NBER caught cooking the books for Bush Administration

...the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has added a new indicator -- monthly real gross domestic product -- and assigned greater weight to GDP estimates in determining when the end of the recession may be...the committee had downgraded its emphasis on employment statistics even more...Perhaps these seven economists have convinced themselves that a jobless recovery can be called a recovery, but I doubt that they will be able to convince America's workers and job-seekers.

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RECIPIENT PROFILE

National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

Cambridge, MA 02138

Lessons in mainstream media ignoring Conservative Philanthropy (Republican) sponsorship of Societal Institutions, #562:

New York Times story on head of National Bureau of Economic Research calls institution "non-partisan", doesn't identify $10 million in conservative philanthropy underwriting

You think the conservative philanthropies give this kind of money for nothing?

A 2,500 word story in the New York Times today (December 1, 2002) called the conservative philanthropy funded institution the National Bureau of Economic Research a "non-partisan" institution, and didn't mention a penny of the money it receives from the Bradley, Olin, Scaife or Smith Richardson foundations.

Reporter David Leonhardt found time to report that the bureau, headed by Martin Feldstein, guru to Bush-enomics, is the "nation's premier economic research organization," but couldn't do a simple Google search (MediaTransparency data on search comes up 23rd) to determine where it gets its money.

But reporter Leonhardt does have some interesting things to say about Harvard University:

Still, Ec10, as it is known at Harvard, is hardly neutral — in its readings or its lectures — and its point of view contributes a good deal to his importance. Over the last two decades, thousands of Harvard undergraduates have received a decidedly anti-tax, free-market-leaning introduction to economics.

And there's this gem about Feldstein's partisanship and his crappy economic analysis, driven by partisanship:

For his part, Mr. Feldstein has shown little taste since the 1980's for straying from the Republican Party line. In 1992, he predicted that the Clinton administration's tax increase would stifle economic growth and do little to erase the deficit...In 2001, when President Bush was forming his cabinet, Mr. Feldstein and his wife began a Boston Globe article by writing, "Paul O'Neill was an inspired choice for secretary of the Treasury." Mr. Feldstein is also on the board of Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical company with strong Republican ties.

And the next time you hear someone refer to Feldstein as from Harvard, remember that, according to Feldstein,

"I have a Harvard office, but I hardly ever, ever use it..."

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Spotlight on Marty

Harvard students have known for nearly two decades that Ec10 is flagrantly biased...It is a blotch on the University’s academic record that it has allowed...Martin S. Feldstein...to use Harvard’s only introductory economics course as a forum to vent his personal views...what is most shameful is Professor Feldstein’s intellectual dishonesty.

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