Including being totally misleading as he is here.
"The figures for 2014 were announced today. NGDP growth was 3.70% (vs. 4.57% in the Year of Austerity.) And RGDP growth was 2.48%, (vs. 3.13% in the Year of Austerity.) Growth slowed because the Fed offset the easing of fiscal austerity with its own tapering, to prevent the economy from “overheating.”
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=28525
Howard Stern may be the King of all Media but Sumner has shown himself clearly to be King of all Cherry Pickers. RGDP for year 2013 was not 3.13%-that was number for the 4th quarter of 2013, just as RGDP for 2014 was not 2.48% but rather that was the RGDP for 2014 4th quarter.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth-annual
Here at Econlog Sumner asks Keynesians for the data. He's kidding right? In fact he has been shown plenty of data-like my link above to GDP-he just chooses to ignore it.
"I'm seeing lots of comments to the effect that the 2013 austerity was not a big deal, and or the dreaded "fiscal cliff" never happened. OK, let's see some numbers. After all, if my critics just know that I am wrong, they must have the correct numbers. In an earlier post I estimated that the deficit fell by $500 billion in calendar 2013."
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/01/questions_for_k.html
This silliness from a man to smart to discuss economics with 'real economists.' I mean does he not know that the fiscal cliff didn't happen? Does he really need someone to tell him that? He keeps trying to pigeonhole critics of austerity into saying things they have never said.
In the comments, Daniel Kuehn-who is a real economist-says this:
"I've found this whole line of argument a little strange. It wasn't really a natural experiment in the first place (and I criticized Konczal and Krugman on that at the time). I don't understand how macroeconomists can get so boisterous over such bad counterfactuals."
"The figures for 2014 were announced today. NGDP growth was 3.70% (vs. 4.57% in the Year of Austerity.) And RGDP growth was 2.48%, (vs. 3.13% in the Year of Austerity.) Growth slowed because the Fed offset the easing of fiscal austerity with its own tapering, to prevent the economy from “overheating.”
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=28525
Howard Stern may be the King of all Media but Sumner has shown himself clearly to be King of all Cherry Pickers. RGDP for year 2013 was not 3.13%-that was number for the 4th quarter of 2013, just as RGDP for 2014 was not 2.48% but rather that was the RGDP for 2014 4th quarter.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth-annual
Here at Econlog Sumner asks Keynesians for the data. He's kidding right? In fact he has been shown plenty of data-like my link above to GDP-he just chooses to ignore it.
"I'm seeing lots of comments to the effect that the 2013 austerity was not a big deal, and or the dreaded "fiscal cliff" never happened. OK, let's see some numbers. After all, if my critics just know that I am wrong, they must have the correct numbers. In an earlier post I estimated that the deficit fell by $500 billion in calendar 2013."
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/01/questions_for_k.html
This silliness from a man to smart to discuss economics with 'real economists.' I mean does he not know that the fiscal cliff didn't happen? Does he really need someone to tell him that? He keeps trying to pigeonhole critics of austerity into saying things they have never said.
In the comments, Daniel Kuehn-who is a real economist-says this:
"I've found this whole line of argument a little strange. It wasn't really a natural experiment in the first place (and I criticized Konczal and Krugman on that at the time). I don't understand how macroeconomists can get so boisterous over such bad counterfactuals."
"Maybe there's something wrong with your data, I don't know. I've given you the benefit of the doubt on that - I assume you can look that up. It's not a data issue really, I just don't see much here as a test of anything."
Sumner comes back with:
"Daniel. I actually agree that it wasn't much of a natural experiment, nor were the similar UK and eurozone austerity episodes, for exactly the same reason. So Keynesians have essentially zero empirical evidence to justify abandoning their 2007 presumption that the multiplier is roughly zero due to monetary offset. Do you agree?"
"Or is there some evidence I missed?"
"And can I assume that you've never posted anything to the effect that UK or eurozone austerity was slowing the recovery?"
Daniel's mention of 'boisterousness' is telling: that Sumner is getting so boisterous with such bad counterfactuals shows that he's not doing serious economics here when he boasts of 'winning a bet with Krugman' but is rather engaging in conservative propaganda; he's sort of Milton Friedman meets Sean Hannity.
This is why most real economists today don't even take him seriously. Notice how he totally moves the goal posts in his answer to Daniel. I mean he moves the goal posts into a whole different stadium-not even a football stadium but some kind of skeet shooting contest.
He claims that there was a natural experiment in 2013, Kuehn points out that there wasn't and his answer is 'Well, of course, there was no natural experiment in 2013, so how could the Keynesians have changed their views in 2007 then?'
The painfully obvious answer to this is that obviously nobody changed their views in 2007 for a natural experiment that didn't happen 6 years later, this isn't Back to the Future.
P.S. I find everything about Sumner slippery to the way he very sparingly produces links to source big claims that he makes. I notice that even when he mentions an Econlog piece of his at Money Illusion he doesn't provide links. He simply wants people to take his word for it rather than really see for themselves.
P.S.S. I like how Kuehn answers Sumner here:
"So Keynesians have essentially zero empirical evidence to justify abandoning their 2007 presumption that the multiplier is roughly zero due to monetary offset. Do you agree?"
"I certainly don't agree that the lack of a natural experiment implies zero evidence. I don't *think* I agree that there's no evidence, but I'm not especially fluent in the macro empirical literature. My impression from those who are is that there are plenty of studies that show a non-zero multiplier (including a guy paid by someone hoping to find a zero multiplier that concluded the multiplier's about 1.5 based on the best studies we have)."
"And can I assume that you've never posted anything to the effect that UK or eurozone austerity was slowing the recovery?"
"No, you can't assume that. I'm not entirely clear on why that should follow. But I don't think I've ever suggested that there's some kind of incontrovertible well-identified empirical evidence for that claim. That's quite different from saying that given the evidence that we do have we should expect that it slowed down growth relative to what it would have been."
I said that Sumner is a Monetarist Hannity, he's clearly Colbert's economist as well as Kuehn references how he prefers 'truthy' words to truth-like 'think' when it's a matter of clear evidence. As for the idea that a lack of a natural experiment implies zero evidence, Sumner ought to have his economist license stricken from him for that alone.
http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/63ite2/the-word---truthiness
You see how easy it is to provide links?
That's true for most major questions in economics. I want to believe that he knows better and is just trying to con the public who's ignorance he so likes to take advantage of. As Daniel points out Sumner makes assumptions that don't even remotely logically follow.
I guess there's good news and bad news here. The bad news is Sumner is one economist who accuses me of being economically illiterate. The good news is that as economists go, he's very much a lesser light.
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