Thursday, August 23, 2012

Flawed Arguments

James Fallow wrote As a Harvard Alum, I Apologize.

"It's by the irrepressible Niall Ferguson, it is headlined 'Obama's Gotta Go,' and its case rests on logic of this sort:

Certainly, the stock market is well up (by 74 percent) relative to the close on Inauguration Day 2009. But the total number of private-sector jobs is still 4.3 million below the January 2008 peak.


Hmmm, what might possibly be the flaw in this comparison? Apart from the fact that Obama did not take office until January 2009 and that private sector jobs have recovered better in his first three-plus years than they did under George W. Bush. As The Atlantic's Derek Thompson recently pointed out:"

NewImage

I'll add, I wish public sector job growth looked this good, but no, the right says we have to shrink government because that's what's preventing growth.

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