Romney's Economic Intellectual Plagiarism

Romney has been claiming that were he to win the Presidency, he will create 12 million new jobs; at every stop on his Swing State tour, he’s been repeating the same speech again and again, telling Midwestern audiences “We will create 12 million new jobs in just four years, raise take-home pay, and get the American economy growing at four percent a year—more than double this year’s rate. “ Which is a strange claim for Romney to make, as he said twice on the October 16th Presidential debate that “Government does not create jobs.” But this is besides the point, because it looks like Romney’s been caught lying yet again.

According to Moody’s Analytics and Macroeconomic Advisors, it doesn’t matter WHO is in the White House from 2013-2016; unless there is a horrible calamity on the geopolitical stage, next year will see a rise in housing prices. It’s already beginning in California, where there is a micro-bubble in the Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego markets for houses under $500,000. Couple that with the least expensive loans the US has seen in decades, and a lift from the housing depression is pretty much in the bag. The rise in housing prices in turn will inspire consumer confidence, which will then start adding 3 million jobs per year, according to analysts. 3 million jobs sounds like a lot, but right now, we’re averaging about 150,000 jobs a month- to show the Moody’s boffins projections work, our economy just needs that little boost from a housing rise to get up to 250,000 jobs a month.

These studies have been out for months- Macroeconomics has been out since April. Moody’s was released in August. What Mitt Romney has done is co-opt this public information, then claim it as his own. Romney claiming that the twelve million jobs will come to pass as a direct effect of his stewardship is intellectual plagiarism, plain and simple. In other words, you didn’t build that, Mitt.

In fact, according to the Huffington Post, Glenn Klessler of the Washington Post “pushed the Romney campaign for the exact numbers and studies on which the jobs claim is based, they handed him “totally different studies … with completely different timelines” than what is in the white paper that became the basis of Romney’s plan. One study, for example, had a 10-year plan, and another had little to do with Romney’s policy ideas. “They’re just faking it,” Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote in a New York Times blog post in response to the article.

Now these reports from Moody’s and Macroeconomics are forecasts- predictions of the future, and as we know, no-one can know the future with amazing accuracy, but we listen to those analysts to at least try to get a handle on what has a high probability of occurring. In a post 9-11 world, we can take nothing for granted.

However, we can look to the past to find out why we have this slow, steady and continuing recovery of the economy in the first place. Stimulus dollars pumped into the public sector, coupled with the continuation of the Bush Tax Cuts and low interest rates all were started at the desk of President Barack Obama- no thanks to the obstructionist Republican Congress. Considering how often Romney’s numbers don’t add up, perhaps we should all pitch in and get Mitt a calculator…

By Susan Jack

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Romney’s Economic Intellectual Plagiarism