Sometimes as I’m making my way through the scores, often hundreds, of e-mails I get in a day, I sometimes wonder who the people sending me some of these press releases think is going to be interested?
An example:
Economists Grade Presidential Candidates
A to F on 10 Issues Vital to Women
Audio Press Conference This Thursday, Oct. 23A network of more than 40 economists from across America have graded McCain and Obama on 10 issues vital to women, from taxes to retirement security and pay equity.
Noting the importance of economic issues in a time of financial crisis, the report finds the candidates’ stands on several issues give valuable insights into how they would handle the crisis. The report card also gives an overall composite grade.
AUDIO PRESS CONFERENCE
Economists’ Policy Group for Women’s Issues
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23
1 PM EASTERN TIME
SPEAKERS
Professor Nancy Folbre, Chair. University of Massachusetts Amherst; staff economist, Centre for Popular Economics; author Family Time: The Social Organization of Care and Who Pays for the Kids?; MacArthur fellowship for pioneering work in economics.
Professor Randy Albelda. University of Massachusetts Boston; Vice-President, International Association for Feminist Economics; coauthor Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits: Women’s Work, Women’s Poverty and Unlevel Playing Fields: Understanding Wage Inequality and Wage Discrimination.
Professor Robert Drago. Pennsylvania State University and University of Melbourne; co-founder and chair of Take Care Net; past president, College and University Work-Family Association; moderator, Workfam newsgroup; past Senior Fulbright Research Scholar; author of four books, including Striking a Balance, and over 70 articles.
Dr. Lois B. Shaw. Senior consulting economist, Institute for Women’s Policy Research; previous research positions, U.S. General Accounting Office and Ohio State University’s Center for Human Resource Research; co-editor Warm Hands in Cold Age: Gender and Aging.
# # #
I mean, I saw the headline and actually scrolled down to satisfy my extremely low level of curiosity as to what a group of feminist economists or whatever choose to say in connection with such a publicity stunt. And if I weren’t a blogger always on the lookout for the offbeat, I wouldn’t even have done that.
Then I saw that they were merely trying to whet my appetite for something coming up on Thursday.
Come ON, people! Who is going to put this on a calendar and tune in two days from now??? Who is sitting there thinking, Golly, I wonder which candidate will get the higher grades?
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As an economist myself, the first thing I did was look at the panel, which is 100% left-wingers from colleges which to not even teach the theories of the Friedmans, Hayek, or von Mises.
All these economists are Keynesians at best, who support all sorts of socialist programs. Some even talk and write in dated socialist jargon.
As Keynesians, they will support massive government deficit spending to stimulate the economy. As socialists, they prefer government providing or controlling large industries and sectors like medical care.
There is not a single business economist in the bunch, and most of their experience is in the classroom, not even in setting public policy and being responsible for the outcomes.
As one of my economics professors told me when I was in college, if you have an opinion on the economy, you can call yourself an economist.
Hey, economists have predicted nine of the last five recessions.
Obama’s plans to give tax cuts to 44% of American based on their Social Security taxes without actually refunding to them the money they are paying into Social Security. He gets the funds elsewhere, and that source is “general revenues,” or a more agreeable way of saying “Other People’s Money.”
Details of the bait and switch are here.
I guess you just take monies for the cause of on situation and put it on another one then when that situation takes noticed than you put the monies there. I’m so confused.
So let me ask the dumb questions about the economy and just maybe someone can give me a dumb answer.:
1. Who do we as a country owe?
2. Whose bad enough to try to collect the debt?
3. What will happen if we don’t paid the debt?
Well, I guess one would say, that goes to show what it is that I don’t know.
I just pray that regardless to who win the Presidency Obama or Mccain that this situation can be clear up and the boys come home from all war zones.
Bill C, I don’t believe your professor said any such a thing, because it is so untrue and dumb.
Having an opinion about the economy doesn’t make you an economist anymore than having an opinion about the navy makes you a captain.
I happen to be a degreed economist, who is paid for my opinions, by businesses, not paid by the taxpayers to teach at a socialist college.
Some FACTS, not opinion:
* The US is not in an recession. The growth rate is still at +2.8%.
* Clinton never submitted, signed nor managed a balanced budget. He ran deficits every year, increasing the national debt from $5.9 trillion to more than $7.6 trillion.
* Clinton raised taxes on the middle class, after promising to cut them.
