While searching for information about job creation numbers during the Great Depression, I stumbled across this excellent video from Reason TV:
Showing posts with label the Obama economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Obama economy. Show all posts
Monday, November 08, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Grading PolitiFact: President Obama and job loss timing
Does it take want-to in order for a journalist to ignore an inconvenient underlying argument?
The fact checkers:
Martha Hamilton: writer, researcher
Bill Adair: editor
Analysis:
PolitiFacter Martha Hamilton wrote a fact check relating to President Obama's recent appearance on the Jon Stewart Show. Note that the second quoted paragraph implicitly acknowledges an implicit, or underlying, argument from the president:
Beware, dear reader.
Though Hamilton skipped quickly past, Obama did present an underlying argument with his above statement. That is, since most of the jobs lost since he took office occurred before his economic policies were put in place, therefore (probably) his economic policies were responsible for slowing the loss of employment. But recessions are part of the business cycle, so purported explanations should receive careful examination and correlations examined closely before concluding causation.
PolitiFact will not be conducting any kind of examination of the correlations other than to determine whether they exist in the first place. We'll follow Hamilton through the disturbingly brief process:
What about the claims PolitiFact posted to the item description, like "Most of the jobs we lost were lost were lost before the economic policies we put in place went into effect"? Based on the stats Obama mentioned, it makes sense to take the lost jobs Obama talks about as jobs lost after he took office and before his policies went into effect.
It's unclear whether Hamilton sees it the same way:
PolitiFact's numbers from the Bureau of Labor statistics showed "around 700,000" jobs lost in Jan. 2009. Obama claimed 650,000. I'm not sure of the exact source of either figure. I constructed a graph using the BLS's monthly employment press releases (like this one). The figure for Feb. 2009 was 651,000--very close to the figure Obama offered for January. Was that his source? I don't know. Regardless, here's the graph (click to enlarge):
But there's a problem. By taking credit for the job losses from March through April, the president puts himself on the hook for 1.9 million jobs lost (at least for the set of figures I'm using). That compares to 1.95 million for the first three months according to the figures Obama used--barely "most," though pro-rating the numbers would give him a beneficial cushion. And if Obama was to say that it took longer for his policies to take effect then they're going into effect after the job loss numbers have already begun to trend downward. The latter doesn't lead to a strong inference toward his policies as the reason for the reversal of the trend.
Where does this leave us in terms of fact checking? Hamilton may be right that Obama is claiming that most of the jobs lost during the recession occurred before his policies went into effect. That makes for a very weak implicit underlying argument, so I think it charitable to believe that Obama is arguing that while on his watch most of the job losses occurred before his policies were implemented. The figures I used total 1.91 million jobs lost for the first three months of his administration. That's slightly less than half the total of 1.94 million lost since that time under Obama. It's very close, then, and another set of figures might show the president correct--barely--and with a slightly improved but still weak inference in support of the effectiveness of his policies. The literal statement is probably true and the underlying argument is dubious.
Martha Hamilton: F
Bill Adair: F
I fault both PolitiFacters for ignoring the alternate interpretation of Obama's statement and the underlying argument. Plus the citations were not nearly as helpful to readers as they might have been.
I've been surprised at how difficult it is to locate graphic material on job loss trends. I'll probably pretty up the data I've collected and start performing updates like I did for the Iraq War casualties.
Nov. 8, 2010: Deleted "drop in" where it preceded "job losses" in the second paragraph of analysis following the graph. The original wording created something like a double negative.
Nov. 29, 2010: Corrected spelling of Jon Stewart's name, omitting the "h" from his first name. Also removed a sentence fragment for which I could no longer recall the completed version (second paragraph following the graph). Reworked the second paragraph following the graph to assist coherence.
The issue:
The fact checkers:
Martha Hamilton: writer, researcher
Bill Adair: editor
Analysis:
PolitiFacter Martha Hamilton wrote a fact check relating to President Obama's recent appearance on the Jon Stewart Show. Note that the second quoted paragraph implicitly acknowledges an implicit, or underlying, argument from the president:
"We lost 4 million jobs before I was sworn in; 750,000 the month I was sworn in; 600,000, the month after that; 600,000 the month after that. So most of the jobs that we lost were lost before the economic policies we put in place had any effect."Who deserves blame for the nation's high unemployment rate? Do Obama's numbers have any particular bearing on that? Hamilton doesn't hazard a guess. But it must have a direct bearing if PolitiFact bothers with a fact check without explaining that the policy implication doesn't follow. Right?
