There is no intellectual depth at all to Senator "Chuck" Schumer, the senior senator from New York. He is simplly a partisan who says whatever he thinks sounds good politically on an inidividual day, without regard to intellectual honesty or truth.
Now you could argue that all politicians are that way, but not to the extent of Senator Schumer (Hillary Clinton does seem to have learned a lot from both Schumer and her husband as to saying anything that sounds good, and she sometimes can approach Schumer's cynical opinion of what the Aermican people will accept). John McCain, for example, has made almost a political career out of criticizing his own party, and the people who would like to support him--albeit in a way that is baout as obnoxious as Schumer's reflexive partisanship.
Case in point: "Recession". See my entry yesterday on how leftists insist on somehow bringing in the "R" word, as if a WORD makes the situation materially different. In other words, there is little difference between .6% economic GROWTH, and a .2% economic CONTRACTION. But it irks political hacks like Schumer no end that there is an objective definition of "recession" (two consecutive quarters of economic CNTRACTION), and the objective face is that we are not in one (not having yet had ONE quarter of economic contraction, although the economy has been close to flat the past two quarters, with growth less than 1%).
Schumer's statement yesteerday: "The rich top 10% of Americans are not in a recession, but the remaining 90% are clearly in a recession."
You have to admit that sort of SOUNDS good (so long as you turn your brain off), in a class warfare sort of way. Yet, it is one of the most STUPID statements I have ever heard in politics, which is saying a lot. Brit Hume--one of the few "good guys" of journalism today--could hardly keep a straight face showing a clip of Schumer's attempt to use the word "recession", no matter how much he had to act the partisan hack to so so.
"Recession" is generally understood to refer to the Groos National Product. That, in turn, is a measure of the entire output of goods and services in the economy. In other words, it has NOTHING to do with income level. It is absolutely stupid to argue otherwise. If the GDP grows, we are NOT in a recession (all of us). If it contracts for two quarters, then we ARE in a recession (all of us). In fact, it is MORE important for middle class and lower income people for the overall GDP to grow, since they are the ones most hurt by job losses in an overall economic downturn. It is simply nonsense to say that one income group can be in a "recession", while another income group is not. That is just another way of saying (as Schumer knows perfectly well--being intellectually dishonest) that the "rich" are better off in this country than the poor (Democrats arguing that the poor and middle class are falling further and further behind--a class warfare argument; note that the "rich" top 10% of income earners pay close to 50% of the total income taxes, while the bottom 50% pay few taxes at all, and the share paid by the "rich" has GROWN).
Schumer, of course, is playing up to the idea that a person who has lost his job (or house, or whatever) is in a "recession" (or "depression", or whatever you want to call it), even while the overall economy is doing well. That is simply stating the truism that individuals may be doing different from the "average", or from the overall economy That has absolutely nothing to do with the real meaning of "recession", and Schumer knows it. MORE average people do worse in a recession than they do in a growing economy. That is an absolute fact. You can argue that the "rich" are doing too well, in comparison, but that is a DIFFERENT argument. It does not justify the absolute stupidity of saying that "10% of Americans are not in a recession, while 90% are." That statement simply LIES about the clear meaning of the word. 90% of Americans ARE (as a group) better off with a growing economy (growing GDP) than they are in a contracting economy (falling GDP). That is an obejctive fact. The argument as to whether the rich are doing too well, in both types of economy, is a SEPARATE, unrelated argument.
Schumer is also relying on an example of why "opinion polls" are so monumetally stupid. As readers of this blog know, one of my crusades is against polls. They are evil things which substitute for real thought, and we CAN eliminate them (without any "legislation" at all). If everyone LIED on opnion polls of all kinds, or refused to cooperate, they would eventually go away. This election cylce has already PROVEN that they are totally unreliable, since they are totally dependent on BOTH chance and the validity of each particular sample (whether the sample is really represenative of the much larger whole, which is cannot be if enough people refuse to coooperate with pollsters). This is not really a digression, but necessary to understand how opinion polls operate, and why they are an evil thing.
