I don’t divide the world between friends and enemies. I do think that some things are right while others are wrong. Arresting a reporter for espionage in order to do an end-run around federal law is wrong:
Journalists, First Amendment watchdogs and government transparency advocates reacted with outrage Monday to the revelation that the Justice Department had investigated the newsgathering activities of a Fox News reporter as a potential crime in a probe of classified leaks.
Critics said the government’s suggestion that James Rosen, Fox News’s chief Washington correspondent, was a “co-conspirator†for soliciting classified information threatened to criminalize press freedoms protected by the First Amendment. Others also suggested that the Justice Department’s claim in pursuing an alleged leak from the State Department was little more than pretext to seize his e-mails to build their case against the suspected leaker.
The Obama Administration is not covering itself with glory. They are not alleging that the reporter was doing anything other than reporting. Apparently, reporting is now espionage.
The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and ABC News have already leapt to the defense of the Fox News reporter. The New York Times, on the other hand, apparently approves on cracking down on leaks. Eugene Robinson notes:
If this had been the view of prior administrations, surely Bob Woodward would be a lifer in some federal prison. The cell next door might be occupied by my Post colleague Dana Priest, who disclosed the CIA’s network of secret prisons. Or by the New York Times’ James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, who revealed the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping program.
I can only speculate that the NYT sees the world in terms of friends and enemies.
I spent half of yesterday arguing this at OTB. http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/fox-reporter-investigated-under-espionage-act//#comments
I am distressed that some fellow liberals don’t get why this is troubling. Legal, yes apparently, but wrong just the same.
Apparently, reporting is now espionage.
Welcome to Stalin’s Russia, comrades! Now stand up and start clapping for Dear Leader.
(Que Obama’s usual supporters to rush to the defense in THREE … TWO … ONE ….)
What’s amazing is that all of this stuff is being discovered NOW, over six months after the election. It’s almost as if the press didn’t bother to do their jobs last year….
This appears quite Cheneyesque — taking the most extreme, but perhaps supportable, position, without apparent concern that doing so virtually guarantees a backlash as other institutions act to check the power grab.
I’ve found at least one similar case, where a Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction of a government employee who had given photographs of a Soviet naval institution to a defense news-service for compensation and in order to ingratiate himself for future employment purposes. Two of the three judges wrote separately to explain that affirming the conviction did not address whether there would be liability under the Espionage Act for the news service since that would raise important, and perhaps insurmountable, Constructional problems. U.S. v. Morrison, 844 F.2d 1057 (4th Cir. 1988).
I’m also troubled by the prospect and perhaps the probability that there is no intent to prosecute the reporter here, the claims of criminal misconduct on the part of the reporter may simply be pretextual for purposes of getting information against the government employee. That may save the reporter a lot of expense, but we could be looking at a future where all national security reporters are described as criminals by the government for information-gathering purposes.
@michael, “Legal, yes apparently, but wrong just the same.”
I would say: “Legal, perhaps, but wrong just the same.”
PD:
You know a whole lot more law than I do, so I take your “perhaps.”
This seems to be another use of ‘moral equivalency,’ giving the government a pass, as to admitting any wrong doing in secretly pursuing someone from the press deemed unfriendly to them.
The problem is the kind of precedent it sets for future interpretations & implementations of administrations who follow this one. As it is, many of Obama’s missteps are rationalized by saying, “Well, Bush did it!” And, my reaction is that Obama promised to have a better administration than Bush. So, why then continue to use the past as a template for your own performance and conduct?
Sharyl Attkisson, of CBS, has found irregularities since her reporting on F & F.
Then there’s Kirsten Powers, of the Daily Beast, saying this about the press vs the government:
Media Matters, a supportive media arm of the President, now seems to be going after Jonathan Karl in an attempt to smear and delegitimize him too as being “A right-wing mole at ABC news.”
Essentially, reporters are ‘bad’ if they criticize the president. And, ‘good’ if they don’t. Is that how a free press is supposed to function?
As many of you know, I work in national security. I have deep loathing for leakers unless they are authentic whistleblowers disclosing illegal conduct because I understand the damage these leaks can cause. The vast majority of leaks do not fall into the whistleblower category IMO.
However, my loathing does not extend to those who publish leaks and so my opinion is that the press should not be held criminal liable for being the recipients. They did not sign the legally binding non-disclosure agreements that I and anyone else who works with classified material signs.