Candidates have sparred endlessly over who deserves the blame for the nation’s high unemployment rate -- 9.6 percent in the latest tally. After the Daily Show interview, one of our readers asked us to check Obama's numbers. So we decided to take a look.
Beware, dear reader.
Though Hamilton skipped quickly past, Obama did present an underlying argument with his above statement. That is, since most of the jobs lost since he took office occurred before his economic policies were put in place, therefore (probably) his economic policies were responsible for slowing the loss of employment. But recessions are part of the business cycle, so purported explanations should receive careful examination and correlations examined closely before concluding causation.
PolitiFact will not be conducting any kind of examination of the correlations other than to determine whether they exist in the first place. We'll follow Hamilton through the disturbingly brief process:
We found a match: Looking at BLS data on seasonally adjusted non-farm employment from December 2007, when the recession officially began, to January 2009, the month before the stimulus was enacted (a 25-month period), the jobs number declined by 4.4 million. So Obama’s first number was right, although he could have been clearer about the time frame.This so-called match doesn't have much to do with the underlying argument noted above. It has more to do with a different underlying argument (Bush's fault). Since that number is relatively meaningless there's not much point in double-checking it. It's not controversial that many jobs were lost at the tail end of the Bush administration, and those occurred owing to a complex set of causes.
What about the claims PolitiFact posted to the item description, like "Most of the jobs we lost were lost were lost before the economic policies we put in place went into effect"? Based on the stats Obama mentioned, it makes sense to take the lost jobs Obama talks about as jobs lost after he took office and before his policies went into effect.
It's unclear whether Hamilton sees it the same way:
When he refers to his economic policies, we presume he is referring to his main economic stimulus, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It passed in February 2009, but it took several months before the impact of its spending was felt in the economy.Hamilton provides information relevant to the issue I identified, but does not appear to address Obama's claim. Instead of comparing 4.4 million lost jobs attributed to Bush to the 2.6 million lost under Obama, she ought to have compared job losses under Obama prior to implementation of his economic policies to job losses after implementing those policies.
Job loss didn’t stop, but Obama is right that it slowed down. In the 19 months from February 2009 through September 2010, the month of the most recent preliminary data, the overall job decline in the private and public sectors was 2.6 million. And the number of jobs lost per month has declined from around 700,000 a month at the beginning of the administration to months in which there were small net gains. Since May, however, the losses -- albeit smaller ones -- have returned, giving Republicans fresh ammunition. For example, payroll employment dropped 57,000 between July and August 2010.
PolitiFact's numbers from the Bureau of Labor statistics showed "around 700,000" jobs lost in Jan. 2009. Obama claimed 650,000. I'm not sure of the exact source of either figure. I constructed a graph using the BLS's monthly employment press releases (like this one). The figure for Feb. 2009 was 651,000--very close to the figure Obama offered for January. Was that his source? I don't know. Regardless, here's the graph (click to enlarge):
- The skinny vertical red line represents Obama taking office.
- The skinny vertical blue line represents passage of the economic stimulus bill.
- The transparent red block represents a period greater than two months but less than many (the definition of "several," following the reasoning offered above by Hamilton. Feel free to imagine it stretching further to the right to match your expectation for less than "many."
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics credits over 400,000 of the April 2010 jobs to temporary work with the Census Bureau. In short, the high spike is because of the Census.
But there's a problem. By taking credit for the job losses from March through April, the president puts himself on the hook for 1.9 million jobs lost (at least for the set of figures I'm using). That compares to 1.95 million for the first three months according to the figures Obama used--barely "most," though pro-rating the numbers would give him a beneficial cushion. And if Obama was to say that it took longer for his policies to take effect then they're going into effect after the job loss numbers have already begun to trend downward. The latter doesn't lead to a strong inference toward his policies as the reason for the reversal of the trend.
Where does this leave us in terms of fact checking? Hamilton may be right that Obama is claiming that most of the jobs lost during the recession occurred before his policies went into effect. That makes for a very weak implicit underlying argument, so I think it charitable to believe that Obama is arguing that while on his watch most of the job losses occurred before his policies were implemented. The figures I used total 1.91 million jobs lost for the first three months of his administration. That's slightly less than half the total of 1.94 million lost since that time under Obama. It's very close, then, and another set of figures might show the president correct--barely--and with a slightly improved but still weak inference in support of the effectiveness of his policies. The literal statement is probably true and the underlying argument is dubious.
The grades:
Martha Hamilton: F
Bill Adair: F
I fault both PolitiFacters for ignoring the alternate interpretation of Obama's statement and the underlying argument. Plus the citations were not nearly as helpful to readers as they might have been.
