Interesting interview of James Galbraith on RT. I was just flipping channels so didn't hear the question he was answering but he seemed to be responding to the criticism by Krugman and others that Bernie's programs assume high growth rates and low unemployement rates in order to be economically sound - and those high growth rates and low unemployment rates just aren't realistic.
This, some will recall, is the same complaint leveled against some GOP candidates in 2012 who assumed 5% growth and predicted balanced budgets despite tax cuts. Pawlenty was one of the candidates whose campaign crashed and burned on those rosy assumptions, iirc.
The thing is, Galbraith says, is that these are NOT ASSUMPTIONS. Gerald Friedman, from whose paper these numbers are drawn, did NOT start with those numbers. Instead he took Bernie's programs, plugged them into conventional economic models and asked what the impact would be on things like growth and employment.
The bottom line, according to Galbraith, is that these good results are what Bernie's policies are likely to produce - not what they require.
Or, as Galbraith put it, when Krugman and others criticize Friedman's paper because (they say) he started with unreasonable assumptions, they merely prove that they DIDN'T READ THE EFFING PAPER.
Oops.
[Disclaimer: I didn't read the paper either.]
This, some will recall, is the same complaint leveled against some GOP candidates in 2012 who assumed 5% growth and predicted balanced budgets despite tax cuts. Pawlenty was one of the candidates whose campaign crashed and burned on those rosy assumptions, iirc.
The thing is, Galbraith says, is that these are NOT ASSUMPTIONS. Gerald Friedman, from whose paper these numbers are drawn, did NOT start with those numbers. Instead he took Bernie's programs, plugged them into conventional economic models and asked what the impact would be on things like growth and employment.
The bottom line, according to Galbraith, is that these good results are what Bernie's policies are likely to produce - not what they require.
Or, as Galbraith put it, when Krugman and others criticize Friedman's paper because (they say) he started with unreasonable assumptions, they merely prove that they DIDN'T READ THE EFFING PAPER.
Oops.
[Disclaimer: I didn't read the paper either.]
