Ezra Klein being Partisan and Narrow-Minded...again.
This is silly on the part of Ezra.
He links to CEPR table of stats that runs on the theme: Are you better off than you were 8 years ago? Edit: image moved below the fold
This is the answer I posted in the comments:
Choosing certain years can be a bit superficial. If one looks at economic realities and trends and not who the president happens to be, the year 2000, regardless of who's in the WH, is a very odd year to use for comparisons unless you pick a year that equals it in terms of economic cycles to provide apples to apples comparisons. 2008 is not such a year.
The year 2000 was a high water mark and the last year of the tech/economic boom that had been going for the previous few years.
The check marks get very jumbled up if you pick more equivalent years.
Compare 1996 or 1997 (the last years before the late 90s economic boom) and see what you get.
The first challenging problem with my answer and the POV I'm arguing for is a matter of projection. Ezra posts this because he is a highly partisan Democrat and any graph that reflects favorably on the Democrats or poorly on the Republicans is a great, profound, truthful and telling graph. I by-product of this myopic and partisan view is that any challenge to the graph must be necessarily driven by the mirror opposite partisan Republican viewpoint....ying and yang.
But this is not the case. In challenging the obvious faults with the graph, defending Bush or the Republicans is the furthest thing from my mind. I couldn't care less. What is my goal is simply to debunk the neatly convenient and partisan "truthiness" of the graph. As I mention above in the quote, the reality of the matter is that real truth lurking behind those subjective comparison years has nothing to do with partisanship and little to do with ideology as most like to view them.
First of all, the salient and notable policies from Clinton...insofar as a President's agenda can have a large impact...are generally pro-market policies:
Like NAFTA and Welfare reform.
Beyond that, some much less influential actions in terms of the economy but nonetheless noteworthy: Clinton raised some taxes on higher earners but then he started CUTTING SPENDING. Throw in the GOP Revolution of 1994 and grid lock, endless vetoes and distractions ruled the rest of his days while the economy hummed along as it benefited from favorable demographics (Boomers entering prime earning years) and a favorable innovation cycle (Internet and Tech Boom). Meanwhile, tax receipts climbed and new spending was hard to come by because Gingrich and Clinton couldn't even agree on what day it was...let alone what "sexual relations" meant. ;)
Clinton made some good pro-market reforms and otherwise "did no harm".
2000 was indeed a high water mark economically speaking. Then the tech bubble burst. Some had been warning about inflated stock prices and loose credit expansion by Greenspan...perhaps too loose? I don't know...probably. Greenspan started raising rates a bit toward the end of Clinton's term under worries about inflation and over heating. Then came 9/11 amidst a mild recession.
The growth experienced since the tech bubble bursting has seemed anemic compared to bubble numbers....but not too bad compared to pre-bubble numbers...like '96 or '97.
IMO, tech stocks and the stock market in general were quickly seen as over-valued after 2000 and the market correction led many out of these stocks and into something else: real estate and the ensuing real estate boom. This is where the damage to the current economy was planted. The real estate bubble from Greenspan's Fed policy pushed existing market structure into unknown territory and it was unable to properly deal with what followed.
Looking back, I feel even more strongly than I did in real time that the tech bubble needed to totally deflate without an encouraging back door into something else...namely housing. Money leaped from one crashing crest into another swell that took off into unknown waters and built a crest far higher and more uncontrollable than the tech bubble.
And what does all this have to do with Clinton and Bush2? Very, very little. But again, if Ezra wants to satisfy his partisan fetish, he should look for numbers that give a more lucid comparison...1996-2006 or 1997-2007.
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Comments :
you threw me there, John
I was expecting the criticism that "Presidents don't have much impact" but was pleased to get a bonus -- that the comparisons aren't even fair given the well-known economic cycle.
It looks like they haven't called you a Repubican yet...
Anyway, I never thought that people really believed in those sorts of comparisons...I've always viewed them as cynical propaganda intended to win over low-information voters who insist on judging the government but aren't capable of judging government on any basis other than what they see in front of their face (without any attempt to connect it to government action).
It may also serve their purpose of constantly beating the partisan drum "We're Better!"--repeating the same story a million times so that it seems true
. Or perhaps it's just fluff for columnists who need to put new content on their blog to keep traffic up.
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." --Frederick Douglas
Presidents can indeed have an impact...
just not in the ways most people like to believe.
You provide the salient distinction:
Very, very well put. People love to look at general and broad numbers or problems and attach it to the president...yet they have no way of explaining why or how.
Yes, Clinton signed NAFTA. Very influential. China entering the WTO was incredibly telling and influential...probably one of the most influential actions in terms of US trade in the last 50 years...yet people hardly know about it outside of political junkies...and even there, it hardly gets enough emphasis.
Clinton signed welfare reform. Very influential.
Bush's strongest influence, economically, is not the tax cuts...but rather Medicare. HUGE.
But most people see general trends and problems of an economic nature, like in the graph, that have more to do with demographics, international agreements and general trends in innovation and link their benefits/problems to Presidents because he happens to be there. Not smart.
influence with time lag
Yeah...I guess another point is that the influence of their decisions would have some sort of time lag (2-10 years is my feeling).
