That is not at all relevant to Eugine’s point, which is a conjunction between predictions ahead of time and beliefs after the fact. If he holds now that the stimulus worked, he must hold that has previous predictions were badly wrong. Does he admit that? Moreover, he must reduce his belief in the efficacy of stimulus, even if his assessment of the state of the economy shifts more. Is he explicit that he has stronger beliefs about the efficacy of stimulus than about the future of the economy? And these economists that today have strong agreement, what did they predict ahead of time?
(I’m assuming that Eugine is correctly describing Krugman. But you didn’t object to that.)
It’s absolutely relevant. By Eugine’s account, Krugman’s opponents were predicting the stimulus would make things worse. Most economists now agree that Krugman’s opponents were wrong and the stimulus helped.
Beyond that, I’m a little unclear on what Eugine is saying: “Krugman said things would be worse without stimulus” is ambiguous between “Krugman said things would be worse without stimulus than with stimulus” and “Krugman said things would be worse without stimulus than they were at the time he was speaking.” Link to what Krugman statement exactly Eugine has in mind would be helpful. In any case, this is at least semi-relevant.
No, Eugine is perfectly clear. The only way to interpret his “things are even worse then his without stimulus prediction” is that Krugman made absolute predictions.
The simplest hypothesis is that economists are impervious to evidence and are just backdating their predictions. Yes, inference can be complicated by mechanisms; that link is relevant, quite unlike your previous link.
There is strong agreement among economists that the stumulus worked.
That is not at all relevant to Eugine’s point, which is a conjunction between predictions ahead of time and beliefs after the fact. If he holds now that the stimulus worked, he must hold that has previous predictions were badly wrong. Does he admit that? Moreover, he must reduce his belief in the efficacy of stimulus, even if his assessment of the state of the economy shifts more. Is he explicit that he has stronger beliefs about the efficacy of stimulus than about the future of the economy? And these economists that today have strong agreement, what did they predict ahead of time?
(I’m assuming that Eugine is correctly describing Krugman. But you didn’t object to that.)
It’s absolutely relevant. By Eugine’s account, Krugman’s opponents were predicting the stimulus would make things worse. Most economists now agree that Krugman’s opponents were wrong and the stimulus helped.
Beyond that, I’m a little unclear on what Eugine is saying: “Krugman said things would be worse without stimulus” is ambiguous between “Krugman said things would be worse without stimulus than with stimulus” and “Krugman said things would be worse without stimulus than they were at the time he was speaking.” Link to what Krugman statement exactly Eugine has in mind would be helpful. In any case, this is at least semi-relevant.
No, Eugine is perfectly clear. The only way to interpret his “things are even worse then his without stimulus prediction” is that Krugman made absolute predictions.
The simplest hypothesis is that economists are impervious to evidence and are just backdating their predictions. Yes, inference can be complicated by mechanisms; that link is relevant, quite unlike your previous link.