Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!hao!seismo!harvard!wjh12!foxvax1!brunix!rch From: rch@brunix.UUCP (Rich Yampell) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: economy Message-ID: <9639@brunix.UUCP> Date: Sat, 22-Sep-84 19:28:26 EDT Article-I.D.: brunix.9639 Posted: Sat Sep 22 19:28:26 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 4-Oct-84 02:31:16 EDT References: ihuxe.855 Lines: 15 > Now, four years later, after > implementing the policies he [Reagan] promised, the economic situation has > greatly improved. Why shouldn't his administration take credit for it? > He's responsible for it. Interesting reasoning, but it ain't necessarily so. Because there is a correlation between fact A and fact B does not in any way prove that A *caused* B (no matter how strongly A's administration may want to claim so). Reagan's policies *may* be responsible for the recovery, but there are certainly economists around who feel that the economy has improved *despite* Reagan's policies. Economics is a sufficiently bizarre and poorly enough understood "science" that its frequently not clear exactly what makes it tick or what just made it tock. Does that fact that Hoover was in office when the depression hit mean Hoover was responsible for it? Should his administration take the blame for it?