That “economist” that mistermix linked to earlier is back to say that he meant unemployment benefits in general, not specifically those in North Dakota and Nevada. Then he whines about people saying mean things in the comments.
I don’t know the literature on how unemployment benefits affect employment-related migration either, I’ll admit, but it seems to me that you have to be an idiot to think that North Dakota is not a special case given its low population, general remoteness, and the importance of the (the highly cyclical) energy sector in its economy. You can’t have it both ways, you can’t bring up an unusual example, then bitch about how:
Wasn’t it clear I was seeking some actual studies (by which I mean peer reviewed, data-driven, analysis) on the general issue? Regular readers know how this blog works. It’s not about anecdotes and one-off examples. It’s about solid evidence.
The game Frakt seems to be playing is this: he wants to eliminate unemployment insurance so he finds a tiny, remote state with a low unemployment rate, does next-to-no investigation of why its unemployment rate is low, then tries to segue that into a general attack on how unemployment benefits interfere with the Galtian perfection of the free market. I hate to go here, but no wonder this guy boasts of a PhD then won’t even say where he got it.
But good enough for Sullivan work, obviously.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Probably because the Randian school he received it from closed because the students couldn’t get government grants.
penpen
google tells me his Phd is from MIT
Halteclere
“A prominent Economist said so” is all that is needed to spread doubt about real Economist conclusions.
See “A real Scientist said that global warming is a hoax”, or “a real Scientist said that tobacco does not cause cancer”.
Omnes Omnibus
LinkedIn says MIT.
BGinCHI
Um, anecdotes are not solid evidence, douchebag.
What is it with Economists?
Anyone else out there who is an academic have the same experience as I’ve had? The Econ Dept is always full of morons, with a few, very few, exceptions.
What is it with that discipline? (or “discipline”)
agrippa
What is this obsession with Rand?
Rand actually said that she was not going to die. Instead, the world was going to come to an end.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Who cares where the PhD came from, all that matters is that he has one and you better believe him because he knows what he is talking about.
It was probably some diploma mill degree that someone threw away and it was picked up by the breeze at the dump. He found it blowing down the street, took it home, did a quick whiteout of the name, added his, then framed it so he could hang it over his toilet.
That’s so his guests wouldn’t miss it.
I think he has a minor in ID (Intellectual Dishonesty). Also. Too.
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yup, some bullshit librul degree from some bullshit librul college in that crazy librul state!
jeffreyw
Just for fun, I’m cooking up some refried beans with beer, frying some chorizo sausage, and heating the stone in the oven because it’s tortilla night!
geg6
@penpen:
To their eternal shame, I hope.
And here I was thinking he got it the same place Rand Paul got his “certification” in ophthalmology.
Halteclere
@penpen:
His web profile says “After receiving his PhD in statistical and applied mathematics…” but nothing about an Economics PhD.
Is there an educational difference between someone who is an Economist, someone who took macro and micro economics, and someone who has independently studied a lot of specific economic elements?
justawriter
I resent that. We are not a tiny remote state. We are a large, barely populated, remote state.
Omnes Omnibus
@Halteclere: Actually, I think having a PhD in statistical and applied mathematics makes things worse for the guy. He should know better than to base projections on a statistical outlier, or, at least, he should know that if he does, people will call him on it.
jwb
It’s the strategy of false naiveté that I found so irksome. He knew perfectly well what he was doing, and if he has hurt fee-fees now, it’s because he got called out on it.
campionrules
@justawriter:
Ha! So true. Get it right when you talk about the frozen north.
Though seriously, If I had a nickel for everybody that asked me, when told that I grew up in ND, how many times I’d visited Mount Rushmore, I could retire.
Ana Gama
@justawriter: And also a couple degrees warmer than Alaska.
(I lived in Bismarck for a year. That was plenty.)
Omnes Omnibus
@campionrules: No, you guys are the hockey players. Everyone knows that.
DougJ
@Omnes
I agree.
