GOP economic plan for the past 3 years was based on excel spreadsheet error

[SlyPokerDog]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/reinhart-rogoff-austerity_b_3343688.html

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs...ed-by-reinhart-and-rogoffs-arithmetic-mistake

 

[MARIS61]

Morons.

I wonder what it's like to be so outspokenly wrong in your greedy attacks on the less fortunate and have the whole world catch you.

Ten years ago today Bush borrowed $350, 000, 000, 000 from China, forged our children's names on the loan, gave the money to his buddies, and set in motion the second worst financial collapse in our country's history.

 

[Denny Crane]

Morons.

I wonder what it's like to be so outspokenly wrong in your greedy attacks on the less fortunate and have the whole world catch you.

Ten years ago today Bush borrowed $350, 000, 000, 000 from China, forged our children's names on the loan, gave the money to his buddies, and set in motion the second worst financial collapse in our country's history.

So if you're not a moron, you'll go out and charge up to the max all the credit cards you can qualify for. Go for it. Tell us how it works out for you. The government is doing the same, so it can't be bad.

 

[maxiep]

Interesting title you chose to give.

Does anyone really doubt that the higher your debt/GDP ratio, the slower your economic growth? Higher debt/GDP means higher debt service/GDP (assuming rates don't go dramatically lower). The more GDP dedicated to debt service, in the form of taxes, the less can be used for investment by these private firms to grow the GDP. Hence, it would be logical to assume that GDP would remain flat or experience lower growth.

As for that particular study, as it was pointed out, the largest disagreement didn't come from correcting the Excel errors, but from the method of calculation. Regardless, when one looks at the change in the numbers, it doesn't substantially alter the conclusion: more debt is bad.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Interesting title you chose to give.

I can't take any credit, I copied it from Reddit.

 

[Denny Crane]

maxiep states the obvious.

Those who run up the debt seem to think they can tax their way into being able to afford the debt payments and a bloated government.

I differ with the various writers who claim Europe is somehow suffering due to austerity. They're not practicing reasonable austerity, they're hiking taxes to avoid austerity measures. As maxiep points out, raising taxes has all sorts of bad side effects that look like inflation, higher unemployment, and all the ills complained about in the 2nd link.

 

[Eastoff]

This is just like the climate change deniers. "There was an error discovered and possibly hidden. How do we know there aren't more errors they are trying to hide?"

 

[Denny Crane]

I never heard of these guys before this.

However, I look on wikipedia and they talk about this very thing. They also say:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Rogoff

Their calculations demonstrated that high debt countries grew at 2.2 percent, rather than the −0.1 percent figure initially cited by Reinhart and Rogoff.[10] Rogoff and Reinhardt claimed that their fundamental conclusions were accurate, despite the errors,[11][12] and after correcting the coding errors detected by their critics. Further papers by Rogoff and Reinhart,[13] and the International Monetary Fund,[14] which were not found to contain similar errors, reached conclusions similar to the initial paper. The subject remains controversial, because of the political ramifications of the research, though in Rogoff and Reinhart's words "[t]he politically charged discussion ... has falsely equated our finding of a negative association between debt and growth with an unambiguous call for austerity."[15]

 

[maxiep]

This is just like the climate change deniers. "There was an error discovered and possibly hidden. How do we know there aren't more errors they are trying to hide?"

In this case, however, the Excel error was acknowledged and corrected. There weren't e-mails trying to hide it or to alter the conclusions.

And as someone who has worked as a research assistant for academic economic studies, as well as an author of several studies myself, I can tell you that calculation errors are commonplace, which is why peer review is so important.

Again, the bigger beef of these reviewers is the way the numbers were calculated, not the missing data. And that method of calculation is an issue of opinion, not fact.

Nice try, however.

 

[Eastoff]

In this case, however, the Excel error was acknowledged and corrected. There weren't e-mails trying to hide it or to alter the conclusions.

And as someone who has worked as a research assistant for academic economic studies, as well as an author of several studies myself, I can tell you that calculation errors are commonplace, which is why peer review is so important.

Again, the bigger beef of these reviewers is the way the numbers were calculated, not the missing data. And that method of calculation is an issue of opinion, not fact.

Nice try, however.

I think most climate scientists acknowledge and move on when inaccuracies are found.

 

[Denny Crane]

I think most climate scientists acknowledge and move on when inaccuracies are found.

You missed climategate.

 

[maxiep]

I think most climate scientists acknowledge and move on when inaccuracies are found.

I offer Phil Jones and Michael Mann as a rebuttal.