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Pau Krugman's austerity predictions aren't aging well.

KLATTU said:
UK vs US. Apples oranges. You know better.
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Bull****. They are two nations which chose different paths forward. The U.S. had better results. Comparing two nations is the only that can be realistically done. We can't look at how much better the U.K. would have been if they had implemented Krugman's ideas so the only choice is to compare it to a nation that did listen more or less to Krugman.

KLATTU said:
"The Conservative government implemented a program of budget cuts. Over a 5-year period exogenous fixed measures amounted to almost three percent of GDP, two-thirds expenditure cuts, and one-third tax hikes. It was harshly criticized by the IMF, which predicted a major recession. The latter did not materialize and the IMF later publicly apologized. The UK grew at respectable rates."
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Essentially what this is saying is that things didn't end up as bad as the IMF predicted. That doesn't mean it went well. Just that it didn't hurt them as much as was predicted. It is still without question that it was a bad choice.

This really isn't that complicated buddy. Recessions are caused by the fact that the private sector is being extra careful with their money. Giving them a little more isn't going to do ****. No sane business owner is going to hire workers when their consumer base is shrinking and they're already having trouble selling the the products and services they have.

This isn't rocket science genius. Get over it. You were wrong.
 
jmotivator said:
I was responding specifically to this post, which is pure ad hominem.

My comment was specifically that Source Watch is a source for Ad Hominem arguments. That is just a fact. I can have no dispute with anything presented on Source Watch but it is still ad hominem because it's purpose to to avoid arguments by telling you to not even considering arguments from given sources.

You and KLATTU can argue all you want on the specifics of one article or the other, that is reasonable debate, my only interest in your back and forth is the dip into logical fallacy you made in post #5,
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I made no logical fallacy.

KLATTU tried to argue that a clearly partisan source was not partisan; a fallacy that I sought to address and correct via the linked sources.

The thrust of my argument and position is and has always been that FEE's assessment lacked any kind of meaningful evidentiary basis establishing causality, not that it's innately wrong because it and the featured writer are partisan entities factually devoted to promoting specific types of economic and political thought.
 
KLATTU said:
Yeah the prejudices are SO strong that they posted that article I linked.
They do that all the time.

American Farmers Are the Casualties of Trump’s Trade War - Foundation for Economic Education

Trump’s Tariffs Cost Americans $19 Billion in 2018 - Foundation for Economic Education

Trump's Huawei Ban Vandalizes Basic Economics - Foundation for Economic Education

Trump Displays a Tenuous Grasp of How Tariffs Work - Foundation for Economic Education

Trump's Crackdown on Iran's Oil Exports Poses Risks to Global Economy - Foundation for Economic Education

https://fee.org/articles/trumps-budget-paves-the-road-to-fiscal-failure/

https://fee.org/articles/what-ocasio-cortez-gets-right-about-amazons-2-billion-government-handout/
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Again, partisanship doesn't necessarily cleave to a specific political party; that is not the definition of partisan or partisanship. They can criticise Trump until they're blue in the face, but so long as their mission is to specifically promote libertarian thoughts and ideas, they're a partisan entity taking up a partisan, politically charged position.
 
Surrealistik said:
I made no logical fallacy.

KLATTU tried to argue that a clearly partisan source was not partisan; a fallacy that I sought to address and correct via the linked sources.

The thrust of my argument and position is and has always been that FEE's assessment lacked any kind of meaningful evidentiary basis establishing causality, not that it's innately wrong because it and the featured writer are partisan entities factually devoted to promoting specific types of economic and political thought.
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*sigh* KLATTU was responding to your assertion that it was a partisan organization rather than actually argue the points he made, and you backed up the ad hominem dismissal of his argument with the classic source of all ad hominem dismissals, Source Watch.

