Thursday, April 25, 2013
David Ignatius — Hard lessons in Keynesian economics
Apt assessment of Mervyn King as he retires from the Bank of England.
The Washington Post — Wonkblog
Hard lessons in Keynesian economics
David Ignatius
Jeff Spross — Bloomberg Study: 70 Percent Of New Global Power Capacity Added Through 2030 Will be Renewable
According to Bloomberg’s renewable energy research team, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), 70 percent of the power generation the world will add between now and 2030 will most likely be renewable.
That would mean $630 billion in new renewable capacity investments in 2030 alone — over three times what was built in 2012, and 35 percent higher than what BNEF predicted for 2030 a year ago. So not only does renewable energy’s future look formidable, it’s looking more formidable every year we project it....
"This 2030 investment figure is 35 percent higher than that produced in Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s last global forecast a year ago, and the projection for total installed renewable energy capacity by that date is 25 percent higher than in that previous forecast, at 3,500GW."Cimate Progress
Bloomberg Study: 70 Percent Of New Global Power Capacity Added Through 2030 Will be Renewable
Jeff Spross
Asumes fusion will not be online in 2030. That seems reasonable, even if a breakthrough is made before then. Then the problem will be scaling.
The Best Way to Leverage an Electorate-wide Cognitive Impairment ... Is To Own One?
Commentary by Roger Erickson
The best way to leverage a society's cognitive impairment ... is to create and effectively own one. (Aka, Divide & Conquer.)
Corporate fraud? Pooh! There are even bigger targets. What does this imply about civic fraud, i.e., about the 1% who now buy most politicians and, by default, "own" our Congress, POTUS and even SCOTUS? How many have heard of the age-old scam called "royalty" and "Divine Right?" It's now diluted to merely "Upper Class," yet it is that class of rulers-by-fraud who have, over the years, paid to have orthodox economics "invented," as a "management" theory. Or rather, various books, mathematical and social, have been cooked, in order to come up with the dogmatic ideology called "orthodox" economics. They have the audacity to claim that it is for "our own good." @#$%&!
The best way to leverage a society's cognitive impairment ... is to create and effectively own one. (Aka, Divide & Conquer.)
Corporate fraud? Pooh! There are even bigger targets. What does this imply about civic fraud, i.e., about the 1% who now buy most politicians and, by default, "own" our Congress, POTUS and even SCOTUS? How many have heard of the age-old scam called "royalty" and "Divine Right?" It's now diluted to merely "Upper Class," yet it is that class of rulers-by-fraud who have, over the years, paid to have orthodox economics "invented," as a "management" theory. Or rather, various books, mathematical and social, have been cooked, in order to come up with the dogmatic ideology called "orthodox" economics. They have the audacity to claim that it is for "our own good." @#$%&!
Methinks the Deficit Terrorists professing deep "worry" about our Fiat Deficit, i.e., our Great Straw Man ... doth protest too much. Their self-serving propaganda is, upon examination, ALWAYS too transparent to survive exposure to sunlight. Hence, it's always a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Supposedly "Too Complicated" to explain to the common citizen. R&R have finally come full circle, and redefined the public concept of R&R. If we are truly running out of fiat, can we start by dedicating less attention to these narcissistic frauds? There are simply more interesting things for Americans to be discussing and doing. Let's get on with it.
Listen up, fellow citizens. There is no uniquely Russian mob, nor any uniquely British banksters. There is just the reality of inevitable self-parasitism in all growing networks or systems. NeoCons, stupidly immoral Temptation and Self-Parody are thy names!
Good citizens don't let co-citizens become the 1% uber-parasites! It's a pointless, transient addiction. We've known this since the time of Cicero. Why isn't everyone - including the 1% - bored with it by now? Lack of intellect? Lack of adequate prior training, practice and education?
"A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation." Cicero
Listen up, fellow citizens. There is no uniquely Russian mob, nor any uniquely British banksters. There is just the reality of inevitable self-parasitism in all growing networks or systems. NeoCons, stupidly immoral Temptation and Self-Parody are thy names!
Good citizens don't let co-citizens become the 1% uber-parasites! It's a pointless, transient addiction. We've known this since the time of Cicero. Why isn't everyone - including the 1% - bored with it by now? Lack of intellect? Lack of adequate prior training, practice and education?
"A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation." Cicero
Ditto for a nation's group-mind without systemic education. It cannot prosper without constantly pushing BEYOND the former boundaries of EARLY education. Record indebtedness through student loans? ARE YOU JOKING? If so, it's an unfathomably cruel joke! To be more, we have to cultivate our citizenry, not deprive ourselves of our own options, opportunities and capabilities. It is shameful that any American even has to be reminded of this basic, timeless fact.
