eftychia: Fire extinguisher in front of US flag (savemynation)
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posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 08:19pm on 2010-09-30

If the economy performs better under Democratic presidents than under Republican presidents, then why does the Republican party have the reputation as bieng the more "pro-business" party? Don't businesses in general do better when the economy as a whole does better? Don't business owners do better? (That last question is rhetorical. One of those links goes to that recent graph showing how folks in every income bracket have done better during Democratic administrations, even the top, the big difference being that in Democratic administrations the rich do a little better than they do under Republican administrations, while the poor do a lot better than they do under Republicans.) Shouldn't the Democrats be considered the good-for-business party?

Then again, perhaps the difference is that the Republicans give businesses what they ask for while Democrats give them what's good for business? A disturbing thought, since the captains of industry are supposed to be good at business, and be better able to figure out what's in their best interests than that.

(For what it's worth, all those links are simply copied from the first page or results when I searched Google using the string "economy performs better under democratic or republican presidents". I had been expecting at least a couple of links to pages explaining how Democrats were better by one metric and Republicans better by another (one page did say, "Democrats scored better here if we assume X, and Republicans if we assume Y" for some metrics), or trying to show that the wrong metrics were being used. In the first page of results, at least from skimming the pages found, it looks like all the hits support the conclusion that Democratic presidents are better for the American economy, to varying degrees of emphasis.)

There are 7 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
metahacker: A picture of white-socked feet, as of a person with their legs crossed. (feet)
posted by [personal profile] metahacker at 01:07am on 2010-10-01
Pro-business, or pro-business-owners? I can easily see the Captains Of Industry (these days) being very good at lining their own pockets, which obviously isn't what's best for the company--and the GOP has done very well at allowing the richest to remain so.

eftychia: Fire extinguisher in front of US flag (savemynation)
posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 03:21am on 2010-10-01
Yabbut the graph I mentioned parenthetically shows that even folks in the top income bracket do better with Democratic presidents than Republican ones, at least if you're counting income growth[*]. Are you suggesting that they manage to increase their wealth more in ways that somehow don't get counted as 'income' when Republicans are in office -- enough so to exceed the amount their income-identified-as-income increases under Democrats?

[*] Then again, if they're not counting "how many more year-XXXX-equivalent dollars do I have now?" but measuring their on success by the "how big is the ratio between my income and 'regular people's' income?" metric instead then (a) yeah, they do better under Republican administrations and (b) they're really f%$#ing evil. 'Cause it's one thing to mistakenly believe the "rising tide lifts all boats" rhetoric, and another thing entirely to hold everyone else's head underwater.
 
posted by [identity profile] doubleplus.livejournal.com at 05:45am on 2010-10-01
Well, it's pretty evil in result, but not necessarily in motivation. People's perception of how well they're doing is definitely tied up in how much better they're doing than other people. If lots of people can afford your toys for rich people, they cease to be toys for rich people.
metahacker: A picture of my eye reflecting the camera taking the picture. I'm probably feeling introspective.  (eye)
posted by [personal profile] metahacker at 11:49am on 2010-10-02
I think it might be even more near-sighted metrics. If I'm rich and I earn money, that's because of my hard work, not because of government policies. If I'm rich and I lose money, it's because taxes are too high and they stifle my business. So the government should get out of the way and not charge taxes or regulate business, even though those might help business in the long run. Who will help with these problems? Well, both sides, but even moreso on the Republican side.

I hope that people aren't that stupid, but boy, the cognitive biases are quite clear here, and point in that direction very firmly.
 
posted by [identity profile] doubleplus.livejournal.com at 06:35am on 2010-10-01
I wonder if anyone's done a breakdown by size of business. National Republicans (since we're talking about presidential administrations), while they talk a lot about small business, really pay attention to big business when formulating policy. More local Republicans may be friendlier to small business, and get better results for them. (I actually think that's the main source of the "pro-business" reputation.)

But more broadly, I think it's entirely possible for smart businesspeople to support policies that they believe will be profitable for their own company, and not realize that they have negative consequences for the broader economy that will overwhelm the personal benefit. It's very easy to classify those effects as things that "just happen" and not see any connection with policies whose obvious direct effects are positive for you.
holzman_tweed: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] holzman_tweed at 02:14pm on 2010-10-01
Because...

1) Propaganda has nothing to do with reality
2) Personal income and wealth is only one measure of "doing well." For some people, particularly those who are fundamentally motivated to compete with others, it's the how big the difference is between a person and the person below them on the totem pole -- and in that calculus it makes sense to sacrifice, say, $1,000 of income if it means one's metric for success increases by $10,000. There really are people who long for the days when the sheer poverty of everyone who's a have-not meant that the haves could act like lords over peasants... and there's really people who long for the days when they could actually be lords over peasants.

Yes, Heinlein said that one should never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity. Stupidity does not adequately explain the policies of the Republican elite.
 
posted by [identity profile] starmalachite.livejournal.com at 08:43pm on 2010-10-01
Are the income figures before or after taxes? (Usually they're the former.) Perhaps the rich on average pay a higher *percentage* of income as taxes under Democrats -- or just think they do.

One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons shows 2 clones of the Monopoly millionaire in their club. One is saying to the other, "I don't understand it -- every time those damn socialist Democrats get elected, I get richer."

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