That said, I often wish they didn’t publish the leaks, but I appreciate that they typically check with the government before publishing to get a sense of the consequences. In the recent AP case, for example, it looks as though the AP agreed to delay publishing because an asset was compromised.
Finally, I think the government was completely justified in subpoening the AP phone records to try to discover which government shit-bag compromised that asset. But holding members of the press criminally liable is a bridge way too far and should be aggressively opposed.
Andy,
You’re right that AP cooperated with the government in holding back the story for at least a week. However, what is being alledged now is that the government’s concerns were less about publishing the story, than the timing involved — the administration wanted to announce the foiled terrorism attempt first, giving them the benefit of a greater sensational coverage, similar to what they received when stepping forward with the news that OBL was killed.
Also, Andy, why wouldn’t they inform AP that they were looking into leaks, and wanted to subpoena their phone records. Is it normal to do this secretly?
As an aside, the WH doctored email story, against Stephen Hayes & Jonathan Karl. seems to be pulling at the seams, as well. I think Dr. Steve alluded to such a doctoring, in one of his posts, when citing a defense of the Obama administration’s actions/inactions.
It makes one wonder what is true, and what’s not….
Change we can believe in!!!
Obama, he gets a solid B, right Michael?
Obama is going to look like just an ordinary late 20th century/early 21st century president: pretty pathetic.
Yes, Steve, still a solid B.
@andy, reporters also lack the training that I assume most people in government receive on the classification system. Also, reporting that intelligence officials believed that North Korea would respond to a UN resolution with more missile tests does not strike me as obviously the reporting of classified information as opposed to the sort of off-the-cuff analysis that I frequently hear reporters make as coming from their sources. Seems quite different than the AP case, in which it seems the reporting necessarily compromised an asset.
BTW/ This is not my area, but I found this discussion about criminal liability and the press in this law review article (beginning at page 1030) to be quite on point:
http://www.nyls.edu/user_files/1/3/4/17/49/1156/Law%20Review%2055.4_04Levine.pdf
Great, a solid B for Bush 2.0, right?
Steve:
Why do you write stupid things like that? Has Obama started an unnecessary war that cost us thousands of lives and at least a trillion dollars? Has he presided over a catastrophic economic meltdown? Has he allowed terrorist leaders to go free? Did he turn a surplus into a deficit by cutting taxes even as he was fighting two unfunded wars? No? Then he’s not Mr Bush.
Because Obama has continued or expanded every horrible Bush policy.
For example,
The only reason the answer to that is, “no”, is because we already had deficits. Obama kept those same tax cuts.
And the answer to this one is, yes. When he became President the Great Recession was well under way. The fall out in terms of unemployment still have not abated. And Obama’s response: the same policies Bush was proposing.
Really Michael, I think you need to remove those sunglasses in your avatar pic. They also seem to be amazing partisan blinders.
Oh, and let me head you off before you go full retard. No, Romney would have been just as shitty…and McCain before him.
This is a link to the affadavit for search warrant:
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/affidavit-for-search-warrant/162/
I skimmed it and I think the essence is that they’re alleging a conspiracy because Rosen solicited these materials. They quote a statute but I don’t know what it entails.
Is there anyone who knows what statutes would apply here, and if there is any basis to the criminality of a reporter soliciting, rather than just receiving, classified leaks? I find it odd that this wouldn’t be a common way that it happens, rather than leakers seeking out the journalists without prior contact.
Steve V, you forgot to add some Obama pluses: Increasing food stamp usage by almost 50% during an economic recovery; falling median wages during an economic recovery; an increase in part-time jobs at the expense of full-time jobs in part because of policy decisions (PPACA); failure to meet any economic forecast for four years; the inability not only to get a budget passed for several years, but also an inability to get even a single vote for it from his own party; the increased use of SSDI as a stop-gap for welfare, because the economy sucks ass; using the IRS to intimidate enemies and to suppress freedom of association, freedom of speech and to influence elections; going after news organizations that don’t kiss the President’s ass; and so on and so forth. I mean, come on, man, the President does have a FEW original moves….
Oh, I forgot using assassination as a tool of foreign and domestic policy. Claiming that terrorism is workplace violence when it fails to meet the Presidential narrative. Calling terrorism protests against YouTube videos when it doesn’t meet the Presidential narrative. I’m sure people can think up their own cases, too.
But remember that when the Bush administration was doing far less on the matter of violating the civil liberties of Americans, it was cause for accusing the Republicans of plotting to overthrow the government in order to install Bush as President for life.
