22 thoughts on ““An Awful Economic Historian””

  1. The author asks (rhetorically, I believe):

    “How does a president, in a major, prepared speech make such an indefensible factual error?……”

    And the answer is:

    It doesn’t matter. No MSM will contradict him publicly. And roughly 50% of the voting public will believe him.

    And Obama knows this.

  2. Brian Domitrovic is a classic example of someone twisting data to prove a political belief rather than someone who is truly trying to understand what is actually going on.

    The factors contributing to the rapid growth of the U.S. in the 19th Century were already changing before the 20th Century. It was no coincidence that the highest expansion of the per capita U.S. GDP before the post war 1940’s was in the 1880’s at the height of America’s western expansion, a expansion accelerated by completion of multiple government subsidized transcontinental railroads into the west in the period 1865-1885. It was also the period when the last of the Native Americans were placed on Reservations, making their former lands available for agricultural use and marking the beginning of the end of the Indian Wars.

    So when you actually look beyond the statistics you see much of the growth in GDP between 1814 and 1913 was the result of western expansion through taking over lands owned by Mexico and Native Americans and transforming them economically via Western technology and agricultural practices. Similarly, the southern Cotton boom, enabled by slavery, before 1860 contributed greatly to U.S. exports and American productivity before the Civil War. Then government subsidized railroad boom enable the great western expansion after the Civil War by making it cheaper to ship agricultural goods and raw materials from the West and Midwest to markets in the East and Europe. All are factors that enabled growth in the 19th Century that disappeared in the 20th Century.

    A third, and perhaps the key driver of large gross GDP increases in the pre-1913 era was unrestricted immigration into American which provided a constant supply of cheap labor, always a sure fire way to boost economic productivity. It was also immigrates that help drive the western agricultural boom. BTW Domitrovic dismisses this key factor by reversing it and claiming immigration was caused by a demand for labor instead of recognizing it was the pressure and ideas of immigrates that help enabled the development of the American West.

    The importance of immigration as a driver of gross GDP is seen when one looks at the per capita GDP figures. When one reviews per capital GDP the major disparity between the pre-1913 increase in gross GDP and the post 1913 increase in gross GDP disappears. I would argue that the series of anti-immigration laws, laws designed to keep America a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant nation, that were pasted in the years following 1913, starting with the Immigration Act of 1917, contributed far more to the decrease in gross GDP growth than the Federal Reserve or taxes. But of course that would go against the Radical Republican Right’s ideology and so will be rejected on ideological grounds.

    BTW for a detail discussion of the sources of the increase in wealth between 1805 and 1950 by someone who actually studied the data I would recommend Raymond Goldsmith’s “The Growth of Reproducible Wealth in the United States between 1805 and 1950” is a good place to start.

    http://www.roiw.org/2/3.pdf

  3. So when you actually look beyond the statistics you see much of the growth in GDP between 1814 and 1913 was the result of western expansion through taking over lands owned by Mexico and Native Americans and transforming them economically via Western technology and agricultural practices.

    Notice a lack of one specific thing in your two examples of that which promoted economic expansion during this time period? Lack of interference from government entities creating a socio-economic environment that promoted unfettered free market capitalism in it’s purest form. It was the lure of economic/personal freedom that drew Americans from the east and immigrants from all around the world to strike it out into the wild west and try to carve out of little niche of land which they could call their own. Was it risky? You betcha, but with every risk comes a reciprocal reward. But of course this begs the question, what was it about life on the east coast and abroad that encouraged people to take such an inordinate risk? Could it have been that they were tired of being mired up in the old stodgy ways of colonialism and mercantilism? Nah, that couldn’t be it, they probably just liked the prospects of giving Mexicans and Indians a hard time and laying down government subsidized railroad tracks *facepalm*.

    Plus, in your rush to pin all our ill-gotten gains on evil white men taking advantage of dark-skinned people and those oh so lovely tax-payer funded railroads you forgot to add one thing. The massive expansion of private businesses in the newly developing industrial segment of the economy. You might of heard of it before, what was it called again? Oh, that’s right; the industrial revolution — HUZZAH! For example, the U.S. was THE dominate producer of nearly all the steel produced in the entire world. But I know, you’ll just say we were only able to do that because we blew up the Mexicans, stole it from the Native Americans, and brutally whipped our indentured immigrants. To which I’ll say, “who’s trying to push a narrative now?”

