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"These policies have resulted in job losses" Can someone explain to me how the recent government policies have lead to job losses. I have always thought the op

by sili 17y ago

"These policies have resulted in job losses" Can someone explain to me how the recent government policies have lead to job losses. I have always thought the opposite was true.

camccann 17y ago
There's plenty of explanations out there, if you care to look. Of course, there's also plenty of explanations about how government policies have created new jobs. Measuring results and identifying causal relationships is incredibly difficult in economics, and with all the associated political issues at stake it's hard to cut through all the bullshit.
- Empact 17y ago
  Just to emphasize: incredibly difficult is an understatement. We're talking hundreds of millions of actors, making an uncountably large number of independent decisions from moment to moment, in constantly shifting circumstances. There is no control, there is only very broad "repeatability." We have only circumstances and the interpretation thereof. In macroeconomics, at least.
  - camccann 17y ago
    Well, that's what we have statistics and the scientific method for. Of course, that means lots of math, and lots of research, and lots of hard work, and having to actually to change your mind if your predictions are wrong, and--worst of all--it means not making simple, sound-bite pronouncements that fit someone's political agenda. You can't make a career writing editorials about how there's a 73% chance that raising taxes on widgets will reduce the annual productivity of the foobar industry by 1.3%.
    - Empact 17y ago
      I think you're understating the difficulty. No amount of math can tease apart the indiscernibly complex. We observe correlations naturally. Assumed relationships. The sort which suggested God wanted us to dance to bring on rain. But without controls, and without repeatable experimentation, we can not have a true scientific method. The scientific method requires hypothesis, predictions, and repeatable experimentations. One successful dance is an anecdote, many is a theory, decades of them is a law, still questionable. But how can you repeat an experiment which takes place over a whole society of people, millions strong, with life constantly intervening? This isn't only about soundbites, it's about having no means to achieve anything more definitive than soundbites.
      - camccann 17y ago
        No amount of math can tease apart the indiscernibly complex. If there's any structure at all, you can find it with enough math and enough data; that's exactly the purpose of statistics. But without controls, and without repeatable experimentation, we can not have a true scientific method. The scientific method requires hypothesis, predictions, and repeatable experimentations. No, this misunderstands science. All the scientific method requires is testable predictions. Predicting the outcome of a controlled experiment is merely a very efficient way to go about it. There are plenty of scientific fields where simple controlled experiments aren't really viable, and people get by. It's just more difficult, and requires more discipline from researchers.

by sili 17y ago

"These policies have resulted in job losses" Can someone explain to me how the recent government policies have lead to job losses. I have always thought the opposite was true.

camccann 17y ago

There's plenty of explanations out there, if you care to look. Of course, there's also plenty of explanations about how government policies have created new jobs. Measuring results and identifying causal relationships is incredibly difficult in economics, and with all the associated political issues at stake it's hard to cut through all the bullshit.

Empact 17y ago
Just to emphasize: incredibly difficult is an understatement. We're talking hundreds of millions of actors, making an uncountably large number of independent decisions from moment to moment, in constantly shifting circumstances. There is no control, there is only very broad "repeatability." We have only circumstances and the interpretation thereof. In macroeconomics, at least.
- camccann 17y ago
  Well, that's what we have statistics and the scientific method for. Of course, that means lots of math, and lots of research, and lots of hard work, and having to actually to change your mind if your predictions are wrong, and--worst of all--it means not making simple, sound-bite pronouncements that fit someone's political agenda. You can't make a career writing editorials about how there's a 73% chance that raising taxes on widgets will reduce the annual productivity of the foobar industry by 1.3%.
  - Empact 17y ago
    I think you're understating the difficulty. No amount of math can tease apart the indiscernibly complex. We observe correlations naturally. Assumed relationships. The sort which suggested God wanted us to dance to bring on rain. But without controls, and without repeatable experimentation, we can not have a true scientific method. The scientific method requires hypothesis, predictions, and repeatable experimentations. One successful dance is an anecdote, many is a theory, decades of them is a law, still questionable. But how can you repeat an experiment which takes place over a whole society of people, millions strong, with life constantly intervening? This isn't only about soundbites, it's about having no means to achieve anything more definitive than soundbites.
    - camccann 17y ago
      No amount of math can tease apart the indiscernibly complex. If there's any structure at all, you can find it with enough math and enough data; that's exactly the purpose of statistics. But without controls, and without repeatable experimentation, we can not have a true scientific method. The scientific method requires hypothesis, predictions, and repeatable experimentations. No, this misunderstands science. All the scientific method requires is testable predictions. Predicting the outcome of a controlled experiment is merely a very efficient way to go about it. There are plenty of scientific fields where simple controlled experiments aren't really viable, and people get by. It's just more difficult, and requires more discipline from researchers.