In a recent post I talked a little about the Diary reader Tom Brown's view of Sumner. I found it interesting because I had the sense that he doesn't see MM as I do-as basically a Royal Road to the same destination as Austrianism, RBC, etc. This is how I see most Monetarism-basically just the same conservative ideology but in slghtly more appealing packaging, It seems more palatable to Keynesianism as it believes that the business cycle is caused by demand side problems whereas Austrians see it as a misallocation problem due to money printing, Supply Siders think it's caused by government regulation or high taxes on the rich and the RBCers more or less don't acknowledge the business cycle at all.
I wrote about Tom mostly because he fits the profile of the kind of reader I imagine who might be won over by Sumner. He's a nice, intelligent, guy, basically a centrist and maybe persuaded by Sumner because of the seemingly 'centrist' packaging of MM. So after writing this post about Tom, I got some great feedback in the comments section from him. I think the real difference between us here is that he basically trusts Sumner or takes him at his word. I in some ways respect or even admire Sumner but don't fully trust him. I do think he lies.
Tom seems to think that this is a too conspiratorial to imagine. Surely you can't believe Sumner ever deliberately lies he seems to suggest. He agrees with Nick Rowe that I have Sumner Derangement Syndrome.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/02/mark-sadowski-tom-brown-and-ed-prescott.html?showComment=1391833113667#c3739902013986818151
I still think that Tom looks in the wrong place to judge the question:
"I have to agree with Nick here."
"Furthermore I believe that Sumner is primarily interested in seeing good monetary policy implemented. He wrote that. Maybe he was lying, but I don't have a reason to believe that. IMO his politics and fiscal concerns are secondary. They are important to him for sure, and he often inserts those concerns in his posts (in ways that makes it unclear where his monetary beliefs end and his political beliefs begin), but I really don't see a problem separating those ideas (monetary policy and politics) for any of the MM proponents in general. For example, I have no idea what many of the other MMists feel about politics. We know Sadowski votes straight Democrat (but has libertarian sympathies). Sumner was actually pretty centrist on that quiz (he shared the results) but is most likely to the right of Sadowski. How about David Glasner? David Beckworth? Nick Rowe? You have any idea how those guys might vote? I think you could even claim JP Koning has MMist sympathies: but again, I have no idea of his politics. I'd guess broadly centrist for all of them. And they all have a writing style (dog whistle free) that gives me a warm fuzzy above anything I've see from someone who goes on regular rants against "central planners," "statists," "collectivists," and "progressives" (i.e. political hacks posing as economic commentators).
"Bill Woolsey and Lars Christensen I imagine are conservatives (although perhaps Lars only in a relative sense: a Danish conservative). Marcus Nunes is hard to read, but I'd guess conservative too."
"Re: RBCers, when I asked Sumner just a few days ago he flat out said that Prescott was a decent economist, but a bad monetary economist. BTW, I asked him how he felt about Woodford (to get another data point), and he said (w/o qualification) that Woodford is both an excellent economist and monetary economist. Isn't he the quintessential NKer? That doesn't tell me anything about how he feels about Woodford's politics (assuming any of us know)."
I wrote about Tom mostly because he fits the profile of the kind of reader I imagine who might be won over by Sumner. He's a nice, intelligent, guy, basically a centrist and maybe persuaded by Sumner because of the seemingly 'centrist' packaging of MM. So after writing this post about Tom, I got some great feedback in the comments section from him. I think the real difference between us here is that he basically trusts Sumner or takes him at his word. I in some ways respect or even admire Sumner but don't fully trust him. I do think he lies.
Tom seems to think that this is a too conspiratorial to imagine. Surely you can't believe Sumner ever deliberately lies he seems to suggest. He agrees with Nick Rowe that I have Sumner Derangement Syndrome.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/02/mark-sadowski-tom-brown-and-ed-prescott.html?showComment=1391833113667#c3739902013986818151
I still think that Tom looks in the wrong place to judge the question:
"I have to agree with Nick here."
