An excellent video here on the David Stockman kerfuffle. The most important takeaway for me was the idea, previously articulated elsewhere, that macroeconomics is not a morality play. That is to say, if the answer to a macro problem is normatively pleasing, that fact is a coincidence.
Many of us have normative views about 'what ought to be.' These views may differ from person to person; that's ok. Views on 'how the world works' are of a different genus. These things are testable. Disagreements of this nature are resolvable through empiricism, if the data exist.
A related idea: if your theory of how the world works is untestable, it's not really a theory; it's probably just a wish.
**UPDATE: Neil Irwin disassembles Stockman's argument, looks around inside, and doesn't find much.
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