The only thing that matters, the ONLY thing, is the letter after the President’s name. If it is a (D), there is no possible way the President can ever be less than great. If it is an (R), the best he can hope for is to be compared unfavorably to Nero.
Steve:
Oh, look, you carefully avoided the whole unnecessary war part of the equation. And you equated cutting taxes in time of war with keeping tax cuts during the ensuing meltdown.
And of course now the Bush tax cuts are going away and surprise! Shock! Amazement! The deficit is coming down. An event predicted by precisely no one on your side of the political spectrum. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure you saw trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.
As usual, you’ve got a burned out, outdated and increasingly laughable libertarian ideology and a dash of paranoia and not much else.
As usual, you’ve got a burned out, outdated and increasingly laughable libertarian ideology and a dash of paranoia and not much else.
Yes, because it would be paranoid to think the Administration is going after its enemies (by which I mean any American that doesn’t kiss the President’s ass reflexively – they don’t seem to give a shit about who murdered their “good friend and close colleague” over in Benghazi, save to blame it on anything but terrorism, when it counted) using such things as warrantless wiretaps, the DOJ, and the IRS. Because, seriously, that didn’t happen.
(BTW, I told everyone that before the end of May Reynolds would be saying that nothing done by the Administration was all that bad. In fact, he had ten days to spare before he said that none of this, not one thing, would alter the grade he gave the President.)
Also, how about mentioning some of the President’s forecasts that didn’t pan out, such as that infamous chart about how low the unemployment rate would be by now? Or the President’s prediction that he would halve the deficit in his first term in office? Or that the PPACA would reduce healthcare costs?
Nah, none of that matters one bit, because it doesn’t fit the narrative, which is that Obama is an outstanding President, and we ought to redo Mount Rushmore to put his image up there. Not sure how they’re going to blackface it, though….
Ice and Steve:
I know you guys will enjoy this: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy-move-again-so-are-americans-6C9995498
In the meantime, Lois Lerner, the one who was cohort to the planted question about the IRS misdeeds, is taking the 5th. Yes, just another participant of Obama’s Transparency Team!
This is indeed a government who is willing to give open and honest answers to the people. Not! But, lets’ go back to the chorus relishing what, IMO, is prematurely called “The Housing Recovery.”
Now it looks like Lois Lerner is going to take the Fifth. In other words, she’s guilty as Hell and her lawyers are telling her to shut the fuck up before she incriminates herself or adds perjury charges to the mix.
Yep, clearly a solid B for management!
Michael, yep, housing is picking up. Prices are up 22% over housing prices last year in the Orlando area. Houses are being flipped several times by investors without anyone moving into them. Why, it’s just like 2005 again! And we all know how well that worked out.
Incidentally, the one couple I know looking to buy a house to actually, you know, LIVE in, are still having problems. The investors are swooping in fast and buy with cash. The young couple just doesn’t have a chance.
Incidentally, of the 12 or so houses that I know are abandoned in my neighborhood, exactly one of them has been bought and occupied by actual people. Fortunately for me, it was one of the two I most want to see occupied, the corner house across the street. So that’s good. Too bad the other is the house next door and the druggies have busted out the sliding glass door in the back of the house, and the bank that owns it doesn’t care enough to board it up. Oh well, what can possibly go wrong having people smoking dope and using crank next door? At least the bank has the yard mowed every couple of weeks….
Ice,
Lerner’s husband is a big Obama donor. The ties within this administration are so tight as to be incestuous.
In another matter:
The Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General published this report Monday confirming former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke leaked a document intended to smear Operation Fast and Furious scandal whistleblower John Dodson. The mantra for this administration and it’s political allies seems to be, “If you don’t like something, smear it.” And, we all know how far the F & F inquiry got, ending abruptly with Obama pulling an EO, and taking it off the table for Holder. And, yes Bush did the same thing during his reign too. But, what wasn’t right in his administration still doesn’t make it right in the current one, either.
There are other whistleblowers who want to testify on Benghazi as well. But, seeing how the government goes after them, they are reticent to do so, until they are afforded more protection from the government.
Is this how America is supposed to operate — via political intimidation of the press, of people who want to testify against it’s abuses or incompetence, or of political opponents to their ideology? While the left is always talking about suppression of the vote (unproven as it may be), there is definitely suppression of free and differing speech under Obama rule!
Jan:
So housing prices aren’t going up? New construction isn’t increasing?
And again, how many of the GE-GADS (Glittering Eye Gloom and Doom Society) predicted this?
