Hell no, we won't go ... to economics class

By Marisa Taylor

The Occupy Wall Street movement has extended to college campuses ? or to at least one college campus, in the form of a protest against an economics professor?s alleged conservative views.

Around 70 students at Harvard College walked out of economics professor N. Gregory Mankiw?s class last week after expressing discontent with what they viewed as conservative bias in course materials, as reported by The Harvard Crimson. The protest was intended to express solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street Movement, according to the story, as the students felt that Mankiw?s biases had led to policies that exacerbated income inequality.?

Prior to the walkout, one of the organizers gave a statement saying, ?We are deeply concerned about the way that this bias affects students, the University, and our greater society,? reported The Crimson.

Another student told The Crimson that Mankiw?s class, which enrolled more than 700 students, was ?a symbol of the larger economic ideology that created the 2008 collapse?. His conservative views are the kind that created the collapse of 2008.?

Mankiw is currently an economic adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and formerly served as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during President George W. Bush?s second term. He apparently knew that the walkout had been planned, and announced his office hours at the beginning of the lecture rather than at the end because he had ?a feeling people might leave a little early,? according to the story.

Coincidentally, Mankiw happened to be giving a lecture about income inequality that day, according to an interview he gave to NPR. And while he agreed that income inequality has risen since the 1970s, he doesn?t think it?s a result of government policy. ?I think it's primarily been driven by a variety of forces in the economy including, for example, technology,? he told NPR. ?But the question of whether it's something the government should worry about is an issue of political philosophy, as well as economics.?

Mankiw went on to say:

?Well, if you look at the data, one thing is very clear is that the changes in the tax code - even between, say, the Clinton era and the Bush era - are very, very small compared to the huge changes in inequality we've seen. So very little of the changes we've seen are due to taxes. It's almost in data quality, almost all in before-tax incomes. So, you know, we can debate as to whether we want an extra few percent at the top or not, but that's not really going to do much to change the long-term trend.?

Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/08/8702606-hell-no-we-wont-go-to-economics-class

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