"Furthermore I believe that Sumner is primarily interested in seeing good monetary policy implemented. He wrote that. Maybe he was lying, but I don't have a reason to believe that. IMO his politics and fiscal concerns are secondary. They are important to him for sure, and he often inserts those concerns in his posts (in ways that makes it unclear where his monetary beliefs end and his political beliefs begin), but I really don't see a problem separating those ideas (monetary policy and politics) for any of the MM proponents in general. For example, I have no idea what many of the other MMists feel about politics. We know Sadowski votes straight Democrat (but has libertarian sympathies). Sumner was actually pretty centrist on that quiz (he shared the results) but is most likely to the right of Sadowski. How about David Glasner? David Beckworth? Nick Rowe? You have any idea how those guys might vote? I think you could even claim JP Koning has MMist sympathies: but again, I have no idea of his politics. I'd guess broadly centrist for all of them. And they all have a writing style (dog whistle free) that gives me a warm fuzzy above anything I've see from someone who goes on regular rants against "central planners," "statists," "collectivists," and "progressives" (i.e. political hacks posing as economic commentators).
"Bill Woolsey and Lars Christensen I imagine are conservatives (although perhaps Lars only in a relative sense: a Danish conservative). Marcus Nunes is hard to read, but I'd guess conservative too."
"Re: RBCers, when I asked Sumner just a few days ago he flat out said that Prescott was a decent economist, but a bad monetary economist. BTW, I asked him how he felt about Woodford (to get another data point), and he said (w/o qualification) that Woodford is both an excellent economist and monetary economist. Isn't he the quintessential NKer? That doesn't tell me anything about how he feels about Woodford's politics (assuming any of us know)."
I just think he's totally missing the point here. We don't' have to do a poll. It's not about how any particular person votes. I don't care how each person that calls himself a MMer votes in election day. It sure doesn't matter how Woodford votes. However, he votes is besides the point. Certainly Sumner isn't proved right because say Woodford votes for Obama in 2012-my sense is that he probably did if he voted at all. Actually for the record a RBCer Bob Lucas claimed to have voted for Obama in 2008 as he thought having a Black President was good for the country. So is he a liberal?
My point is about the policy implications of the theory of MM not how this or that person who calls themselves a MMer might have voted in any particular election. I say the implications of MM are towards the same conservative fiscal policies as Austrians, Supply Siders, and the RBCers. There is no difference on fiscal matters.
Monetary policy is not separate from politics. One reason to think he's lying is how much time he spends discussing the supposedly the secondary political and fiscal concerns. How many Keynesian bashing posts as he written over the last 4 months? Way too many to count. These posts aren't just anti Keynesian but proclaiming it 'dead' claiming that 'another stake has been driven through it's heart.' Here is yet another one he wrote over at Econolog.
If fiscal matters are so secondary to him why spend so much time on them? I'd love if Tom could explain that. My reason for not simply believing him when he says that his primary concern is monetary and that fiscal or political matters are secondary is that he spends so much time telling us that there is no fiscal multiplier and he gets so testy whenever I've questioned him on this. That he doesn't' want to discuss it tells me that he's probably being dishonest here.
Tom seems to think not fully trusting Sumner is just such an extraordinary position to take that you have to be a wild eyed conspiracy theorist not to take him at his word.
"Sorry, I laid it on a bit thick w/ the cult leader stuff: obviously he's not a cult leader: nobody is in 100% agreement w/ Sumner: I've seen him have fairly sharp disagreements w/ even his closest MM buds. ... but when I read through your detailed response, I had this image of him as this highly intelligent duplicitous schemer, purposely using charm and guile to cleverly misrepresent himself for the purpose of gradually sucking naive saps, such as myself, into his right-wing ideological clutches. :D ... a "Dr. Evil" type."
Just because he has small differences with MM friends doesn't disprove my point. Tom seems to have a hard time imagining that anyone would try to con anyone else. I guess I find this all less fantastic considering my day job-I'm a telemarketer. If it weren't for duplicity telemarketing we wouldn't survive. Why is it so hard to believe that Sumner would be duplicitous?