Let's distribute a pdf synopsis of Bill Black's "Control Fraud" expose to every K-12 teacher, nay EVERY K-12 STUDENT, in the USA. That little step should trigger the change in Situational Awareness that we need.
... "Have Fiat, Won't Use It" ...
Commentary by Roger Erickson
Great calling card for the NeoCons, Chicago School & their descendants, the various & tawdry Deficit Terrorists.
Reinhart & Rogoff [Fraud] Discredits the [Entire] Obama Administration & [the Policy of] Public Austerity
This whole article reads like preparation for a moot court case.
Why not just move on to a formal one?
Why bother impeaching the marionettes? Just sue and/or indict the handlers.
("except to help line the pockets of our handlers")
Great calling card for the NeoCons, Chicago School & their descendants, the various & tawdry Deficit Terrorists.
Reinhart & Rogoff [Fraud] Discredits the [Entire] Obama Administration & [the Policy of] Public Austerity
Ya think?
This whole article reads like preparation for a moot court case.
Why not just move on to a formal one?
Why bother impeaching the marionettes? Just sue and/or indict the handlers.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
ECB says ditching austerity would not help euro zone
You can't even make this stuff up.... Reuters story via Yahoo! here ... (on second thought probably don't even read it, it will only piss you off ... here for the record only....).
Jerry Khachoyan — The Hyperinflation Bet Never Made Sense
I’m going to be blunt here. The hyperinflation (in the United States of America) bet never made sense.
Here’s Why.The Armo Trader
The Hyperinflation Bet Never Made Sense
Jerry Khachoyan
Dylan Matthews — Inside the offbeat economics department that debunked Reinhart-Rogoff
It’s easy to overestimate the differences between UMass and more mainstream departments. The empirical microeconomics Dube does is not too different from what David Card, David Autor, Raj Chetty, and other macroeconomists in more mainstream departments do. Pollin helped the Department of Energy implement the green portions of the stimulus, which was designed initially by mainstreamers like Larry Summers. And even the “left Keynesians” of Amherst don’t go as far as some of their peers at, say, the University of Missouri – Kansas City in dismissing the possibility of high deficits leading to inflation later on.
“It’s almost a talmudic claim that since no country with its own currency can go bankrupt, no deficit can be bad,” Epstein says. “They’ve made important contributions, and a lot of them are my friends, but we try to look at things more critically and not assume there are absolutes.”
But the department’s radical openness to alternate perspectives still sets it apart. “Learn from Marx, learn from Keynes, learn from Hayek,” Pollin says. “One of the biggest influences on me personally was Milton Friedman. He was very engaged with real world questions, and he made no bones about his ideological predilections.”
The Washington Post — Wonkblog
Inside the offbeat economics department that debunked Reinhart-Rogoff
Dylan Matthews
Al Jazeera — Switzerland restricts EU immigration
Switzerland has announced that it will extend immigration limits to all European Union countries amid pressure from the political far-right.
Switzerland, which is not an EU member, already has a quota in place for eight Eastern European members that joined the bloc in 2004, as well as special, stricter regulations for the newest members Bulgaria and Romania, which joined in 2007.
The justice and police ministry said on Wednewsday that it would now limit resident permits to a maximum of 53,700 annually for citizens from the remaining 17 EU countries.
Under an agreement with the European Union, Switzerland can invoke this so-called safeguard clause if immigration rises above a certain level.Al Jazeera
Switzerland restricts EU immigration
Dale Pierce — Modern Monetary Theory – An Introduction: Part 3
Stephen Colbert DESTROYS Reinhart and Rogoff. Hilarious!!!
And here's Colbert's interview with Thomas Herndon, the kid who brought down Reinhart and Rogoff.
Some debt terrorists won't go quietly
Everyone knows austerity and the debt fears that drove the doctrine are total junk economics.
It's just a matter of time before the whole thing is abandoned and we enter a new economic age of enlightenment led by policies that have been espoused by this blog and MMT for years.
Some zombies refuse to die, however. You can find them at Cluelesshedge.
CNBC viewership plunges to an 8-year low
What do they expect with people like Santelli, Bartiromo, Kudlow and Cabrera? A lot of expense for very little result.
All clueless idiots spouting the neoliberal, faux-free-market bullshit.
And this is all happening as stocks soar to new record highs.
Read about it here at Zerohedge.