Should we do an "opinion poll" on whether 2 plus 2 equals 4? You say: "That would be stupid", you say. And you would be right. Such an opinion poll would be asking an opinion on something that is NOT a matter of opinion. For a poll even to SUGGEST that it is a mattter of opinion whether the answer is "4" is a LIE. It is NOT a matter of opinion, no matter what the poll results. In fact, you could regard such a poll as a poll on the STUPIDITY of the population, rather than on the question of whether 2 plus 2 equals 4.
As a matter of deductive reasoning (not a matter of opinion), doing a "poll" on whether we are in a recession is the SAME as asking opinion on the sum of 2 plus 2. There is an OBJECTIVE meaning to the term, "recession". OBJECTIVELY, and by definition, we are NOT in a recession. Therefore, to ask OPINION as to whethre we are in a recession is NONSENSE. It is STUPID.
You ask: "Weell, is it not useful to find out the attitudes of people, or even to find out how stupid they really are." Nope. You are not understanding the lesson here.
First, we are NOT finding out ANYTHING. We are just finding out how a possibly invalid, SMALL, sample reacts to a question which they may understand to be very different from what is seemingly being asked. It is well known, for example, that the answer to "issue" polls depends on HOW you ask the questiion.
You say: "But Fox News asked a pretty neutral question: whether people thought the economy was in a "downturn", "recession", or doing well". Means nothing. The answer, by the way, was that 54% of the responders had an objectively INCOREECT opinion that we are in a recession. Does that mean that 54% of Americans are STUPID (disregarding that 54% of Americans did NOT take this "test", but only about a thousand who may NOT have been representative, and where chance alone could result in substantial differences in the percentages from sample to sample).
Of course it does not mean that. It means that POLLSTERS, AND THE PEOPLE WHO PRESENT POLLS AS "NEWS", ARE STUPID. People asked this question understood perfectly what they were really being asked. They were really being asked whetehr they "approve" of what is being done with the economy--of the way the economy is going. They understood perfectly that they were being asked a POLITICAL question.
The reasoning behind the stupid poll is the SAME reasoning behind the political dishonesty of Chuck Schumer. Schumer (and, generally, the media) are just using the "R" word as a substitute for saying that the economy is "really bad"--hoping that people who are trying to send that message in answer to polls will RESENT those people (like, perhaps, President Bush) saying we are not in a "recession". That same pandering/POLITICAL CALCULATION explains why John McCain says we are in a recssion, when that is simply NOT TRUE. (Does that mean that McCAIN is stupid? I would rather not answer that queston). Note, however, that pandering to the public resentment of people who deny their "pain" by suggesting that we really are in a recession, despite the definition, is NOT quite as stupid as saying that the 10% richest are not in a recession, but the 90% left are. THAT Shumcer statement is simply absurd."
Well, you say, have I not made the media point that it matters what people FEEL, even if it means that tehy deliberately misconstrue the meaning of a word? Nope. First, it merely encourages the really evil concept that OPINION matters, even in the face of objective fact. This is the modern, cable TV and internet, concept, and it is affirmatively evil. Yes, McCain is pandering to that versy same mindset, but who said I liked McCain?
More importantly, the STUPID question is not as good at getting real information as the non-stupid question (ignoring that NO poll gives you good information that is truly "news"). Instead of asking poll questioins which assume that people are going to read between the lines, why not just ask directly a question DIFFERENT from: "Does 2 plus 2 equal 4?" For example: "By definition, our economy is not in a recession, but it is in a downturn. Does the fact that we are not in a recession make you feel better about the economy".
"Hey," you say, that is not a useful question. The answer is OBVIOUS. Whys should a WORD change how people feel about the economy?". EXACTLY. The WORD means little. An economy growing .5% is not much different from an economy falling .5%--a little worse, but not much. To try to ask about this in opinion polls merely LIES. It suggests that the opinion on fhe word MATTERS.
Now, people like Charles Schumer, and those in the media, WANT to us the WORD as a WEAPON. Thus, the polls, and partisan hacks like Schumer (as well as politicians not quite so obviously partisan), feed on each other. It is a vicious cylce. Politicians play up to the polls, instead of being honest with the people. Pollsters tell the people that OPINION (of small samples, yet!!!!) is all that matters, and that reality matters not at all.
It makes you despair for this country sometimes, doesn't it?
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