    1. Josh,

      Seems the U.S. government did intervene in the free market in the form of the U.S. Army clearing the way, as well as surveying the West, for those enterprising pioneers…

      [[[You might of heard of it before, what was it called again? Oh, that’s right; the industrial revolution — HUZZAH!]]]

      Last time I looked the Industrial Revolution started in England, mostly thanks to government regulations limiting the use of timber to preserve what was left for Royal Navy use and a boom in government funded canals that made transporting it easier. Than it came to the U.S. as engineers from England (especially Scotland) were brought here to build railroads, mine coal and work in the cotton based textile industry.

      [[[For example, the U.S. was THE dominate producer of nearly all the steel produced in the entire world.]]]

      Made possible by a heavy tariff on imported steel so the government subsidized railroad expansion had to buy steel from U.S. producers, while costs were kept low by a heavy dependence on European immigrates as workers, especially those from Eastern Europe who had few opportunities elsewhere, making a nice profit margin for producers 🙂

      The high taxes on imports also eliminated the need for other taxes.

      BTW quick quiz question, do you know what the major driving force behind the income tax was? And why?

      1. Are you insane? In the 100 years of the Indian wars out West the Army suffered 2000 casualties, or about two per year per state, on unfamiliar terrain against an enemy who was often better armed (as Custer found out). According to the US Census, which was anal about counting taxed and non taxed Indians, The entire Native American population out West was on par with the 1900 population of Louisville Kentucky.

        The US government boom wasn’t in railroad, it was in canals, using engineers and ideas from England, and we promptly declared bankruptcy. Later, using zero government dollars, the railroads were extended to the Pacific.

        1. George,

          So the U.S. Army didn’t force native Americans on to reservations to “clear” the land for “settlement”? I am sure this is news to the native Americans, but its on par with the Tea Party rewriting history…

          So giving railroads free land grants was not a subsidy in the new world of Supply-Side economics? And the U.S. government didn’t fund the Transcontinental Railroad (The 1862 and 1864 Railway and Telegraph Acts).

          Gee, it looks like the Tea Party is going to be even worst then the Communists in rewriting history.

          1. So the U.S. Army didn’t force native Americans on to reservations to “clear” the land for “settlement”?

            Why did you ask this question, Thomas? It’s clearly irrelevant to anything that George was saying and he didn’t deny that this happened.

            So giving railroads free land grants was not a subsidy in the new world of Supply-Side economics?

            The land wouldn’t have had much value anyway since it didn’t have a railroad attached. The chief value was in preventing competitors from buying key parcels of land and obstructing progress of construction.

          2. Thomas, I see you’ve picked up the world’s most simplistic view of Indian relations, which is quite common but belongs in pop-up books for socialist children.

            The US Army didn’t have to “clear the land for settlement.” The settlers could’ve done that just fine, since the US received about the same number of immigrants as the entire population of Western Indians every year. By 1900 we were receiving 3 times the Western Indian total population every single year. There’s a reason Indian leaders talked about the endless wave of whites.

            The US government and military’s position (an often times the Indians were in the US military and government) was to try and prevent too much conflict and make sure the Indians had legal control over areas where the white settlers couldn’t interfere. Other aspects of the policy that many Indians were adamant about were getting Indians educated and trained in all sorts of activities. (Simon Pokagon of Michigan complains in a nice 1895 piece.)

            But it’s a huge leap to go from, in many cases, a stone-age hunter-gatherer society to flying airplanes, building cars, and running the country. Many Indians made the leap in a single generation, such as Charles Curtis (Kaw, Ossage, and Pottawatomie) born in Kansas in 1860 who became US Senate Majority leader and Vice President of the United States (Republican of course). Long prior to that, Lt. Col. Ely Parker (aka Donehogawa) a Seneca, was Ulysses S. Grant’s adjutant who wrote the Confederate surrender terms at Appomatox and became the US Commissioner of Indian Affairs. And of course Major General Clarence Tinker, an Osage born in 1887, who was commander of air forces in Hawaii after Pearl Harbor and who died leading a B-24 attack at Midway, becoming the first US general to die in WW-II. Tinker Air Force Base is of course named after him. And there’s Admiral Jocko Clark, Cherokee, who commanded the entire Seventh Fleet.

