Conspiracy Theory
Gene Callahan recently wrote on the funny way we use this term in our society, but I want to use Scott Sumner’s recent comments as a springboard. Note, Scott is not unusual in his usage, but I’m using his example because I just saw it today.
In this post, Scott was arguing that he wasn’t a denialist (not sure why he didn’t just use the term “denier”) when it came to monetary policy’s effectiveness. After giving a bunch of arguments and evidence–most or all of which I endorse, by the way–he added at the end: “PPS. I’m not a Holocaust denialist, a global warming denialist, or a monetary policy denialist. But I am a fiscal policy denialist and a conspiracy theory denialist, so I’m not opposed to denialism, per se.”
Now this is surely an odd statement to make, and David R. Henderson questioned Scott in the comments:
@Scott Sumner,
But I am a fiscal policy denialist and a conspiracy theory denialist
Isn’t this too broad? To deny conspiracy theories per se, you would have to deny that there have ever been conspiracies. Do you think, for example, that the 19 9/11 murderers didn’t conspire?
To which Scott responded:
“David, I meant “conspiracy theory” in the common everyday use of the term, as for instance those who claim the CIA produced the 9/11 attacks, or was behind the Kennedy assassination. You are absolutely correct that conspiracies do occur.”
So I agree with Scott that he used the term the way Americans “everyday” use it. But in this post, I want us to try to pin down exactly what types of “conspiracy theories” are classified as such.
One obvious answer is to say, “Oh, the layperson uses ‘conspiracy theory’ to mean a theory that’s palpably absurd, which only a paranoid nutjob could believe.”
But that sort of argues in a circle, doesn’t it? You might as well say, “I don’t believe in false theories,” which is great, but doesn’t tell us too much about you.
You might say, “Oh, if someone holds a theory that sinister government forces are at work behind the scenes, directing world events… That type of thing.”
Well no, because in that case all the elite people in the US would turn their noses up at the theory that Vladimir Putin and a bunch of hackers conspired to install Trump as president. And as we’ve seen, this conspiracy theory is perfectly respectable in US discourse.
You might be tempted to say, “Theories that say US government officials were the bad guys in a sinister plot” is what people mean. But no, plenty of people nowadays believe in the tale of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. That’s pretty bad, but yet if someone says, “The white man deliberately invented AIDS to hurt the black community,” most people would dismiss that as a “conspiracy theory.”
I imagine in 100 years people will openly discuss how the Secret Service aided in the assassination of JFK, and this will be regarded as a normal area of historical inquiry. But right now it’s a “conspiracy theory.”
In sum, I think the best definition of the term is, “Theories that, if widely believed, would limit the power of today’s ruling class.” Why, it’s almost like a small group of people deliberately cooked this term up in order to screw the public. I wonder…
Glenn Greenwald Is So Awesome
Just watch him–and I mean literally, watch his facial expressions–during this interview.
Potpourri
==> Tom Woods has me on his show (not to be confused with Contra Krugman) to talk about ObamaCare’s claimed success.
==> I am the Voldemort of climate change economics (i.e. this refers to me, but not by name).
==> Very interesting Jacob Hornberger article on Trump vs. the CIA.
Trump Is So Awful He Defies Reason
…from his critics, that is.
I really didn’t expect that in 2017, I would bother commenting on Scott Sumner’s crusade against Donald Trump. But after reading a recent post from Scott, I can’t help myself, and I can only hope that you will see why.
On January 10, Scott opened a post like this: “There is no issue that Trump emphasized more than having Mexico pay for a new border wall. The suggestion always got huge applause from his crowds. Now there are disturbing signs that America’s Congress is about to ignore the will of the voters, and spend $38 billion on a boondoggle that no one seriously expects to work. So sad!!”
Good one, Scott, except I have been blessed (cursed?) with a good memory, so I knew it would be fun to go dig up this post from Scott, from Nov. 22, when he told us: “Of all the issues that Trump campaigned on, none got more emphasis that his promise to persecute, I mean to prosecute Hillary and send her to jail. He was quite passionate on what he would do to that “nasty woman”. But when a con man appears passionate, that really doesn’t tell you anything about whether he actually cares about the issue:” (And then Scott quoted from a news story saying that Trump probably wouldn’t prosecute Clinton.)