There are a lot of things here that make this a particularly stupid example: his choice of a state with a tiny population, the fact he chose two states that are very far apart and with very different climates, and with a reliance on energy which is very cyclical.
It is true that from I can see the unemployment rate has generally been lower in ND than in the rest of the country. But he didn’t mention that so I don’t see how I can hold it to the credit of his argument. (To me, it is much more meaningful for a state to have a lower unemployment rate for many years than for it to have one for a few years — even in Galt’s Gulch, it takes a while for employment rates to equalize.)
campionrules
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah,
unfortunately, knowledge of the northern plain states is pretty bad. When I went to college I used to say I was from East Dakota. I find that people had a same blank stares(for the most part) regardless if I said i was from ND or a made up state.
fasteddie9318
We have full employment in my house, or would if it weren’t for those damn anti-capitalist child labor laws. I wonder why the unemployed residents of Nevada aren’t all milling around outside my front door?
NobodySpecial
@Halteclere: Economics is like astrology. When they say they have a degree in Economics, I assume that means they were trying to Blutarsky their way through college and weren’t bright enough to get it right.
jwb
@Omnes Omnibus: I think he knew perfectly well what he was doing, he did what he did because he thought it was a clever rhetorical sleight of hand that would allow him to hook people who weren’t paying close attention (it worked: look at Sully), and that he was clever enough that he could handle anyone who called him on it. I think he learned that perhaps he isn’t that clever after all.
penpen
@geg6: @Halteclere:
I think DougJ would appreciate the irony of the phd ad hominem remark he has now crossed out (extending the criticism of a guy who lazily neglected to use Google in part by suggesting he has shoddy academic credentials… when a simple Google search could confirm the provenance of those credentials).
Love you DougJ!
Omnes Omnibus
Has the formatting gone wonky for anyone else starting at comment 18?
NobodySpecial
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, it’s borked.
DougJ
@penpen:
No, actually, no, it makes it that much stranger that he leaves it out on the blog page! I knew I could find it with a google search, that wasn’t my point.
I just crossed it out because the point became too complicated, maybe it’s just an oversight on his “about” page.
MTmofo
wonky confirmed
shortstop
@campionrules: Once does it for most people. Do people think the locals make weekly pilgrimages or something?
Come to think of it, though, people are always asking me how many times I’ve been in the Oprah studio audience. The answer is always and always will be zero.
Cam
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes.
Omnes Omnibus
@shortstop:Why would they ask that? Had they suffered a traumatic brain injury?
penpen
@DougJ: Fair enough, maybe I misread your remark, I had thought it was a clear potshot at his credentials (suggesting his shame over his degree-granting institution not being fancy enough to be flaunted).
shortstop
@Omnes Omnibus:
They just love strong, courageous women, OO. Love them.
Preventive disclaimer: I am a woman and have a big old mouth, so y’all get on off me with any misogyny charges. Unless you are going to call me an Uncle Tom, in which case I can’t wait.
DougJ
@penpen:
I just thought it was strange he bragged about it in the particular way that he did. I thought his post was strange too (“I don’t know why unemployment is low in North Dakota”, etc.).
shortstop
I’m also stupid, because I just noticed campionrules is from North Dakota. Paging Polly Point Prover. Polly Point Prover to the courtesy phone, please.
Paris
Maybe he reads too much McArdle and its rubbing off. The post was simply McCardle-esque in its making shit up, not applying common sense, or doing any research.
I have an idea – unemployment insurance and monarch butterflies. UI benefits are causing the extinction of monarch butterflies. Someone see if there’s any original research on it and get back to me.
MattR
Surprising number of NoDakers on the blog. Unfortunately for me, the energy boom is out in the western part of the state while my family still owns mineral rights to the former family farm in the eastern part of the state (Jamestown area).
Zifnab
Has anyone considered letting them eat cake?
I heard that worked well a few hundred years back.
les
@jwb:
Oh, I imagine Sully was paying attention–he always loves things that appeal to his personal prejudices; logic, evidence, sense etc. don’t really factor in.
handy
He took his ball and went home.
justawriter
@MattR: Yep. My family settled in the Lake Region, so my inheritance came to a pittance instead of being the remake of the Beverly Hillbillies.