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/05/20/housing-recovery-still-has-room-to-run/
Of course that’s from some Commie writing for the WSJ.
The same premature and/or non-existent housing recovery seems to be helping Home Depot: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/21/us-homedepot-results-idUSBRE94K0EX20130521
I assume Home Depot is hallucinating. Right?
So, let’s summarize some recent developments, shall we? Stock market hits record high. Inflation remains low. No threat of deflation detected. The credit “downgrade” had zero effect, everyone still loves our T-bills. Employment up a bit. Housing market healthier. Deficit drops by surprising amount. GM stock rising for about the last year on strong car sales. Health care costs appear to have leveled off at least for now.
How much of that did brother Ice and brother Verdon and brother Drew and sister Jan see coming? Let’s see, um. . . none of it. Which makes your credibility as prophets worth, well. . . you guys are the numbers people, you tell me.
Here is a perfect photo, needing no words, of Obama’s leadership.
CStanley, I believe the statute imposes criminal liability on anyone who conspires to commit a crime, which here would be the unauthorized dissemination of classified information. All of the parties to the conspiracy are subject to the same penalty. That’s not a unique formation of conspiracy crimes, but in the context of reporting it makes reporters criminals if all they need to do is ask for information that they think the public would be interested in reading about. From my law review link:
“Courts have both explicitly and implicitly recognized that any attempt to seek criminal (or civil) sanctions against the press for providing what might be deemed to be incentives to sources so that they will provide information about newsworthy matters would face substantial First Amendment hurdles.
” A different constitutional rule—one that would permit the imposition of criminal liability on the press when it can broadly be said to have “induced†or “conspired†with a source to secure newsworthy information for publication—would fundamentally alter public discourse. If, for example, the press could be prosecuted for “aiding and abetting†violations of the Privacy Act, it would appear that the Washington Post, Bob Woodward, and Carl Bernstein could all have been charged in the wake of their persistent solicitation and receipt of information from FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt about the FBI’s then-ongoing investigation of specific, identified persons implicated in the Watergate investigation who had not yet been indicted.”
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House oversight committee where Lerner was to appear, has issued a subpoena to Lerner, after her attorney notified his committee that she was taking the 5th.
Here’s a legal question: Can you force someone to talk with a subpoena, after they’ve taken the 5th?
Here’s a legal question: Can you force someone to talk with a subpoena, after they’ve taken the 5th?
You can force them to show up, and you can force them to testify that they are exercising their Fifth Amendment rights, but you can’t force them to talk in those circumstances. I believe that you CAN force them to talk by granting them immunity from whatever they may testify to. (Such immunity agreements should be narrowly crafted.) In this manner Congress sometimes fucks up a decent prosecution.
Sure. By granting immunity.
@jan, I think Congress can make her appear in person and plead the Fifth in front of cameras. The only odd thing might be that she hasn’t resigned? I would think she has an obligation to respond to Congressional oversight, and if she cannot do the job, she cannot do the job.
Michael, where was all this concern for failed numbers forecasts when the Obama Administration numbers failed to materialize for years? Now all of a sudden you guys are geniuses when your employment forecast from the Stimulus is STILL completely fucked up.
But please, tell me again how wonderful employment is in this country now. After all, we’re only a couple of million jobs short of where we were pre-recession, so that MUST be good news!
Shorter Michael: I only care if rich Democrats like me are doing well (thus the obsession with the stock market), and fuck everyone else, because more poor people means more welfare means more Democratic voters. Which is why Reynolds will NOT acknowledge how much food stamp usage has gone up under Obama. That isn’t a part of the OPEN narrative.
Hah, I didn’t think about immunity. But what’s the deal here, as I gather, Lerner told her subordinates to knock-off with the tea party stuff, which makes her one of the sane ones, but she didn’t tell the truth to a member of Congress about what she knew?
Ice:
I’m sorry, but you have me confused with Tim Geithner. To remind you: I’m the atheist in this little gaggle. I don’t believe in economics. Or at least not an economics sufficiently advanced to be of any use.
See, I think economists (and econ bloggers) are like the very best physicians available in the 16th century. They have observations, they have numbers, they know that the poo is loose and the urine is cloudy, and that rash certainly doesn’t look good. . . so we are going to have to drain your blood and attach leeches to your privates.
The fact that an entire universe of trained economists and econ bloggers and assorted economics-adjacent folk were all staring intently at the economy, devoting 100% of their intellectual candlepower, and somehow managed to be surprised by a drop in the deficit tells me you don’t know much.
