Government data proves 'corporate greed' isn't causing inflation, contrary to Dem claims: economists
By: Peter Kasperowicz (Fox Business)
Democrats like to claim facts are facts. Well, here are the facts. But they're inconvenient facts. So, it must be time for Democrats to trot out some alternatives.
There is little doubt that some businesses are taking advantage of the situation to pad their profits. And it is abundantly evident that Democrats will extrapolate a few specific cases to demonize every business. It is well known that Democrats govern by only addressing those exceptions then claim Democrats' narrow, nearsighted actions makes them exceptional. Never mind that only dealing with the problems caused by a few tends to screw everyone else.
If not for inflation, our economy would be going gangbusters. Unemployment is low, wages really are increasing, consumer spending continues unabated. Gold and silver are down in value, yields on government treasuries are still increasing, the stock market is not being kept afloat by stock buybacks, the value of the dollar is stronger than it has been in quite a while. Apparently money in the economy is being put to work instead of being stuffed into passive investments. And the press has been reporting an uptick in on-shore investments for productive business activities. It seems our economy is attempting to function the way a capitalist economy is supposed to work.
Yet Biden keeps pulling the 'trickle down' levers of government as if our economy had collapsed. Biden has been addressing inflation by spending ever increasing amounts of government money on every Democrat talking point. Biden has been trying to use the Federal budget to buy votes in a fundamentally robust economy. And Biden's profligate spending has not addressed the pinch points in the economy that cause empty shelves and limited availability. Biden isn't doing anything to protect the US economy from global inflation. The only thing Biden has accomplished is to throw more gas on the fire.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Democrats have blamed rising inflation on "corporate greed" for the last several months, but economists note that the Biden administration's own data proves that, if anything, companies are going out of their way to keep costs down for consumers.
One way the government measures inflation is by examining changes in the prices companies pay for goods and services, known as the Producer Price Index (PPI). Another measure, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), measures changes in the prices consumers pay for what they buy.
Rising prices for companies often foreshadow rising prices for consumers, and both the PPI and CPI have measured a steep increase in inflation since President Biden took office. But economists noted to FOX Business this week that since early 2021, the price hikes that companies have faced are higher than the increases seen by consumers.
In other words, while company costs are rising, not all of those costs are being passed on to consumers.
"Businesses being greedy is not the cause of inflation," U.S. Chamber of Commerce chief economist Curtis Dubay told FOX Business. "Inflation is rising because there is too much money chasing too few goods."
Dubay noted that company costs as measured by PPI have risen faster than consumer costs since January 2021. In September, for example, PPI inflation rose 8.5% from the prior year, but consumer inflation as measured by CPI rose 8.2% in that same period, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Dubay said despite what government officials and candidates say, most consumers are aware that "corporate greed" is not behind rising prices.
"Most people understand inflation well, they know it's not businesses that are gouging them and that there are real underlying consequences for price increases," he said. "It can take a while for that to work out, but they're not looking to businesses as the bad guys."
Dubay and other economists agreed that blaming "corporate greed" is illogical because it doesn't explain why inflation started to spike in 2021.
"As far as the corporate greed thing, I would love to know how corporations magically became greedy right when Biden became president," said E.J. Antoni, an economist at the Heritage Foundation.
Antoni said that when Biden took office inflation was lower than 2%. Since then, PPI has been running hotter than CPI for every single month of Biden's presidency.
"Businesses have seen their prices go up faster than the prices they charge consumers," Antoni said.
Even if companies did somehow decide 2021 was a time to get greedy, the Democratic theory assumes widespread, coordinated collusion among all companies in each industry to raise prices at the same time. It also assumes companies have no fear of losing customers in the face of inflation rates that haven't been seen in decades.
"Democrats say companies are raising prices because they're greedy, and consumers will just take it," said Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. "As if every company is in a monopoly position … and selling something that consumers can't live without."
She said Democratic claims that corporate greed is behind rising inflation is "ridiculous on its face."
However, it's an argument Democrats continue to make.
In the last several months, Biden has blamed pharmaceutical companies and shipping companies for unnecessary price increases. His energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, on Sept. 30 blamed energy companies for charging more in order to boost their profit margins.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., who is campaigning to keep his seat, said in a recent ad that it's wrong for companies to "take advantage of a crisis" by "price gouging."
