Pic of the Day (Mid-1930s' Edition): Economic Suicide Girls Get Tattooed For the NRA!

Nick Gillespie | July 14, 2009

Here's an image from a fascinating new piece in The Milken Institute Review. It is, in its way, totally fricking creepy, even if those are temporary tattoos (and they were, I'm sure). I shudder to think what their stomachs say. For those with full-onset adult eyesight, by the way, the bit under the eagle reads, "We do our part."

Written by economists Harold Cole and Lee Ohanian, it explains "Where the New Deal Went Badly Wrong," a topic of no small relevance for those of us lucky enough to be alive and well in the early 21st century. Their basic thesis?

We have calculated that, on the basis of productivity growth alone, employment and investment should have been back to their normal levels by 1936.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Lucas and the economist Leonard Rapping calculated decades ago that the Federal Reserve's efforts to expand the money supply should have brought the economy back on track by 1935.

So what went so badly wrong? Our research suggests that a slew of policies, specifically those that suppressed market competition, are central to understanding why the economy remained so weak for so long.

Cole and Ohanian, who have been studying and publishing on this topic for years, say that the anti-competitive elements of the New Deal's many programs didn't just represent a "sea change" in economic thinking but smothered the economy so much that a return to "full capacity" didn't happen until 1943, long after it would have absent such a broad restructuring of the economy. They argue that FDR's advisers were overly impressed with the results of short-term total economic planning during World War I, in which the government effectively controlled all aspects of industrial production.

The full article is well worth reading and is available online here.

Note also that the authors contend that massive deficit spending on World War II was responsible for ending the Depression. This is a hotly contested thesis, with economists such as Harvard's Robert Barro arguing that the "multiplier effect" of such spending is actually less than 1. That is, for every dollar the government spent on World War II, the economy grew by less than a dollar:

I have estimated that World War II raised U.S. defense expenditures by $540 billion (1996 dollars) per year at the peak in 1943-44, amounting to 44% of real GDP. I also estimated that the war raised real GDP by $430 billion per year in 1943-44. Thus, the multiplier was 0.8 (430/540). The other way to put this is that the war lowered components of GDP aside from military purchases. The main declines were in private investment, nonmilitary parts of government purchases, and net exports—personal consumer expenditure changed little. Wartime production siphoned off resources from other economic uses—there was a dampener, rather than a multiplier.

That 0.8 multiplier returns in Barro's calculations of military spending during World War I, Korea, and Vietnam as well. Barro's full argument here.

Ohanian was one of the experts in Reason.tv's video "Obama's New New Deal: As bad as the old New Deal?" Watch below and go here for more links, downloadable versions, embed code, and related articles.

Headline explained here.

Help Reason celebrate its next 40 years. Donate Now!

Try Reason's award-winning print edition today! Your first issue is FREE if you are not completely satisfied.

Kyle Jordan|7.14.09 @ 8:04AM|#

That pic is fucking hot!

mark|7.14.09 @ 8:23AM|#

I saw some NRA logos in Public Enemies the other day--they really had a good feel for the 1930's when they made that movie.

Here's the story of how the NIRA was struck down by SCOTUS (unanimously btw). Score one for Jews!

Of course, FDR didn't see it that way.

Art-P.O.G.|7.14.09 @ 8:27AM|#

The woman second from right seems to be wearing bloomers.

mark|7.14.09 @ 8:34AM|#

I'm genuinely curious as to how many times my head would have exploded in the 1930's. Turning on my radio in March of 1937, for instance, I would have heard:

Tonight, sitting at my desk in the White House, I make my first radio report to the people in my second term of office.

I am reminded of that evening in March, four years ago, when I made my first radio report to you. We were then in the midst of the great banking crisis.

Soon after, with the authority of the Congress, we asked the Nation to turn over all of its privately held gold, dollar for dollar, to the Government of the United States.

Today's recovery proves how right that policy was.

But when, almost two years later, it came before the Supreme Court its constitutionality was upheld only by a five-to-four vote. The change of one vote would have thrown all the affairs of this great Nation back into hopeless chaos. In effect, four Justices ruled that the right under a private contract to exact a pound of flesh was more sacred than the main objectives of the Constitution to establish an enduring Nation.

|7.14.09 @ 8:47AM|#

I just read Rocket Boys (aka October Sky), and the author mentioned hearing two separate speeches by Hubert Humphrey and JFK during the Democratic primary. Apparently both said things--to a poor, West Virginian audience--about saving West Virginia, even if the federal government had to take over for a while. This was in the 1950s, of course, so it goes to show that the socialist message always gets play in some parts of the country.

|7.14.09 @ 8:49AM|#

okay, this was obviously pre-thighmaster. Whats with all the mom-ass?

|7.14.09 @ 9:01AM|#

Pro,

Rocket Boys is a good book and a great movie. What infuriates me about this is that scholarship going back almost 50 years to Friedman's Monitary History of the United States has pretty much demolished the idea that the New Deal did much of anything beyond prolong the Depression.