It’s the CIA and the collapse of the USSR. They were staring right at it. And they missed it.
You have a whole thicket of numbers, many observations, many trends being measured. You think that’s understanding. But knowing the urine is cloudy is a very long way from discovering the existence of bacteria, or viruses, let alone being able to treat them.
What you guys are good at is explaining away data that doesn’t fit your model, and explaining in retrospect how someone did something wrong, but since you fail as prophets, you also fail as prescribing physicians. You can’t reliably cure the patient if you’re only guessing about the effects of the medicine.
And by the way, not only do you fail utterly as an economic prophet, you compound it with astounding lack of humility and by heaping scorn on anyone who disagrees with your notion that we can cure plague by rubbing yourself with excrement. You don’t know what you’re talking about, and you’re an abusive asshole to anyone who has a different but equally clueless plan.
The AP case seems to have been justified and well handled. The Rosen case I really dont understand. I need a better summation of it. (Hope Volokh covers it) As I understand it, they are not actually charging the guy with anything. True? if so, what was the point?
Steve
And during a time of war….and after the meltdown was over.
Yes, Obama’s only main difference is he did not start a war in Iraq…but he has kept us in Afghanistan far longer than we should have been there.
And he has stepped up the drone campaign which is killing quite a few innocents.
My side of the political spectrum? You dumb fuck. I’ve been saying that to deal with the deficit we almost surely have to raise taxes. I don’t like it, but I haven’t been opposed to such things.
Why Michael is a partisan dumb ass.
See Michael, I don’t fit neatly into your straw man construct of me.
Nice straw man you got there, good thing you quit the cigars.
As for housing prices going up and housing starts going down…you don’t see a problem there? You don’t think that some of the “analyses” of this curiosity are perhaps due to rose tinted glasses something like that? It is odd that prices are going up, but supply is going in the opposite direction.
Don’t get me wrong, if it is a good healthy market, great. But there has been alot of effort to try and get the housing market back to where it was…but that was a bubble…hard to get back there…without creating a new bubble.
And your crowing about 165,000 new jobs in the payroll survey? That is just a bit over the amount to keep up with population growth (125,000-130,000/month). And unemployment drops from 7.6% to 7.5%, while the labor force participation rate is still well below the 67-68% for the last 20 years.
Wow….okay I’m going to chalk this up to you being an innumerate vs. being dishonest.
No, the growth rate has dropped a bit, but it is still well above the growth rate of the overall economy. Is it good? Well it is an improvement. Is it great? No. In fact, technically it is bad in that the growth rate of health care costs are still unsustainable and we don’t know why the growth rate of health care costs dropped–i.e. if things like employment do turn around that growth rate could go back up.
And WTF Michael. You were the one pimping the Reserve Army of Labor theory a few posts down. Can you make up your mind? Is the employment situation getting better (thanks to Obama, of course) or are we going to see some permanent class of unemployed due to iPhone apps?
Oh…and Michael, the stock market often does great…until the recession starts. As Dave has been pointing out this tepid expansion is getting rather long in the tooth.
Says the guy who just a week or so ago was seriously pimping the Reserve Army of Labor theory….
You go girl! Contradictions be damned!
Steve:
So you favor the “pockets full of posies” as opposed to the “crap-smearing” cure for plague? You and Ice should really work this out. I’ll just be over there, smoking the cigars I took up again. You guys let me know when you get close to a clue.
Says the guy who alternatively pimps a 150+ year old theory about how unemployment will never go down…but then switches over to talk about how unemployment is getting a tiny bit better…. Yay Obama!!!
Perhaps you don’t think anyone else has a clue, because that is your natural state.
Oh, and the guy who confuses levels with growth rates.
James Hamilton on debit, deficits and sovereign debt concerns
Which we are on track to do, if you believe the projections from the CBO. Prudent policy would be to do something about it now, not in 2016 and definitely after 2016.
But hey, I’m sure Michael as a fantastic link about some app developer who will save the day.
steve not-V,
The gist appears to be that the government wants e-mails from a reporter to expand or strengthen its case against a government leaker (who does not sound sympathetic), but the prosecutors cannot or do not want to comply with a Congressional law that limits access to reporter’s papers absent important circumstances, such as life or death or when the reporter is actually the criminal suspect. Holder decided to adopt a theory of criminal liability under which all reporters are criminals for soliciting classified information; they are co-conspirators.
