Noah Smith recently had a post on how much ideology rather than pure science dictates economists positions. OK, he didn't put it quite this way-I'm paraphrasing. He did though suggest that economic arguments are at least sometimes used as stalking horses.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/06/noah-smith-get-out-of-scott-sumners-head.html
I often have felt despite the protests of economists like Sumner that what economists do isn't pure science that ideology is present here like anywhere else-though often in more subtle ways which makes it harder to prove.
To me maybe economics is 65 to 70 percent a desire for truth but that still leaves a sizable amount of territory for stalking horses.
I think you should read an economists work with an open mind but-depending on the subject matter-there are times at least when it's appropriate to say to them 'Ok, buddy, we're listening but first state your priors.'
I also have always believed that Sumner uses economics as a stalking horse more often than the typical academic economist-which is underscored by how he often takes such strongly categorical positions and managed to make such heavy weather over such noisy data-like his claim he won a bet from Krugman in 2013 because there wasn't an outright recession subsequent to the sequester.
Only by some pretty narrow hair splitting and cherry picking is he able to claim that. It seems to me that one thing that should describe an economist is someone unwilling to make quite such huge claims with such noisy data.
However, my argument that Sumner uses his allegedly economic arguments as stalking horses is getting an assist by him recently as he seems to be allowing himself to get more blatantly political recently.
Like his special pleading for Dennis Hastert.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/06/noah-smith-get-out-of-scott-sumners-head.html
It's a little to convenient that 'libertarians' like Sumner are holding up Hastert as poster boy of civil liberties violations but never lifted a finger to help out Clinton in the 90s when Hastert was leading the Monica Lewinsky impeachment train against him in the 90s.
So that's what I think when I read this:
"Legal commentators are split on whether the case against former House speaker Denny Hastert — for violating currency laws in a bid to pay $3.5 million to an unnamed person to cover up “past misconduct” and lying to the FBI — is prosecutorial overreach or perfectly appropriate.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/06/noah-smith-get-out-of-scott-sumners-head.html
I often have felt despite the protests of economists like Sumner that what economists do isn't pure science that ideology is present here like anywhere else-though often in more subtle ways which makes it harder to prove.
To me maybe economics is 65 to 70 percent a desire for truth but that still leaves a sizable amount of territory for stalking horses.
I think you should read an economists work with an open mind but-depending on the subject matter-there are times at least when it's appropriate to say to them 'Ok, buddy, we're listening but first state your priors.'
I also have always believed that Sumner uses economics as a stalking horse more often than the typical academic economist-which is underscored by how he often takes such strongly categorical positions and managed to make such heavy weather over such noisy data-like his claim he won a bet from Krugman in 2013 because there wasn't an outright recession subsequent to the sequester.
Only by some pretty narrow hair splitting and cherry picking is he able to claim that. It seems to me that one thing that should describe an economist is someone unwilling to make quite such huge claims with such noisy data.
However, my argument that Sumner uses his allegedly economic arguments as stalking horses is getting an assist by him recently as he seems to be allowing himself to get more blatantly political recently.
Like his special pleading for Dennis Hastert.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/06/noah-smith-get-out-of-scott-sumners-head.html
It's a little to convenient that 'libertarians' like Sumner are holding up Hastert as poster boy of civil liberties violations but never lifted a finger to help out Clinton in the 90s when Hastert was leading the Monica Lewinsky impeachment train against him in the 90s.
So that's what I think when I read this:
"Legal commentators are split on whether the case against former House speaker Denny Hastert — for violating currency laws in a bid to pay $3.5 million to an unnamed person to cover up “past misconduct” and lying to the FBI — is prosecutorial overreach or perfectly appropriate.
(The misconduct was later reported to be an allegation that Hastert had sexually molested a student in Illinois decades ago.)"
“If federal prosecutors could meet the legal thresholds for charging and convicting Hastert of a sex crime,” writes Conor Friedersdorf in the Atlantic, “they would be fully justified in aggressively pursuing the matter.”
“Instead they’ve done something alarming. The Hastert indictment doesn’t charge him for, or even accuse him of, sexual misconduct.”
"Jeffrey Toobin, a former federal prosecutor now with the New Yorker,says the indictment is “richly deserved.” These cash transactions, “for suspicious, if not exactly illegal, purposes are legitimate targets for inquiry,” Toobin writes. And “if they’ve deliberately tried to avoid the law’s requirements, for prosecution — especially if they then lie to the FBI about it.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/06/11/hastert-violated-rule-1-on-what-to-do-when-the-fbi-knocks/?tid=sm_tw
What are the priors of those who think he's being railroaded vs. those who think the prosecution is legitimate?
It seems to me that what they government is doing here is nothing unusual-they often suspect someone of doing A but can't prove it so get them on B-which is perjury or bank fraud, etc. I mean that's how they got Al Capone. Now the rules have to change because Hastert is a Republican hotshot phony who is learning the reason Christ said that he who lives in a glass house might now want to throw stones?
It looks like Hastert is really working to play on libertarian heart strings as well.
"But one thing seems pretty clear: Hastert sure appears to be spewing baloney when he allegedly told FBI agents that he took out the money for his own use and because he didn’t trust the banking system. (Well, maybe he lost faith after Dodd-Frank passed?)"
That's probably enough for a Sumner or one of the Free Banking types to embrace him-'He rightly doesn't trust the banking system.'
P.S. Sumner again wades into politics. He's whining about mistreatment of Reason magazine.
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=29585
Maybe because he's doing so poorly with his NGDP futures market he's getting more into political philosophy.
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