tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post5204622713216297914..comments2024-01-12T01:56:21.933-08:00Comments on chokka blog: Richard Murphy, GERS DenierKevin Haguehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14587343060415859159noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-26059975445885012582017-03-28T06:27:23.806-07:002017-03-28T06:27:23.806-07:00Fraser of Allander have also published a paper on...<br />Fraser of Allander have also published a paper on GERS which doesn't back up Richard at all.<br /><br /> https://fraserofallander.org/2017/03/28/estimating-scotlands-fiscal-position/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-62050427437810003062017-03-22T15:01:54.328-07:002017-03-22T15:01:54.328-07:00Funny how Richard Murphy mentioned none of this in...Funny how Richard Murphy mentioned none of this in his response to the 2016 GERS consultation. Instead he cut and paste a Common Weal campaign asking for a breakdown of PFI debt to be included. In the response form, asked if he had any comments on the methodology of the whole thing, he just replied with a dash. <br /><br />http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0050/00503373.pdfDavidnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-62065141926960970802017-03-22T02:19:12.537-07:002017-03-22T02:19:12.537-07:00Part of the problem is that the vast majority of t...Part of the problem is that the vast majority of the population have real difficulty with abstract financial figures and just switch off when it comes to in-depth debate (such as this post/thread). So much easier to go with opinion of an 'expert' that aligns with your own views. It's a difficult problem to overcome.<br /><br />Huge numbers such as £15bn are also largely meaningless to the average man on the street and it's difficult to grasp the reality of that number. I know it's often couched in terms of tax rises / public service cuts, but we never see a vision of what would be actually be required to cut the deficit (say by 50% in 10 years for example). How many business would have to be created, of what size, and what increase would be required in the working population to support them? The faithful might then have the reality check needed for a proper debate on the realities of independence.Stoutynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-67093161549024585702017-03-18T15:24:39.381-07:002017-03-18T15:24:39.381-07:00"Personally I think there is more emotion to ..."Personally I think there is more emotion to the No vote than Unionists let on (maybe the famous British stiff upper lip is in play?). In fact I think most of the 55% of No voters did it for emotional reasons as much as or more so than economics. "<br /><br />Impressive post @Drew<br />You articulate very well, what I have always thought. Papkohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08694417462545838716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-87676120523762800452017-03-18T07:57:09.355-07:002017-03-18T07:57:09.355-07:00On Professor Richard Murphy it is straightforward ...On Professor Richard Murphy it is straightforward - the man is a dipstick.<br /><br />His habit is to wade into random areas without doing any homework to make sure he has any credibility on the topic. In diving into Sindy politics he entered a shark-infested custard, and has ended up looking as he normally does.<br /><br />Murphy's normal approach to dealing with people pointing out inconvenient things such as facts is to ignore the evidence and rubbish the person. There is an excellent example in the comments after the article you have replied to.<br /><br />Professor Murphy acknowledges Wings' clain about GERS being questionable because it was created by Ian Lang in 1992, in ignorance of the SNP overhaul in 2007-8, then goes ad hominem when the fact is posted.<br /><br />----------------------------<br />>ian m says:<br />March 14 2017 at 10:37 pm<br />Just to add to the we don’t know what we don’t know theme.Well now we know even less<br /><br />From The Herald Dec 18 2006<br /><br />Gers was conceived as a political, not as a statistical, exercise. We know this because the original correspondence from the then Secretary of State, Ian Lang, was leaked some years ago – he wanted it to “undermine the other parties”, saying “this initiative could score against all of them”.<br /><br />>Richard Murphy says:<br />March 14 2017 at 11:09 pm<br />Telling<br /><br />>Marty says:<br />March 15 2017 at 3:16 pm<br />What’s ‘telling’ is you not knowing that in 2007, GERS was overhauled completely by the SNP, who invited the Cuthberts into the mix (qualified and respected economists, who funnily enough also support independence) to better reflect our finances. The work they did was not only needed, but revolutionary.<br /><br />She wrote a good piece on Brexit and GERS back in 2016:<br /><br />https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/9162/margaret-cuthbert-what-gers-and-brexit-reports-tell-us-about-scotlands-economy<br /><br />Anyone who knows anything about GERS and its history would know this. They would also know that due to the work carried out post 2007, prior reviews of GERS accuracy can be safely thrown out the window. For the record, previous years’ data were amended to reflect the new model and methodology. That obviously eliminates you, since you are ignorant of this fact.<br /><br />I would genuinely like to know how you (as an economist) would feel if you published researched data for then another economist to basically flush it down the toilet with no evidence or source to support it?<br /><br />>Richard Murphy says:<br />March 15 2017 at 3:35 pm<br />If and when you attempt objectivity I will try replying<br /><br />---------------<br /><br />Apologies for the length.Matt Wardmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-52032120729734408302017-03-18T07:45:24.507-07:002017-03-18T07:45:24.507-07:00I think Drew has a point, there.