Look at the first two sentences. They are identical phrasing, except one is the passive and one is the active voice. Instead of merely saying, “Trump is backing off a campaign pledge,” Scott both times had to assure us that Trump was backing off his most important pledge. And presumably if Trump doesn’t end up erecting a huge tariff against China, Scott would complain, “There was no issue that Trump emphasized more than reducing the trade deficit with China. And yet today we read at Bloomberg…”
But of course, my observations here are silly. For people who really despise Trump, it’s not even necessary to use reason when attacking him. You probably think I’m engaging in hyperbole. Not at all. In the Jan. 10 post, Scott goes on to say:
Trump fans think Obama had nothing to do with the massive rise in the S&P from the lows of roughly 700, but Trump definitely caused the small (roughly 6%) rise since the November election (black dot to yellow dot.)
Here is what I believe:
1. They may well be right.
2. They have not presented any persuasive evidence that they are correct.
In other words, you Trumpistas may be right, but don’t expect any non-Trumpistas to believe it. Just take a look at the graph, and you can see how absurd the claim seems.
Now you might reply that this is a superficial criticism, and that sophisticated analysis shows that Trump helped the stock market but Obama did not. But Trump is all about superficial, and completely rejects sophisticated analysis, of any sort. This is the guy who picked Peter Navarro to advise him on trade. [Bold added.]
When I was originally reading Scott’s post, before I hit the part that I’ve bolded above, I had been toying with the idea of using previous Sumner blog posts to establish that Trump fans are on solid ground for thinking: (a) Obama’s policies aren’t responsible for the rise in the stock market since 2009, and (b) Trump (and his Cabinet picks) are largely responsible for the rise in the market since the election. That would be pretty funny, right? If I used Scott’s own blog posts to show that the Trump fans weren’t being silly for believing the views he seemed to be mocking?
But, when I hit the part that I’ve put in bold above, I knew it would be a waste of time. Scott literally argued that one is not allowed to use sophisticated analysis to refute a superficial critique of Trump.
Last thing: I understand that some people really, utterly, despise Trump–this isn’t a mere issue of having different political views. Fine. And further, if ranting about him relieves stress, and you don’t care whether it does yourself long-term damage, then that’s fine–it’s like taking up smoking to get through these 4 (or 8) years for you. But don’t kid yourself that it’s healthy. Let me reproduce a fantastic passage from Glenn Greenwald’s column about the CNN/BuzzFeed fiasco:
[T]here is no bigger favor that Trump opponents can do for him than attacking him with such lowly, shabby, obvious shams, recruiting large media outlets to lead the way. When it comes time to expose actual Trump corruption and criminality, who is going to believe the people and institutions who have demonstrated they are willing to endorse any assertions no matter how factually baseless, who deploy any journalistic tactic no matter how unreliable and removed from basic means of ensuring accuracy?
Potpourri
==> Rob Bradley talks about Exxon and its support for a carbon tax. (Did you know that?)
==> Very interesting Reason podcast with Glenn Greenwald. Note in particular how Greenwald (and I believe Snowden also) disagree with Assange’s policy to just dump everything on WikiLeaks, as opposed to the way Greenwald and Snowden carefully released only portions of stuff to try to protect privacy.
==> This Greenwald piece is GREAT if you want to see the timeline of the saucy allegations about Trump. In particular, you should know that this “dossier” had been making the rounds for months, and no media outlet would touch it until 2 days ago. Greenwald tells the story. The Guardian explains the role John McCain played in the tale.
==> When JRR Tolkien bet CS Lewis: The outcome was way better than when I bet David R. Henderson.
==> An interesting post at FEE from Dan Sanchez on Bitcoin and the regression theorem. Also see my discussion here (just search for “regression”).
==> IER and my Senate testimony (though I’m not named) is part of a brewing debate on the “social cost of carbon.”
The Reason Contra Krugman Was Invented
As many of you know, on Monday the NYT published a Paul Krugman column titled “Deficits Matter Again.” That meant I was up till 2am assembling this blog post (which analyzed every Krugman column dealing with “deficits” or “borrow” in 2016), so that the next day Tom and I could be fully informed as we recorded this podcast episode.