Even if you don't buy Friedman and monitorism, I am unaware of any serious economic historian who doesn't at least take a circumspect view of the economic effects of the New Deal. The best that can be said for it is that it was at least doing something and that no one else really knew what to do either. And Roosevelt by trying so hard kept the country from having a revolution. I don't necessarily buy that. But the point is that no one believes that the New Deal did very much to help the economy recover.

Yet we have a President who when confronted with this fact responds "that is not what I learned in school." Our alledgedly Harvard errudite President is willfully igornant of economic history and seems proud of the fact.

Fascitis Necrotizante|7.14.09 @ 9:06AM|#

I like the eagles. Along with the Nazi-looking architecture the feds were barfing up all over in the 30s (including an eyesore federal courthouse in my town), the eagles really emphasize the stylistic continuity in the statist regimes of the period. I hate to reference Verhoeven's ST but this would go well in one of those "would you like to know more?" shorts. "We do our part."

|7.14.09 @ 9:08AM|#

"I like the eagles. Along with the Nazi-looking architecture the feds were barfing up all over in the 30s"

No kidding. The last actual Nazi building of any size left in Berlin is the old Luftwaffee building. It is not the German Central Bank I think or maybe ministry of finance I can't remember. It looks just like pretty much every New Deal Era building in Washington.

Abdul|7.14.09 @ 9:13AM|#

Grandma, why do you have an eagle tattooed to your back? And why does daddy look more like Henry Morgenthau than grandpa?

|7.14.09 @ 9:17AM|#

Wow does the blond in the blue shorts have a nice ass.

The Angry Optimist|7.14.09 @ 9:18AM|#

Our alledgedly Harvard errudite President

Did he "allegedly" go to Harvard or something?

Art-P.O.G.|7.14.09 @ 9:21AM|#

John,

OK, I'll bite. How can you tell her shorts are blue?

|7.14.09 @ 9:21AM|#

"Did he "allegedly" go to Harvard or something?"

No he is allegedly a "Havard errudite". The allegedly applies to the whole term not each term individually. Allegedly the fact that he went to Harvard and likes to write books about himself means that he is errudite and educated and knows something. In reality, he doesn't seem to know much beyond the fact that it is good to be Obama. In fact he seems to enjoy and take pride in his ignorance.

|7.14.09 @ 9:22AM|#

Art,

It is a guess. Would she really have black shorts on? I doubt it. i am guessing they are a dark navy instead.

Art-P.O.G.|7.14.09 @ 9:23AM|#

Did he "allegedly" go to Harvard or something?

The name "Harvard" was in quotation marks on his diploma.

The Angry Optimist|7.14.09 @ 9:23AM|#

OK, John, I hate to beat up on people for grammar, but "erudite" is not a noun.

Xeones|7.14.09 @ 9:28AM|#

but "erudite" is not a noun.

TAO, if you can verb a noun, you can noun an adjective. LOOK WHAT YOU PEOPLE HAVE WEIRDED TO MY ENGLISH

|7.14.09 @ 9:28AM|#

It is an adjective AO. Actually I misused the noun Harvard as an adjective and properly used the adjective erudite as in BO is Harvard erudite. More so than that I took to noun and the adjective and created my own bastard noun. I did it intentionally. It was a vailed reference to that upper class twit Christopher Buckley's collumn last fall about how he was going to vote for Obama because he went to Harvard and was erudite and wrote books and couldn't be that bad.

Art-P.O.G.|7.14.09 @ 9:28AM|#

It is a guess

Phew. I was thinking chromagnosis for a moment.

mark|7.14.09 @ 9:29AM|#

TAO, omg I did not know that. I use it as a noun all the time. But I'm sure to spell "erudite" and "monetarism" right :)

The Angry Optimist|7.14.09 @ 9:34AM|#

you know, John, simply writing "an erudite Harvard graduate" would satisfy the "sentences should have nouns" requirement and give your writing some much-needed clarity.

|7.14.09 @ 9:36AM|#

John, I was just about to say your 9:01 was a really good post. But now that everyone is hatin', it feels like pity.

So instead: Yo, fuck erudition.

True enough AO. But when I get pissed off my writing tends to be less clear. If you ever notice, my writing is quite clear and my spelling perfect when the conversation is not particularly heated. When I get angry my writing skills go out the window. Somehow the fact that we have a loathsome and ignorant President brings that out in me.

|7.14.09 @ 9:38AM|#

FrBunny,

As it gets harder to defend BO, it gets easier to hate on the messanger.