Over the weekend, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who served under President Clinton, tweeted that the Republican argument saying inflation is caused by excessive federal spending is "baloney" and that corporate greed was the real reason.
"The major domestic cause of inflation is corporations that have been taking advantage of inflation by raising their prices higher than increasing costs," Reich said.
Also over the weekend, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said inflation is being caused by "incredible corporate greed."
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Joe Biden is short circuiting our economy by profligate spending to buy votes. What's not clear is if Biden is wrecking our economy on purpose - or - if Biden is just ignorant of how a capitalist economy is supposed to work.
Now is not the time for big government spending. We all know there is still a need for targeted spending so the 'small government' arguments are just so much opportunistic silliness. But Biden continuing to throw gasoline on the fire can only make things worse.
While the Dems may be spreading election year bullshit by talking about corporate greed, the Republicans are doing exactly the same linking the Dems spending with inflation. It's still partisan election year bullshit.
The US military/industrial complex would like to thank you for really believing that. Let the billions to Ukraine continue to flow; they are going to make billions in replacement weapons systems to the US military.
Damn the Democrats for even thinking about ending US military aid to Saudi Arabia. Don't they know that this spending will only increase inflation less than a percentage point!
This is about keeping the money flowing and the US economy running on high octane despite too much money and lack of materials! Throw enough money at it and anything will go away!
That analysis relies heavily on ignoring reality. It's true that the pandemic did seriously hamper the economy and that required a large amount of government support. But the pandemic has receded, the economy has begun functioning in a normal manner again, and that means large amounts of government support is no longer needed. The current economy is not restricted or limited by an emergency.
There are still pinch points in distribution and, in some cases, supply has not recovered. But addressing those issues only needs targeted support from government. There isn't a need for large amounts of government support to keep money circulating within the economy.
The linked article you provided is attempting to compare our current economy with the economy hampered by the emergency of the pandemic. What is being overlooked in that analysis has been the resurgence in trade deficits. Now that our economy has pretty much recovered from pandemic restrictions, the large amounts of government money being spent is actually leaving the United States.
Biden's large infusion of public money into the economy really does influence the level of imports and money leaving the country. Biden isn't doing anything to try to plug that leak. Biden is only trying to replace the money leaving the country. And the only thing that will accomplish is avoiding a decline in GDP which is an arbitrary metric that isn't as informative about the health of the economy any longer. Biden using public money to essentially subsidize imports can only short circuit our economy trying to function as a capitalist economy should work. Biden's large spending measures aren't really helping the country. Biden is short circuiting our own economy and replenishing the economies of foreign suppliers.
Biden really is contributing more to inflation than the linked analysis suggests. Fundamentally our economy is robust but the large infusion of public money is preventing the economy from equilibrating prices.
You can't say -
and then follow that up with -
and expect me to think you know what you are talking about.
Yes, our economy is robust. The last jobs report confirmed it. The issue is less government money than that of people continuing to spend. The fed rate hikes are slowing large item purchases in autos and homes. That's showing, but people are still spending - The USPS now prioritizes Amazon deliveries over regular mail. They don't have enough workers to keep up and it's looking dire for them in the upcoming holiday season.
Many retailers are overflowing with merchandise. Walmart and Target have made the news. Our local business supplier has echoed the same. Where they couldn't get anything now they have too much and will have to reduce prices to move it. Unless there is something like a rail workers strike I expect inflation to drop after a robust holiday shopping season.
You can't say the economy needs large infusions of public money after admitting the economy is robust by the measures you cite. If anything that would indicate that Biden's profligate spending is only throwing gasoline onto an economy that is already heating up.
Biden is trying to force an already robust economy to grow faster than it is capable of growing. Biden's spending really is short circuiting the economy.
Please point out where I said that? My point actually indicates people getting their grubby hands on free cash would do exactly as you claim, but I'm not seeing where all this government cash is you claim is flowing. I, nor anyone I know, has gotten any free government cash since the COVID payments almost 2 years ago. Where's the cash Nerm? WHERE IS IT?
@1.1 -- "While the Dems may be spreading election year bullshit by talking about corporate greed, the Republicans are doing exactly the same linking the Dems spending with inflation. It's still partisan election year bullshit."