However in polli...I think Drew has a point, there.<br /><br />However in polling after the 2014 Referendum, the economy and undertainty on the new currency were significant reasons why people votes no.<br />http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2014/09/scotland-voted/<br /><br />The current human wave style attacks being launched on GERS by Nats are a political attempt to marginalise their own authoritative information that sunk their own case last time round.Ferdinandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08449417038009763914noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-48385369890882463982017-03-17T09:56:28.016-07:002017-03-17T09:56:28.016-07:00While I can see why you think it is important to c...While I can see why you think it is important to correct inaccuracies regarding economics, I think the EU referendum proved putting all your eggs in that particular basket is risky. Let's be honest, the vast majority of the population don't know much about economics, No voters included. <br /><br />Personally I think there is more emotion to the No vote than Unionists let on (maybe the famous British stiff upper lip is in play?). In fact I think most of the 55% of No voters did it for emotional reasons as much as or more so than economics. <br /><br />Sure, they have the numbers on their side at this particular moment in time and the economics of the Union have always been important since 1707. <br /><br />But when Scotland was capable of generating large surpluses from oil revenues in the 1970s and 1980s which could have supported a Scottish currency, I'm guessing most No voters wouldn't have supported independence at the time.<br /><br />And being told about the risks of independence and fearing them is an emotional response in itself. My mum is a staunch No voter and one of the reasons she gave was she didn't think we could afford it. I asked her on what evidence and she couldn't name a single figure or source to back up her argument. She's never heard of GERS. She doesn't read a daily paper so clearly it was a gut feeling based on what she had heard from the debates or in the news. But she is also very pro the Royal family. <br /><br />For me, the Union has always been built on 3 things: <br /><br />The Crown/Christian values (more specifically Protestantism) <br />The Empire<br />Trade Unionism<br /><br />In the 18th century, most of Scotland, like the rest of Britain, was focused on keeping Catholics from re-taking the throne. In the 19th century the focus was on economic opportunity through the Empire. And finally in the 20th century, the labour movement and trade unionism helped create Labour, which created the Welfare State and the NHS.<br /><br />Almost all of these things are far less important or even non existant than they were. <br /><br />But I'm pretty sure a more emotional Unionist campaign, based on the British armed forces and the Queen who is still very popular in Scotland would have won a bigger margin of victory in 2014 and caused a more serious, potentially fatal blow to the SNP. <br /><br />My guess would be Theresa May will lead that type of campaign if it comes to it, more so than David Cameron could have. Drewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-73807760274358564232017-03-17T08:24:52.952-07:002017-03-17T08:24:52.952-07:00If Murphy was correct, one would think that the SN...If Murphy was correct, one would think that the SNP would instruct our civil servants to carry out an separate data collection exercise. After all, the fiscal situation of an independent Scotland could in theory be <i>even worse</i> than those presented in GERS. As it is, they do not.theamblerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01842086380447890404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-44935742232888814292017-03-17T04:02:51.210-07:002017-03-17T04:02:51.210-07:00Ben, while I agree with your points about likeliho...Ben, while I agree with your points about likelihood, I suspect that the only people who will appreciate the significance of probability are those already minded to take the numbers seriously. The rest will ignore, misunderstand, or gleefully interpret "in the range of" statements as uncertainty or inaccuracy. Sadly, Kevin's short, simple £14.9bn is more likely to carry the weight of conviction, and (happily) is almost impossible to refute. RabCHAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-14790687053430975252017-03-16T12:51:06.618-07:002017-03-16T12:51:06.618-07:00Kevin,