If you want to make an actual argument then take KLATTU's source and compare its claims to the claims made by your source, and discuss the evidence that leads you to believe the conclusions of your source over theirs. You know, debate. Saying your source is better because their source is biased isn't an argument, it's logical fallacy. KLATTU doesn't need to defend his source, only his source's argument.
 
Surrealistik said:
Again, partisanship doesn't necessarily cleave to a specific political party; that is not the definition of partisan or partisanship. They can criticise Trump until they're blue in the face, but so long as their mission is to specifically promote libertarian thoughts and ideas, they're a partisan entity taking up a partisan, politically charged position.
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See? What you have done is sidetracked the whole debate into a discussion about the source rather than the argument. This is the kind of useless nonsense that avoiding logical fallacy is supposed to remedy.
 
jmotivator said:
*sigh* KLATTU was responding to your assertion that it was a partisan organization rather than actually argue the points he made, and you backed up the ad hominem dismissal of his argument with the classic source of all ad hominem dismissals, Source Watch.

If you want to make an actual argument then take KLATTU's source and compare its claims to the claims made by your source, and discuss the evidence that leads you to believe the conclusions of your source over theirs. You know, debate. Saying your source is better because their source is biased isn't an argument, it's logical fallacy. KLATTU doesn't need to defend his source, only his source's argument.
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KLATTU chose to respond to my mention of their partisan quality by ridiculously denying that FEE, an established, blatant libertarian thinktank, is a partisan entity, rather than the actual thrust of my arguments, or those of Prof. Skidelsky whom I agree with.

It's not that I'm saying my source is better because it isn't biased, it's that my source is better because it makes a more cogent and objective argument: recognizing that correlation is not causation, and there is inadequate evidence to suggest that austerity was responsible for growth in the minority of instances where it was deemed to have worked, versus taking it as a fact that austerity was indeed responsible per econometrics that aren't sufficient to support that conclusion.


jmotivator said:
See? What you have done is sidetracked the whole debate into a discussion about the source rather than the argument. This is the kind of useless nonsense that avoiding logical fallacy is supposed to remedy.
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I'm not the one who tried to defend (and continues to for some r) FEE as being a non-partisan source, or who exploded KLATTU's absurd white knighting of FEE into a meandering, irrelevant back and forth about ad hominem fallacy when that was never any substantial component of my position. I pointed out the bias of FEE not because their bias inherently makes them wrong, or because they're wrong because they're Libertarians, but because that bias absolutely and demonstrably influenced their conclusions, and undermined the quality of their analysis. This was moreover tangential to the main point which is that the assessment was not sober and arrived at unsupported conclusions.

Anyways, this silliness has gone on long enough; I'm done here. The article is an obvious hackjob that largely concludes what the author wishes to as opposed to what the evidence actually supports, which is, on the whole, nothing much definitive.
 
jmotivator said:
LOL. It's always fun when ignorant and indignant people demand you look up the definition of a word or phrase that they clearly don't understand. :lamo

Ad Hominem

"Ad hominem (Latin for "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself."
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No one attacked your character, motive or other attribute. Your source was criticized.
 
ecofarm said:
No one attacked your character, motive or other attribute. Your source was criticized.
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Firstly, it's not my source, it is KLATTU's source.

Secondly, dismissing an argument based on the source is ad hominem. Surrealistik's turned the debate into a discussion of the value of sources rather than the value of the arguments.
 
MTAtech said:
And none of those making those predicts have admitted that they were wrong. In fact, one of them is now the Director of the National Economic Council in the White House.