And you posted a link to support the contention that Democrats' spending is not contributing to inflation. As I pointed out, the premise of that article is flawed and doesn't take into account the reality of what is happening.
Democrats don't give people cash. Democrats use people to pass cash to their favored institutions and businesses (and political donors).
Biden is claiming to be lowering people's costs by paying the bills on their behalf. Biden is arguing that his spending allows people to keep more of their own money - and - spend it how they choose. Biden is utilizing tax credits which isn't any different than a tax cut.
Biden's spending is dumping the cash into institutions and businesses and encouraging the public to spend the cash they don't need to give to those institutions and businesses. That's how Biden is short-circuiting the economy. Biden's spending policies really aren't any different than a big tax cut when the economy is robust. Biden is doing the same thing that neoliberal Republicans do; Biden is only using a different mechanism.
And here I thought congress controlled the purse strings...
Please tell Brandon that.
He made two EO's that broke Constitutional Law. He re-enstated the Trump Renters moratorium that the Supreme Court had already ruled illegal; and his student loan debt forgiveness program which bypassed Congress' "power of the purse".
Guess it depends on who is in the Oval Office as who controls the purse strings.
What another load of shit.
You all only complain about EOs when the Dems do it.
Is it your intention that wiping out student debt caused inflation?
Then why bring it up on an article about inflation?
So basically Ronin had no point at all just a rant, and you follow along....
It has certainly been contributory.
How so?
I thought you were following along...
In the same way that tax cuts are inflationary. People keep and spend money that they otherwise would have paid to the govt.
So check my math on this, but there are roughly 40 million people with student loans, and the average payment is about $400/mo.
Student loan payments have been suspended since March of 2020.
So we're talking about $16 billion per month x 30ish months so far, or about $480 billion for people to spend that they otherwise would have gone toward paying off the bonds issued to cover the debt when they borrowed the money originally.
.
None of that counts the indirect inflationary contribution of people increasing spending because they know their future student loan payments will be either reduced or eliminated.
I showed a republican president writing EOs that dealt with spending and the tax code, which bypassed congress. You are trying to act like that doesn't matter and only what Biden did was wrong.
Honestly, inflation and the like is beyond my pay grade. It seems like you are saying not paying into the government can cause inflation, yet I have heard that there was a record number of tax receipts the government has taken in.
Cannot ever converse with you without you convoluting everything.
Just a reflex?
No worries.
In basic terms, inflation is a situation where more money is chasing the same or fewer goods & services.
So leaving a half trillion in the economy that you would otherwise have collected pushes inflation up to some degree. But there are a LOT of other things pushing it up, too.
A HUGE driver of inflation that nobody seems to be able to talk about is the number of people who had a major values restructuring during Covid and decided they either don't want to work as much or aren't willing to work for as little as they used to.
So it costs more to hire the people you need for a business, and then you have to raise prices to cover that. Meanwhile, your employees are making more and spending more, so the prices climb even more.
Now, we've done a massive, massive, massive amount of government spending since March, 2020. Between PPP loans and child credits and the cost of a billion vaccine doses and infrastructure spending and ventilators and aid to Ukraine and and and and....it just seems to go on. That doesn't count stuff like student loan payment deferrals that aren't technically spending but have the same inflationary effect.
So basically we've thrown a bunch of gasoline on a fire. You can't un-throw that. So you have to figure out ways to not throw more of it, and hopefully a few other ways to tamp the fire down without extinguishing the whole thing....which is called a recession...where everybody loses their jobs and shit gets much worse than it is now.
What gets me is people are out buying, shopping and going to restaurants and such.
With all the rhetoric for how bad it is, people seem to be going on as usual.
I read a couple of articles here lately about doom and gloom about the housing market.
You need to figure in those who didn't make payments that used it under discretionary spending. It wasn't 40 million people. My wife made ALL her payments since they were interest free. Using your number of 40 million payers she can't be the only one. Then there must be a certain percentage of people who didn't make payments because they just didn't have the money to make the payment. We're now talking 10ths (maybe 100ths) of percentage points on inflation.
Now there now exists the possibility she could get that money back and then have to pay state taxes on it, but she doesn't have that money in her pocket now.
Excellent point. Well spotted.
And while your wife is undoubtedly not alone, it is fair to suggest she would be in the minority. So we can safely assume some number north of a quarter trillion.