This is like the moment before the Berlin Wall started coming down
Austerity's toast and everyone knows it.
Who Is Defending Austerity Now?
Germany Signals Austerity Leeway in Budget-Rule Flexibility
Austerity doctrine is exposed as flimflam
Bill Gross attacks UK and EU austerity
U.K. Austerity Isn’t Working, Goldman’s O’Neill Says
Tic...toc...tic...toc
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Izabella Kaminska — The Notgeld Issue
There are two ways the banking universe can pan out as far as I can see.
One is the Gorton way, where everything is eventually collateralised and anyone with credibility or collateral can issue collateral-type obligations that turn into collateral money.
In this world banks are as good as the collateral they hold, and they can flourish if they can persuade the markets to accept new types of collateral when old forms run out.
The other is the Admati view which is about going towards a Fisher style full reserve banking plan. Banks can take all the risk they want provided they can persuade “depositors” to fully fund them in these ventures and to bear all the risk.
I like Admati’s view but also see some benefits to Gorton’s — which basically represents a truly liberalised money market.Toward A Leisure Society
The Notgeld Issue
Izabella Kaminska
Litecoin
What is Litecoin?
Litecoin is a peer-to-peer Internet currency that enables instant payments to anyone in the world. It differs from its parent Bitcoin in that can be efficiently mined with consumer-grade hardware. Litecoin provides faster confirmations (targeted at every 2.5 minutes on average) and uses memory-hard, scrypt-based mining to target the CPUs and GPUs most people already have. The Litecoin network is scheduled to produce four times as many currency units as Bitcoin.Litecoin
(h/t Shaun Hingston in the comments)
Steve Keen — Instability may not be optional (1)
If instability is a feature of capitalism rather than a bug, the question becomes how much instability should be risked institutionally in order to unleash individual incentive to risk without excessively putting social stability at extreme risk.
Or should we be asking whether "capitalism" is worth the human cost.
Steve Keen's Debtwatch
Instability may not be optional (1)
Steve Keen
Self As A Stable Store of Dynamic Value
Commentary by Roger Erickson
Just when you thought that China couldn't outdo us as capitalists, a new first.
Chinese Man Sues Wife and Wins, for Birthing an Ugly Baby
Poor woman and child. Anyway, the Comrades may have already known a thing or two about family and clan-based capitalism, but they might not be up on Western court tactics. In the US, she would have been chased down by a lawyer and advised to Countersue Him for Having an Ugly Character, which he fraudulently didn't disclose during courtship.
Can they distinguish between courtship and courtship behind the Noodle Curtain?
Now, just this in. Maybe the Comrades ARE learning about western court systems too. Once they've seen a gay SCOTUS, how 'ya gonna keep 'em home in the village?
Chinese Sue Fed For Monopoly USD Devaluation | Zero Hedge »
In what could grow into a class action in US courts, a Chinese woman is suing the Federal Reserve after discovering that the real value of the USD250 she put in an account in 2006 had shrunk by 30%...
What? Now any country issuing fiat currency can be sued for fiat use of fiat?
[What's the legal definition of, and penalty for, compound fiat? An ugly Abarth?]
What was the cross examination like? Did the opposing lawyer ask her what else she saved UNUSED from 2006, that retained it's same value. Her own brain?
Her apparent claim is that someone "in charge" should have stopped her from not leveraging her assets? Can't wait to see how the party boss, er, "Judge" rules.
Whoa. No wonder the world spins. It keeps everyone's (well most people's) brains from atrophying? I can't account for this lady. Maybe she was caught in a reverse spin cycle. Karl Rove's, perhaps.
Just when you thought that China couldn't outdo us as capitalists, a new first.
Chinese Man Sues Wife and Wins, for Birthing an Ugly Baby
Poor woman and child. Anyway, the Comrades may have already known a thing or two about family and clan-based capitalism, but they might not be up on Western court tactics. In the US, she would have been chased down by a lawyer and advised to Countersue Him for Having an Ugly Character, which he fraudulently didn't disclose during courtship.
Can they distinguish between courtship and courtship behind the Noodle Curtain?
Now, just this in. Maybe the Comrades ARE learning about western court systems too. Once they've seen a gay SCOTUS, how 'ya gonna keep 'em home in the village?
Chinese Sue Fed For Monopoly USD Devaluation | Zero Hedge »
In what could grow into a class action in US courts, a Chinese woman is suing the Federal Reserve after discovering that the real value of the USD250 she put in an account in 2006 had shrunk by 30%...
What? Now any country issuing fiat currency can be sued for fiat use of fiat?
