Ah, Professor Gelman  

As regular readers know, I am a regular reader myself of the blog written by Andrew Gelman, the statistician at Columbia U. I’ve learned a lot from it, and it helps keep me informed about what is going on in the world of academic research – particularly about the bad things going on in that world.

That being said, Andrew Gelman is still a high-level academic, and at an Ivy League school, so he is more than capable of displaying all the quirks of people from that group. I give you as evidence a post he made on May 1, which you can read yourself here. It’s free, and not at all long.

He says that there is concern out there that a set of ‘economic shocks’ (Trump-induced, although he does not mention Trump), has people concerned about a looming recession.

The ‘shocks’ he lists are tariffs, reduced tourism to the US, reduced hiring due to uncertainty, and then he writes ‘etc’. Not sure what etc. encompasses.

He then writes:

“There’s always a silver lining. Some things we might expect to follow from an economic downturn:”

Here are some of those things he writes about.

            “Less energy consumption. Fewer tourists means a decrease in airline flights, car rentals, etc.”

If he is saying this is a good thing that follows from the drop in US tourism, then I have to point out that won’t even happen if people from other countries simply do their touristing in some other country. But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, and suppose he means that a general recession will imply a general drop in tourism to all countries, with a corresponding drop in flights and car rentals.  The silver lining then is supposed to be that this will reduce energy consumption.

Now, someone in reply to his post (almost certainly an economist) tried to gently point out that people could always choose to not go touring if they wanted to, but if they are forced to do this by a recession, because they lost their job or their income otherwise dropped, those people are certainly not better off.

Gelman skated right by this. Why? As we will see, all of the points Gelman makes, even though he does not put it this way, are simply intended to point out the silver linings for Gelman from a recession ….or rather, for someone like Gelman. That is, if you are an Ivy League tenured professor in no danger of losing your job or taking a pay cut, then the things he enumerates are good consequences of a recession. If you are someone else, maybe not.

So, yes, from that perspective, the fact that other people will be doing less touring around, thereby consuming less energy, that is a good thing for what I will henceforth call ‘the Gelmanoids’. They don’t see themselves having to do less touring, they expect to attend whatever academic conferences they usually do, take whatever vacations they usually do, and on top of that, other people will be burning less fuel. Similarly for the next thing, which is ‘China selling us less stuff and thereby burning less fuel’. Gelmanoids don’t see themselves buying less stuff from China, indeed they buy rather little, but if other people do, the environment – and hence the Gelmanoids – will be better off.

I think the following one-two punch is my favourite:

            “A global recession could lead to people eating less meat, or at least slowing the rate of increase in meat consumption. And if people are pessimistic about the future, they might have fewer kids, which would save lots of energy use.”

I don’t see how anyone can say that people eating less meat is a good thing, unless that someone thinks that meat consumption is itself a bad thing. Perhaps because producing edible meat is more energy-intensive than producing edible not-meat? I can’t be sure, he does not elaborate. It does not seem to have occurred to Gelman that people with low income who are forced to eat less meat in a recession in which their income is reduced do so because meat is expensive, and therefore they end up getting the calories they need to stay alive from carbohydrates, which are cheaper, and that is an overall less healthy diet than one including protein derived from meat. But hey, less meat consumption by others, so the Gelmanoids are better off.

The second sentence above, well…..wow. It certainly is a good thing when people become so pessimistic that they no longer want to have kids. Awesome. Gelman is about 60, so any procreating is behind him, although I would bet $10 he is childless. Hard to imagine a parent writing that sentence.

Then we have: “Indeed, if there’s enough of a depression, just about all prices could drop.’

Indeed, indeed. If you are someone who did not lose their job so those prices would drop – that is, if you are a Gelmanoid – then ‘enough of a depression’ is indeed a good thing. A silver lining, as he writes.

There is more, but I expect you get the idea, do go and read it if you want the whole picture.

I will close by noting that not all readers of Gelman’s blog bought into the post’s premise. One person wrote this in the Comments, tongue placed firmly in cheek:

“Actually, we don’t even need to sit here and brainstorm. You can go read some history books about the 30s and look for sections on “Upsides of the Great Depression”. Or find someone who was on the job market in 2008 and ask them how things improved for them that year. Let us know what you find!”

No evidence Gelman noticed said tongue in said cheek.

Good statistician, and I think a good, conscientious scientist, but also a living example of why no Ivy League academic should be put in charge of anything that involves, you know, people.