The author of that article talks about the 1930s debate between Keynes vs Hayek. Hayek argued that deficits somehow caused the Great Depression and deficit spending would drive up interest rates and make the Depression worse. It's easy to research that the deficits came after the depression started, not before. Truly, nothing ever changes. The insistence that big deficits somehow caused the crisis even thought they actually didn’t appear until after the crisis was well underway. These are exactly the same arguments that were made in 2009, as those Hayek was making in 1932, except that they’re less coherent. In the real world, deficits mainly result from the slump, not the cause, and interest rates did not rise in the face of those slump-caused deficits -- in 1932 nor in 2009.
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Hmm from what i know of Austrian theory, it isnt deficits that cause recessions/depressions. Their theory has much more to do with interest rates and malinvestments during the boom times leading to an unstable structure of production that eventually collapses.
 
jmotivator said:
Criticizing the source is precisely ad hominem.
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Ummm no. That is wrong, its easy to tell why. When i point out to holocaust deniers that Leuchter was proven to be a fraud in court, that is not an ad hominem fallacy.
 
Surrealistik said:
KLATTU chose to respond to my mention of their partisan quality by ridiculously denying that FEE, an established, blatant libertarian thinktank, is a partisan entity, rather than the actual thrust of my arguments, or those of Prof. Skidelsky whom I agree with.

It's not that I'm saying my source is better because it isn't biased, it's that my source is better because it makes a more cogent and objective argument: recognizing that correlation is not causation, and there is inadequate evidence to suggest that austerity was responsible for growth in the minority of instances where it was deemed to have worked, versus taking it as a fact that austerity was indeed responsible per econometrics that aren't sufficient to support that conclusion.




I'm not the one who tried to defend (and continues to for some r) FEE as being a non-partisan source, or who exploded KLATTU's absurd white knighting of FEE into a meandering, irrelevant back and forth about ad hominem fallacy when that was never any substantial component of my position. I pointed out the bias of FEE not because their bias inherently makes them wrong, or because they're wrong because they're Libertarians, but because that bias absolutely and demonstrably influenced their conclusions, and undermined the quality of their analysis. This was moreover tangential to the main point which is that the assessment was not sober and arrived at unsupported conclusions.

Anyways, this silliness has gone on long enough; I'm done here. The article is an obvious hackjob that largely concludes what the author wishes to as opposed to what the evidence actually supports, which is, on the whole, nothing much definitive.
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You are the one who turned the argument into a fight about the value of sources rather than the value of the arguments themselves.

So, what makes Skidlesky's argument better than Phelan's other than your opinion of the platform it is on?
 
jmotivator said:
Ad hominem fallacy is ad hominem fallacy. The point of debate is to provide an argument on both sides of a given topic, and then each side critique the opposing argument made. It is a pure exchange of ideas. Fallacies are ways in which people attempt to circumvent logical debate with illogical, emotional diversion. Ad Hominem fallacy is an attempt to avoid addressing a counter argument by arguing that the source is not worth addressing. Source Watch's whole purpose is to feed people excuses for not addressing arguments.

If a source is wrong, and an argument invalid, then you should be able to deconstruct the argument without ever addressing the source. Most people can't actually debate, don't really know the subjects well enough to actually debate them, and so places like Source Watch get brisk business from people looking for an excuse not to address other people's arguments by dismissing them via ad hominem.
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Umm no, you can point out a source has been discredited without committing an ad hom fallacy.
 
jmotivator said:
LOL. It's always fun when ignorant and indignant people demand you look up the definition of a word or phrase that they clearly don't understand. :lamo

Ad Hominem

"Ad hominem (Latin for "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by instead attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself."
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Attacking the person making the argument with irrelevant things. Person A is stupid and therefore is wrong is an ad hom. Person A has no expertise in the relevant subject or has been discredited in the subject of the topic is not.
 
bomberfox said:
Umm no, you can point out a source has been discredited without committing an ad hom fallacy.
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LOL. No, discrediting a source rather than discrediting the argument is precisely ad hominem. :roll:
 
bomberfox said:
Attacking the person making the argument with irrelevant things. Person A is stupid and therefore is wrong is an ad hom. Person A has no expertise in the relevant subject or has been discredited in the subject of the topic is not.
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False. Ad Hominem is attacking the person or the source rather than the argument made. I realize that a lot of people who can't actually argue a topic have resorted to ad hominem as their only real debate technique, but that doesn't make it a valid argument. The whole point of avoiding logical fallacies is because they distract from actual substantive debate.

