Heritage Foundation economist caught cooking the data
Paul Krugman, NYT
OK, this is really shocking: a Heritage Foundation economist has been accused of presenting false, deliberately misleading data and analysis to the Senate Budget Committee.
What’s so shocking? Not the false, misleading data and analysis — that’s SOP at Heritage. Remember the disappearing forecast of 2.8 percent unemployment under the Ryan plan, and various other Heritage escapades? What’s shocking is that they got called on it, in real time.
The claim in particular, by the way, is widely popular on the right; it’s the claim that there isn’t any real austerity in Europe. Wonkbook goes through some of the reasons this is wrong, aside from the simple walk-around-any-city-and-take-a-look test. There are actually other reasons; notably, the way the IMF and other organizations calculate potential output leads them to understate the real amount of adjustment (sorry, technical issue that I’ll have to explain another day). But anyway, it’s nonsense.
One does wonder, by the way, whether Heritage may at this point be destroying its own usefulness. Its purpose was never to do real research; it was always a propaganda arm of the movement. But it was supposed to create a plausible illusion of intellectual rigor, good enough to take in gullible journalists.
(More here.)
OK, this is really shocking: a Heritage Foundation economist has been accused of presenting false, deliberately misleading data and analysis to the Senate Budget Committee.
What’s so shocking? Not the false, misleading data and analysis — that’s SOP at Heritage. Remember the disappearing forecast of 2.8 percent unemployment under the Ryan plan, and various other Heritage escapades? What’s shocking is that they got called on it, in real time.
The claim in particular, by the way, is widely popular on the right; it’s the claim that there isn’t any real austerity in Europe. Wonkbook goes through some of the reasons this is wrong, aside from the simple walk-around-any-city-and-take-a-look test. There are actually other reasons; notably, the way the IMF and other organizations calculate potential output leads them to understate the real amount of adjustment (sorry, technical issue that I’ll have to explain another day). But anyway, it’s nonsense.
One does wonder, by the way, whether Heritage may at this point be destroying its own usefulness. Its purpose was never to do real research; it was always a propaganda arm of the movement. But it was supposed to create a plausible illusion of intellectual rigor, good enough to take in gullible journalists.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
It sounds like the Heritage Foundation should hire Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Eric Holder, Susan Rice, Rev. Al Sharpton... where do I stop?
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