[What's the legal definition of, and penalty for, compound fiat? An ugly Abarth?]
What was the cross examination like? Did the opposing lawyer ask her what else she saved UNUSED from 2006, that retained it's same value. Her own brain?
Her apparent claim is that someone "in charge" should have stopped her from not leveraging her assets? Can't wait to see how the party boss, er, "Judge" rules.
Whoa. No wonder the world spins. It keeps everyone's (well most people's) brains from atrophying? I can't account for this lady. Maybe she was caught in a reverse spin cycle. Karl Rove's, perhaps.
Matthew Boesler — Here's Why Venture Capitalists Want To Make Bitcoin The 'Next Big Thing'
In a note to clients, Colas highlights the merits of Bitcoin for venture capitalists, comparing it to tech success stories like Amazon and Netflix:
Those thousands of tech-savvy folks who run the bitcoin system have created a new and very low cost method for transferring money around the world. For the potential 25 bitcoin reward of solving one of those 10 minute puzzles, they keep track of all the transactions created by users around the world.
The current system for money transfers – banks, brokers and other financial institutions – want a lot more for their efforts than a few thousand dollars six times an hour. Bitcoin is to money what Amazon is to retail or Netflix is to video content – a much more efficient way to meet the needs of millions of people around the world.Colas goes on to say that there are two major issues to overcome. The first is security, which undermines confidence, and the second is anonymity, which attracts government interest. He doesn't see either as insurmountable, although they have to faced and dealt with for Bitcoin to be economically viable as an investment.
Business Insider
Here's Why Venture Capitalists Want To Make Bitcoin The 'Next Big Thing'
Matthew Boesler
Rowan BosworthDavies — How the legacy of Thatcher and Reagan made the 2008 financial crisis inevitable
The consequences of Thatcher and Reagan's Friedman and Hayek-inspired free market utopianism and market fundamentalism. Adds more detail to Bill Black's exposé.
Max Keiser
How the legacy of Thatcher and Reagan made the 2008 financial crisis inevitable
Rowan BosworthDavies
Simon Wren-Lewis — Scotland's future exchange rate regime
The real problem for Scotland is that, in forming a sterling currency union, it will be dealing with a government that thinks like Germany. What is worse, although Germany can sometimes be persuaded to go against its austerity instincts for the sake of European unity, after an independence vote rUK is unlikely to let its heart strings be pulled in a similar way! The problem for Scotland is that the rUK can provide something that in fact costs it very little, but the absence of which would cost Scotland a great deal, so rUK will be able to ask for a high price. Unless the new Scottish government is prepared to pay for a Bank of England LOLR role with some of its oil revenues, it may find it has nothing to bargain with. If no agreement can be found, the Treasury paper is quite right to conclude that using sterling unilaterally would not be attractive for Scotland. So rather than accept damaging fiscal restrictions, the new Scottish government may end up with its own currency after all.mainly macro
Scotland's future exchange rate regime
Simon Wren-Lewis | Professor of Economics, Oxford University
circuit — Are investors seeing the writing on the wall?
In plain English, this translates into:
Firms' Retained Earnings = Investment - Household Savings + Government Deficits + Net ExportsFictional Reserve Banking
The above equation clearly demonstrates that business profits are positively impacted by government deficits, net exports and private sector investment.* Household net savings, on the other hand, have the effect of reducing firms' retained earnings. Similarly, balanced budgets and government surpluses have either no impact on profits or have the effect of reducing them.
Are investors seeing the writing on the wall?
circuit
Ann Pettifor and Jeremy Smith — A modest test for debt/GDP in the UK postwar experience
Our mini-research on the UK’s postwar experience, is a modest test of the debt-austerity “thesis”. Using International Monetary Fund and Office for National Statistics numbers for 1949-2011, we found that UK gross domestic product increased at its fastest average rate – by 3.19 per cent – during the 18-year period (1949-66) when the debt-to-GDP ratio was more than 90 per cent (and mostly way over 100 per cent). This compares with an average of 2.60 per cent for the 36 years when the ratio lies between 30 and 60 per cent. For the other nine years (60 to 90 per cent), the average is 1.93 per cent.
What is more, during the 18 years when the debt-to-GDP ratio was more than 90 per cent, that ratio fell every year without exception. We do not, of course, seek to argue from this that a high debt-to-GDP ratio leads to, or is associated with, higher growth. We simply note that increased economic activity will tend to shrink the debt-to-GDP ratio, while falls in economic activity tend to increase it.DEBTonation
A letter to the FT: A modest test for debt/GDP in the UK postwar experience
Ann Pettifor and Jeremy Smith | Directors, Policy Research in Macroeconomics, London
How IS National Culture Actually Built?