The theory is broader than the present circumstances. The theory makes Woodward and Bernstein criminals because they solicited grand jury information. Also, the reporters that leaked the Bary Bonds grand jury testimony, the reporters that disseminated stories from soldiers about the Abu Ghraib abuses, wire-tapping by the Bush administration, etc. They are all criminals and thus their e-mails are fair game.
Its not clear to me that the government has any intention to prosecute the reporter here, but to repeat Michael Reynold’s question: Does the reporter have reason to fear jail? Yes. Do all reporters that publish information from confidential sources have reason to fear jail now? Yes.
The fact that an entire universe of trained economists and econ bloggers and assorted economics-adjacent folk were all staring intently at the economy, devoting 100% of their intellectual candlepower, and somehow managed to be surprised by a drop in the deficit tells me you don’t know much.
Hey dipshit, you don’t get to claim that only your opponents must be held to perfection as the standard of choice: It must apply to your side too – or it should if you had a shred of honesty in your make-up, which I know you don’t. (Come on Michael, tell me the sun will rise in the East tomorrow! I know you can do it!)
If I must be held to a standard of 100% perfection in my forecasts, then so should the President of the United States when he has the entire executive branch at his beck and call. He has failed time and time again, and yet you proclaim him an infallible genius who is so pure that he shouldn’t even be blamed for things getting fucked up in his own Administration.
Oh, and most to the point, I’m not an economist, nor have I ever claimed to be. I worked as an actuarial analyst for a few years, and as a financial analyst for a few years. My training is in (pure) mathematics. None of those those professions or avocations would classify me as an economist. So like you, however, to completely misrepresent the truth of the matter in an effort to deflect criticism from your beloved Party. Party uber alles, always with you, and to ell with everything and everyone else.
You don’t know what you’re talking about, and you’re an abusive asshole to anyone who has a different but equally clueless plan.
And I should be nice to you why? Through the years you have called me not only a racist, but a closet Klansman. You have implied that I am a closet Nazi that wants to throw you and yours in ovens. You have heaped one bit of calumny upon another on me. My favorite was when you told me you were better than me because you were richer than me, and that because you are a Democrat I should literally lick your feet clean. Even Amba took offense at your attitude that time, and she usually has been willing to forgive you anything.
So, why should I play nice with someone that accuses me of all that? Who treats me like that?
Not to mention that you have been absolutely gleeful not only at my ruined life, but that my wife and daughter get to share in the misery.
So why am I supposed to think you are such a good guy when you can’t wait to call me a genocidal racist and when you take glee in the misery of my family?
Wow….okay I’m going to chalk this up to you being an innumerate vs. being dishonest.
Why would you assume he’s not being dishonest?
Side? What side? I’m not a Protestant arguing with Catholics, I’m the atheist saying there is no God. Liberal economists, conservative economists, they all stared right at the economy and when the deficit suddenly dropped by pretty large numbers there was a chorus of, “Huh?”
Now, at the same time the Obama economists were wrong about employment and the conservative economists were wrong about GM, but they would be, wouldn’t they? If economics is a science not yet ready to be let out of the ivory tower, then it’s not a shock to discover that liberals and conservatives are both wrong. And they are both wrong. A lot. In fact, too much to be explained away with a lot of hand-waving.
I think it’s like Legos. The numbers, the charts and graphs are all brightly-colored Legos. Each Lego is perfectly fine in and of itself. But when you go to build something with them, it topples over. But you can’t help yourselves — they’re so bright and rectangular and all. So you have to build something. And the something doesn’t work.
The 16th century physician was not wrong that the patient was running a fever. He was right. But he didn’t know what the hell to do about it and yet insisted on trying.
Steve:
Yes, but I know I don’t have a clue. You also don’t have a clue, but you insist you do.
Did you predict the deficit would drop? Did you predict that GM would be alive and well five years after the bailout? Did you predict that the credit downgrade would have no effect and that we’d be selling as many essentially zero percent interest bonds as we want?
If not, why not? Is it because you don’t have a clue? Is it because your faith is misplaced and there is no economics?
“My training is in (pure) mathematics.”
Should my son put any effort into the Putnam test? Does anyone care about it?
Steve
IF your son can get a high score on the Putnam test he should do it. It lets those in the know know who has real talent. Feynman’s result is still talked about among the cognoscenti. OTOH, if he’s going to get a mediocre score (by Putnam standards) maybe he would be better off putting in the effort elsewhere.