Art-P.O.G.|7.14.09 @ 9:40AM|#

Somehow the fact that we have a loathsome and ignorant President brings that out in me.

It can't be healthy to be pissed off for that long.

Xeones|7.14.09 @ 9:43AM|#

It can't be healthy to be pissed off for that long.

Plenty of people managed it for the previous eight years of presidentialhoodness. Frankly, for libertarians, there doesn't seem to be another option.

Art-P.O.G.|7.14.09 @ 9:46AM|#

Frankly, for libertarians, there doesn't seem to be another option.

Nuh-uh. I repress my anger. There can't possibly be any negative consequences down the road for that.:D

|7.14.09 @ 9:47AM|#

Art,

I think I started to get pissed off about the time they passed the proscription drug benefit back in the Bush Administration. It just went downhill from there. Other than the surge, Bush didn't do one right thing his last four years in office. Sadly, what was waiting in the wings was going to be worse. In some ways that should make one feel better about BO. As bad as he is, there is always someone who would be worse.

The original tramp stamps.

Ray Gardner|7.14.09 @ 9:48AM|#

Robert Higgs

http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_01_4_higgs.pdf

I'll read their piece in full later, but making a case against the New Deal while arguing for the efficacy of deficit spending seems a little odd however.

Cabeza de Vaca|7.14.09 @ 9:51AM|#

"In some ways that should make one feel better about BO. As bad as he is, there is always someone who would be worse."

John Edwards.

hmm|7.14.09 @ 9:51AM|#

I channel my constant anger into crafts and knitting. I have a marvelous array of cat sweaters and painted figurines. Does assembling "lego" AR15s count as a craft?

I wouldn't underestimate BO's intellect. He is not a stupid or ignorant person. I'd wager he is smarter than his opponents want to admit. His wisdom on the other hand is lacking.

Might want to NSFW the SG link for those that are not connoisseurs of trailer trash porn. There be boobs on that site.

|7.14.09 @ 9:55AM|#

I can't believe that some of you do this all day and night.

|7.14.09 @ 9:56AM|#

At the far left, the guy seems to be drawing the logos onto that one chick, and it looks like he hasn't gotten to the one to her left, so, yeah, these are temporary.

Art-P.O.G.|7.14.09 @ 9:59AM|#

There be boobs on that site.

This is poetry...

John Edwards.

+1. As bad as things might be now, there's probably some dystopian and possibly post-apocalyptic alternate universe where Edwards or Huckabee are president.

Xeones|7.14.09 @ 9:59AM|#

Might want to NSFW the SG link for those that are not connoisseurs of trailer trash porn.

Suicide Girls aren't trailer trash -- they're punk rock, which is somehow qualitatively different.

|7.14.09 @ 10:00AM|#

"I wouldn't underestimate BO's intellect. He is not a stupid or ignorant person. I'd wager he is smarter than his opponents want to admit. His wisdom on the other hand is lacking."

That is an interesting question. Certainly, you don't get to be in the top 10% of your class at Harvard without being intelligent. I don't consider being the editor of law review to be that impressive since that is a political position. But top 10% is impressive.

BO doesn't seem to actually know very much. For all of the ripping on Bush for being an idiot son, I have heard Bush speak quite clearly about the need for tax cuts and how economies grow and the value of the democracy and freedom. It is not so much that I disagree with what BO says, it is more that he never really says anything. He is quite adept at caricaturing the other side's arguments. But he never seems to be able to make an articulate clear case about something. Instead, he always seems to caricature the other side and then throw out some meaningless slogans in support of his. I have never heard BO speak about an issue where I felt like he had a command and understanding of it. This is in sharp contrast to every other President in my lifetime. Even the ones I couldn't stand like Carter and Clinton at least seemed to know a lot. BO doesn't seem to know anything.

Mike Laursen|7.14.09 @ 10:06AM|#

four Justices ruled that the right under a private contract to exact a pound of flesh was more sacred...

And, so, under the authority of Congress, they will be stoned to death in front of the White House at 9 am tomorrow morning.

|7.14.09 @ 10:08AM|#

Note the "we do our part" logo for the NRA. That is really the one thing that is missing from BO's agenda; the call for all of us to work together. Carter had that with the "Whip Inflation Now" buttons. Obama hasn't quite come up with a dopey collectivist scheme yet. But I am sure he will. At some point, it will have to be the people's fault that things are not going as planned.

|7.14.09 @ 10:10AM|#

Having a national recovery slogan is creepy and ignorant on so many levels. It assumes that people won't go out and get a job or do anything because they have to or want to. No, they must be told to do that. They must feel that it is their patriotic duty to go to work. Ordinary capitalist workers going to work to get a wage just won't do it. Only when we all get together and "do our part" as opposed to I don't know laying around and smoking dope all day, will the economy recover.

|7.14.09 @ 10:14AM|#

Oh wow, I wonder how many of them regret that today??

