I am always fascinated by

Richard Day — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:47:24 +0000

In reply to Is Our Columnists Learning?

I am always fascinated by this argument as presented by 'conservatives'.

By about 1940 with 'Lend Lease' the government began to take over the means of production in this country.

GM you are not going to make cars anymore (how many American Cars were manufactured between 1941 and 1946?)

Ford, we want tanks.

Chrysler, hell we love them jeeps.

IBM and you other capitalists out there, you no longer own anything in NAZI occupied Europe and you are going to contribute to the war effort! today.

The way they kept statistics, our government was spending more than the entire capitalist mechanisms in this country were taking in--GDP.

We had 100% employment all of a sudden!

We had strict rules as far as wages and the amount of salaries the oligarchy could pay themselves.

We also did bad things, evil things. We 'rounded up' Asians as well as some Germans!

And what was the result of this socialist/military take-over?

WE ROCKED!

Domestically you forced the American Peon to have coupons in addition to money in order to purchase beef or oil or any other commodity!

We were a socialist nation aligned with the USSR! hahahahaahah

F*&k this capitalistic crap we are forced to eat via the media in this country.

This socialist system saved us, saved Europe and saved the gd world.

the end

As someone trained in the

Verified Atheist — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:33:30 +0000

In reply to Is Our Columnists Learning?

As someone trained in the "hard" sciences, part of me is sympathetic to Brooks' argument. However, I'm also familiar with the concept of "natural experiments" that you lay out so well here. As you and Brooks point out, one can't run a double-blind study using a placebo group as a control. However, one can infer some causality when looking across a variety of situations. By necessity this inference is less certain, and as Brooks suggests is more open to interpretation and bias. However, if one wants to argue the opposite point, one should show one's supporting evidence. Incidentally, this is also why meta-analysis can be so helpful, when done correctly.

dagblog - Comments for "Is Our Columnists Learning?"

I am always fascinated by

As someone trained in the