            In your alternate world do the American Indians still knapp flints to hunt buffalo and raid neighboring tribes, perhaps followed around by National Geographic photographers and observed by high-dollar liberal “nature encounter” tour groups, or were they allowed to enter the modern age, driving cars, trucks, and flying Apache gunships with thermal imagers?

      2. Oh please, time and time again it was settlers looking for fortune and freedom that were pushing the boundaries further and further west. It’s only when reports of lawlessness and clashes of Indians would surface that the government would march in and declare that they were there to help. Thomas Jefferson said he wasn’t all that interested in Louisiana. If it weren’t for the countless scores of settlers that were already taking up residence along the Mississippi he likely wouldn’t have bothered with the purchase which he was still criticized for as a needless waste of money. He viewed it as an inevitability that the U.S. would have to adopt this region in order to bring some order to the French, Spanish, Anglo, and German settlers who periodically clashed with one another and upset the flow of resources out of the region. And time and again you see various territories being carved out by settlers with the government coming in only after the populations reached sufficient size/wealth generation thresholds.

        And as far as steel production goes it was Carnegie’s prescient understanding of how the Bessemer process was going to revolutionize the industry. He used his shrewd business/political acumen to broker a series of mergers that lead to vast expansion of his wealth. He then in turn gambled that money on a massive steelworks factory in Pennsylvania that lied adjacent to huge anthracite deposits that lied buried around the Great Lakes region. He then had a series of canals dug to quickly and cheaply move that material to the steelworks and convert those raw materials using the then state of the art process of injecting oxygen into the smelter to create the temperatures needed to produce steel in massive quantities. Without all of that there would be no jobs to entice eastern Europeans to travel all that way to find gainful employment. After all it begs the question, what was it about eastern Europe that influenced massive numbers of people to leave everything behind and head for greener pastures? It could have been that life in that region and time period blew chunks that’s why.

  4. I think that when you send in your coupon to join the Hive (that loose confederation of “liberals,” socialists and other tax-happy, State-fellating coercion-junkies), you get back a plede card you have to sign wherein you agree to remain an ignoramus regarding economics; to know no history except fake, Left-manufactured history (“no truth but socialist truth!”); and of course avoid the syllogism that way Dracula avoids a crucifix.

  5. Bilwick,

    Its interesting that despite its hatred of the Communists and National Socialists, the Radical Republican Right has adopted their strategy of rewriting history, and discarding any inconvenient facts they run across, to support their theories of how the world SHOULD work. And then, like good Communists and National Socialists, they discredit anyone who points outs the “reality gap” in their manufactured history.

    I wonder how long before the Tea Party starts having book burning parties to keep their followers minds “pure” like their “role” models did. Probably not far given they are already working to ban books they disagree with 🙂

    http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/7167-the-tea-party-moves-to-ban-books

    The Tea Party Moves to Ban Books
    By Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon

    1. Thomas, what was the point of that post? I glanced through the article and note interesting things. First, there’s no indication that there is a story here. From the original Think Progress link:

      Last month ThinkProgress reported that a Missouri high school had banned Kurt Vonnegut’s classic novel Slaughterhouse Five because religious residents complained that it taught principles contrary to the Bible. Now the American Library Association reports that this year alone, U.S. schools have banned more than 20 books and faced more than 50 other challenges, with many more expected this fall as school starts.

      The library association says the number of reported challenges in the past 30 years has hovered between about 400 or 500, but there are many bans they never learn about. While parents have traditionally launched the lion’s share of challenges, Deborah Caldwell-Stone, an attorney with the association, says she has noticed “an uptick in organized efforts” to remove books from public and school libraries.