I'd guess the Iraq invasion also has a big economic influence, even though we typically focus on the human and geopolitical costs.
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." --Frederick Douglas
What about
the Iraq war? How does burning borrowed money stand as economical influence?
Sic semper tyrannis
It depends
In the short run, it doesn't make much of a difference. Market forces aren't really being incredibly influenced by it. Over the long run, it may have more to do with it...but that's debatable.
If it does have any effect at all, it would have to be through some kind of inflation effect...but the spending by itself really doesn't effect the economy and makes no real difference on market fundamentals....at least in real time.
Like I've always said, I have far less of problem with basic handouts to the needy from government in some sort of minimum income than I do with measures to control economic market forces to cater to the needy. Those are two totally different things in my mind.
However, some do say that heavy government borrowing affects real interest rates (not the ones we see pushed by the Fed...I mean the REAL---yet unseen---interest rate that is NOT being honored) because government is competing with private borrowers and pushing up what the market would be producing as an interest rate if it float freely and not be the whim of someone.
If I am to believe that real market forces are symbiotic, real and uncontrollable and that discords result from the temporary manipulation of economic factors to produce different results....only to reset back to normal later when the discords can no longer be covered up....which I do, then I can see the sense in that.
(hence, the inflationary effect)
Here's a funny thought, Adam:
If Dole hypothetically beats Clinton in 1996, we talk about the "Dole Boom of the late 90s". On that note, it'd be interesting to see how the Dems would have rationalized and bashed the late 90s whose success they've campaigned on ever since.
Funniest part:
Then, regardless of who would have won in 2000 under those circumstances, this table of stats wouldn't exist (thankfully!) because the year selection would "make no sense" for partisan purposes to go through the trouble of choosing such odd years. ;)
Good observation.
[Begin Digression]
Now note that the same phenomenon occurs with ... global warming. When answering the question "Is the planet warming?" the result depends on the specific endpoints that are chosen.
For example, if you choose 1998-2008 the planet has been cooling. If you choose 1900-2008 it has been warming. If you choose 125,000 years ago to present the planet has cooled significantly in comparison to the level of change we are currently panicking about now.
About 125,000 years ago the global temperature was roughly 5-6 degrees warmer
than it is now. Since Homo sapiens has been around for about 200,000 years 
, it seems obvious that even a delta 10X (i.e. 6 degrees vs. 0.6 degrees) that which people are whining about isn't going to kill us off as a species since we have already survived it (obviously), and that's without any technological aids at our disposal to make it easier.
[End Digression]
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
Your just itchin' for a fight, aren't you? :)
In keeping with John's point, how about we pick endpoints that actually mean something, like, say, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution?
The rest of your argument is a beautiful, almost textbook example, of a strawman. Point me to any scientist, or heck, even any person who is not a complete nutjob, who is claiming that global warming is going to kill us off as a species! Yeesh.
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
Can't be done ...
All of the global warming scientologists are complete nutjobs to begin with so you have already excluded all possible members of the required set. :)
And I did pick a meaningful endpoint, the highest temperature known during the time we have existed as a species. How is that not THE most meaningful endpoint I could have chosen?
But not surprisingly I can actually back up my claim to some level. Consider the following quotes:
– Sir David King
, The Independent on Sunday, 2 May 2004 
– Sir David King
, New Statesman 17 May 2004 
– Sir James Lovelock
, The Independent, 16 January 2006 
OK, so they don't actually go so far as to claim complete extinction of the species, but they are predicting something pretty darn close. Somehow I don't think things are really going to ever get this bad because of AGW.
Now, couple those with these from James Hansen (I assume you remember who James Hansen is) and we are pretty much there:
– James Hansen
, Testimony before the Iowa Utilities Board
– James Hansen
, New York Times, 26 November 2007
So Hansen is predicting the extinction of "uncountable irreplaceable species." Who's to say we won't be one of them?
Now, come on, admit it. I was able to back up that "outlandish" strawman better than you would have ever expected. :)
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
Heh
OK, I'll admit that. Although it sounds to me like this Sir David King fellow is a bit of a nutjob!
The Hansen quotes don't count at all. I don't think anyone would dispute that global warming, whether it is human-caused or not, will cause the extinction of many species.
Edit: And as far as the chosen endpoint, if the contention were that mankind is causing global warming by its very existence, than yes, you would have a point. But it's not. The contention is that mankind is causing global warming by pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at increasing rates, something which began with the Industrial Revolution.
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
Hey, he was the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government
I would hope he's not TO much of a nutjob. That's a pretty notable position wouldn't you say?
Republican Maverick at Large
-4:Strongly Disagree; 0:Meh; +4:Strongly Agree
Hope you don't mind,
I moved the image below the fold (now that Friday is ending) to free up space on the front page.
Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson
Buckley saw the irony in all this....
"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the
nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must
collectivize the nation because the people are so rich."
~
William F. Buckley, Jr.
"A society that puts equality before freedom will have neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both." ~ Milton Friedman