ER
www.anonymize.tk

|7.14.09 @ 10:16AM|#

"Carter had that with the "Whip Inflation Now" buttons."

That was Ford

Citizen Nothing|7.14.09 @ 10:16AM|#

I thought W.I.N. was Ford's baby.

|7.14.09 @ 10:18AM|#

It was Ford? I guess so. My mistake.

|7.14.09 @ 10:19AM|#

It is a guess. Would she really have black shorts on? I doubt it. i am guessing they are a dark navy instead.

They could easily be dark red or green as well. If the photographer used a colored filter (common in B&W technique) they could be anything.

not that it matters

Rhywun|7.14.09 @ 10:24AM|#

Anonymous spammer: on topic, clearly hasn't read the comments, and sort of Zen-like, as always. B+

|7.14.09 @ 10:25AM|#

"Carter had that with the "Whip Inflation Now" buttons."

Wasn't that Ford?

dommarigato,

She still has a great ass.

The Wine Commonsewer (TWC)|7.14.09 @ 10:39AM|#

NRA! Thought we were making progress then I realized we weren't talking about shotguns.

The Wine Commonsewer (TWC)|7.14.09 @ 10:40AM|#

Is it just me or does the NRA eagle look an awful lot like Hitler's eagles?

|7.14.09 @ 10:42AM|#

I agree with John. Dark blue. And the far left one with the paisley and piping is blood red.

|7.14.09 @ 10:44AM|#

It is not just you TWC.

|7.14.09 @ 10:48AM|#

As bad as things might be now, there's probably some dystopian and possibly post-apocalyptic alternate universe where Edwards or Huckabee are president

Edwards/Huckabee 2012, Let's Just Get It Over With.

Xeones|7.14.09 @ 10:54AM|#

Edwards/Huckabee 2012

The world's gonna end a month after the election anyway.

Citizen Nothing|7.14.09 @ 10:56AM|#

Awesome, jsh. I want a bumpersticker.

MNG|7.14.09 @ 10:57AM|#

I love this alternate reality Bizarro world view of the New Deal libertarians have.

Once here at H&R I posted stats showing that GDP, GDP per capita, and average incomes increased while unemployment fell during the New Deal/WWII and people here were still like "yeah, but that wasn't REAL improvement."

This is Bizarro world. Me hate New Deal, New Deal bad for economy by improving all economic indicators! Me like enemies and hate friends!

Citizen Nothing|7.14.09 @ 11:02AM|#

Great, MNG!

New Deal/WWII. Hmmm. 1933-1945.

So today we're just a dozen years and a World War away from renewed prosperity!

shriek!|7.14.09 @ 11:03AM|#

laying around and smoking dope all day

That's my recovery plan!

|7.14.09 @ 11:04AM|#

MNG there are so much sophistry in your post it is hard to know where to begin. First, the economy lost a 1/4 of its value during the early 1930s. It was bound to improve somewhat as long as policy was anything short of the great terror. Those numbers prove nothing about the New Deal.

The question is, what would have happened had their not been a New Deal. Well, read the article. It says "We have calculated that, on the basis of productivity growth alone, employment and investment should have been back to their normal levels by 1936." If they had done nothing, things would have recoved by 36 not the late 40s.

Citizen Nothing|7.14.09 @ 11:08AM|#

Actually, John, if you compare the U.S. GDP today to that of 1931, it's obvious that our leaders since Hoover have been sheer geniuses.
Plus we've got robot vacuum-cleaners.

MNG|7.14.09 @ 11:17AM|#

John
We had relative laissez-faire government in the 1920s. In the late 1920s the economy collapsed. FDR was elected and in the early 1930's increased the role of government. Economic indicators improved. He cut back on the New Deal and things dipped slightly, though nowhere near the disaster he inherited. Then a massive government expansion occurred and we had decades of improved economic indicators.

This "well, without it it would have even been better" is the most amazing non-falsifiable thing I've seen in a while. Marxists do this all the time. "Well, of course Lenin's early plan fell short, but had there been REAL communism it would have been so great!"

Our nation collectively remembers the New Deal as a great thing because they saw real improvement in their lives. The masses are not the fools you think they are, especially over long periods of time...

