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they've kept on publishing "deficit hawk" conservatives throughout the Bush years, which were often stingingly critical of Bush's budget practices. These, at least, have some claim to intellectual consistency, and they did stand out in the WSJ pages back then (now, of course, they are an easy source of attacks on Obama, and they will naturally claim that this year's deficits' are Obama's alone)

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Fri Jun 5th, 2009 at 01:43:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm sorry, but no: That's utter nonsense, J.  The WSJ was not run by deficit hawks.  It's been run by batshit crazy supply-siders the entire time.  Do you not remember their "Laffer Curve" column?

Now, as someone who knows plenty of stats, you also know that this is probably the single most dishonest, laughable graph ever published in a major newspaper.  "If only the Dems would quit being a bunch of commies and cut corporate tax rates by ten points, the revenue would come pouring in.  Just like Norway!

The Journal supported all of the adventures of Chimp McFlightsuit and Pencil Dick.  It supported the tax cuts, the wars (and their privatization through mercenaries), the attempt to waste $2tn privatizing Social Security, and on and on.

If these guys aren't neolibs, I don't know who could possibly qualify anymore.

Deficit hawks?  We'd have long since collapsed if we'd followed the WSJ.  Those idiots are even more out to lunch than the last administration was.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin

by Drew J Jones (myfriends@thisispancakes.com) on Fri Jun 5th, 2009 at 08:50:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I fully agree on the overall diagnosis, but I maintain that they allowed a persistent minority voice (the "traditional conservative") to express itself on a fairly regular basis - enough to say that these conservatives still existed, but obviously not enough to claim that they had any influence on Republican thought or policies.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Fri Jun 5th, 2009 at 09:32:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]
In a similar fashion, Barron's would run bearish contrarian pieces by Alan Abelson while most of the rest of the weekly was roaringly bullish.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Fri Jun 5th, 2009 at 11:23:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
looking at that curve more closely, what's most striking is how close to each other the US and France are on it.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Fri Jun 5th, 2009 at 03:52:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I deconstructed that graph here.

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat Jun 6th, 2009 at 06:18:58 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I made a small data extractor, once upon a time. It is now located here: Data Extractor. It is manual. I.e. you have to click axis limits to set the scale, and then click the datapoints to get their coordinates.

You may find it useful if you ever want to do this kind of exercise again.

by someone (s0me1smail(a)gmail(d)com) on Sat Jun 6th, 2009 at 09:06:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]


If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat Jun 6th, 2009 at 03:49:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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