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Are Democrats the best for the eocnomy?
RJones:
>Things must be slow in Boston these days. Is
>the cold weather setting in? Good weather for
>finishing woodward in that new house!
Yep, it's been cold. We actually got an inch or two of snow a few days back. I finally got my butt in gear and pulled all the air-conditioners out, and lowered the storm windows, to prep for the cold weather.
How are things in your neck of the woods? Where is your neck of the woods? I'm horrible about remembering such things.
>First, one can't just point to an occurance of
>two things and assume a cause and effect
>relationship.
I think if you check my post, you'll see I didn't. I simply listed events that had happened since Bush took office, without stating cause and effect. I think the furor of the response is a reflection of the fact that the readers themselves were quick to assume a cause-and-effect relationship, and didn't like what they saw.
To be honest, I guess I did imply causality, albeit merely by pointing to the correlation. However, I think it's only natural to jump to conclusions about cause-and-effect. With very complex systems, like politico-socio-economics, you're never going to be able to construct an air-tight proof of causality. At best, you can come up with a probable-sounding chain of events. And, that's just what both sides do. Each side has a theory about what chain of events make things go well when their guy is calling the shots and poorly when the other guy is doing so. The key difference here is that things actually do go well when Democrats are in the White House, and poorly when Republicans are.
I'll grant you, in a heartbeat, this could be mere coincidence. Maybe the frequent correlation is merely a random quirk, or maybe there's some other primary cause resulting in both effects. Fair enough. I can't prove my theory, because the field is simply irreducably complex. The best I can do is point to the consistency of the correlation.
If you eat salmon once and get violently ill, you might notice no connection. If you do it again, with the same result, it may seem like coincidence. A third time, and you start to get suspicious. Sooner or later, even if you don't go through the scientific steps of proving an allergy, you're going to be convinced at least to the minimal extent needed to stop eating salmon.
Well, the same holds true here. When the Nixon era saw the reversal of many of the best Kennedy/Johnson-era improvements, it could have been chance. When things got worse again under Ford, maybe that was a coincidence. When, under Reagan, we suffered the most severe and lenghtiest recession since the Great Depression, it was time to get a little suspicious. When crime, poverty, and unemployment all rose under the first Bush, while the deficit exploded, it was time to start formulating some theories. Then, when eight long years of dramatic improvement ended rather suddenly, upon the elevation of another Republican to office, it just seems like we've gone past the point of reasonably withholding our theories. Maybe the salmon isn't making us sick, but I think the prudent course is to avoid it.
The problem I have is that the Republicans dispute us on both sides of the process. First they discount our "ivory tower" theories about trickle-up-economics, our predictions that a stagnant minimum wage will increase poverty, our calls for less defense spending and more investment in our citizens, or theory that more gun control will result in less crime. They say that these theories just don't work in the real-world. Then, when those theories are instituted and things go well, they tell us that there's no reason to conclude that our policies caused the results.
Fair enough. I can't prove it. However, when we've both put together plausible-sounding reasons that our prefered politicians will be good for the country, but only one of us has a track record of those politicians actually being in power when things go well for the country, I'd say that's somewhat persuasive.
Let's look for the controlling variables -- Richard (reply to Michael), 19:58:19 10/30/02 Wed
Spending as a percent of GDP -- Richard, 13:49:34 10/31/02 Thu
It is still in the definition stage. -- Richard, 21:08:07 10/31/02 Thu
Let's discuss which variables are important. Here's a partial list. -- Richard, 13:34:48 10/31/02 Thu
OK, we're making progress -- Richard, 10:05:45 11/01/02 Fri
Re: Let's discuss which variables are important. Here's a partial list. -- Brittany, 22:48:44 04/29/04 Thu
Looking at my profile -- Richard, 13:41:28 10/31/02 Thu