Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Thursday, February 7, 2019
The Honesty of the Media and Politicians
Saturday, January 5, 2019
By the Numbers
More often than not, debate is not informed by data, especially if it originates form a clash between ideologies. In response, I started a new semi-regular piece in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News that I call "By the Numbers," where I present data in the form of a plot or table on a topical subject. It appears in the spot often used for political comics in the opinion section, but does not espouse an opinion. Below is my submission that appeared in the January 3, 2019 issue.
Obama vs Trump Stock Performance
Percentage change of S&P 500 from
inauguration day to the end of the second calendar year of the presidential
term. Net change: Obama Term #1: +56.2%. Obama Term #2: +38.6%. Trump: +10.4%.
Aside from the crash around Day 50 following the burst housing bubble,
the performance of the S&P 500 for both Obama terms exceeded Trump’s market
performance to date
We all know that correlation does not imply causation, so such a graph of stock performance is not an indication of a president's success in economic policy. But since Trump uses the stock market as a measure of his success, I thought it would be useful to show the actual data. By Trump's own measure, he pales in comparison to Obama.
Stay tuned for more data.
Thursday, November 9, 2017
The facts about Trump and the Stock Market
Short-term fluctuations are fueled by rumors, unexpected world events, natural disasters, etc. Longer term large and enduring changes reflect fundamental economic shifts. For example, the collapse of the mortgage markets a decade ago led to a significant long-term drop in the S&P 500. In response, the Bush administration enacted the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) on October 3, 2008 and the Obama administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) became effective on February 17, 2009. TARP targeted institutions while ARRA focused on saving and creating jobs by investing in infrastructure, education, health, and renewable energy. The sustained recovery of the markets bolsters the claim that TARP and ARRA were effective, though this data alone is not proof.
The blue trend line shows strong growth in stock valuations since Obama’s first inauguration on January 20, 2009, an eight-year, 16% annually-compounded growth rate, reflecting a healthy economy under Obama. Based on Trump’s own emphasis on the performance of the stock market as a measure of success, calling Obama a disaster on economic policy is a blatant lie.
When Obama was re-elected, Trump Tweeted “The stock market and US dollar are both plunging today. Welcome to @BarackObama’s second term.” Trump’s implication that Obama’s re-election was the start of an economic downturn was wrong again; the S&P 500 soared over the two following years. The red line shows the average slope. After a hiccup for less than a year, the stock market again rose steadily at the same rate.
On August 3rd Trump tweeted, “Business is looking better than ever with business enthusiasm at record levels. Stock Market at an all-time high. That doesn't just happen!” The market did hit an all-time high, but the rate of increase is the same now as it had been over the previous two years. Trump’s presidency has not accelerated growth in the equity markets.
A tweet on October 11, 2017 stated, “It would be really nice if the Fake News Media would report the virtually unprecedented Stock Market growth since the election. Need tax cuts” The stock market’s performance has been reported by every major news outlet, but its rate of growth is not unprecedented and its trajectory has not changed with Trump on the scene, which the mainstream news media reports accurately to Trump’s chagrin.
The president uses his “success” to bolster his economic credentials to argue for his tax cut plan. In formulating tax policy, we can’t just trust Trump. The weekly wages of blue-collar workers fell after the Reagan tax cuts and remain weak to today and recent growing corporate profits and availability of capital have barely increased worker wages. The congressional Budget Office estimates a $1.7 trillion dollar deficit in the republican tax overhaul plan. Trump needs to provide evidence for his assertions to earn broader support.
Trump is right that stock valuations rise if regulations are lifted to increase profitability of companies. However, profits over the next couple of years are not worth the cost of long-term irreversible harm. He is proud of the GDP’s growth even through a damaging hurricane, but his climate policies will lead to more severe weather in the future, adversely affecting long-term productivity. Addressing climate change is an economic necessity.
Society must identify its priorities and desired outcomes through healthy debate. Then policies for getting results need to be intelligently crafted and based on facts. Legislative action should be taken only after proposed bills survive public scrutiny and pass objective measures of effectiveness.
Rather than presiding over debate informed by careful analysis of the facts, Trump and his cohorts stifle dissent, cherry pick the data and misrepresent the facts. As a result, the current tax plan is not well thought out and is being rushed through for a vote even though it is greatly flawed. Our country needs further deliberations to pass responsible tax reform that affects needed change.
Trump just wants a legislative win, regardless of the consequences.
Sad.
Sunday, July 23, 2017
What Ever Happened to Civili Discourse
I am getting so numb to the rhetoric on all the news networks that I have forgotten the civility of those Obama years that Trump supporters and many republicans point to as the evil Obama era. He was called a liar, illegitimate, and far worse, but remained a gentleman. The other night, MSNBC posted a video of the then new commander in chief in 2010 taking questions from the audience. Below is an excerpt.