Interesting points. We can only hope for a ...Kevin,<br />Interesting points. We can only hope for a civilized and informed debate; today's indignant hyperbole from FM at FMQ does not bode well. Nevertheless, please keep it up. I admire your tolerance of the zealots on twitter, but we need to get the debate away from the emotional soundbites that twitter encourages and into discussion of substance.<br />There are sensible arguments on both sides of this debate (eg some of what Common Weal says is interesting; but at least its civilized). The real question is whether leaving or remaining in UK is more likely to lead us to a peaceful and prosperous future for our children. <br /><br />In regards to this matter I must disagree with a point in your penultimate paragraph, where you suggest that it would be better to use the short form of stats, such as "Scotland's GERS deficit is £14.9bn". I actually think that proponents of the economic case for both sides should cite their figures with a view to probability, so in the form "we can be 95% sure that Scotland's GERS deficit is in the range of £14.3 - 15.5bn". Tedious yes, but it would highlight the extreme optimism implicit in so many of the claims and hopes pushed by the seccessionists. For instance, if Salmond had said that oil would be at ~$130/barrel, he might have been within the distribution of possible outcomes, but that scenario would have had a probability of occurrence below ~5%.<br /><br />Conversely, your points about trade, deficit, etc are all founded in actual data from our current known situation, thus can be proposed with a high likelihood of occurrence. If probability estimates were put against many of the brave claims for the outlook for an independent scotland, as with oil price, they may be possible, the question is: are they likely?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05479257252064977293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-18765103630294121622017-03-16T10:34:23.695-07:002017-03-16T10:34:23.695-07:00Brilliant by chokkaBrilliant by chokkaAndrew Careyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08442714147160589939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-33048165050538363912017-03-16T05:56:28.109-07:002017-03-16T05:56:28.109-07:00"Tim Worstall, do you have a source for gover..."Tim Worstall, do you have a source for government spending as a % of Scottish GDP?"<br /><br />Not directly, no, never bothered to look it up.Tim Worstallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13161727860817121071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-21579549055671719552017-03-16T04:25:28.755-07:002017-03-16T04:25:28.755-07:00Tim Worstall, do you have a source for government ...Tim Worstall, do you have a source for government spending as a % of Scottish GDP?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-65717918215997683472017-03-16T04:03:40.492-07:002017-03-16T04:03:40.492-07:00It's remarkable that someone who *should* unde...It's remarkable that someone who *should* understand numbers apparently cannot understand their application in the area of forecasting and probability. Murphy argues that GERS figures are either wildly wrong, because some source data is estimated and so not 100% accurate, or are being manipulated by (presumably No-motivated) political forces to give a particular (and again false) economic picture. Either way they cannot be trusted, and so can be entirely discounted. His ludicrous case would be marginally more credible if he provided just one example of a wild data inaccuracy leading to an erroneous conclusion, or of a flaw in the GERS methodology, or of a proven case of Westminster meddling in figures produced FOR the Scottish Government BY the Scottish Civil Service IN Scotland. <br /><br />It's equally remarkable that such conspiracy theorists and alt-truthers all assume that if the facts and figures can't be trusted (the point of the exercise) the "real" facts must by definition be better for their cause. Nowhere in Murphy's blog does one detect the possibility that if GERS is seriously wrong the figures might actually be a whole lot worse for an independent Scotland than they indicate. Don't trust that dodgy debt figure? Okay I won't, but does that mean that there's no debt or could it be twice as big as stated, or what? Murphy has no interest in getting to a more accurate economic picture, it seems, only in attacking the credentials of figures that don't suit him. A fact-free world is his end game, leaving the battle to be fought on ignorance and emotion only. RabCH<br /> Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-63217768463477551272017-03-16T01:40:39.846-07:002017-03-16T01:40:39.846-07:00I broadly agree with you but need to correct you o...I broadly agree with you but need to correct you on one point. Murphy is no tax expert, that's for sure. Ask anyone who actually works in tax.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-4622108696441165042017-03-15T23:35:22.631-07:002017-03-15T23:35:22.631-07:00It's worse than this I'm afraid. Our profe...It's worse than this I'm afraid. Our professor in practice of international political economy is failing to realise that GDP can be calculated in three ways. All production, all income, all consumption.<br /><br />He's right, for example, that corporation tax isn't separately recorded, which makes income a tad difficult to determine on a sub-UK basis (profits are a part of income in GDP accounting).<br /><br />But we can do much better with the production numbers, and profits are going to be a minority of the economy under the income approach too. And we must note that all three measures should add up to the same number, production, income, consumption. We have an internal check on this.