* Clinton had 2 periods of zero growth, and left GW Bush with a recession in November 2000. The Bush tax cuts brought the US out of that recession, and generated enough new revenue to more than pay for all the wars.
* The Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress for the last 2 years, and have tripled the largest previous deficits.
* Obama’s election is already creating a sell of of the stock market. His plan for a $1 trillion deficit would cause huge economic collapse.
So Lee, are you calling me a liar?
Not yet. But as a real economist, I am highly skeptical of your story. Why don’t you name the college, the professor, and use your real name, so I can check it out?
A liberal Democrat, Orson Scott Card on the Fannie/Freddie melt-down:
“Would the last honest reporter please turn on the lights?”
These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was … the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was … the Republican Party.
Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!
What? It’s not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?
Now let’s follow the money … right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.
And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate’s campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.
If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.
But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an “adviser” to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama’s people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn’t listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.
You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.
If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.
If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.”
http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/081017light.html
Lee, Princeton University, School of Economics, don’t remember the faculty member’s name… I think he was fairly new if I remember correctly. I looked at their faculty website and don’t see a name that pops into my head as someone who would have said it. This would have been in the 1885-86 timeframe. Bill C. is enough for you to know… unless you can give me a reason to post my full name on an open forum.
How about you? How do I know you’re an “economist”, just because you say so? What are your credentials? For all we know you’re just some blowhard with nothing else to do than post multiple comments on this blog. Work a little slow?
Hmmm… Just out of curiosity, I punched in Lee Muller on a Google search… comes up with nothing as far an economist. You sure you aren’t a musician or chiropractor???
Lee is this you?
http://www.nndb.com/people/278/000170765/
No, Lee Muller Thomas is the originator of the EPA Superfund, later the Director of the EPA, then President of Georgia Pacific.
And “Bill C” isn’t your real name, but thousands of Obama donors don’t use their real names, either, according to the FEC, especially the Muslims overseas.
I still doubt your yarn about your professor. He must be mighty dull or you must have been, to not remember his name. But, if he was at Princeton, he actually might know as little about economics as some prof at Amherst or Wellesley.
Bottom line, Bill C, is you don’t know enough about the subject to make an intelligent comment, but felt compelled to disparage those who do. You may have gone to Princeton. It was a decent college, back when they still had a grading system. Too bad.
Well Lee, as a registered Republican in Lexington County… I find your theories humourous. I’m not going to waste a bunch of time arguing this with an obvious blowhard who doesn’t have much to do but spend time spewing stupidity in blogs. If I recall, most of my Economic professors were “mighty dull”. It’s not exactly an exciting degree to get… a lot of theory memorization and statistical analysis.
Thanks for the bio on Lee Muller Thomas, but I was pretty much able to get everything you repeated from the link I posted.
So who are you Lee Muller? You say your an Economist, but you haven’t stated any of your credentials? Who do you work for, where did you go to school (was it or is it a “decent college”), what is your background in Economics?
If you’re going to call me a liar, then please explain your reasoning behind it… as an Economist, this shouldn’t be the first time you’ve been asked to explain your decision.
Asking citizens to present their credentials to have an opinion is an old tactic of leftists, intended to shut down discussion of issues. Usually, the demands are made by anonymous cyberthugs who lack any credentials of their own.
No one called you a liar, Bill C.
You just tried a personal attack with a yarn you couldn’t substantiate, and you failed due to your complete lack of credibility.
If you know anything about economics, why don’t you discuss that? There is plenty of economic danger in the socialism of Obama, and plenty of wreckage left by the economic ignorance of Republicans.
Some free advice to Bill C:
I post mostly facts, very little theory, and my opinions based on facts.
Until you learn the differences among fact, opinion, and theory, you will remain intellectually impotent to protect yourself from being duped by propaganda.
Lee, if you want me to consider you a credible source for information, I’ll repeat my request for a THIRD time:
“So who are you Lee Muller? You say your an Economist, but you haven’t stated any of your credentials? Who do you work for, where did you go to school (was it or is it a “decent college”), what is your background in Economics?”
BTW – I’m glad our advice is free… I’d hate to think you’re depending on people paying you for that drivel. I’ve nearly stopped reading everything you’re posting… it’s all a repeat or rehash of what you’ve already said in another topic. You’re preaching, nobody’s listening.