Anyway, do well enough on the Putnam and your son can choose his school.
I’ll note that the most fundamental dishonesty of Reynold’s anti-economist rant is that he still says that he can apportion blame or credit to economic policies based solely on someone’s party affiliation. So Bush destroyed the economy (because of the (R) after his name) and Obama resurrected the economy and made it the very best POSSIBLE economy (because of the (D) after Barry’s). Best of all, he can claim that Capitalism is an abysmal failure and that only centrally planned economies succeed, because fuck you.
In response to Steve’s request, Eugene Volokh shares his views:
http://www.volokh.com/2013/05/21/leakers-recipients-and-conspirators/
Go away for a couple of hours and the thread explodes!
Ice:
Except for me not saying any of those things. . .
Now, have I sometimes played the game of “Bush destroyed the economy?” Guilty. When one of you begins ranting about Obama’s economy I rant back at you.
But I’ve also said very clearly that I don’t believe presidents have much sway over the economy. And that even if some of their actions affect the economy, it’s not in ways we can confidently predict.
I’ve also repeatedly said that I didn’t vote for Obama (either time) because of the economy. I vote foreign policy and social policy.
I don’t believe there’s any such thing as “the economy.” Because I can’t find anything that doesn’t affect this chimeric economy thing. Does culture affect the economy? Obviously. Does street crime affect the economy? Sure. Weather? Yep. A sudden bright idea in a grad student’s mind? Yeah. A dumb CEO? Sun spot activity? A crooked banker? A mutated virus? Religion? Fads?
Try listing things which do not affect the economy. I don’t think you’ll have much of a list. But since you can’t really reduce culture or religion or sudden inspiration or viral mutation to graphs and charts and numbers, you set all that aside. You set a big chunk of “the economy” to one side in favor of looking at only those elements you can measure.
You have then the system of everything, the totality of human (and some non-human) activity. That’s “the economy.” But you want to be able to understand it and control it, direct it, while ignoring vast quantities of relevant data in favor of data whose relevance you don’t really know. Can’t know, in fact, since you can’t know the interaction of the unmeasured factors.
But even that doesn’t touch the silliness of “economics.” Because in addition to randomly assigning importance to whatever data lends itself to a pie chart and dismissing everything else, you want to understand through the prism of your own political and personal opinions and prejudices. (Understand, I’m using “you” in the general sense, including me and everyone else.)
To take all of that and then imagine that the President of the United States, who controls only the margins of some fraction of the US economy, which is a fraction of the world economy, which in turn is only partly controlled by dozens of other presidents and prime ministers and potentates, all of them blindly screwing around with this or that, is somehow responsible for the price of a home in Arizona, and the price of gas in Corte Madera, and the job market in Boston and the demand for tractors in Ohio, and the cost of yogurt in New Jersey, is absurd.
It’s a fun little political game, but silly to take it seriously. No one understands how the economy works because to understand the economy would be to understand the totality of human (and some non) activity. And no one controls the economy. Interest rates were evidently being set by a half dozen pin-striped crooks in London, but it’s all somehow controlled by politicians named Bush and Obama. And if only a Bush or an Obama would do. . . something. . . then the whole system of planet Earth would work just fine. Right.
PD- You probably already saw it, but Volokh has an interesting take on the leaks. Thx for your input. He thinks what Rosen did was a crime if I am reading him correctly.
http://www.volokh.com/2013/05/21/leakers-recipients-and-conspirators/
Steve
Ice- Thx. He was asked to take it so he did w/o any prep. He was in the top 500, which I interpret, not knowing much about the test, as his being good but not great. Sounds like I should advise him to just concentrate on his physics.
Steve
Ice- Thx. He was asked to take it so he did w/o any prep. He was in the top 500, which I interpret, not knowing much about the test, as his being good but not great. Sounds like I should advise him to just concentrate on his physics.
Top five hundred out of how many? That might be really good. I’d ask someone more in touch with particulars. Doing well on the Putnam is good for physics or mathematics. (See reference to Feynman above.)
That looks like top quartile, which is pretty good. Lots of people put in lots of effort to do really well at that competition (the winning teams and individuals are typically from the top schools). Top quartile probably merits asking someone familiar with current admissions practices at the schools your son is interested in.