Commentary by Roger Erickson
Great video here, that all citizens should see, by age 10.
How Linux is Built
We desperately need a similar video - showing how national culture is actually REBUILT - every year.
Such a video would remind all that our culture is continuously built and re-built, just like new babies are "built," after every act of sexual recombination. Cultures are complex babies where interleaved embryogenesis proceeds continuously, in a highly distributed manner. Their birth, growth, senescence and death is a biological process.
The difference between human babies and human cultures is only one of degree.* Our cultural "germ cells," as well as their recombination events, are highly distributed and nested, rather than concentrated, thereby providing a human culture with orders of magnitude more degrees of freedom than any single human of any age has. However, our demands for cultural self-regulation are also orders of magnitude higher, and those demands scale at rates that are exponentially faster than the rate of increase of our numbers alone, or even the rate of increase of our compounding group options.
You might want to compare aspects of the Linux Foundation versus the USA. Organization? Or disorganization? Both, obviously, for both. The immediately obvious point is that too few in every system study the tolerance limits inherent in their own communities. Walter Shewhart and W.E. Deming became aware of that, ~80 years ago, and described in depth how and why neglect of system-self-awareness was the dominant cause of all mis-allocation of investments. Sun Tzu recognized the same problem, over 2000 years ago, but no culture has actually mastered a scalable solution.
We could.
Well, we could if we made our students aware of the problem - and the insane payoff - and then let them set their minds to it.
In every complex system, the highest of all costs - by far - is the cost of coordination.
Hence, in every complex system, the highest return of all - by far - is the return on coordination.
Neglecting that fundamental truth is the dominant cause of erroneous investment in static assets at the expense of investment in far more more valuable dynamic assets. [Example: invest in co-employing, not constraining, people. Their coincidental widgets ALWAYS come second. Tools without an agile army always lose to an agile lacking tools. The tools are far easier to achieve than practiced group agility.]
Wherever the inflection point of cultural self-awareness lies, most organizations don't seem to have reached it, let alone maintained it. That holds for all groups, from the Linux Foundation to the entire USA.
First problem is that most organizations don't even bother to look! Cultural self-awareness is largely ignored as an enabling goal or outcome! The USMC and some War Colleges recognize the problem and it's value, but even they haven't adequately practiced solving it!
Why does systemic self-awareness and coordination always rise first among parasites, pirates and the 1%? Simply because their population is smaller, and hence their organizational requirements, are much lower. Subgroups can always act first, but they can never win ... without destroying their host. Parasites and the 1% can only perturb, then eventually succumb to, the 99%. We have bigger things to be interested in, they don't. None of us can be anywhere near as intelligent, or imaginative, as all of us.
Yes, parasites, pirates and the 1% are always easily overwhelmed, but ONLY if the 99% actually put an ounce of effort in to coordination themselves. It doesn't take much, no more than the effort of swatting aside a blood-sucking mosquito. Ignored, however, even the lowly 1% mosquitoes can suck the divided and conquered masses dry.
* One could wonder about those people who are willing to kill to prevent abortion of a baby, but don't seem to recognize when they themselves are aborting a fledgling human culture, still trying to grow. Situational awareness is a function of practiced perceptual ability. It doesn't improve if not constantly practiced, tested and re-examined.
Great video here, that all citizens should see, by age 10.
How Linux is Built
We desperately need a similar video - showing how national culture is actually REBUILT - every year.
Such a video would remind all that our culture is continuously built and re-built, just like new babies are "built," after every act of sexual recombination. Cultures are complex babies where interleaved embryogenesis proceeds continuously, in a highly distributed manner. Their birth, growth, senescence and death is a biological process.
The difference between human babies and human cultures is only one of degree.* Our cultural "germ cells," as well as their recombination events, are highly distributed and nested, rather than concentrated, thereby providing a human culture with orders of magnitude more degrees of freedom than any single human of any age has. However, our demands for cultural self-regulation are also orders of magnitude higher, and those demands scale at rates that are exponentially faster than the rate of increase of our numbers alone, or even the rate of increase of our compounding group options.
You might want to compare aspects of the Linux Foundation versus the USA. Organization? Or disorganization? Both, obviously, for both. The immediately obvious point is that too few in every system study the tolerance limits inherent in their own communities. Walter Shewhart and W.E. Deming became aware of that, ~80 years ago, and described in depth how and why neglect of system-self-awareness was the dominant cause of all mis-allocation of investments. Sun Tzu recognized the same problem, over 2000 years ago, but no culture has actually mastered a scalable solution.
