Reporters so bad that they aren't even wrong

Reading Who decides if the US is in a recession? Eight White economists you've never heard of by Nicole Goodkind, I am reminded of Wolfgang Pauli's comment, "This paper is so bad it is not even wrong."

The confusion in Goodkind's thinking, and the irrelevance of so much of what she says, is so profound it is hard to even know where to begin.  I think her implied central argument is 

There should be a hard and fast definition of recession.

The determination of whether the economy is in recession should not be determined by a cadre of academic economists.

The group making the determination of whether the nation is in recession should not be independent of the government.  

If judgment is to be exercised, then it should be by a group of economists who at least look like America.

A racially and sexually heterogeneous mix of economists will produce more useful determinations of when the economy is in recession.  

She spends no time supporting arguments 1-3 or 5.  She merely asserts argument 4 that whoever determines the dating of recessions should sexually and racially mirror America.  

Goodkind never really clarifies that what she is talking about is the post facto dating of when a recession began and when it ended.  Defining when a recession has begun and ended is a lagging indicator.  It happens after the fact.  It has no real world consequence, merely a consequence in politics.  

If Goodkind were talking about leading indicators, it would be much more salient and a different story.  With leading indicators, you can act and change outcomes.  But you do actually have to act.  The leading indicators have been flashing red for more than a year and those signals have been ignored.  

Those leading indicators are multiple and from across the political and intellectual spectrum.  It appears that there is no upside for attacking such a widespread and dispersed discussion.  Better to focus on those who define the beginning and end after the fact.  Since the NBER members are so intellectually diverse (from flat-taxers to Obama administration advisers), Goodkind doesn't have much to work with and seems to fall back to criticizing their race.  At least one might be able obfuscate that no action was taken when it was called for. 

Goodkind only has two sources for the article.  Richard Wolff is a retired economic professor who is a Marxist (not being pejorative, that is his career description).  Valerie Rawlson Wilson is the other source.  While she has an economics PhD, she is not an economist but an advocate, first at the National Urban League and now at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute think tank in Washington, D.C.  She is focused on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.  

So a Marxist thinks the established mechanism for dating the beginning of a recession is corrupted and ineffective and a DEI advocate thinks it is unrepresentative.  

Well, No Surprise Sherlock.

Entertainingly, Goodkind, seeks to bolster her argument by quoting a questionable source:

Janet Yellen, America's first woman Treasury secretary and its first woman Fed chair, has argued that the lack of women and minority economists at the Federal Reserve and the federal government is a top priority. That lack of diversity, she said, skews viewpoints and limits the issues of discussion.

Yellen ended her four year term as Chair of the Fed in 2018 with a lot of criticisms and concerns about the possible consequences of actions she had taken.  Concerns which have turned out to have been warranted.  

She is now the Treasury Secretary and already infamous in her short tenure for so dramatically underestimating the threat of rising inflation that it has forced the Fed to make drastic interest rate hikes to get it under control and with the rising risk of recession.  

She has been criticized since 2014 for not understanding the economy and not understanding the consequence of her actions on ordinary Americans.  Her policies have been exceptionally beneficial to the wealthy and exceptionally destructive to the remaining 80% of Americans.  

That is who Goodkind uses to bolster her claim that the NBER needs greater diversity.  Perhaps if Yellen had spent more time focusing on the economy and managing inflationary and recessionary risks and less time worried about DEI, we would not be in such dire straits.

Goodkind is not making any argument at all.  She is merely parroting the criticisms of a Marxist, a race advocate, and a failed economist.  This is a pretty lazy piece.

Which is a pity because there are some interesting discussions to be had on her other four arguments.

Should there be a hard and fast definition of recession?  There are pros and cons to this.  Algorithmic definitions are clear but unsubtle.  How do you compare a 20% drop in economic activity for one quarter to a 4% decline for two consecutive quarters?  There are some legitimate points of discussion here but Goodkind doesn't address the issue.

Should academic economists be the determiners of when recessions begin and end? There could be some really good discussion here.  Business people?  Investors?  Ordinary Citizens?  Who else might be involved.  There is some merit to a lot of different ideas here but Goodkind never addresses what the alternatives might be.  

Should the group making the determination of whether the nation is in recession be independent of the government?  A very interesting question and merits on both sides of the equation.  I would be strongly for independence but would be open to exploring whether it might be  independent but different from NBER.  At least for argument's sake.  There are definitely some, such as, apparently, Goodkind, who think otherwise, wanting the Administration to be free to determine when a recession has begun or not.  

Should those who make the dating determination of recessions look like America?  The answer is almost certainly no.  We want the most informed and experienced people making that determination and they may or may not look like America.  There is clear evidence that within bounds there is material benefit to intellectual diversity, and some evidence regarding class diversity.  There is virtually no evidence to support that simple race diversity improves outcomes.  

Would a racially and sexually heterogeneous mix of economists produce more useful determinations of when the economy is in recession?  That is a pretty straightforward empirical question and I don't know the answer.  Run the experiment and see.  

One more fundamentally bad piece of mainstream media reporting, introducing racial red herrings while avoiding real issues.