The Populist
Here’s a fact to chew on:
Show me where this free market is? If there is a free market, why is it that we allow gigantic companies to stomp small business down into the ground?
I own a small company and I do well. Problem is I can’t compete with the big boys simply because the credit markets do not favor small companies like mine, even if I pay all my bills, see large sales increases even in a time of recession. We bail out big companies because they are too big to fail.
I miss the days of antitrust enforcement. The days when you had to justify a merger or buyout.
If the free market is a football game, then the Giants, Cowboys, Bears and Jets are running away with every game since there are no refs to call foul.
Show me the mythical free markets so many of my conservative friends keep talking about, albeit cluelessly, please?
MattR
@justawriter: You know any Pepoon’s from the Devil’s Lake area? I want to say they were among the early settlers of Lakota before some gradually moved over to Devil’s Lake.
MattR
@The Populist: Tell me about it. I work for the second largest company in the world (and North America) in our niche industry. We just got bought out by the largest company in the world (and North America). There were minimal regulatory issues despite the fact that we were already bigger than the # 3 and #4 companies combined in North America, the company that purchased us was bigger than #3-5 and our new combined company will be bigger than #2-9 combined.
maus
@The Populist:
If they were REALLY a good enough business the invisible hand of the free market would lift them up to allow competition on even ground, scale is irrelevant.
Ailuridae
I tend to like Austin Frakt a fair bit but this post was remarkably poorly considered. It is something that ED Kain or McMegan could have written.
DougJ
@Ailuridae:
When I looked over his other stuff, it was fine. All the more reason to trash him for this, though, it’s not just yelling down into a well the way it is with McMegan, and yes, often with ED.
The Populist
@maus:
But this argument about invisible hands is nonsense. It’s all rigged whenever deregulation is in play.
An example I will use is Coca Cola. Go into any supermarket and good luck finding any brand outside of the two biggies. Want a Jones Soda? You’d better know where to find it.
My point is the “free market” and the invisible hand would allow for these products to get much more mass market acceptance if the few companies that own grocery chains would give it a shot. In the end, I understand why Coke and Pepsi are winning but they use their muscle in ways to freeze out legit competition and it’s just wrong.
The Populist
@The Populist:
Another example is Wal Mart. I’ve seen stories of them going into small towns and aggressively pushing out mom and pop stores. In towns that say no to Wal Mart, they never see another chain come in. I wonder why?
The Populist
For the free market to truly work correctly, a referee aka regulator must be involved to make these companies think about how this will affect markets.
Like a good sports game, a referee keeps things fair. It might not be 100% perfect, but it sure does beat letting the big boys “police” themselves.
Nethead Jay
Everybody’s already said what needs to be said about this craptacular article, so I’ll just say cool title reference DougJ. One of my favorite songs.
Barry
I left a comment on another post of his, (politely) disagreeing with what he said. That comment has not shown up.
In the end, he’s a wimp.
MattR
@Barry: Don’t even think about commenting to ask where your comment it. Have you read his comment policy? It is pretty pathetic.
ino shinola
I tried to comment on his post, but mistermix had upset him so much that comments were closed.
There has always been migration to where the jobs are. North Dakota is one place in the country where a strong young man could go and have a decent shot at a good paying job. (Finding a place to live is another matter, I’ve heard stories of mobile homes divided into 4 apartments at $600/mo. ea.) If you’re not strong, a man, or young that’s another story. I’d venture that Nevadans are respectably represented in the oilfields.
But the idea that people would pull up stakes and go somewhere there are good jobs if only they didn’t have those cushy unemployment benefits, sheesh. Jobs are scarce everywhere, good jobs are scarcer.
I live in Nebraska. Our economy is a lot like North Dakota minus the oil boom. Our unemployment is low, and I live in a county with low unemployment even by Nebraska standards. But my county is also among the poorest in the state. If you moved here you could probably find a job, it would just be a job where having benefits meant you might get Christmas Day off in a couple years. And it’s doubtful you’d make enough to keep up your underwater Nevada mortgage. I think the situation is quite similar in all the rural, low unemployment states.
