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I was horrified at the business tax cuts that we recently passed, and I was sure they wouldn't result in any real benefits for investment. But, to me, that's m
by rsj_hn 8y ago
I was horrified at the business tax cuts that we recently passed, and I was sure they wouldn't result in any real benefits for investment.
But, to me, that's more of an example of money in politics and money having a big loudspeaker rather than "more science needed".
Moreover, I don't think that people who voted for Trump, voted for him because they favored corporate tax cuts, but I think it was more of a protest vote.
Of course, I could be wrong, but the problem is the outsized influence of lobbyists and the wealthy in our political system -- that was a Koch brothers job. I don't think conservatives love the Koch brothers, to be honest.
Let's remember "science" was how the economists pushed through all the banking de-regulation and liberalization of international capital flows which I am so opposed to, as well as other disastrous reforms. For example, the sadism against Greece in the EU was led by PhDs, and many PhDs pushed for more austerity.
So, for me, "more science" isn't the solution, but something like public financing of campaigns might be a better solution. I think the skepticism of technocrats is quite healthy.
- maxxxxx 8y agoI guess I would like to see more data and less opinion. Especially in economics.
- rsj_hn 8y agoMe, too, but especially in an area like economics, the rich are going to fund studies and be able to dominate the profession, so "more data" is tricky. I guess I am just asking for better economics that had a better track record in out of sample predictions, but that's wishful thinking in any social science.
- Rainymood 8y agoYour comment shows a severe lack of knowledge what economics research is all about, please correct me if I'm wrong. I have two graduate degrees (econometrics) and while I understand and can reason with most of these models I'd argue exactly the opposite. Economics is not a "real science" or rather, it is the science of humans, and we know for sure that humans are fickle and irrational. Economics is not a hard science yet sometimes is treated as such, and this research is then taken true as gospel (which I argue is wrong). There is a lot of things wrong with economics (I'm a fan of behavioral economics in particular) but "I want to see more data" is a non-argument. You're acting like economists are some armchair scientists waving around wet fingers in the air.
- darawk 8y agoThis sort of radical skepticism is generally unhelpful. It is simply not the case that the economics literature, on the whole, conveys no information. It conveys quite a bit, and often correctly answers a myriad of serious, useful, practical political questions. There are certainly edge cases that get a lot of attention upon which the data and consensus are split (e.g. minimum wage disemployment effects), but using those edge cases to disregard the research of an entire field (in favor of what, anyway?) is profoundly misguided. Economic decisions have to be made by politicians. That is an unavoidable fact. They can either attempt to use the best data available to optimize the values that they care about...or they can just do whatever they feel is best, informed by, what? Their gut? Their down home common sense?