The Angry Optimist|7.14.09 @ 11:19AM|#

Once here at H&R I posted stats showing that GDP, GDP per capita, and average incomes increased while unemployment fell during the New Deal/WWII and people here were still like "yeah, but that wasn't REAL improvement."

actually, the claim (backed by EXPERTS, MNG, so don't lose it in your pants!) is that the Great Depression was lengthened, not shortened, by intervention. your position lacks a causation link (i.e. the New Deal is a Tiger-Repelling Rock)

Citizen Nothing|7.14.09 @ 11:21AM|#

Our nation collectively remembers the New Deal as a great thing because the victors write the history books.

MNG|7.14.09 @ 11:25AM|#

"your position lacks a causation link (i.e. the New Deal is a Tiger-Repelling Rock)"

TAO
As I've pointed out a lot, your position is the more magical.

"Let's imagine there was no New Deal, this and this would have happened! Really it would!"

You've got goofy ideas of causation that no policy-maker, or human being acting in the world, should or could ever follow, we've discussed this...

The Angry Optimist|7.14.09 @ 11:26AM|#

don't condescend to me.

anyway, there are causation issues on both sides, but what's disturbing is your anti-intellectual attitude towards dissenting opinions from the mainstream.

MNG|7.14.09 @ 11:28AM|#

With historical examples there are few chances to "control" in the way that the classical understanding of causation requires. Sadly,what we know is that x happened, then y, then z. Of course if we wanted to pe pedantic pricks we could say "we can't be totally, totally, sure that y happened because of x!" etc. But surely it is rational for an actor to make this conclusion when acting. What else is he supposed to act upon? This imagination post-hoc game of "well, if we had done A then surely B would have happened."

And this is the same guy who poo-poos on climate modeling! Physician heal thyself!

The Angry Optimist|7.14.09 @ 11:29AM|#

Our nation collectively remembers the New Deal as a great thing because they saw real improvement in their lives. The masses are not the fools you think they are, especially over long periods of time

Argumentum ad populum.

MNG|7.14.09 @ 11:29AM|#

Well, at least you've gone from "well MNG EXPERTS say x" to "these experts, when they say x, are dissenting from the mainstream...OF EXPERTS, who say z..."

Nice for this progressive to know that progress can be made ;)

Citizen Nothing|7.14.09 @ 11:30AM|#

"Let's imagine there was no New Deal, this and this would have happened! Really it would!"

Isn't this what both sides are doing?
And what if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly?

The Angry Optimist|7.14.09 @ 11:30AM|#

again, the fact that you rely on experts for climate change, but refuse to rely on them when it comes to economy, is very telling. It's almost as if you have a confirmation bias!

Nah. And for what it's worth, I haven't ever dismissed climate modeling. But you have dismissed economic modeling.

|7.14.09 @ 11:31AM|#

"We had relative laissez-faire government in the 1920s. In the late 1920s the economy collapsed. FDR was elected and in the early 1930's increased the role of government. Economic indicators improved. He cut back on the New Deal and things dipped slightly, though nowhere near the disaster he inherited."

That is just completely untrue. By the mid 30s GDP had improved but unemployment was still 14%. Further, the 1937 recession was more than just a "slight drop". Unemployment jumped from 14.3% in 1937 to 19.0% in 1938. In two months, unemployment rose from 5 million to over 9 million, reaching almost 12 million in early 1938. Manufacturing output fell off by 40% from the 1937 peak; it was back to 1934 levels. It was horrible. It was also not the result of a draw back from the New Deal. It was caused by Roosevelt's endorsement of a cartel system, a system he later redudiated in the late 30s.

MNG|7.14.09 @ 11:31AM|#

It's not necessarily this argument from popularity, it's actually channeling a very common libertarian argument: that experts may say x or y but the masses more often than not have a better understanding of their own experience...

Er, surely you've heard this before, right?

MNG|7.14.09 @ 11:33AM|#

"again, the fact that you rely on experts for climate change, but refuse to rely on them when it comes to economy, is very telling. It's almost as if you have a confirmation bias!"

Are you kidding? At least on both accounts I'm with the majority of experts. So my principle is likely "agree with the majority of experts." What's yours? Agree with the majority when I like their conclusions, disagree when I do not...

Here are the majority views of both the New Deal and Global Warming:

New Deal: Good thing
Global Warming: Bad thing

|7.14.09 @ 11:34AM|#

No one ever says that economic modeling is perfect. It is not. But it is at least based on experience and the well established assumption that people will generally act in their own best interest. Climate modeling in contrast is baed on the as yet unproven assumption that CO2 concentrations drives warming. Further, we have about 500 years of modern economies to judge what works. Planned economies have inevitably failed where market ones have succeeded. We have no such practical data in climate modeling.

|7.14.09 @ 11:36AM|#

"Here are the majority views of both the New Deal and Global Warming:

New Deal: Good thing"

Again, that is just untrue. Find me an economist, as opposed to a political historian, who thinks the New Deal actually did any good. At best, they say it was better than the alternatives because no one knew any better. No one would argue that things like the NRA would be a good idea today.