Afters:
I've been surprised at how difficult it is to locate graphic material on job loss trends. I'll probably pretty up the data I've collected and start performing updates like I did for the Iraq War casualties.
Nov. 8, 2010: Deleted "drop in" where it preceded "job losses" in the second paragraph of analysis following the graph. The original wording created something like a double negative.
Nov. 29, 2010: Corrected spelling of Jon Stewart's name, omitting the "h" from his first name. Also removed a sentence fragment for which I could no longer recall the completed version (second paragraph following the graph). Reworked the second paragraph following the graph to assist coherence.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Grading PolitiFact: Does Warren Buffett support Obama?
Fact-checking the Fact-checkers
The issue:
A statement made by President Obama to Steve Croft during a "60 Minutes" interview:
The fact checkers:
Alexander Lane seems to have put very little effort into this entry. For Lane, perhaps, it was an open-and-shut case so there was little to be gained by giving the facts any close examination. After noting what President Obama said during his interview with Steve Croft, Lane moves immediately toward resolution:
Identification of the intended sense of a term stands as the key to evaluating the accuracy of claims. What was the original context? Kroft introduces the root word:
Obama interrupts Kroft:
So let's continue the examination after getting one thing out of the way: Kroft acknowledged Buffett's support of Obama. Obama was right to note Buffett's support in the same generalized sense as Kroft meant it. And Buffett does continue to support Obama in that generalized sense.
PolitiFact researcher Alexander Lane provides adequate proof of the above with the initial quotation he provides:
Rather than putting to rest Buffett's criticisms of Obama's economic policy, this exchange makes clear that Buffett had two principal criticisms of Obama. One, that his practical emphasis was misguided. Two, that the president's handling of the crisis in terms of public relations was a failure. The second stands as an important point because public attitude toward the economy holds a strong influence over the economy.
Buffett was saying, in effect, that Obama was blundering in two ways, and Buffett, in effect, was willing to forgive the first if Obama would correct the second.
Lane's treatment of the quotation is adequate to communicate what Buffett was saying if one is relatively in tune with the backstory, but could easily mislead people who were less familiar with Buffett's opinions on the economic crisis. Nothing quoted by Lane diminishes in any respect Buffett's two fundamental criticisms of Obama's economic policy.
1) Buffett does not support bailing out the failing financial institutions*
2) Buffett does not support bad presidential communications on economic issues*
*things Obama is/was doing
The way Lane tells the story perpetuates confusion about different types of support. To whatever extent Obama was trying to substitute generalized support for specific support of economic policies, the president was guilty of deceitful communication.
Given Obama's interruption of Kroft, there is sufficient evidence to see beyond what is suggested by the plain meaning and infer that Obama had a dubious argument implicit in his response to Kroft. PolitiFact should have graded Obama "Mostly True" and emphasized the distinction between general support and specific support for the handling of the current economic situation.
Lane failed in that:
The Grade:
The grade for Lane and Adair: F+
Mar 24, 2009: corrected spelling of "principal"
The issue:
A statement made by President Obama to Steve Croft during a "60 Minutes" interview:
Does Warren Buffet still support Obama?"Your plan really for solving the banking crisis was met with very, very, very tepid response," Kroft said to Obama. "A lot of people said they didn't understand it. A lot of people said it didn't have any, enough details to solve the problem. I know you're coming out with something next week on this. But these criticisms were coming from people like Warren Buffett, people who had supported you, and you had counted as being your..."
"And Warren still does support me," Obama interjected. "But I think that, understand, Warren's also a big player in the financial markets who's a major owner of Wells Fargo. And so he's got a perspective from the perspective of somebody who is part owner of a bank.
(PolitiFact)
The fact checkers:
- Alexander Lane (writer, researcher)
- Bill Adair (editor)
Alexander Lane seems to have put very little effort into this entry. For Lane, perhaps, it was an open-and-shut case so there was little to be gained by giving the facts any close examination. After noting what President Obama said during his interview with Steve Croft, Lane moves immediately toward resolution:
Buffett, who endorsed Obama during the campaign, did explicitly say during a three-hour interview March 9 with CNBC that he still supports Obama.OK, break.
Identification of the intended sense of a term stands as the key to evaluating the accuracy of claims. What was the original context? Kroft introduces the root word:
But these criticisms were coming from people like Warren Buffett, people who had supported you, and you had counted as being your--Kroft, it seems, uses the term in its generic sense of broadly supporting a candidate. He uses Buffett's support of Obama as a point of contrast to emphasize the broad based nature of criticisms of Obama on economic policy.
