When it comes to confirmation bias, Obama no different than Bush
I was amazed to read in The New York Times Saturday that President Obama is crediting the stimulus package with the slowing rate of job loss that was reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For the month of July, employers eliminated 247,000 jobs. This is much less than the 741,000 jobs scrapped in January. Speaking in the Rose Garden, the President said his administration had "rescued our economy from catastrophe."
Did the stimulus package really cause the rate of job loss to slow? Well, it's possible. But it's also possible job loss would have slowed without spending billions of dollars on the stimulus package. After all, when corporate America cuts jobs, they cut the least essential people first. After a few rounds of job cutting, you are left with mission essential people that you just can't get rid if you want to continue to operate. So maybe this is why the rate of job loss slowed.
Or it could be that corporate America has been doing so much belt tightening over the past year that profits are starting to turn up and there is less pressure on managers to reduce headcount.
My point is there are many possible explanations for the slowing of the job loss rate. It's way too early to credit the stimulus plan for causing this. For the administration to take credit at this time shows a lack of critical thinking.
What if the job loss numbers had skyrocketed last month to over a million? Would the President be in the Rose Garden saying, "The stimulus plan has failed and I have taken the country in the wrong direction."? Of course not!
In fairness to the Democrats, critical thinking seemed to be in short supply during the previous administration as well. Confirmation bias is a thinking error in which the decision-maker searches only for facts and ideas that support his preconceived ideas and ignores facts and evidence to the contrary. Many people think George W. Bush fell victim to this same type of thinking in his decision to go into Iraq.
In a "60 Minutes" interview, former CIA Director George Tenet said that on September, 12th 2001, Richard Pearl, the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, told him Iraq would have to pay for their role in the 9-11 attacks. Tenet said he was shocked, and made it clear there was no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with Al Qaeda. Some think Bush ignored reports and data suggesting Iraq was not involved with the 9-11 attacks and did not have weapons of mass destruction, preferring to look only at the intelligence that supported going to war.
With so much at stake, why don't our elected officials think better?
Decision-Making Best Practice #10: Challenge your beliefs. Search fo other explanations and never except the first idea without searching for alternative explanation.
Did the stimulus package really cause the rate of job loss to slow? Well, it's possible. But it's also possible job loss would have slowed without spending billions of dollars on the stimulus package. After all, when corporate America cuts jobs, they cut the least essential people first. After a few rounds of job cutting, you are left with mission essential people that you just can't get rid if you want to continue to operate. So maybe this is why the rate of job loss slowed.
Or it could be that corporate America has been doing so much belt tightening over the past year that profits are starting to turn up and there is less pressure on managers to reduce headcount.
My point is there are many possible explanations for the slowing of the job loss rate. It's way too early to credit the stimulus plan for causing this. For the administration to take credit at this time shows a lack of critical thinking.
What if the job loss numbers had skyrocketed last month to over a million? Would the President be in the Rose Garden saying, "The stimulus plan has failed and I have taken the country in the wrong direction."? Of course not!
In fairness to the Democrats, critical thinking seemed to be in short supply during the previous administration as well. Confirmation bias is a thinking error in which the decision-maker searches only for facts and ideas that support his preconceived ideas and ignores facts and evidence to the contrary. Many people think George W. Bush fell victim to this same type of thinking in his decision to go into Iraq.
In a "60 Minutes" interview, former CIA Director George Tenet said that on September, 12th 2001, Richard Pearl, the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, told him Iraq would have to pay for their role in the 9-11 attacks. Tenet said he was shocked, and made it clear there was no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with Al Qaeda. Some think Bush ignored reports and data suggesting Iraq was not involved with the 9-11 attacks and did not have weapons of mass destruction, preferring to look only at the intelligence that supported going to war.
With so much at stake, why don't our elected officials think better?
Decision-Making Best Practice #10: Challenge your beliefs. Search fo other explanations and never except the first idea without searching for alternative explanation.
Labels: Bush, confirmation bias, Obama