We could.
Well, we could if we made our students aware of the problem - and the insane payoff - and then let them set their minds to it.
In every complex system, the highest of all costs - by far - is the cost of coordination.
Hence, in every complex system, the highest return of all - by far - is the return on coordination.
Neglecting that fundamental truth is the dominant cause of erroneous investment in static assets at the expense of investment in far more more valuable dynamic assets. [Example: invest in co-employing, not constraining, people. Their coincidental widgets ALWAYS come second. Tools without an agile army always lose to an agile lacking tools. The tools are far easier to achieve than practiced group agility.]
Wherever the inflection point of cultural self-awareness lies, most organizations don't seem to have reached it, let alone maintained it. That holds for all groups, from the Linux Foundation to the entire USA.
First problem is that most organizations don't even bother to look! Cultural self-awareness is largely ignored as an enabling goal or outcome! The USMC and some War Colleges recognize the problem and it's value, but even they haven't adequately practiced solving it!
Why does systemic self-awareness and coordination always rise first among parasites, pirates and the 1%? Simply because their population is smaller, and hence their organizational requirements, are much lower. Subgroups can always act first, but they can never win ... without destroying their host. Parasites and the 1% can only perturb, then eventually succumb to, the 99%. We have bigger things to be interested in, they don't. None of us can be anywhere near as intelligent, or imaginative, as all of us.
Yes, parasites, pirates and the 1% are always easily overwhelmed, but ONLY if the 99% actually put an ounce of effort in to coordination themselves. It doesn't take much, no more than the effort of swatting aside a blood-sucking mosquito. Ignored, however, even the lowly 1% mosquitoes can suck the divided and conquered masses dry.
* One could wonder about those people who are willing to kill to prevent abortion of a baby, but don't seem to recognize when they themselves are aborting a fledgling human culture, still trying to grow. Situational awareness is a function of practiced perceptual ability. It doesn't improve if not constantly practiced, tested and re-examined.
Dale Pierce — Modern Monetary Theory – An Introduction: Part 2
II. The Science of Government
New Economic Perspectives
Modern Monetary Theory – An Introduction: Part 2
Dale Pierce
Lars P. Syll — The state of modern macroeconomics – indescribable misery
Lars explains in some detail what is wrong with dominant neoclassical approach to macroeconomics and what needs to be done. It really comes down to Paul Davidson's criticism of assuming ergodicity in modeling a non-ergodic environment, which is akin to trying to sledgehammer a round peg into a square hole.
Unlike physical systems, social systems operate in terms of feedback and so the future does not necessarily resemble the past in a predictable way, no matter how sophisticated the statistical analysis — as Keynes pointed out decades ago in his criticism of econometrics. Economies, being people-based hence reflexive, are organic rather than mechanistic, so mechanistic modeling does not apply. Methodological atomism is a dead-end.
Macroeconomics is not a pure science. It is a policy science, or better, an aspect of poli sci, to the degree it can be called a science. It is also normative in addition to positive, in that it is concerned with policy issues to the degree that government is involved, which in modern economies is in a huge way. As such it is a part of policy studies in general and need to be approached as such.
Here is a slightly edited response in an email exchange with Roger Erickson yesterday that speaks to this:
Roger: "How do you get people to explore their options? Clarity of purpose first! Then any and all methods become coincidental, rather than ideological. The same message is enshrined today in OBT&E. However, if left to name only, every named effort is always in danger of becoming it's own form of religion - rather than retaining it's function."
In my view, this requires a meta-disciplinary approach to policy studies. The departmental model of the university is in the way of this. It results in the compartmentalism of knowledge, with the result that knowledge workers end up working in closets instead of forums.
This is being realized in the area of consciousness studies, where a new field is emerging and attracting the whole range of scholars from the sciences, humanities and arts. Realization of the need for this unified approach came about for several reasons.
"Systems theory studies the structure and properties of systems in terms of relationships, from which new properties of wholes emerge. It was established as a science by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Anatol Rapoport, Kenneth E. Boulding, William Ross Ashby, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson and others in the 1950's. Systems theory, in its transdisciplinary role, brings together theoretical principles and concepts from ontology, philosophy of science, physics, biology and engineering. Applications are found in numerous fields including geography, sociology, political science, organizational theory, management, psychotherapy and economics amongst others." — Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory by Gregory Mitchell
General Systems Theory is being applied in psychology and consciousness studies, where Boulding is well recognized. How many economists have even heard of him? Interestingly, through Randy has and has written on his work.