Obama interrupts Kroft:
And-- and-- and-- and Warren still does support me. But I think that understand Warren's also a big player in the financial markets who's a major owner of Wells Fargo. And so he's got a perspective from the perspective of somebody who-- is part owner of a bank.As with Kroft's use of "supported," I think Obama's is the generic sense of generalized support. Obama's interruption of Kroft, however, produces an impression of defensiveness. Perhaps the president was concerned that viewers would think that Buffett was critical of his economic policies? If that were the case, and I do not know that it is, then Obama may be guilty of throwing up a bit of a smokescreen. And that is the only scenario in which I can conceive of this episode being worthy of the effort of fact-checking.
So let's continue the examination after getting one thing out of the way: Kroft acknowledged Buffett's support of Obama. Obama was right to note Buffett's support in the same generalized sense as Kroft meant it. And Buffett does continue to support Obama in that generalized sense.
PolitiFact researcher Alexander Lane provides adequate proof of the above with the initial quotation he provides:
"I voted for Obama and I strongly support him, and I think he's the right guy," Buffett said early in the interview.Lane also treats the more convoluted issue that I identified above as he continues to quote Buffett. First, the PolitiFact version:
Buffett did criticize Obama's handling of the banking crisis, saying that "a bank that's going to go broke should be allowed to go broke," as long as the depositors are protected. (Obama's approach has leaned toward giving the banks more bailout money in some form rather than letting them fail and having the government take them over.)Lane opens up a big can of worms with this quotation. Take a look at a more complete version of that interview exchange:
But Buffett's primary concern was that Obama wasn't communicating clearly with the public about struggling banks. "The right answer for me (to the banking crisis) is the president to clarify things as only he can, because you have heard so many different things," he said. "He is the commander in chief on this, and it has to be clarified...because if people aren't clear, they're going to be confused. And if they're going to be confused, they are going to be scared stiff. And that has to end."
(bold emphasis added)
BECKY: There was the idea that maybe they should just be buying shares outright. There's the idea of nationalization out there. What's the right answer?The key graph, of course, is Becky Quick's excellent follow up to Buffett's answer, "you make it sound almost like it doesn't matter what he says, as long as he picks one of those."BUFFETT: The right answer--the right answer for me is the president to clarify things as only he can, because you have heard so many different things. And, you know, they're doing their best to communicate, but the person that the people of the United States gave their trust to not that long ago was Barack Obama. He speaks very well. He has--he is the commander in chief on this, and it has to be clarified. Like I say, the head of the New York Fed gave a talk, explained a lot of it, but nobody's going to pay that much attention to what he says. You need the president of the United States to make it very clear. Because if people aren't clear, they're going to be confused. And if they're going to be confused, they are going to be scared stiff. And that has to end.
BECKY: Does that--you make it sound almost like it doesn't matter what he says, as long as he picks one of those.
BUFFETT: Well, it matters...
BECKY: That's--you've got to--you've got to be leaning one direction.
(CNBC)
Rather than putting to rest Buffett's criticisms of Obama's economic policy, this exchange makes clear that Buffett had two principal criticisms of Obama. One, that his practical emphasis was misguided. Two, that the president's handling of the crisis in terms of public relations was a failure. The second stands as an important point because public attitude toward the economy holds a strong influence over the economy.
Buffett was saying, in effect, that Obama was blundering in two ways, and Buffett, in effect, was willing to forgive the first if Obama would correct the second.
Lane's treatment of the quotation is adequate to communicate what Buffett was saying if one is relatively in tune with the backstory, but could easily mislead people who were less familiar with Buffett's opinions on the economic crisis. Nothing quoted by Lane diminishes in any respect Buffett's two fundamental criticisms of Obama's economic policy.
1) Buffett does not support bailing out the failing financial institutions*
2) Buffett does not support bad presidential communications on economic issues*
*things Obama is/was doing
The way Lane tells the story perpetuates confusion about different types of support. To whatever extent Obama was trying to substitute generalized support for specific support of economic policies, the president was guilty of deceitful communication.
Given Obama's interruption of Kroft, there is sufficient evidence to see beyond what is suggested by the plain meaning and infer that Obama had a dubious argument implicit in his response to Kroft. PolitiFact should have graded Obama "Mostly True" and emphasized the distinction between general support and specific support for the handling of the current economic situation.