      So there’s been something like 70 challenges so far as of August 2011) compared to 400-500 for a typical year. I’m not seeing this alleged trend even though most attempts at banning haven’t happened yet this year (apparently, being a thing thatNote that this is almost exactly the same quote that your linked story above makes, except that it conveniently drops the 400-500 number (replacing it with a “…”). Looks pretty deceptive to me since that’s the only comparison we have to a “typical” year of book banning.

      Second, it has an obvious ax to grind (the author even uses profanity to describe Tea Party supporters). And there is no connection to the Tea Party ideology aside from some vague notion that more book bannings than usual are “organized”. It’s just the usual “Tea Party is a bunch of religious nuts” calumny.

      Frankly, I find this flavor of ad hominem attack particularly bizarre since it so obviously mischaracterizes a large portion of Tea Party supporters. You won’t win any debates with this approach.

      1. Not to mention the fact that “book banning” means nothing in the modern United States, when all any kid who really wants to get his hands on a book has to do is get it on the internet. And books haven’t been truly banned in this country for some time — when you look up all those book-banning-is-bad sites you get lists of bannings from decades ago that are no longer in effect (yes, Victoria, you are allowed to buy Lady Chatterly’s Lover without an ID now), and complaints about school libraries. Not being able to check a book out of the library of the local high school doesn’t mean that book has been made unavailable to the general public. So some Baptist kid won’t get to study Kurt Vonnegut’s (overrated, imho) novels in his English class. So what? It’s not the function of a high school English class to turn kids onto the favorite reading material of aging hippies.

        1. Andrea,

          They are only available from other sources because the Tea Party doesn’t control the Supreme Court, yet. But absolute control is on their to do list. Mean while, in terms of the Tea Party and book burning, here’s an early example from the Huffington Post before the Tea Party started clamping down on videos at meetings…

          http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/12/tea-party-insanity-burn-a_n_185991.html

          [[[As his speech winds down, he exhorts his listeners to get their kids “the hell out of college. They’re brainwashing ’em!”

          The anti-school message resonates with one woman.

          “Burn the books!” she yells from off-camera. The surprised camera man asks if she’s serious, and which books she’d burn. “The ones in college, the brainwashing books, like the evolution crap.”]]]

          So yes, its on the Radical Republican Right’s agenda, even if fellow travelers are in denial on it and turn a deaf ear to what the Tea Party really represents.

          1. They are only available from other sources because the Tea Party doesn’t control the Supreme Court, yet.

            […]

            So yes, its on the Radical Republican Right’s agenda, even if fellow travelers are in denial on it and turn a deaf ear to what the Tea Party really represents.

            “Fellow travelers” are mostly well aware that with big tent issues no one has identical beliefs and interests.

          2. Karl,

            Why do you think fringe groups burn books and close colleges when they take over? Gotta get everyone thinking the same.

          3. Karl, remember when HuffPo was pushing this nonsense: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/14/palin-rally-kill-him-yell_n_134597.html

            A few years later, this would morph in to Palin inciting violence by means of… a publication.

            The only people trying to ban publications are progressives. Go see the SOPA comment. Recall the desire of progressives to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. Mention Citizens United around a progressive and see what happens.

            I know Karl, you do get it. Unfortunately, the other useless idiot keeps carrying the progressive’s water for them and thinks we will drink the koolaid with him.

          4. Leland,

            Seems you are the one that drank the koolaid, actually believing that the Radical Republican Right is for free speech. If we ever have the misfortune to have them control all three branches of government you will see just how they define free speech. But then folks like you are too busy twisting history to serve the “cause” to learn form it.

  6. The sheer genius that is Thomas Matula.

    “Its interesting that despite its hatred of the Communists and National Socialists, the Radical Republican Right has adopted their strategy of rewriting history, and discarding any inconvenient facts they run across, to support their theories of how the world SHOULD work. And then, like good Communists and National Socialists, they discredit anyone who points outs the “reality gap” in their manufactured history.”

    Soime examples, please?

    By “Radical Republican Right,” I take it he means “anyone who genuinely values liberty.” That’s pretty much from the Hive lexicon, and although Spaz pretends to be some kind of “independent,” he can pretty much be counted on to parrot the party line.

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