So the groundwork has already been done in systems theory and monetary economics and the foundation laid. No the question is how the superstructure gets built on that foundation, considering the powerful interests heavily vested in the status quo and therefore aligned against change, especially holistic change that runs counter to privilege and favoring special interests. Here is where issues of power come in. See, for instance, Michael Perelman, "The Power of Economics and the Economics of Power," and The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills.
I would be pessimistic about change in the face of these obstacles if were not for the vise that is tightening, one face of which is looming resource shortage as the emerging world comes on line and the opposing face is the increasing pace and attendant consequences of global warming. Given the fragility of the financial system due to lack of understanding of monetary economics and rampant corruption, this trend could be greatly exacerbated. Humanity is at make or break it moment, and a whole lot of younger people globally realize this, and see their futures hanging in balance. So there is reason to hope that sense will prevail and humanity will pick up the tools that it has already developed and are available.
Lars P. Syll's Blog
Lars P. Syll | Professor of Social Studies and Associate professor of Economic History at Malmö University
Macroeconomics is not a pure science. It is a policy science, or better, an aspect of poli sci, to the degree it can be called a science. It is also normative in addition to positive, in that it is concerned with policy issues to the degree that government is involved, which in modern economies is in a huge way. As such it is a part of policy studies in general and need to be approached as such.
Here is a slightly edited response in an email exchange with Roger Erickson yesterday that speaks to this:
Roger: "How do you get people to explore their options? Clarity of purpose first! Then any and all methods become coincidental, rather than ideological. The same message is enshrined today in OBT&E. However, if left to name only, every named effort is always in danger of becoming it's own form of religion - rather than retaining it's function."
In my view, this requires a meta-disciplinary approach to policy studies. The departmental model of the university is in the way of this. It results in the compartmentalism of knowledge, with the result that knowledge workers end up working in closets instead of forums.
This is being realized in the area of consciousness studies, where a new field is emerging and attracting the whole range of scholars from the sciences, humanities and arts. Realization of the need for this unified approach came about for several reasons.
First, consciousness is foundational to experience, hence our awareness of self and world. It is also involved in our personal and social construction of the "world," which is not merely given but structured, for instance, in accordance with the prevailing cultural worldview as colored by subcultural affiliations and personal tendencies.
Secondly, the so-called hard problem of consciousness is reconciling quantity and quality in a comprehensive explanation. How color is perceived as qualitative based on quantifiably measurable differences in wave frequency and interference is a simple instance of this as yet unexplained conundrum. Science is essentially quantitative in its approach to a fundamentally qualitative world. Hence, the question arises as to whether a scientific explanation of consciousness is even possible when it is the field on which quantity and quality meet.
So the two major issues are the nature of consciousness and how it works in relation to a subject as a "person" and the object(s) for the subject as "reality." The problems involved in explaining consciousness are far from resolved but now there are a lot of very smart people working together on potential solutions.
On thing is quite certain. Consciousness involves complexity and therefore emergence. It is fundamentally non-ergodic even though "rational." "Rational" cannot be equated with "ergodic" unless one is willing to hold also that consciousness is inherently non-rational, which is anti-humanistic. Most scientists are humanists, so that is not palatable to them. This dilemma is quite comparable to the state of most orthodox economists, which they "solve" by positing a rational representative agent.
A similar approach to the current approach to consciousness studies is needed to policy studies, in that many similar issues arise with respect to how consciousness manifests in various societies and the ways in which individuals contribute to manifesting social phenomena, where both consciousness and context are determinative. The challenge lies in capturing the relevant information and using it to its full potential for social optimization. Presently, there are a number of different fields that are concerned with aspects of this but there is little if any integration.
At present, policy is determined by policy wonks well versed in poli sci and history, academic economists using assumption-based models, business people applying business principles to government, and politicians interested in the next election, where the criterion is fundraising ability. These people are mostly working at cross purposes, and they are neither listening to heterodox opinion in their own fields, nor acquiring information and advice from other relevant fields like sociology. Moreover, there is no reconciliation of monetary economics with the rest of policy studies.
Economist Kenneth Boulding is an interesting example. Working from the Forties into the Eighties to develop an integrated approach that also brought in monetary economics, he quickly realized that he was going to make no headway in the economics profession, so he went his own way and co-founded General Systems Theory.