<br /><br />Which is why ONS is entirely happy calculating GVA (which is really GDP but applied to a sub-national unit) down to the level of local authorities and similar statistical areas. Numbers I've seen Ritchie use to talk about how oppressed the North is by London, I'm sure.<br /><br />And there's yet another test we can do. If you add up the GVA numbers from ONS you do actually get to the same as reported for GDP. The local and national numbers are self-consistent. They're consistent across the two measures they use, production and income, and local summing to national (that second is not true of the Chinese figures for example). Similarly the US provides GVA numbers for states and I think for counties, or at least one statistical area smaller than the state - maybe metropolitan area.<br /><br />If all that's true then it's not too difficult to get from GVA to GERS - just add up the GVA for all smaller areas within Scotland.<br /><br />No, it'll never be perfect but then of course what economic number is?<br /><br />And then it really gets worse. Because Murphy is making his usual theoretical mistake. He's a huge believer in how government should be planning everything. And to do that of course govt needs to know what is happening now. Hayek told us this wasn't really possible but Spud insists that a Courageous State does have the knowledge and should use it. But if our econ stats are just guesses then of course we don't have the knowledge to do Corbynomics, do we?<br /><br />It's not possible to both know shit about the economy and direct it. But that's the dual insistence the Murphmonster ends up with.<br /><br />Bit sad that he ended up as a professor but then it is Islington Technical College after all.....Tim Worstallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13161727860817121071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-14630028425480032442017-03-15T17:25:55.733-07:002017-03-15T17:25:55.733-07:00Just a few thoughts.
Well argued, and deep flaws ...Just a few thoughts.<br /><br />Well argued, and deep flaws convincingly exposed, Kevin.<br /><br />You indicate that R Murphy has wandered into the field of GERS uninformed - or at least severely underinformed - and started pontificating as if an authority.<br /><br />I think this is the core of the problem you address here. <br /><br />Wasn't it Pope (not the self-appointed, self-enthroned one in Bath) who wrote: <br /><br />"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing"? <br /><br />Being a Voltairean sort, a beacon of caustic enlightenment, the poet was by no means suggesting ignorance is bliss. But that those who acquire a thin patina of learning in any new field are (all too often) tempted to sound off with a false new authority - and expose a greater ignorance, at least to anyone who has got to know that field better,at closer quarters, by dint of harder work.<br /><br />Murphy is no fool.<br /><br />But I believe he is two things: a) an accountant and tax expert, b) committed to a left-progressive line especially on social issues. He does not generally give the impression of a grasp of large, more complex and multi-determined economic details. <br /><br />As Pope might have continued, too little knowledge is no excuse. <br /><br />You do not mention this in your preamble, but I think it is worth mentioning here, for at least two reasons: originally just about Corbyn's most prominent economics expert/champion has become thoroughly disillusioned by Corbyn as a "leader", and I think, also by what is oddly known as "Corbynism", as a cause. If not also the latter, so much the worse.<br /><br />On GERS, I fear it may be once again a case of "commitment determines all". That he has not studied the details sufficiently, and worse: has committed himself to setting himself up as some sort of authority on something he does not understand.Peterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14338998297827415473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-90658060654928241102017-03-15T16:38:40.537-07:002017-03-15T16:38:40.537-07:00Did you get your degree in Economics at Trump Univ...Did you get your degree in Economics at Trump University by any chance ?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-23857882400624024572017-03-15T16:02:34.304-07:002017-03-15T16:02:34.304-07:00Iaing, how can anyone give an answer when we don&#...Iaing, how can anyone give an answer when we don't know what currency it would be in.flashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16093415925792494433noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-37449482829392117482017-03-15T15:26:30.783-07:002017-03-15T15:26:30.783-07:00I hereby nominate Kevin and Ronald MacDonald to he...I hereby nominate Kevin and Ronald MacDonald to head the official opposition to the next installment of the once-in-a-generation referendum.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1603438996450817644.post-15438452108443544432017-03-15T13:57:37.586-07:002017-03-15T13:57:37.586-07:00So, how much will the Pedigree Chum be after indep...So, how much will the Pedigree Chum be after independence?Iainghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11109392945480797694noreply@blogger.com