CRI’s “Dr” John Stapleford simply typing any old shit at this point
The CRI continues to pay “Dr” John Stapleford to wax eloquent on the conservative utopia that Delaware would be if we only followed the conservative example of states like Somalia and Haiti. If you have the stomach for it, click on for his latest.
Delaware’s economy and governance
Since Delaware has had 15 consecutive years of conservative governors followed by 18 years of progressive governors, it is an interesting case study. Do the differences in the governance philosophies have consequences for Delaware’s economy?
A simple answer to this question is to consider the differences in the major measures of economic performance for Delaware between these two time periods. While this simple approach doesn’t control for all intervening factors, both periods saw two national recessions and, according to the Tax Foundation, the state and local tax burdens were similar.
As shown below, the Delaware economy was far more robust during the conservative years than during the progressive years. Output and personal income grew more than 60% faster during the conservative period, while per capita income and employment grew over 100% faster. The unemployment rate was slightly lower during the progressive period and the poverty rates were essentially the same.
“Since Delaware has had 15 consecutive years of conservative governors followed by 18 years of progressive governors, it is an interesting case study.”
Is it? Now, I’m no “Doctor” like “Doctor” Stapey, but just I know how to Google the last few governors to Delaware and see if how paragons of “conservative” philosophy shape up against his governmental archetypes of progressive thought… let’s see…
Pierre S. du Pont, IV January 18, 1977 January 15, 1985
Michael Castle January 15, 1985 December 31, 1992
Dale E. Wolf December 31, 1992 January 19, 1993
Thomas R. Carper January 19, 1993 January 3, 2001
Ruth Ann Minner January 3, 2001 January 20, 2009
Jack Markell January 20, 2009
That’s pretty solid proof of whatever the doctor was trying to prove I guess. Carper and Ruth Ann are Delaware’s answer to Mao and Trotsky, so….
First, it shows that he can’t add, since du Pont/Castle/Wolf adds up to 16 (unless Pete didn’t become a conservative until the GA overrode his veto and passed its own budget in ’77).
Second, aside from the indoor smoking ban, there’s little in Minner’s record to brand her as a progressive.
Third, as for Carper (D-Big Banks/Big Pharma), rustydils may have been the last person on this site to call him a progressive.
But Stapey’s observation leads to one of my pet peeves — a serious need for some political rebranding.
If we’re going to be progressive, it’s time we began to label Stapleford and his buddies as what they really are — regressive.
John Stapleford is, in the words of my fifth graders, simply “CRAY CRAY!”
Your fifth graders are reading Stapleford? 🙂
Of course, this is Mike Matthews’ class we are talking about.
So I did go look. Where did his numbers come from? The only thing he provides a citation for is an offhand comment about tax burdens being similar throughout these periods.
What does this mean? As far as I know, he made all of this stuff up. Which is typical of these wingnut operations trying to catch the attention of the media and other wingnut operations who won’t check them. Colin Bonini and Greg Lavelle will be repeating this bullshit as if it is real pretty soon AND media operations will pick it up. And some of them will use CRI as their “fact check”.
More cynical lying from these people in order to try to create a narrative that might work to their favor.
This is typical conservative claptrap. Throw out broad claims unsubstantiated by anything resembling real empirical data, and hope that it gets picked up by the gullible. Let’s start with his labels of “conservative” and “progressive.” Like mediawatch observed, I would be hard pressed to label either Carper or Minner progressives. The “research” methods of conservatives would be laughed out of any entry level class on research. This “study” fails from square one because he has apparently defined “conservative” as “having an ‘R’ behind your name” and “progressive” as the opposite of that.
I’m pulling for Fisker to start Atlantic production in Newport – mainly because I want to see Stapleford take to his crying towel.
Is his utopia better than Obama’s nightmare? Yes, you bet. We didn’t build our businesses but Obama has destroyed the economy.
Has anyone seen CRI’s mobile billboard? Monday pm on Route 13 this tacky horrible ad truck passed in front of me, with revolving ads asking if you were tired of the liberal agenda, come find the truth at CRI. How is it possible that they have money for something like this? And if they have the money, how is it possible that they can justify spending it on a gas guzzling, carbon spewing ad campaign? It made me giggle, then puke.
“How is it possible that they have money for something like this?”
Winghut welfare.
“if they have the money, how is it possible that they can justify spending it on a gas guzzling, carbon spewing ad campaign?”
They know it will piss off liberals. Because they lack the intelligence to judge any proposal on its own merits, they wait to see what liberals think on any given issue, then take the opposite position. As Charlie Pierce pointed out recently, you could get the conservatives to drink bleach just by having Obama going on TV to warn people not to drink bleach.
giggle puke – yes.
And yet, if Stapleford had reached the opposite conclusion, and hailed the last 18 years as a golden age, this blog would be praising him…
“As far as I know, he made all of this stuff up” — that’s right, tenured professors at major universities make stuff up all the time; again, you don’t like the message, so you look for ways to shoot the messenger. Maybe if you’re so concerned about his sources, you should just ask, rather than shoot first. But I guess that wouldn’t be as much fun in this echo chamber.