So again, I don't think it's the primary driver of inflation by any means, but it is most certainly contributory.
Those that can afford to, yeah.
Inflation eats from the bottom of the socioeconomic scale up, so it's generally not stuff we see right away. We already have reports of low income people being forced to choose between their medications and the gas they need to get to work. That's not something people just advertise, so you and I would probably never know about that unless we read about somewhere.
That's certainly coming. It shouldn't be as bad as 2008, but we're already seeing demand suppressed in most US markets.
We have always had people that are in a bad spot. That is nothing new, yet in my poor state there is a hell of a lot of people out buying. A lot more than people sitting at home with no food, or so it seems.
My brother came to visit and we went out to a local restaurant (first time for me in a while). There was a wait for tables. It was only like a 30 min wait yet we sat at the bar instead.
Last year our city had a record breaking tax haul.
For the housing, I always kinda thought it was artificially inflated. Do they still do those adjustable rate mortgages? I can see people maybe having a problem.
Yes, and one party wants to raise the minimum wage which would help those at the bottom of the economic scale, as opposed to the gop that only wants to cut taxes on the rich...
But you wouldn't actually see people sitting at home with no food, would you?
Do we ever?
Yes.
No.
Excellent. You've managed to fit multiple elements of Democratic Party brainwash into a small sentence.
Any additional ridiculous drivel you'd like to parrot?
No, and I think that's the point.
The real damage is done behind the scenes.
True. I think it has always kinda been that way though.
(Just writing that I can hear it in a Southern accent. I need to travel more...)
How important are ethnic accents and syntex to you?
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Ain't nuttin wrong with that.
That would mean the out of control spending and the inflation are, in fact, the fault of the Democrats.
How is global inflation the fault of the Dems?
You all really make shit up out of thin air.
Do you live in a cave? Everything the US does has a effect on the global scale. If we had an administration that wasn't hell bent on fucking things up, MAYBE this wouldn't be as bad as it is.
Reminds me of a saying - you dont know much and 90% of what you do know is wrong.
Your saying reminds me of another one
"It's not that our liberal friends are ignorant. It's that they know so much that isn't so."
That's so stupid and not true.
Yes, they do, ALL THE TIME
People who believe in multiple conspiracy theories really shouldnt be calling others ignorant.
Read it again. The saying didn't call anyone ignorant. "It's not that our liberal friends are ignorant..............." And I agree. People who believe in multiple conspiracy theories are one brick short of a load......
"People who believe in multiple conspiracy theories are one brick short of a load......"
Then you agree with 2.2.7
Cool!
By the way, believing in ANY conspiracy theories should prove one is one brick short of a load
And yet here you are on NT doing it on a daily basis.
Funny you all have the audacity to say shit like that when the last president was nothing but an embarrassment on the world stage.
So forgive me for not buying into your fake outrage,
Lets see, the previous administration
But the current administration
But lets hear how the previous administration was an embarrassment.
The previous administration stood up to our enemies?
Do you all wear blinders?
He made fun of and demeaned our allies while sending NK love letters and cozying up to Putin.
You all do twist reality.
Reality:
Trump put sanctions on Nord Stream 2, Biden waived them.
If you’re looking for Putin’s butt buddy, it’s Biden not Trump.
Nothing like trying to do what our allies want....
True and how’s that working out for them now?
Ask Germany.
Don’t have too, Biden’s butt buddy has them right where he wants them.
Hopefully you have a wood stove if you live in Germany.
So your idea is that we should just do whatever we want and fuck our allies and what they think.
Nah, my idea is to not enable and enrich crazy fuckers like Putin.
That said, let’s back get to your comment I responded to. You said Trump was enabling Putin. I proved that he wasn’t but Biden was.
Any direct comment to that or just more redirects/deflections?
One aspect does not make a whole.
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Better than making up lies and calling them truth.
Lol .... that might work if I told a lie but since I didn’t. We’ll just call it an inconvenient truth to that one aspect fib you told ....
Haha Continue to think you are going to win something by using snark and insults.
So rightwing.
Don’t be mad that you got your ass handed to you again. Just put your big boy/girl pants on and move along.
Or you can jump on the NT mafia ticketing bus.
Either way, I could care less.
The day you hand anyone their ass would be a miracle. All you ever do is be snarky and insult people.