This analysis is not peer-reviewed, only loosely data driven, but is rooted in real-world experience. Probably not relevant to a PhD unaware of the biggest oil boom in the US in decades.
Aidan
Guys, this is pathetic, and I’m usually a Balloon Juice fan. This is something I’d expect from RedState. DougJ admits he has no idea what the literature is on UI benefits and migration, and then attacks Austin Frakt anyway for wondering if anyone could point to any such literature.
The fact that people are pointing to Austin Frakt as some sort of Randian is both baffling and pathetic. If you don’t read The Incidental Economist, you’re missing out on quality posts on health care reform and health care economics (from a…gasp…liberal perspective!), and if you don’t know enough about the website to know that it isn’t some right-wing reactionary hotbed, you should probably lay off the ad hominem attacks. Disappointing stuff.
If you’re going to attack conservative anti-intellectualism, you probably shouldn’t make these kind of attacks on people you don’t even know enough about to know they largely agree with you.
DougJ
@Aidan:
I see where you’re coming from, but I thought his post was ridiculous. I think if you read it over again, you will agree.
Silver
Frakt is a genius. Lemme apply his ideas to a bigger problem, so you retards can see how smart he is.
All we have to do to solve poverty in a place like Bangladesh is have them all move to Luxembourg.
Where’s my goddamn Nobel and McMegan rimjob?
Matt
You and mistermix are being pretty fucking obnoxious about this. And you obviously know nothing about economists. The semi-asperger way in which he asked this question is proof that he is just curious, not grinding any political axe.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that everything he said is true, that this is an interesting question (with important public policy implications, such as should we have different UI durations across states during a recession?) and it is quite extensively studied in Europe.
You even looked at his publication record and saw that he’s not an ideologue. This is just innuendo meets character assassination meets professional intolerance. If I knew the guy I’d say fuck off.
Actually, fuck off.
Steeplejack
@Aidan:
Regardless of Frakt’s political leanings, his post was bullshit. Mistermix demolished it yesterday morning. DougJ was just riffing on that.
JMonkey
Look, this is stupid. DougJ, I like your stuff most of the time, but if you think Austin Frakt is some kind of a Randian who’s looking for an excuse to eliminate unemployment insurance, you’re completely barking up the wrong tree.
Austin and I haven’t spoken for years, since my family moved from Massachusetts to Oregon, but I knew the guy well before he started up his blog. We used to play Go together in Davis Square. He’s not a Randian and he’s no conservative. He’s an academic, he’s a real economist with a real Ph.D. who does great work on health care. He was asking an academic question. However Sullivan chose to use his blog post is not Austin’s fault.
If you think his post is ridiculous, fine. But don’t ascribe to him a whole slate of stupid political ideas because of a single poorly worded post.
Aidan
@DougJ: I read it when it was originally posted, read it again when it was posted here, and revisited it yet again when he updated it to clarify his point. Each time it’s left me with the same conclusion: your kneejerk anti-libertarianism led you to make a lazy attack on Frakt because you misread his post (or saw it on The Daily Dish without the full context and drew your own conclusions from there). I’m a fan of this blog but I usually notice an unwillingness to debate anything that comes off as libertarian on the merits of the issue with references to data and research, and too many ad hominem attacks.
As often happens at The Incidental Economist, he had a particular inquiry regarding an economic issue, and as the blog’s readership contains a lot of academics and researchers, asked if anyone could point him to specific research regarding the relationship between unemployment benefits and migration. The Mistermix reply went after him for focusing on North Dakota/Nevada and interpreted an animosity toward the UI program and its recipients where none existed. There is academic research regarding the relationship between UI and mobility, he asked where to find it, and the commentators pointed him toward it. Somehow Balloon Juice was the only place that came to the conclusion that this was some sort of Randian attack on the unemployed.