MNG|7.14.09 @ 11:42AM|#

"But it is at least based on experience and the well established assumption that people will generally act in their own best interest. Climate modeling in contrast is baed on the as yet unproven assumption that CO2 concentrations drives warming."

John, with all due respect, that sounds like crazy to me. I do a bit of modeling for my clients, it's pretty basic, but any sensible modeling is based upon feeding some actual empirical data points and findings and then extrapolating them under certain assumptions. Both economic and climate modeling I am confident feed in actual data, and then assume certain things based on past empirical trends, with some assumptions built in. I doubt seriously that the climate folks just blindly build a fantastical set of climate assumptions based on nothing but ideology (do you really believe that?), in fact if anything in the social sciences it is economists that come in for withering criticism from sociologists, pol scientists, anthropologists, and many economists, for building into their models simplistic and silly assumptions. On the other hand, every major non-geological science professional organization, from geologists to physicists, have, upon examining the climate models, given their blessing to them.

Citizen Nothing|7.14.09 @ 11:44AM|#

"I do a bit of modeling for my clients."
I bet you look great in a one-piece.

The Angry Optimist|7.14.09 @ 11:45AM|#

What's yours? Agree with the majority when I like their conclusions, disagree when I do not.

you're confused again. If I agree with the hypothetical economic dissenters and the hypothetical AGW dissenters, that doesn't sound "unprincipled".

however, given that I have never said anything about AGW/CC modeling, you're arguing with the TAO in your head again.

MNG|7.14.09 @ 11:49AM|#

OK TAO, granted, as I understand it your argument is that given the consensus of AGW the programs proposed to deal with it are impractical and will likely result in more harm than they can redress.

I apologize on the other front.

"I bet you look great in a one-piece."

You've seen Borat, right?

MNG|7.14.09 @ 11:52AM|#

BTW TAO, you've got one of the more sophisticated arguments on those grounds, concerning AGW and attempts to redress it, I've seen in a while. It's been thought provoking for me.

However, back on topic, I maintain it is totally rational for anyone to assume the New Deal was hardly the totalitarian disaster it is often made out to be in libertarian circles.

|7.14.09 @ 11:52AM|#

MNG,

The social sciences are not sciences. Economics is somewhat of a science. But the social sciences are nothing but a cargo cult. They have not produced a single veriable positive result in their entire existence. So, they have no right to throw stones at economics.

Second, as far as AGW goes, there is an increasing number of people who doubt AGW all together. Even those who believe it are starting to become embarassed by the rediculous predictions made by its adherents. Beyond that, the fact remains that while CO2 concentrations continue to rise in a linear fashion, global temperature hasn't risen in appreciably since 1979. And 2009 is shaping up to be another cool year. When you look at global temperature over the last 30 years, you see a volcanic cooling in the 1990s and a whale of an El Nino warming in the early 2000s and pretty stable temperatures otherwise. I have yet to see one model that has acurately predicted global temperature. Go back five years or ten years and show me one model that predicted the cooling spell we are in now. You won't find one.

As far as the majority of the "experts", good for them. But being a majority doesn't make them right. Further, the fact that they have been caught lying and fudging numbers (the now infamous hockey stick graff and the claim that so many of the hottest years in the last century were in the past decade to name two) and actively persecute and try to silence any dissenters makes me think they are not as confident as they claim. The AGW industry pays really well in terms of grants and tenure. There is every reason to believe and no reason to rock the boat.

The Angry Optimist|7.14.09 @ 11:52AM|#

also, I should rush to point out that, yes, there is heavy criticism from social sciences leveled at macroeconomic models, but microeconomic science is about as airtight and scientific as it gets outside of the "hard" sciences.

MNG|7.14.09 @ 11:56AM|#

TAO
Perhaps, but I'm not sure you can get what you want in this debate from microeconomics...Am I wrong?

|7.14.09 @ 11:57AM|#

AO,

I would argue that the macro models despite their limitations are more valid than anything the social sciences have produced. They may not be perfect, but they are generally correct and it is a really hard problem.

MNG|7.14.09 @ 12:00PM|#

"there is an increasing number of people who doubt AGW all together."

John, from what I read, and I am no expert, it seems like a substantial percent of scientists still hold to it. I think you are reading a biased selection of sources here. I mean really, the major geological professional association endorsed the IPCC view, and have certainly not backed down on that to my knowledge. The nation's geologists are not wild haired marxists John! They think about rocks and uniformitarianism all day...