Some highlights:
11:30 I agree with Krugman that most Republican politicians are no doubt hypocritical on deficits, but I make the theoretical point that one could (a) favor large tax rate reductions, even if not immediately matched by equal spending cuts, while (b) also genuinely opposing deficits. It’s just that sometimes two goals conflict with each other. So the fact that Republicans were opposed to “Obama boondoggles that will rack up debt” doesn’t prohibit them from supporting “tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy and increase the debt” today.
13:15 I outline the strategy in the podcast: We will first look at the two specific things that Krugman said have changed, such that now deficits matter (whereas deficits allegedly didn’t matter all during the Obama years). Specifically, Krugman says that wage growth is now the highest it’s been since the crisis, and that quit rates are back to pre-crisis levels.
14:25 I show that wage growth is, yes, the highest during Obama terms: Specifically, it was 2.9% in December. But it was 2.8% back in October. So this is not new.
15:40 More damning, yes quit rates are at pre-crisis levels, at 2.1% (the November reading). But the quit rate was 2.1% all the way back through June. So again, nothing new here.
19:00 Tom and I discuss Rand Paul, who was complaining about the Republican budget that adds $9 trillion to the debt in 10 years. Oddly, Krugman’s column contains no praise for Rand’s courage and consistency.
19:55 Tom mentions the 2010 Econ Journal Watch article which finds that Krugman is superlative in his partisanship regarding deficits. (NOTE: I read this article a while ago, so I don’t remember the specifics. Presumably the smoking gun is how Krugman was flipping out during the W. years about interest rates getting ready to spike due to deficit spending, versus his mocking of the “bond vigilantes” during Obama years.)
21:35 I explain the big project for this podcast (which again, shows up in this blog post). We got someone (Jeremy Wagner) to go through all of Krugman’s op eds from 2016, flagging any that contained “deficit” or “borrow.” Then I read each one to see if Krugman had ever started moving from his position on deficits. Quick answer: nope.
23:55 I remind everyone of Krugman’s April 2016 column in which he endorsed the theory that the world needed more “safe assets” in the form of government debt. So as recently as last April, Krugman was saying more government debt per se would be a good thing; this wasn’t merely a call for infrastructure spending that might as well be funded by deficits.
28:10 I read from the most smoking of all smoking gun columns: In this November 14, 2016 op ed Krugman recalls the dark days of the financial crisis, and then explicitly says that his “depression economics” analysis still applies, as of Nov. 14 (though not as strongly). Thus, for Krugman now to be claiming that deficits no longer matter, the case for deficits has flipped IN EIGHT WEEKS. Amazing.
31:00 I confess to Tom that I’m surprised Krugman acknowledged (in this Nov. 14 column) that Trump would actually give us a poorly designed fiscal stimulus.
33:00 I offer a cynical theory to explain this refreshing consistency from Krugman.
42:30 We tackle the very notion that there is a “depression economics” in which deficits don’t matter.
46:50 We talk about the Depression of 1920-21.
This will possibly go into the Media Hall of Fame as the most definitive Contra Krugman episode of all time, so you should go ahead and just listen to the thing.
Contra Krugman Ep. 68: Krugman on Corruption
This was a fun one. At the suggestion of David R. Henderson, I’ll do outlines of the podcast here on my blog, so that people can zoom in to a particular segment if they’re too busy to listen to the whole thing. (However, I really think you should just treat yourself to the entirety of each and every episode.)
8:30 We point out the double standard on insults by the Left. E.g. it’s fine to make fun of Trump’s personal appearance, or to call Ann Coulter misogynist terms.
9:10 Tom and I discuss the horrible state of our country, which is now facing the prospect of foreign diplomats changing hotel reservations.
10:25 Once again, Krugman makes a claim about a person, then links to a news story quoting someone who denies the allegation.
12:10 Tom does some outside research to find out just how corrupt the Trump picks are. Not much there, there.
18:30 I explain that I was going to give Krugman a +1 for a good zinger against Kudlow…except that when you click through, you find that Krugman totally mischaracterized Kudlow’s argument.
23:00 We talk about the allegedly pro-Trump media.
CORRECTION: I erroneously say that Edward Snowden’s leaks about NSA mass surveillance were distributed through WikiLeaks. Nope, it was through The Guardian originally (via Glenn Greenwald).
28:00 I mention Gene Callahan’s interesting suggestion that Trump has to surround himself with other rich guys because the establishment is set to take him out.
32:00 I use a “Friends” episode to motivate Mises’ point on corruption.
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