Obama reacts with polite banter to Wall Street guy Anthony Scaramucci (Trump's new white house communications director), who is critical of Obama's handling of the aftermath of the burst housing bubble. There is no name calling. Obama sates the facts (which are verifiable) in support of his reasoning to tax the wealthy at the same rate as their low-paid secretaries. Scaramucci is ashamed by the facts.
This is how issues should be debated. I would feel far more comfortable with Trump's presidency if he gave an open town hall meeting (not a rally aimed at his diehard supporters) were he responds to critics with reasoned answers. Instead, he rants about crowd size, inflates his accomplishments by counter-factually huge amounts, and makes disparaging remarks about anyone who disagrees with his warped view of reality. This in turn releases a frenzied response from liberals who are attacked by conservatives in an endless and escalating cycle. This must stop.
Let's come together as Americans who love the freedoms and institutions that make this country great and debate the issues with civility, calling upon facts to make measured arguments. Let's quote legitimate sources rather than ideological echo chambers. Let's respect each other's views without dismissing our ideological opposites. We can disagree and debate, but let's not call each other names or brand members of a group by their most extreme members.
I challenge all of us to start an honest and sincere grass roots movement of civil discourse where everyone can voice his or her own opinion, not to convince others, but to bring clarity to the motivations of those with whom we disagree. Hell with our leaders; let's resolve our differences at the local level, where it matters most, and let it percolate upward to those who represent us.
I strongly urge newspapers and other media to play a more active role in mediated debate. Encourage pairs of writers or bloggers with opposing views to weigh in on the same issue, perhaps even encouraging a back-and-forth exchange, calling upon fact checkers to enforce honesty. If we're lucky, perhaps civil discourse will once again become the norm. We can accomplish so much more if we work together and use reality, peppered with reasoned opinion, as the the basis for making decisions.
Obama reacts with polite banter to Wall Street guy Anthony Scaramucci (Trump's new white house communications director), who is critical of Obama's handling of the aftermath of the burst housing bubble. There is no name calling. Obama sates the facts (which are verifiable) in support of his reasoning to tax the wealthy at the same rate as their low-paid secretaries. Scaramucci is ashamed by the facts.
This is how issues should be debated. I would feel far more comfortable with Trump's presidency if he gave an open town hall meeting (not a rally aimed at his diehard supporters) were he responds to critics with reasoned answers. Instead, he rants about crowd size, inflates his accomplishments by counter-factually huge amounts, and makes disparaging remarks about anyone who disagrees with his warped view of reality. This in turn releases a frenzied response from liberals who are attacked by conservatives in an endless and escalating cycle. This must stop.
Let's come together as Americans who love the freedoms and institutions that make this country great and debate the issues with civility, calling upon facts to make measured arguments. Let's quote legitimate sources rather than ideological echo chambers. Let's respect each other's views without dismissing our ideological opposites. We can disagree and debate, but let's not call each other names or brand members of a group by their most extreme members.
I challenge all of us to start an honest and sincere grass roots movement of civil discourse where everyone can voice his or her own opinion, not to convince others, but to bring clarity to the motivations of those with whom we disagree. Hell with our leaders; let's resolve our differences at the local level, where it matters most, and let it percolate upward to those who represent us.
I strongly urge newspapers and other media to play a more active role in mediated debate. Encourage pairs of writers or bloggers with opposing views to weigh in on the same issue, perhaps even encouraging a back-and-forth exchange, calling upon fact checkers to enforce honesty. If we're lucky, perhaps civil discourse will once again become the norm. We can accomplish so much more if we work together and use reality, peppered with reasoned opinion, as the the basis for making decisions.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Uncritical thinking and ideology
Nothing annoys me more than the absence of reason, especially when an individual intentionally chooses to be ignorant for the purpose of championing an ideology. I usually ignore debates between ideologies, as espoused by conservatives versus liberals, because ideologues - by definition - don't care about the truth. I normally would have ignored Paul Krugman's writings in The Conscience of a Liberal had my wife not directed me to one of his pieces that pointed out a ludicrous attack on a subject I understand.
Apparently, some conservatives believe that the theory of relativity is a liberal plot. An entry on conservapedia.com states that,
"The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world.[1]
"[1] See, e.g., historian Paul Johnson's book about the 20th century, and the article written by liberal law professor Laurence Tribe as allegedly assisted by Barack Obama. Virtually no one who is taught and believes relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold."
Ideologue Andy Schlafly has a problem with relativity because it contradicts the Bible. In particular, he believes that the miracles by Jesus described in John 4:46-54 imply that they occurred instantaneously using action-at-a-distance.
conservapedia.com lists 30 counterexamples to the theory of relativity. Each one of them can be debunked. For illustration, I focus on the conservapedia entry on Quantum Entanglement, which states,
"The implications of this phenomenon are enormous, and form the basis for the new field of quantum computing. For example, there seems to be an instantaneous communication between the participles at the moment of observation of one of them. Some physicists resist that notion and claim that no information is actually communicated."