The answer is not to be sought in the voting patterns of Nick Rowe and Marcus Nunes. My point here wouldn't be disproved if say, it turned out that most MMers call themselves Democrats-for arguments sake. My point is the impact of MM theory. Again, it's policy I care about it's not personal, it's not about personalities. Sumner definitely intends M'M's impact to make the world safe for what he himself calls 'Neoliberalism.'
What is Neoliberalism? It's the belief in Supply Side taxation-low rates for the rich and corporations, perhaps higher taxes for the poor and middle income, deregulation-the kind that got us the financial crisis-and Monetarism-the belief that the demand side of the economy should be handled by the 'independent' monetary authorities alone.
Tom and Mark Sadowski might want to believe that you can believe in Monetarism without the rest of this but I think this is only apparent. It's a package deal. Remember, with Sumner's idea of monetary offset, this means that in his idea of monetary policy implies that there be no use of fiscal policy for fighting a demand shortfall. So how can Tom and others claim that Sumner is primarily concerned with monetary policy and that fiscal policy is secondary with the concept of monetary offset that means that monetary and fiscal policy are so linked according to him.
Sumner seems to think that monetary and fiscal policy are mutually exclusive-the more of one you use, the less of the other you can use. Which means fiscal policy is not a side issue for him. If you believe him on monetary offset then without explicitly discussing it, you've already decided on fiscal austerity-on the idea that fiscal policy must contract. I mean is there anyway to deny this? That Sumner is arguing for both an expansionary monetary policy and a concractionary fiscal policy? Yet he convinces many-like Tom-that we can follow him on MM and still have any fiscal or political policies we want. Sorry, no, and this is through design. Does this make Sumner Dr. Evil? IF the shoes fits wear it, I guess. Though this is putting the matter in much more fantastical terms than are necessary-no one ever lies, or hatches a conspiracy. Other than Chris Christie...
Here again, Tom doesn't get what I' driving at when he points to Sumner saying Ed Prescott is a decent economist but a bad monetary economist. Right, I've said that myself in the post he was commenting at. Sumner disagrees with Prescott on monetary policy but agrees on economic policy-ie, the fiscal economy.
Tom does qualify that he doesn't necessarily agree with Sumner on things like monetary offset.
"Also, if it puts your mind at ease any, I don't think I'm falling prey to Sumner's evil genius (but that's the genius of it, isn't it! I don't even KNOW I'm falling prey!): E.g. I don't completely buy into how he plans to implement NGDPLT. The best you could say is that I think that NGDPLT sounds promising (but it sounds plausible to me that it might require some fiscal, even if just fiscal through the Fed): and if you take him at his word, that means I'm half-way to being invited into the MM cult, ...er, I mean club! [they warned me I should always call it a club! NOT a cult... right before they issued me my purple trainer robe stained with goat's blood] :D"
Again, he's laying it on thick with the whole cult thing. I'd say that he sounds a little naive. If all anyone has to do to convince you that you can trust them is not having a purple trainer robe stained with goat's blood then you're pretty easy to take in. I mean propaganda does happen and if it's done right it's certainly nothing like that!
I digress here but couldn't resist as he was getting so carried away. LOL. It does sound like the main reason he thinks the MMers are trustworthy is that they don't say crazy things like Major Freedom.
I mean if someone says they're not a sex offender and don't do anything that seems obviously weird does that mean they're not a sex offender? I just think this standard is a little low.
However, it may be that Tom and I differ less in reality. He might 'trust' Sumner but still doesn't wholly buy into it, at least not fully monetary offset. I have to say I have no idea if NGDPLT is promising or not. We can argue why NGDP is such a great gauge as I think Greg has pointed out, GDP prices are already nominal. However, I appreciate this conversation with Tom and do think there is something to be learned here.
P.S. I have to say that there's nothing so fantastical about the idea that Sumner is trying to change people's minds and that he might use some rather manipulative logic to do it. I mean if he is, he surely wouldn't be the first. Again, maybe I find this less hard as changing people's minds through manipulative logic is more or less my job description right now. LOL.
I mean Noahpinion just had a great piece about things like framing effects-where if you offer people choices, it makes a difference how you frame them. For instance, if I offer you choices in one order and you make a choice it might be different if I offered it to you in a different order which according to Rational Expectations should be impossible.
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