Make up scenarios in ones own mind and act like it is truth.
Lol ..... wrong but say hi to all the mafia kiddies now ya hear?
Funny!
“But lets hear how the previous administration was an embarrassment.”
Roll tape…
Exactly, you have to be both blind and imaginative to see snark and insults used by progressives here.
What was the last administration that didn't embarrass you?
Yeah, liberals should take as well as you do...
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You should be proud jbb, given the role that you had in it. Good job!
Huh?
I'm sorry that someone mistakenly deleted you as your insights are always interesting.
Absolutely all he's ever had Ender
Lets see, the previous administration met with the N. Korea leader. Something NO OTHER PRESIDENT HAD DONE. It stopped the missile launches and made progress in the peace process. Something NO OTHER PRESIDENT HAD DONE. NATO was forced to stop relying on the US for, well, EVERYTHING.
Putin was quite as well. There was no new war started. Sanctions were working as intended.
Now look at what's going on now. The process in N. Korea halted and they are firing ballistic munitions everywhere and Putin attacks Ukraine and Biden waived them. The US is back to being the slave labor and financier for NATO.
What changed? Oh, that's right. The US went from a President who stood up for the country to a bumbling idiot with a zero accomplishment record.
The United States imported $3.4 trillion of goods and services in 2021. And the United States exported $2.5 trillion in goods and services in 2021.
So, the United States is competing with consumers around the world which will contribute to global inflation. And inflation in the United States will affect the price of its own exports around the world, too. The United States is the largest importer in the world so consumption (and prices) in the United States really does have a very large influence on the global economy.
That means Democrats spending priorities and policies will ripple throughout the global economy. Democrats boosting consumption in the United States only increases competition between consumers around the world and that will cause global inflation.
You actually think NK stopped with the missiles while donald was in office?
Stood up for the country? Hahaha
You all really do twist reality.
Yep, every problem in the world is all the Dems fault.....s/
Reading comprehension not a strong suit aye?
No, Democrats are not responsible for every problem in the world. But it does seem that when Democrats control government every problem around the world becomes a crisis that American taxpayers must solve.
Why does the burden of international cooperation fall upon the shoulders of American taxpayers when Democrats are in charge? If global cooperation really worked then those burdens would be shared. But that doesn't seem to be how Democrats address problems around the world.
Somebody hasn't been paying attention to what's going on around them.
Some dream up scenarios that aren't true.
I don't even know where to go with that crap.
Like:
And the list goes on and on.
In denial is they .......
The Democratic Congress has been spendthrifts. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have utilized all sorts of parliamentary tricks to push through big spending packages that, supposedly, are Biden's agenda. And Biden has certainly not been reticent in using executive authority to spend public money with the acquiescent approval of that Democratic Congress.
Right now Democrats control the purse strings. And Democrats' profligate spending really has contributed more to inflation than the neoliberal economic press wants to acknowledge. 'Trickle down' government spending really can hurt the economy.
Funny you all forget all the spending during the last administration and act like that never existed.
Funny how y'all forget that Democrats demanded the economy had to be shut down to score political points. Doesn't anyone remember Democrats telling us we would all die if we didn't shut down the economy?
No, y'all remember things that didn't happen, ALL THE TIME.
Exactly. The whole world basically shut down, trump was president, but it is the Dems that shut the country down?
Unbelievable the twisted history some believe.
They're supposed to.
But we now have executive orders circumventing that.
So the spending bill did not go through congress?
How is wiping out debt spending?
That is not even a pinch of what the deficit is.
CBO pegs the cost at around $430 billion. The CBO estimated 2022 deficit as $1.4 trillion
Amazing! Biden has already cut Trump's deficits by over half!
You should have read the linked article. 400 Billion of a 1.4 trillion deficit is 28.5% of the
Amazing? Hardly.
FY 21 deficit totaled nearly $2.8 trillion, about $360 billion less than in 2020, but nearly triple the shortfall in 2019. FY 22 is even better. It's amazing what the COVID vaccine and going back to work can achieve.
Technically it's not, but there is more to "the purse strings" than spending.
I'm not sure how we define "pinch", but between the repeated extension of the payment holiday and the upcoming forgiveness, it's a pretty significant "pinch".
From what I gather it is not going to be applied all at once. It is estimated that it will be 30 bil a year for the next decade.