To understand why entanglement does not imply action at a distance, consider two spin 1/2 particles that are entangled and reside on opposite ends of the universe. A measurement of the spin of one particle along a fixed axis can yield a result of up or down. A measurement of up in this part of the universe immediately places the entangled particle in a state of spin down. The key point is that the result of the measurement is random. Half the time, the measurement gives spin up, and the other half of the time the result is spin down. There is no way to control the spin of the particle when doing the measurement. As a result, the receiver at the other end of the universe would detect random bits - thus no information is transmitted.*
One may argue that it's just a matter of time that someone will determine how to control the spin of a particle when doing the measurement, making instantaneous communication possible. However, if this were possible, the implications would be profound. All the other predictions made by quantum mechanics would fail. But, since quantum mechanics makes many accurate predictions for a broad range of phenomena, it is highly unlikely that information will ever be transmitted using quantum entanglement.
Having too often used the excuse that I am overly busy to do anything about such nonsense, I have decided that the time is ripe for action. This morning, I opened an account on conservapedia and plan to correct the article. Let's see how long the correction will stand...
*Interestingly, the distant observer, after measuring the state of the local particle, would not have any way of knowing whether or not the transmitter was making a measurement. The observed random bit pattern would be the same with and without a measurement being performed by the transmitter.
***UPDATE***
When I tried to make a change on conservapedia, I was blocked by TK, an administrator of the site. Apparently, a new user must first convince TK that (s)he is a conservative. To quote TK:
"All voices should be represented on the Net. But if their intentions are merely to argue and dispute Conservative or Christian points of view, that becomes a form of vandalism, inasmuch as it is a great time waster and distraction for those who genuinely want to contribute, and build this encyclopedia."
Interesting that disagreement is tantamount to vandalism. In closing, below is a quote from TK's page. I think it's a joke, but I am not sure.
"Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that...Fox News" -- Denny Crane
Apparently, some conservatives believe that the theory of relativity is a liberal plot. An entry on conservapedia.com states that,
"The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world.[1]
"[1] See, e.g., historian Paul Johnson's book about the 20th century, and the article written by liberal law professor Laurence Tribe as allegedly assisted by Barack Obama. Virtually no one who is taught and believes relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold."
Ideologue Andy Schlafly has a problem with relativity because it contradicts the Bible. In particular, he believes that the miracles by Jesus described in John 4:46-54 imply that they occurred instantaneously using action-at-a-distance.
conservapedia.com lists 30 counterexamples to the theory of relativity. Each one of them can be debunked. For illustration, I focus on the conservapedia entry on Quantum Entanglement, which states,
"The implications of this phenomenon are enormous, and form the basis for the new field of quantum computing. For example, there seems to be an instantaneous communication between the participles at the moment of observation of one of them. Some physicists resist that notion and claim that no information is actually communicated."
To understand why entanglement does not imply action at a distance, consider two spin 1/2 particles that are entangled and reside on opposite ends of the universe. A measurement of the spin of one particle along a fixed axis can yield a result of up or down. A measurement of up in this part of the universe immediately places the entangled particle in a state of spin down. The key point is that the result of the measurement is random. Half the time, the measurement gives spin up, and the other half of the time the result is spin down. There is no way to control the spin of the particle when doing the measurement. As a result, the receiver at the other end of the universe would detect random bits - thus no information is transmitted.*
One may argue that it's just a matter of time that someone will determine how to control the spin of a particle when doing the measurement, making instantaneous communication possible. However, if this were possible, the implications would be profound. All the other predictions made by quantum mechanics would fail. But, since quantum mechanics makes many accurate predictions for a broad range of phenomena, it is highly unlikely that information will ever be transmitted using quantum entanglement.
Having too often used the excuse that I am overly busy to do anything about such nonsense, I have decided that the time is ripe for action. This morning, I opened an account on conservapedia and plan to correct the article. Let's see how long the correction will stand...
*Interestingly, the distant observer, after measuring the state of the local particle, would not have any way of knowing whether or not the transmitter was making a measurement. The observed random bit pattern would be the same with and without a measurement being performed by the transmitter.
***UPDATE***
When I tried to make a change on conservapedia, I was blocked by TK, an administrator of the site. Apparently, a new user must first convince TK that (s)he is a conservative. To quote TK:
"All voices should be represented on the Net. But if their intentions are merely to argue and dispute Conservative or Christian points of view, that becomes a form of vandalism, inasmuch as it is a great time waster and distraction for those who genuinely want to contribute, and build this encyclopedia."
Interesting that disagreement is tantamount to vandalism. In closing, below is a quote from TK's page. I think it's a joke, but I am not sure.
"Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that...Fox News" -- Denny Crane
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