Where media define the “center” or the “middle” tells you a lot about the worldview they are promoting. The “center” doesn’t usually indicate where most of the public is, but rather where elites have determined an appropriate middle between opposing arguments. Confusing the two concepts is common (and not an accident).
That confusion was one of the main problems with the New York Times Magazine cover story by Adam Davidson (5/5/13), the host of the public radio show Planet Money.
The concept here is to compare the economic advice from two of the most prominent economists who have worked at the highest levels of government and academia: Larry Summers and Glenn Hubbard.
For those who don’t know them, Davidson gives some background: Summers has mostly advised Democrats, used to be president of Harvard and currently works in the private sector, and writes columns. He apparently represents something like the “left” in Davidson’s debate, though Davidson acknowledges that Summers is not actually held in high esteem by leftists, nor does he consider himself to be one.
Hubbard is a Republican, advised both Bushes and candidate Mitt Romney, and would have likely been Romney’s Treasury Secretary. He is currently the dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Business.
The divide between the two of them is fairly straightforward: Hubbard sees the country’s main economic threat as the runaway entitlement state. He recommends cutting taxes (mostly for the wealthy) and cutting benefits as the recipe for rebooting the American economy. Summers thinks a more appropriate focus would be on growing the economy, which would require increased public spending on things like infrastructure in order to create more jobs.
As Davidson summarizes:
The space between their views roughly defines the American center.
But does it really? Hubbard’s views are of the political right. And they come amidst plenty of controversy—which readers may have wanted to know more about.
Hubbard does a lot of work consulting for big financial institutions—relationships that came to light in the documentary Inside Job, when Hubbard testily objected to being asked questions about these obvious conflicts of interest. Filmmaker Charles Ferguson recounted the interview here, noting that Hubbard had written an op-ed arguing that the Bush tax cuts would not affect the budget surplus, and that he co-wrote a paper with the chief economist of Goldman Sachs about the beauty of derivatives capital markets.
As Rolling Stone‘s Matt Taibbi noted (12/20/12), “It was fair to ask how much Goldman’s ‘Global Markets Institute’ had to pay one of the Ivy League’s leading minds to endorse the giant daisy chains of credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations that led to the crisis.” Taibbi also points out that Hubbard was an (extremely well-compensated) adviser to the disgraced mortgage company Countrywide.
So yeah, he’s one side of the Times‘ two-sided debate over how to fix the economy. The other side is represented by someone who supports more spending to create jobs, but also believes that some cuts to so-called “entitlements” are necessary too; “it is essential but insufficient,” as Summers puts it.
Is the middle really between those two points of view? Hubbard wants to cut taxes, especially for the wealthy—even though polls show most people favor raising taxes on the wealthy. Summers wants to spend money to create jobs—which, according to many polls, is a fairly popular idea. But he also supports cutting Social Security and Medicare spending, which most people do not support. So this debate is not really an attempt to find the center in the sense of the ideas most people can agree on; it’s about arbitrarily defining the center of debate as a consensus that includes ideas that are to the right of most Americans.
Davidson, in a closing bit, writes that he had “this little fantasy” that the two would agree to “some sort of grand compromise that both parties might at least consider.” Of course, that wasn’t ever going to happen; indeed, one of the more baffling parts of the article is when Davidson spends too much time wondering how well-known economists could have such very different ideas about the world: “For two men who are so smart and analytical, neither could fully articulate how they came to understand their field in such fundamentally different ways.”
A bigger problem is this tendency to treat elite economists as if they’re impartial scientists, offering considered judgments based entirely on reason and evidence, and not based on their political views or their own self-interest. That becomes an even bigger problem when one decides that the “center” is what exists between two of them.
I too have a little fantasy, that one the American People take everyone of the would be “Lords and Kings” of the Corporations, and tie them and leave them on a island with a $20 gold piece in the middle. The last one to be left alive with the Gold Piece gets to come back and represent the Corporations in their trial “by the people” they so rudely pissed on.
[Hubbard] is currently the dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Business….Hubbard sees the country’s main economic threat as the runaway entitlement state. He recommends cutting taxes (mostly for the wealthy) and cutting benefits as the recipe for rebooting the American economy.”