"The AGW industry pays really well in terms of grants and tenure."

This is crazy talk. Certainly the major industries (as well as unions!) that will be adversly affected if the public becomes determined to "act" on GW have much, much more money and influence to give than the "environmental lobby." C'mon!

|7.14.09 @ 12:04PM|#

adly,what we know is that x happened, then y, then z. Of course if we wanted to pe pedantic pricks we could say "we can't be totally, totally, sure that y happened because of x!" etc.

Pretty narrow view of reality.

There were lots of DIFFERENT x's y's and z's. That you insist on chaining only a few specific ones together that fit your political story shows a lack of appreciation of the complexity of real systems.

The article eludicates how people with acxtual expertise in the economy have connected a larger number of variables together and concluded that the populist account of x->y->x is incorrect.

So far, you haven't said anything that disputes this other than to express shock at the audacitity of libertarians to question the poplist account.

"Everyone KNOWS the New Deal worked. How dare these fools say anything different? I mean, it's so obvious. A bunch of stuff happened in sequence, so that proves it. "

|7.14.09 @ 12:09PM|#

"This is crazy talk. Certainly the major industries (as well as unions!) that will be adversly affected if the public becomes determined to "act" on GW have much, much more money and influence to give than the "environmental lobby." C'mon!"

The big oil companies are going to get rich off of AGW and cap and trade. Think about it. What does AGW regulation do? It makes it harder to explore for energy. That makes existing energy supplies that much more valuable. The big guys are going to manipulate that system for billions and by the way get subsidize to make up for their "losses". You are very naive if you think that big industry hasn't figured out how to game AGW.

Further, try getting tenure or getting published if you have a finding that goes against AGW. It won't happened. People who dissent are being hounded out of the profession. It is may be the greatest scandal in scientific history. I have never seen so much group think.

MNG|7.14.09 @ 12:11PM|#

Hazel
Would you contend that this article represents the majority view of economists and economic historians?

John
The inudstries you are talking about are fighting this pretty hard. You're just coming up with "just so" stories...

|7.14.09 @ 12:24PM|#

http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2009/06/12/cap-and-trade-versus-perfection/

This is an example of what I am talking about MNG.

Richard |7.14.09 @ 1:08PM|#

There's a chapter on the Blue Eagle in Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism":

"The Philidelphia Eagles football team was named in honor of the Blue Eagle. A hundred thousand schoolkids were marched onto the Boston Common and forced to swear an oath, administered by the mayor: 'I promise to be a good American citizen and do my part for the NRA. I will buy only where the Blue Eagle flies.' In Atlantic City, beauty pagent contestants had the Blue Eagle stamped on their thighs. In San Francisco, eight thousand schoolchildren were orchestrated to form an enormous Blue Eagle. In Memphis, fifty thousand citizens marched in the city's Christmas parade, which ended with Santa Clause riding a giant Blue Eagle."

|7.14.09 @ 1:23PM|#

John | July 14, 2009, 10:25am | #

dommarigato,

She still has a great ass.

Ugh. The one with the "dark blue"? For a middle aged mother of two, yes. Objectively, not so much. There is def some cottage cheese going on there in the thigh region, and the butt goes up the back much further than it should - though not as much as the one far right...

My pick would be the one to the right of Dark Blue, or two to her left. A little less info to to go on, but hope is still alive.

|7.14.09 @ 1:24PM|#

And this is coming from an admitted chubby chaser. (currently reformed, thank you very much...)

Tom|7.14.09 @ 1:25PM|#

If I remember correctly, the improvement in unemployment figures during the new deal was largely due to the entering workforce being drafted and killed in WWII. Not my idea of stimulus.
Also, if the Government spending was keeping the economy alive, it should of collapsed after spending was cut by 40% in 1946.

|7.14.09 @ 1:26PM|#

domorrigato,

That woman is like 23 and a size six at most. She looks to be about the size Marlyn Monroe was. I don't see any swiss cheese. That woman is only a chubby by the "all women must look like starving young teen boys" standard shoved down everyone's throat by Hollywood. No way. You are crazy. There is nothing chubby about her.

|7.14.09 @ 1:27PM|#

The one to the right of the dark shorts looks very cute for the back but she has no ass.

|7.14.09 @ 1:54PM|#

John - Although I see how it came out that way, I didn't mean to imply that SHE was chubby - just that I have *ahem* occasionally been known to roll that way, so I am not particularly biased towards the stick figure model types - though my current interest is a long limbed eastern european of that exact description.

