open letter to the Sanders campaign said:

We are concerned to see the Sanders campaign citing extreme claims by Gerald Friedman about the effect of Senator Sanders’s economic plan—claims that cannot be supported by the economic evidence. Friedman asserts that your plan will have huge beneficial impacts on growth rates, income and employment that exceed even the most grandiose predictions by Republicans about the impact of their tax cut proposals.

As much as we wish it were so, no credible economic research supports economic impacts of these magnitudes. Making such promises runs against our party’s best traditions of evidence-based policy making and undermines our reputation as the party of responsible arithmetic. These claims undermine the credibility of the progressive economic agenda and make it that much more difficult to challenge the unrealistic claims made by Republican candidates.

the economists who wrote the letter are former chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisors

Alan Krueger, Princeton University

Chair, Council of Economic Advisers, 2011-2013

Austan Goolsbee, University of Chicago Booth School

Chair, Council of Economic Advisers, 2010-2011

Christina Romer, University of California at Berkeley

Chair, Council of Economic Advisers, 2009-2010

Laura D’Andrea Tyson, University of California at Berkeley Haas School of Business

Chair, Council of Economic Advisers, 1993-1995

[Recoverin_Republican]

9. IT wasn't "more than" 170 economists it was economists and 'financial experts' to be exact

"Financial experts, academics, and economists"

[Bleacher Creature]

6. Here's the money quote (no pun intended)

"Beyond that, this controversy is an indication of a campaign, and perhaps a candidate, not ready for prime time. These claims for the Sanders program aren’t just implausible, they’re embarrassing to anyone remotely familiar with economic history (which says that raising long-run growth is very hard) and changing demography. They should have set alarm bells ringing, but obviously didn’t."

[msanthrope]

10. Math. nt