Econ Truthiness

Couldn't have said it better.

Economic Tribalism

Hmm. This seems to be meta Saturday, with reactions to how people think – or, all too often, don’t think — about economics taking center stage.
Justin Fox has an interesting post documenting something I more or less knew, but am glad to see confirmed: People aren’t very receptive to evidence if it doesn’t come from a member of their cultural community. This has been blindingly obvious these past few years.
Consider what the different sides in economic debate have been predicting these past six or seven years. If you got your views from, say, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, you knew – knew – that there was no housing bubble, that America in 2008 wasn’t in recession, that budget deficits would send interest rates sky-high, that the Fed’s expansion of its balance sheet would produce huge inflation, that austerity policies would lead to economic expansion.
That’s quite a record. And yet I’m well aware that many people – including people with real money at stake – consider the WSJ a reliable source and people like, well, me flaky and unbelievable. Much of this is politics, of course, but that’s intertwined with culture: the kind of people who turn to the WSJ, or right-wing investment sites can clearly see that I’m a latte-sipping liberal who probably favors gay rights and doesn’t worship the financially successful (I actually prefer good filter coffee, black, but that’s otherwise accurate), and just not part of their tribe.
I suppose that in my quest to improve policy and understanding I should be trying to fit in better – lose the beard, learn to play golf, start using “impact” as a verb. But I probably couldn’t pull it off even if I tried. And as a result there will always be a large group of people who will never be moved by any evidence I present.
Actually, I had a wonderful, in a way, piece of correspondence today; the correspondent had read End this Depression Now!, and was having trouble finding any instances where I presented facts deceptively to support my ideological agenda. Could I please help him locate the places in the book where I do that?
Oh well. We just do what we can.
Update: Or, to illustrate, let me quote a voice mail I got recently (as rendered by Microsoft speech technology — I won’t actually listen to the thing):

Yeah hi Paul Krugman please this is for you I seen you on CNN last night with Anderson cooper.
And your as always you’re so far message unbelievable you’re falcon liar you’re fall issue yet and you are so liberal it’s unbelievable but you keep — keep talking that she had and you keep back and — mr obama — and now when users is that maybe you lose your parking job not sure when one my kids and if you’re ready coming classes.
Update update: You know, I hadn’t quite realized what he meant by “falcon liar”. But now I do — and I guess I get what it means to say I’m “fall issue” too.
I think I get the gist.

This was just a post on Paul Krugman's blog, the source article is here. At it's core:
"People feel that it is safe to consider evidence with an open mind when they know that a knowledgeable member of their cultural community accepts it."

I for one, like to read about other cultural communities. The problem is when tribalism in this community rends any common understanding. There is truth about the economy, and then there is truthiness.