If the source is providing a bad argument, which is what you are arguing by proxy with your ad hominem fallacy, then you should be able to mount a substantive counter argument. If you can't mount a substantive counter argument then the argument you oppose must have some merit that you are unwilling to accept.

A common example on why this fallacy is indeed a fallacy is that there are any number of arguments that the source could make that you might agree with, so would you be compelled to disagree with them anyway? If FEE printed an article in opposition to Trump's tariff threats, would you then support Trump's tariff threats because the source is FEE? Clearly not. You would be forced to agree with FEE on the merit of the argument made, and disregard the source. Therefore, Ad Hominem Fallacy is an unwitting expression of your own biases more than a valid counter argument.

If you can't mount a substantive counter argument on the merits of the argument made then don't. Surealistik chose to simply plop down another source, declare their source to be better than KLATTU's source and then defend the non-argument with Ad-Hom-"R"-Us ... oops, I mean Source Watch.
 
MrWonka said:
Bull****. They are two nations which chose different paths forward. The U.S. had better results. Comparing two nations is the only that can be realistically done. We can't look at how much better the U.K. would have been if they had implemented Krugman's ideas so the only choice is to compare it to a nation that did listen more or less to Krugman.



Essentially what this is saying is that things didn't end up as bad as the IMF predicted. That doesn't mean it went well. Just that it didn't hurt them as much as was predicted. It is still without question that it was a bad choice.

This really isn't that complicated buddy. Recessions are caused by the fact that the private sector is being extra careful with their money. Giving them a little more isn't going to do ****. No sane business owner is going to hire workers when their consumer base is shrinking and they're already having trouble selling the the products and services they have.

This isn't rocket science genius. Get over it. You were wrong.
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My spending is your income, and your spending is my income, so if both of us try to spend less at the same time, what we end up achieving is mutual impoverishment. In the situation in which everyone is trying to spend less than his or her income, so as to pay down debt -- you have a fundamental adding-up problem. In these situations, the government can be the demand of last resort and fill the demand gap.
 
jmotivator said:
False. Ad Hominem is attacking the person or the source rather than the argument made. I realize that a lot of people who can't actually argue a topic have resorted to ad hominem as their only real debate technique, but that doesn't make it a valid argument. The whole point of avoiding logical fallacies is because they distract from actual substantive debate.

If the source is providing a bad argument, which is what you are arguing by proxy with your ad hominem fallacy, then you should be able to mount a substantive counter argument. If you can't mount a substantive counter argument then the argument you oppose must have some merit that you are unwilling to accept.

A common example on why this fallacy is indeed a fallacy is that there are any number of arguments that the source could make that you might agree with, so would you be compelled to disagree with them anyway? If FEE printed an article in opposition to Trump's tariff threats, would you then support Trump's tariff threats because the source is FEE? Clearly not. You would be forced to agree with FEE on the merit of the argument made, and disregard the source. Therefore, Ad Hominem Fallacy is an unwitting expression of your own biases more than a valid counter argument.

If you can't mount a substantive counter argument on the merits of the argument made then don't. Surealistik chose to simply plop down another source, declare their source to be better than KLATTU's source and then defend the non-argument with Ad-Hom-"R"-Us ... oops, I mean Source Watch.
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Is it invalid to point out that Leuchter was discredited in the courts and in his own field when someone brings up his report in discussing the holocaust? I dont think so. If someone brought up 4chan as proof of something outside what happens at 4chan. I dont think pointing out it would be a waste of my time to even consider it valid would be an ad hominem.
 
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bomberfox said:
Is it invalid to point out that Leuchter was discredited in the courts and in his own field when someone brings up his report in discussing the holocaust? I dont think so. If someone brought up 4chan as proof of something outside what happens at 4chan. I dont think pointing out it would be a waste of my time to even consider it valid would be an ad hominem.
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Well no, it isn't, for two reasons...