I am actually not a fan of the college loan forgiveness.
This falls under the old “never let a good crisis go to waste” gambit.
How is it not Federal spending? You think the Federal Government just tells the banks who administer the loans to forgive that student loan debt and that is the end of it?
It sounds to me like it would be a presidential slush fund.
How so? Because it originated as an executive order? Doesn't matter, it still becomes a debt that lands on the backs of the taxpayers rather than on those who actually chose to take out the loans to pay for their own education.
Although I will agree that student loan forgiveness could very easily be considered buying votes with taxpayer money. Gotta vote for the guy who relieved me of my debt with other people's money. So it sounds to me more like a presidential campaign/re-election fund, not a slush fund.
Biden either adds that student debt to the national debt or Biden defaults on that student debt.
The money has already been spent. And the value of that money that has been spent depends upon future earnings and future savings. Defaulting on the debt would mean that money that has been spent has no value; people were spending essentially Monopoly money.
If there weren't loans then people would have to save money over time to pay for things. What the loan does is allow people to spend money now instead of waiting to save money over time before spending. That means the value of borrowed money is based upon future earnings and savings. A default means the borrowed money has no value because there won't be future earnings and savings.
Has Biden declared a default on student debt? Obviously not. Biden has only transferred that student debt to the national debt. Biden has promised the Federal government would pay that student debt on behalf of people with that debt. That will contribute to inflation by allowing those people to use their future earnings and savings for other spending.
Biden has employed the politics of 'allowing people to keep more of their own money'. And the net result is no different than a big tax cut. Biden's student loan 'forgiveness' is just as large (or larger) as the cut in the business tax rates. But Biden's spending won't strengthen business, won't create jobs, and will only encourage consumption supplied by a growing amount of imports. And that means Biden's student loan forgiveness will result in higher global inflation.
It's not "spending" in the same way that tax cuts are not spending. Lost revenue is not the same as expense.
It does qualify as the willful destruction of a perfectly good asset.
Tax cuts could perhaps be viewed as lost revenue assuming of course that one agrees that the government has the right to take the earnings of the taxpayers in the first place for whatever spending (or waste) it deems necessary whether the taxpayer agrees or not. Lost revenue in the case of student loans would have been in the form of a default on those student loans (i.e. a loss to the lender that is unrecoverable). Instead the Federal Government itself has assumed the otherwise personal debt, creating additional national debt in the same way that other government spending/expenses do, and the only people who pay government debt are those same taxpayers.
aka government "spending"
This article is a trip LOL
Economist #1 is from the Chamber Of Commerce. The Chamber Of Commerce has been a total shill for "business interests", for, well , forever.
Economist #2 is from the Heritage Foundation, a far right think tank that embraced "Trumpism" in 2021.
Economist #3 works for a libertarian "free market" center at a university.
The idea that these "experts" are objective about the issue is laughable.
The Chamber economist, Dubay, simply gave you the universally accepted definition for Inflation.
“Too much money chasing to few goods.”
No lack of objectively there. None.
I realize Biden’s buffoonery has tried to redefine “Inflation” but most thinking folks can see past that nonsense.
Actually, he said this
What on frigging earth do people expect an economist for the Chamber Of Commerce to say , other than that ? The idea that he is giving an objective opinion is ludicrous.
Why do you insist on being so disingenuous John? Here is a direct quote from Dubay, from the article you seeded
Please stop lying.
How does any of that disprove the government data cited in the seeded article? The government data are the facts. Are those facts too inconvenient to address?
The data (as facts) does not support Democrats' claim that business is causing inflation by increasing profits. Democrats are using alternative facts as justification for their own political conspiracy theory.
Nice talking points. Especially with nothing to disprove the article or back up your statement.
I see think tanks as in the business of selling their ideas. Some are liberal, some or independant and some are conservative. Of the most influential ones, which include Brookings, Heritage, Human Rights Watch,American Enterprise Institute, most fair thinkers wouldn't see any of them as extreme or "far" left or right.
I enjoy them all form the perspective of how they conducted their analysis as well as considering perspectives that I hadn't previously considered.
Those that dismiss them outright based on pedigree without discussing the analytical methods or findings are revealing more about their biases that the quality of the think tank work.
Meta/spam cleaned up thread @2.2.