At 01:48 PM 3/6/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote:
>> At 04:11 PM 3/2/2004 -0600 Dan Minette wrote:
>> >> Clearly, the 90's were unusual.
>> >
>> >In some ways, but not in employment. The job growth from '92 to '00 was
>> >21%. The average job growth over 8 years, since the '40-'48 comparison,
>> >was 18%: higher than average, but not unusual. The sixties saw far
>higher
>> >growth than this, peaking out over '61 to '69, with a 30% job growth.
>Even
>> >'72 to '80 saw better job growth than '92 to '00, at 23%.
>>
>> I'm sorry Dan, but I suspect that you could not find a single PhD
>economist
>> who would agree with your assertion that the 1990's were, quote, "not
>> unusual in employment."
>
>> This is what I mean about playing "fast and loose with the numbers."
>> You toss a lot of numbers out here, and reach a conclusion that is the
>> economic equivalent of "the world is only 15,000 years old" . There
>is
>> simply no serious economist who agrees with you on this Dan.
>
>Fine. Give me the ecconomic equivalant.......
In any Economics 101 textbook, you will find a concept called the
"Non-Accelerating Inflation Unemployment Rate", or NAIRU. This is
considered by economists to be the lowest sustainable rate of unemployment
without increasing the rate of inflation.
The most recent textbook I consulted on this topic, published in the late
1990's, called 6.0% the "canonical" NAIRU. I suspect that there are few,
if any, economics textbooks that would identify a NAIRU below 5.0%, with
most opting for a NAIRU range of 5.0-5.5% or 5.0-6.0%.
According to any economist, the unemployment rates that were so
substantially below the NAIRU were unusual - all the moreso when one
considers that it was combined with such relatively low inflation.
I'm sorry having "called you out" like that, but it was mostly me lashing
out in frustration. I find it extremely frustrating that you
consistently are posting economic statistics that all, amazingly enough,
reach the same conclusion: that Republicans are disastrous and that
Democrats are wonderful. Actually, its probably more specific than that:
it's that Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Bush were disastrous and that
Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton were wonderful. Moreover, it makes
me very frustrated that I perceive you as trading on your expertise in the
unrelated field physics, to make your analysis (which I usually find to be
quite flawed) and your conclusions (which I usually find to be quite
spurious) more believable - while at the same time continuing to suggest
that Economics is not useful for drawing specific conclusions or
predictions, and that in fact, economic data is pretty much only useful for
supporting whatever you want to believe. Anyhow, I apologize for that....
there were much more polite ways for me to correct your analysis without
"calling you out."
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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