I think the clothing has a lot to do with it - those 30's suits don't flatter at ALL, and the "no ass" chick is probably stacked too, but those god aweful shorts kill the magic.

For the record, I wouldn't kick any of them out of bed for eating crackers. Plus if every guy liked the same thing, our species probably would have killed itself off by now, so I guess it's cool...

"That's great, cuz I'll take ANYTHING!"

|7.14.09 @ 2:09PM|#

dommarigato,

The dark shorts would pretty much make any woman who wasn't a stick look like a cow. I still think her ass looks nice even in the bad shorts. But I will be the first to admit I have liberal standards when it comes to women.

JB|7.14.09 @ 2:30PM|#

Fuck Obama and his love of sucking FDR's cock.

|7.14.09 @ 2:35PM|#

But I will be the first to admit I have liberal standards when it comes to women.

My only hard and fast standard is liberal women. So to speak.

|7.14.09 @ 2:51PM|#

"hard and fast"

get it?

|7.14.09 @ 2:53PM|#

"John, from what I read, and I am no expert, it seems like a substantial percent of scientists still hold to it.(That AGW is real)"

The majority might hold to the fact that there is a human footprint, but when they claim that there will be a real disaster in climate change in the future due to human activity, they move from the realm of science into the realm of politics.

mark|7.14.09 @ 3:27PM|#

they move from the realm of science into the realm of politics

And proceed to believe in stupid on top of stupid.

Once I cited a quote by a physicist at UMaryland, who admitted that even if AGW turns out to be false, it would still be worth rationing carbon because it would "cut down on the number of billionaires".

|7.14.09 @ 4:42PM|#

I suspect a lot of the AGW debate is people talking past each other.

The bulk of the scientists say that CO2 contributes to global warming, and that increased CO2 results in increased warming. True enough, but straight CO2 driven warming runs into a saturation effect and probably can't drive the temperature more than 1 degree C from what it has been recently.

The political activist scientists then run models containing unproven assumptions about cascades and feedbacks that would result in catastrophic global warming.

So, you can get a consensus that AGW exists to some (minor) degree, and this consensus is then used as a Trojan Horse for pushing a political agenda based on very questionable models.

|7.14.09 @ 10:09PM|#

"This is crazy talk. Certainly the major industries (as well as unions!) that will be adversly affected if the public becomes determined to "act" on GW have much, much more money and influence to give than the "environmental lobby." C'mon!"

It's not the "environmental lobby" that has the most to gain from AGW hysteria.

It's the government lobby. AGW provides the greatest excuse for unlimited government ever invented. How do you trump "the central organizing principle of civilization"?

My experience, from California, is that the government lobby -- i.e., government's interest in perpetuating its expansion -- trumps industry, unions, and all comers.

|7.14.09 @ 10:11PM|#

MNG (My Name is God?).

AWG is so non-consensus.
Haven't you heard? CLIMATE CHANGE!
You know, the "Change" you can believe in.

|7.14.09 @ 10:16PM|#

That's the NRA that sucks.

craig - Improve Google Quality|7.14.09 @ 10:48PM|#

I really and truly don't understand what the picture has to do with this post. What is the connection?

|7.14.09 @ 10:52PM|#

One of the underappreciated factors in the ending of the depression after WW2 was the redemption of war bonds. During the war, the government strongly encouraged people to buy war bonds -- to take money out of circulation. The country was filled with war factories and factory workers, all drawing salaries, but there were very few consumer goods to spend money on. Ordinarily this would result in inflation. By selling massive amounts of war bonds, the government prevented inflation and the public stockpiled massive amounts of capital which was then released into the economy just as the war factories were converted back to producing civilian products and a generation of young men returned to fill the factories. The result was an economic boom. The economics is very simple. Americans as a society worked and saved for 5 years, then reaped the rewards. A lesson utterly lost on today's generation of politicians who can only imagine spending, not saving.

Hucbald|7.14.09 @ 11:52PM|#

I'm sure it says something about me that I didn't need for the Suicide Girls reference to be explained.

|7.16.09 @ 4:49AM|#

Naw, it's not 'mom-ass', as one poster put it. It is the world of women prior to anorexia and size 00.

Domoarrigato - you're only standard is 'liberal women'. Hmmm, I'm liberal when it comes to some things ;-) but politics is not one of them - sorry, you miss out!

|7.20.09 @ 3:58PM|#

"Might want to NSFW the SG link for those that are not connoisseurs...."

More importantly for those who are reading at work. It's been 6 days since this was posted, and still no such warning from the folks at Reason. A little consideration, please?

Reason Magazine

Get Reason E-mail Updates!

Site comments/questions:

Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:

Editorial & Production Offices:

advertisements