I read Volokh’s piece yesterday, which I think is descriptive of the state of the law, but the state of law is largely defined by the fact that no administration has ever tried to tie a reporter to an improper leak through conspiracy laws. The law review piece I linked to yesterday draws on that reality, plus statements made by lower federal courts indicating that serious First Amendment issues would be raised if a prosecutor ever tried to go after the reporter. This is why I wrote yesterday, “legal, perhaps.” There are red flags around this issue; Volokh could be right today, but wrong tomorrow.
One of the red flags is that the scope of authority being claimed would criminalize most investigative reporting of things government doesn’t want us to know.
Your comments, PD, and the Volokh piece have been very helpful for understanding the issued raised by this and various interpretations of the statutes….thanks.
@michael reynolds
The economy is simply a series of value for value transactions, and these are totaled to get GDP. Economists and others try to make it as complicated as possible. There is also a monetary system which is related to and intertwined with the economy. Money facilitates these transactions. It is also used to store value, but not all agree with this.
There many things that can affect these transaction. Some are natural, and some are not. Many of the policies you support are an unnatural attempt to affect these transactions, and therefore, they cause distortions in the economy. Some of these distortions are good, and some are bad.
Many economists do not understand human nature. Hence, many economic theories do not include feedback loops or “irrational” behavior. Much of what is bantered about here and elsewhere is “conventional wisdom”, and it is rarely understood by the one bantering. One set of “conventional wisdom” ideas is supported be another set.
Once “conventional wisdom” is eliminated, many of the items you list were predictable, and they were predicted. “Conventional wisdom” is like Wile E. Coyote physics, and when it collapses, it is often quick and catastrophic.
Actually no, this is a false assertion. Many economists due pure theoretical research. Others due theoretical research for empirical techniques. Some focus on micro issues–e.g. price number indexes. So this idea that all economists were focused on the economy like a laser beam is bunk.
More errant nonsense. I’ve repeatedly said I don’t know what will get us out of our current malaise. I’ve also said I think macro is baloney and that we should look to micro and make changes that make sense and will put us on a more sustainable fiscal path vs. trying to find this amazing macro policy that will work a miracle.
So, you are once again constructing a straw man.
This highlights your intellectual dishonest.
Did Bush destroy the economy? No. The problems with our economy were quite sometime in the making and I don’t think anyone sat down and said, “How can I really fuck things up.” Alot of these (bad) policies came into existence with the help of both parties.
Did Obama resurrect the economy? No. Did he (and Bush) do things that may have stopped it from completely collapsing? I really don’t know, but I think that is giving them way to much credit.
What nonsense. This is true of everything Try making of list of the things that don’t impact things like weather or climate. Yet, we make models…mathematical models for those two subjects as well. Same thing with biology and medicine. Yet mathematics is being used more and more in those fields as well.
And you have an incorrect understanding of some aspects of economic models. Some are deterministic–i.e. include no randomness in them. Others on the other hand are stochastic–i..e they do include randomness. They include things like probabilities, Markov chain processes, and learning and make heavy use of Bayes theorem to incorporate in information and beliefs. And yes, there are even ways of incorporating feedback loops.
Still, like in physics, and other hard sciences these models are abstractions from reality. That is done on purpose. The reason it is done on purpose is so that we don’t get bogged down in all the nitty gritty details. So that we can answer specific questions. Could some of those omitted nitty gritty details cause problems? Sure, but that is why nothing in science, including economics, is ever “settled”. Work is constantly being done to refine, improve and extend existing models, and incorporate new ones.
Now, that doesn’t mean there is a grand model for the entire economy. And even if there were, one should be careful using it for formulating policies. Because it is just a model and it does have simplifying assumptions. This is why I favor a “micro” approach over “macro” approach. The macro guys often like big sweeping policies. I favor tweaks here and there that will, hopefully, make things work better.
My approach wont usher in a golden age. However, it is also unlikely to lead to a big problem, I hope. The big macro changes on the other hand…probably wont lead to a golden age either and I see them as having a bigger chance of leading to big problems.
My overall skepticism of economic policy is based on studies where economics and political science overlap. The results aren’t pretty. Democracy sucks at allocating resources. Making good decisions via any political mechanism is dodgy, at best. Political decision making processes are decidedly non-rational. As such, I’m always doubtful about using politics to decide who gets what. Especially when you factor in that governments are pretty much the only agency out there that can initiate the use of force against others legally with or without provocation.
BTW, I bet you eat up that Global Warming/Climate Change stuff with a spoon. I doubt you turn such a skeptical eye towards that stuff even though it is intertwined with economics to a very significant degree.
Basically…hypocrisy much?
Oh, and your ignorance is showing. About me and others.