5 thoughts on “The stimulus is working…”

1. Because unemployment is at a 26-year high the stimulus is not working? Whether or not the stimulus is working this argument is, to use your favorite pejorative, silly.

   In other news:

   http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/science/earth/04arctic.html?_r=1&hpw

2. I didn’t write that the stimulus wasn’t working.

   As Richard Posner recently wrote, “No one has the faintest idea what effect the stimulus has had.” http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/richard_posner/2009/08/honesty_about_the_stimulus.php That’s why I have a hard time taking Biden’s claims seriously that the stimulus is “lifting the economy” when unemployment is getting worse.

   In January, Obama’s economic adviser, Christie Romer was claiming that unemployment would rise to 9% without the stimulus but that a large stimulus would halt the rise in unemployment at less than 8%. http://otrans.3cdn.net/45593e8ecbd339d074_l3m6bt1te.pdf

   I can’t take politicians claims seriously that the stimulus is working when their predictions have been proved wrong so far.

3. As for the article about the arctic, that paper has been criticized for misusing data, including using a temperature series upside down. http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6932

   Here’s Steve McIntyre’s take:

   The most cursory examination of Kaufman et al shows the usual problem of picking proxies ex post: e.g. the exclusion of the Mount Logan ice core and Jellybean Lake sediment series; or the selection of Yamal rather than Polar Urals – a problem that is even pernicious because of the failure to archive “bad” results (e.g. Thompson’s Bona-Churchill or Jacoby’s “we’re paid to tell a story”). Until these problems are rooted out, it’s hard to place much weight on any HS reconstruction.

4. Wasn’t I told way back in undergrad econ that unemployment is a lagging indicator?

5. You are right Nate.