And, yet, Hubbard per se is the precursor to the next generation of robber barons (‘Masters of the Universe’), ie, his charges at Columbia are in training to actualize his business code…as soon as they are vetted and released upon the global Community…
Economics is a science, but most high-profile economists aren’t scientists. They are deeply invested in their arguments and often don’t even try to be objective. There are theories that accurately model the current crisis and prescribe certain policies to alleviate it – most involve loose monetary policy and stimulus through spending and tax breaks. But for many economists, these theories simply can’t be true because that’s not how they want the world to work. No real scientist would get away with that behavior – others would test their theories and realize that they are too biased to be trusted. However, the rules appear to be different for the economists consulted by news organizations, just as they are for political pundits and other “experts”.
We are living in a plutocracy funded by a few people of inconceivable wealth who have bought off the Congress, the media and some thoroughly discredited economists. The problem has been discussed again and again; it’s time to begin suggesting solutions to it.
It’s amazes when two extremely wealthy economists agree that the one ingredient you must include in any economic plan is cutting benefits that the middle class and poor are most dependent upon.Not that the wealthy and big business should pay a fairer share of taxes.Or that the defense budget should be cut back to allow for more investment in education,research,job training and a myriad of other needs we have today.Or that corporate welfare for oil,agribusiness and other highly profitable industries are no longer serving any useful purpose.No,you won’t hear these establishment economists beholden to the corporate powers that be recommending the real changes that would turn America around.
Dennis the problem is-is that the things you presuppose will help ,will not.Yes we could re define what “your fair share is” over and over again until the government has 100% of everything(including all military assets)You could then times that by 5x and ya know what……..We STILL are not out of the woods.Like a grain of sand in an ocean.Unfortunately for people like you who equate government theft and ownership with the success of a society you are dead wrong.
We use to not have a problem with paying workers good wages for their jobs but since the corporations got greedy they have been short changing them and moving over seas. With the help of our own govt no less! As the oligarchs take control and hoard the wealth for themselves of course the standard of living will decline. It has to.
Ahh, the joys of Disaster Capitalism when it is turned against the rest of us by the Plutocrats. Just keeps on giving us the shaft.
night gaunt that is a lot of nonsense.Yeah the rich……those who succeed are greedy bastards bringing the whole world down.We should immediately tax all success and subsidize all failure,because that is the system that will lift us all to a better standard of living.Christ two words that silence all critics who lay down that this a better way> Set along the lines of socialized programs as a way forward.OBAMA CARE!What was it promised to cost?750 Billion?We are nearing two trillion.Even his own man at the helm took a quick retirement, and called it a train wreck last week.
michael e – Nobody here agrees with the nonsense you spew week after week. So why do you still bother? You aren’t convincing anyone. When will you realize it’s an exercise in futility?
Well tee jay….You remember the nonsense I spewed about tea party treatment at the hands of the IRS oh like a year ago?How about my feelings on Bengazi?You remember how I felt about Obamas treatment of whistle blowers(this week we earned he has moved against more of them than all the other presidents combined).How about my feelings on Obamas chicago thug politics leading to endless wiretaps(Associated press).How about my feelings on the funding of Obama care(next scandal coming is the shakedown of insurance companies to fund his dreams)How about DHS buying up all the ammo.Seems with all the scandals swirling and his magic touch falling like rain- i have been right and this blog sight mostly wrong.If you wanna hear me say it here it is….I TOLD YOU SO!So if its ok I will still keep telling you how it is, and you all can be stubborn lemmings jumping off the cliff with this lot.I notice his bought and payed for press is getting to the party late.Better late than never.So I’ll leave a light on for you.What a great week it has been for the validation of all conservative,tea party, constitutionalists this has been.He is a TRAIN WRECK.And yes…we told ya so!
As much as I respect Peter Hart, I was very dismayed by his naivete when It came to Larry Summers. Unfortunately I belatingly read the post a few weeks late and haven’t had time to uptate my own website 241mumber’s Rants page where I gave Rubin and Phil Gramm most credit for the deregulation of FDR’s banking laws like the Glass-Seigal Act. My eyes were opened far wider a year ago when In These Times published a remarkable article which proved that it was in fact orchestrated by none other than Summers and Tim Geithner (tho I did mention the past head of Treasury) way back in 1997!! That’s right, this was years BEFORE Obama chose the very two guys to run his first term economic team to resurrect the very folks who were most responsible for distroying the US and world economy – bankers, and Bush Republicans of course facilitated and welcomed voodoo economics of the Fed. the libor scandel, derivitives and brokarage/banking consolidation but big money rules the polytrix of one party rule… which I call BAU, meaning Business As Usual, which started with Augustus Ceaser and has never been bigger than now, as Tom Paine and Jefferson foresaw, and along with Franklin, the shedding of the constitution. Hail Obama!!