As to Fisker, give me a break. At $46000 a pop for a 4-door car that competes with cars selling for under $30000, Fisker was NEVER going to succeed, let alone sell 100000 cars in 2012 and 125000 cars in 2013 (the original business projections). Sometimes people are so desperate for hope, that they’ll grasp at anything and miss the most obvious problems.
In late May, Fisker Automotive’s management released a “business update” showing the company was in solid financial shape, with over $100 million in revenue from Karma sales. Additionally the company is working the investigator community to raise capital through private investments, in part to replace the Dept of Energy loans. The company has raised over $1 billion in equity investment, and the most recent filing with the SEC indicates the Series D investment round has expanded to a $500 million offering of which $410 million remains to be sold. Series D began last fall with a more modest $150 million goal. In February, Henrik Fisker was quoted saying “We are in discussions for alternative financing. We don’t want our future 100 percent reliant on DOE funding. It’s been great to have. We just want to be sure we have capital without DOE.” Given the company’s fundraising track-record since then, they have been successful on that front.
Clearly Fisker Automotive is facing a few challenges, but we see here a company that is expanding and raising investment capital. We do not see here a company teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, despite having lost access to the Dept of Energy loan program. In April, Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney tried to describe the loans to Fisker as a “failed investment” of the Solyndra variety. For months, years maybe, various pundits have complained loudly about Fisker Automotive, with many attempting to tarnish that company with the stain of Solyndra. As the months go on, and the company continues to expand and raise new investment dollars, one wonders just when is this supposed impending failure going to occur. Fisker Automotive simply does not look like an impending failure, despite all the hot air from the pundits.
http://www.torquenews.com/1075/fisker-automotives-expansion-negates-impending-bankruptcy-claims
If people would read beyond right wing talking points, they would realize that Fisker has potential. I hope Delaware doesn’t lose the jobs and revenue from Fisker because of a few nut jobs that whine over anything labeled “green.” If people will shell out $120K for a Karma, they’ll pay $46K for an Atlantic. Hell, I want one.
“As far as I know, he made all of this stuff up” — that’s right, tenured professors at major universities make stuff up all the time; again, you don’t like the message, so you look for ways to shoot the messenger. Maybe if you’re so concerned about his sources, you should just ask, rather than shoot first. But I guess that wouldn’t be as much fun in this echo chamber.
This, right here, is stone cold bullshit. Stapleford derives whatever credibility he claims from his academic credentials. Being clear about your sources is basic for this kind of writing. even those of us writing here on this lowly blog work harder at making sure people know where we get our information from than Stapleford did. The problem with not citing your sources is that you invite your readers to think that you are making shit up. Which we did. If he cared about his own reputation or credibility, he would have provided those sources. And how hard could that be? If he really did get them from some credible source?
“tenured professors at major universities make stuff up all the time”
Source, please.
When I went to the U of D professors in the Women’s Studies Department would frequently make the claim that when Chrysler had layoffs, crimes against women like rape would increase in Newark. I took that as a fact, and several years later, while writing about crimes against women, I contacted the Women’s Studies Department and asked to get the study that showed their claims. Two weeks later they called me back to say that apparently there was never a study or a compilation of data done to prove the assertion.
I could not help but notice an error in Mr. Stapleton’s figures. Allow me. His figures are what physicists, chemists, biologists, mathematicians, economists would all classify as irrelevant. His figures could be correct or could be not correct, but either way, it would not make enough difference. Delaware’s GDP is $65.7 billion. The nation’s GDP is $60.3 Trillion.
Delaware 0.108%(one tenth of one percent) stake in the national economy. Which means Delaware’s economic impact on Delawareans, is irrelevant. What happens on the national scale is far more pertinent to Delaware’s economy than anything Jack or Pierre can personally do to while in office…..
So, when one looks on the national scale, if even using Stapleford’s fabricated data as accurate, Delaware thrived during the years of Democratic control of Congress and or Democratic Presidents, then failed under the Republican’s control of Congress and its Republican presidents. That is speaking generally, of course, there are very brief (2 year) periods that naysayers can say disprove this thesis. But, the tax hike hammered through by Clinton, gave us 8 years of solid growth….
That is incontestable.
And I’ll leave for others to ridicule Mr. Stapleford for making such a gross claim that should have been caught by a competent tenth grade high schooler. I just wanted to point the error out to anyone interested.
Anybody now who’s behind CRI? Who started it? Who’s the main person in charge?
I see CRI describes themselves – “CRI seeks to become Delaware’s preeminent non-partisan . . . think tank.”
CRI non-partisan? That tells you all you need to know about CRI integrity. Why not say we are a real conservative think tank. Is there something about being honest that would screw things up for these folks?