1) It entirely depends of the argument. If Someone says that Leuchter said he is going to Denny's for breakfast, would you bring up the court records to prove he isn't? No, because what Leuchter thought with regards to the Holocaust has no bearing on the statement at hand. I'm sure there are a great number of statements that Fred Leuchter has made in his life that are true, they don't become false for him saying them.

2) If the argument being debated is that the Holocaust never happened and the person presents Leuchter's argument, then the response is not to attack Leuchter, but rather draw on the copious amounts of evidence that proves Leuchter's theories wrong.

In neither case does it make any sense to make it about the presenter or the source.

The same goes for 4Chan. I'm sure there are posts somewhere in the vastness of 4Chan that you believe... you don't stop believing it because someone on 4Chan stated it as well.
 
jmotivator said:
Well no, it isn't, for two reasons...

1) It entirely depends of the argument. If Someone says that Leuchter said he is going to Denny's for breakfast, would you bring up the court records to prove he isn't? No, because what Leuchter thought with regards to the Holocaust has no bearing on the statement at hand. I'm sure there are a great number of statements that Fred Leuchter has made in his life that are true, they don't become false for him saying them.

2) If the argument being debated is that the Holocaust never happened and the person presents Leuchter's argument, then the response is not to attack Leuchter, but rather draw on the copious amounts of evidence that proves Leuchter's theories wrong.

In neither case does it make any sense to make it about the presenter or the source.

The same goes for 4Chan. I'm sure there are posts somewhere in the vastness of 4Chan that you believe... you don't stop believing it because someone on 4Chan stated it as well.
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If someone posted a link to 4chan as a source, i wouldnt even bother looking at it.
 
bomberfox said:
If someone posted a link to 4chan as a source, i wouldnt even bother looking at it.
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That's cool. Better than pretending that your own bias is a good substitute for reasoned debate.

I choose to avoid many arguments that way. It helps the blood pressure.
 
KLATTU said:
Paul Krugman’s Predictions about “Austerity” Aren’t Aging Well - Foundation for Economic Education

But as Austerity’s authors show, in some cases austerity was expansionary. And, in large part, it happened for exactly the reason Krugman denigrated. Where austerity is based on spending cuts rather than tax increases, “private investment rises within 2 years,” and by the third year is above the previous level. Contra Krugman, Alesina, Favero, and Giavazzi attribute this to increased business confidence.

Britain, Krugman’s “demonstration that the Austerians had it wrong,” has, in fact, shown the opposite.

The Conservative government implemented a program of budget cuts. Over a 5-year period exogenous fixed measures amounted to almost three percent of GDP, two-thirds expenditure cuts, and one-third tax hikes. It was harshly criticized by the IMF, which predicted a major recession. The latter did not materialize and the IMF later publicly apologized. The UK grew at respectable rates.

comments welcome.
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Krugman's problem is, he believes that economic success as it were, starts with Government, and that's due to his inherent bias rather than facts or reality.
 
jmotivator said:
That's cool. Better than pretending that your own bias is a good substitute for reasoned debate.

I choose to avoid many arguments that way. It helps the blood pressure.
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Sure. I tend to not substitute my own bias but i think if enough people dismiss useless sources out of hand, a poster should learn to get better sources.
 
Renae said:
Krugman's problem is, he believes that economic success as it were, starts with Government, and that's due to his inherent bias rather than facts or reality.
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This is entirely false.
 
Renae said:
No, pretty sure I'm quite correct on Krugman's problem, he's a Government first guy.
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No, you are just not capable of refuting the positions held by Krugman, and so the only thing left to do is label him as something that fits your partisan agenda. Don't pretend like you've read any of his books, academic work, NYT blogs, etc..., much less understand them.
 
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