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Comment by Nokinside | Hacker News Reader

Warren is academic expert bankruptcy and commercial law. She is third most cited academic in her specialty. She is pretty good at economics especially when it comes to consumer behavior and one of the best politicians overall.

"The Vanishing Middle Class" (2007) is a good book.

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She is also a consummate politician, who has been known to say misleading and inflammatory things for political gain. She has also been busy steaming leftwards, a move that may endear her to young hyper-liberal voters, but does very little to help my country move past the political chasm that has opened up, and is crippling our government.

I don't think that she is a bad person, but I do believe that she is bad for American politics right now.

This. I liked her when she primarily concerned herself with consumer advocacy.

Not to get too off topic, but I have a hard time blaming the left for the current political divide in the United States. Saying that someone who pushes leftwards is bad for American politics because they're not closer to the "center" seems like promoting a false equivalence.

I agree, and I don't blame the left as much as I blame the right. I do however think that exacerbating the divide is a bad thing.

But anything but going closer to the Right is "exacerbating the divide."

If you don't think both sides play a part in the precipitous spike in polarizing political discourse, then frankly you are ignorant.

Uhh. One side saying "kids shouldn't take six figures of debt to go to the college we've collectively insisted they need to go to" and the other saying "blood and soil, Jews will not replace us" are not the same thing, yo.

The political chasm is because the democrats keep moving right to try and win over moderate republicans the republicans keep moving into crazy territory.

Moving leftwards is absolutely the best thing the democrats could possibly do. further left policies are popular. Further left policies address the massive amount of voters who don't give a shit because neither party represents anything but corporations.

America could use 50 more senators that were willing to start moving much further left.

The fact that she is an expert in bankruptcy and commercial law should make you extremely skeptical of her economics credentials. She spends her time in that domain, not the domain of macroeconomics.

Warren is a lawyer, not an economist.

Her academic career in that field is very impressive, but that has nothing to with an understanding of the science of Economics, which is notoriously full of counterintuitive and misunderstood truths.

You understand economics very narrowly if you use that as the only basis of your ad hominem. Warren worked in the field where she needed good economic knowledge.

>You understand economics very narrowly if you use that as the only basis of your ad hominem.

The poster doesn't understand economics at all if they think changes in relative housing prices don't affect housing supply.

I occasionally hear of Warren making statements, about economic matters, that are completely detached from reality. The problem isn't knowledge, it's judgement.

This is a fallacious appeal to authority. Credentialed economists are not the only people who can make claims about economics. If you can substantively debate her assertion then please do. Otherwise you are not contributing.

Perhaps I misunderstand what you mean, but isn't this the exact opposite of an appeal to authority? The claim is that she's not qualified because she's not a credentialed economist.

(I'm not familiar enough with Ms. Warren's background to have a substantiated opinion either way, though I certainly don't doubt her intelligence.)

It’s an appeal to the authority of the economics establishment. Because Sen. Warren doesn’t teach at one of few named Economics institutions she is not allowed to speak on matters of economics.

Nokinside made an appeal to authority when he described Senator Warren's qualifications.

BurningFrog is arguing that that is not correct because Senator Warren is not an authority in the first place.

You could still argue that she is correct; but (assuming BurningFrog's judgements on her qualifications), that arguement must be on the merits of her arguements, not her qualifications.

She is qualified to speak on the matter. not as a credentialed economist, but as a legal scholar and a legislator.

It seems you didn't read the comment I was responding to?

In it, Nokinside claimed that Warren is an expert in Economics due to her academic career. That's what I'm arguing against.

I of course agree that people from any background, including Warren's, can make claims about Economics that should be discussed on their merits, not dismissed (or accepted...) because of the speaker's academic background.

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