Lane failed in that:
Toward the end of the three-hour interview, Buffett reiterated his support for Obama. "He is the right president," Buffett said. "He's very, very smart. He's got, I think, exactly the right goals. He's articulate and I -- you know, he will be the right person to be the commander in chief in this economic crisis."Though Lane's eventual determination is not far removed from the one I would have reached, his methods were unacceptably careless. This PolitiFact entry is more rehabilitation than fact-checking, as when Lane parrots Obama's psychologizing of Buffett (not a facet I spent time on in my analysis, but it's there).
So clearly Obama was on solid ground touting Buffett's continued support. We find this claim to be True.
The Grade:
The grade for Lane and Adair: F+
Mar 24, 2009: corrected spelling of "principal"
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Jim Geraghty pops the question on the Hugh Hewitt Show (Updated)
"When is it Obama's economy?"
No kidding, I was poised to pose that exact question here yesterday. Jim Geraghty dedicated a portion of Hugh Hewitt's radio show to the issue last night. Unfortunately, I only heard conservatives suggesting that Obama owns the economy right now. I think the answers from liberals and true Obamaniacs would be more interesting. We might see more stuff like a line from this letter sent by Anne Marie Jorgensen to the St. Petersburg Times:
One might hedge and refrain from calling this the Obama economy simply because the government hasn't assumed the type of control of the economy that Obama envisions in his plans. And that might take years.
And again on the other hand, making great big plans for change is exactly the sort of thing that makes Wall Street nervous in ways that shrink the value of markets.
That aspect of our picture serves up a harrowing conspiratorialist's view. The pain of going through the reworking of the economy beats down the economy to the point where any kind of stability--even a stability built on a degraded foundation--may result in the appearance of improvement.
Think of it like chemotherapy. The treatment usually degrades the appearance of the patient. Of course, with cancer treatment that effect is understood. In the current case, many are arguing that any difficulties the economy is experiencing are caused by the cancer (Bush).
I think Obama has had economics explained to him to the point that he knows markets abhor uncertainty. If he persists in blaming his predecessor when the markets balk at his policies, then I suggest it fits well with the picture of Obama as the bad type of Wilsonian demagogue. He would, in effect, be deliberately misleading the American people in order to fulfill his vision for the United States.
Update:
The Wall Street Journal had the same question in mind and published a poll on the topic the same day I posted this thread.
I've had trouble locating the full version, but Susan Davis has the skinny.
The poll focuses on the point at which the president is mostly responsible for the state of the economy. That's a slippery definition, in my opinion.
No kidding, I was poised to pose that exact question here yesterday. Jim Geraghty dedicated a portion of Hugh Hewitt's radio show to the issue last night. Unfortunately, I only heard conservatives suggesting that Obama owns the economy right now. I think the answers from liberals and true Obamaniacs would be more interesting. We might see more stuff like a line from this letter sent by Anne Marie Jorgensen to the St. Petersburg Times:
President Obama is in earnest about righting our toppled monument to world power, but he cannot, in just a few months, right all the wrongs that took eight years to establish under the direction of the other political party.The issue has some depth. After all, it is true that the economy will continue to feature President Bush's handiwork for some time into the following administration--along with features crafted by a Democrat-controlled Congress over the past two years. On the other hand, Obama has a significant influence on the economy even before he takes office based on the things he says and the market's reaction to his words and proposed policies.
One might hedge and refrain from calling this the Obama economy simply because the government hasn't assumed the type of control of the economy that Obama envisions in his plans. And that might take years.
And again on the other hand, making great big plans for change is exactly the sort of thing that makes Wall Street nervous in ways that shrink the value of markets.
That aspect of our picture serves up a harrowing conspiratorialist's view. The pain of going through the reworking of the economy beats down the economy to the point where any kind of stability--even a stability built on a degraded foundation--may result in the appearance of improvement.
Think of it like chemotherapy. The treatment usually degrades the appearance of the patient. Of course, with cancer treatment that effect is understood. In the current case, many are arguing that any difficulties the economy is experiencing are caused by the cancer (Bush).
I think Obama has had economics explained to him to the point that he knows markets abhor uncertainty. If he persists in blaming his predecessor when the markets balk at his policies, then I suggest it fits well with the picture of Obama as the bad type of Wilsonian demagogue. He would, in effect, be deliberately misleading the American people in order to fulfill his vision for the United States.
Update:
The Wall Street Journal had the same question in mind and published a poll on the topic the same day I posted this thread.
I've had trouble locating the full version, but Susan Davis has the skinny.
The poll focuses on the point at which the president is mostly responsible for the state of the economy. That's a slippery definition, in my opinion.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)