A similar approach to the current approach to consciousness studies is needed to policy studies, in that many similar issues arise with respect to how consciousness manifests in various societies and the ways in which individuals contribute to manifesting social phenomena, where both consciousness and context are determinative. The challenge lies in capturing the relevant information and using it to its full potential for social optimization. Presently, there are a number of different fields that are concerned with aspects of this but there is little if any integration.
At present, policy is determined by policy wonks well versed in poli sci and history, academic economists using assumption-based models, business people applying business principles to government, and politicians interested in the next election, where the criterion is fundraising ability. These people are mostly working at cross purposes, and they are neither listening to heterodox opinion in their own fields, nor acquiring information and advice from other relevant fields like sociology. Moreover, there is no reconciliation of monetary economics with the rest of policy studies.
Economist Kenneth Boulding is an interesting example. Working from the Forties into the Eighties to develop an integrated approach that also brought in monetary economics, he quickly realized that he was going to make no headway in the economics profession, so he went his own way and co-founded General Systems Theory.
"Systems theory studies the structure and properties of systems in terms of relationships, from which new properties of wholes emerge. It was established as a science by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Anatol Rapoport, Kenneth E. Boulding, William Ross Ashby, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson and others in the 1950's. Systems theory, in its transdisciplinary role, brings together theoretical principles and concepts from ontology, philosophy of science, physics, biology and engineering. Applications are found in numerous fields including geography, sociology, political science, organizational theory, management, psychotherapy and economics amongst others." — Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory by Gregory Mitchell
General Systems Theory is being applied in psychology and consciousness studies, where Boulding is well recognized. How many economists have even heard of him? Interestingly, through Randy has and has written on his work.
So the groundwork has already been done in systems theory and monetary economics and the foundation laid. No the question is how the superstructure gets built on that foundation, considering the powerful interests heavily vested in the status quo and therefore aligned against change, especially holistic change that runs counter to privilege and favoring special interests. Here is where issues of power come in. See, for instance, Michael Perelman, "The Power of Economics and the Economics of Power," and The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills.
I would be pessimistic about change in the face of these obstacles if were not for the vise that is tightening, one face of which is looming resource shortage as the emerging world comes on line and the opposing face is the increasing pace and attendant consequences of global warming. Given the fragility of the financial system due to lack of understanding of monetary economics and rampant corruption, this trend could be greatly exacerbated. Humanity is at make or break it moment, and a whole lot of younger people globally realize this, and see their futures hanging in balance. So there is reason to hope that sense will prevail and humanity will pick up the tools that it has already developed and are available.
Cultural Error Correction Occurs Only With Adequate Cross-Discipline Interaction and Feedback
Commentary by Roger Erickson
Peter Radford has a dead-on commentary about the decline in academic economics and subsequent policy advice - and it's causes.
Error Correction and Ethics
The accelerating insularity " ... has resulted in a near total elimination of a common understanding – or common memory – of its development."
I couldn't agree more. Imagine how much worse our net problem is, when this observation is extrapolated outside the economics field alone, to our entire national culture!
Make no mistake, cultural growth, decline and death is a biological process. Key steps and their entire patterns can be observed, analyzed, documented and actively responded to ... OR NOT!
Tempo matters when absorbing the impact of benefit and harm. There are always tolerance limits that, if exceeded, preclude futher experimentation. To avoid straying outside those tolerance limits for too long, we need both action and agility. How does a culture achieve those skills except through prior practice?
What kind of practice? Active, even agile, responses by a whole culture require culture-wide feedback - to guide accelerated achievement of desired outcomes. Why don't all stages of our education systems focus more on scalable teamwork? Any lesser outcomes in a national culture occur only for those electorates who get exactly what they deserve - in return for their bickering. Instead, we could be taking the easy route of full coordination - and enjoying the insane returns that coordination generates. Ben Franklin nailed it over 200 years ago, we must all hang together, or we shall surely all fail as a nation.
Smart makes easy accrue. Only stupid makes thing hard, long term, via short-term hoarding and long-term neglect.
Please, insist on the former.
Peter Radford has a dead-on commentary about the decline in academic economics and subsequent policy advice - and it's causes.
Error Correction and Ethics
The accelerating insularity " ... has resulted in a near total elimination of a common understanding – or common memory – of its development."
I couldn't agree more. Imagine how much worse our net problem is, when this observation is extrapolated outside the economics field alone, to our entire national culture!
Make no mistake, cultural growth, decline and death is a biological process. Key steps and their entire patterns can be observed, analyzed, documented and actively responded to ... OR NOT!
Tempo matters when absorbing the impact of benefit and harm. There are always tolerance limits that, if exceeded, preclude futher experimentation. To avoid straying outside those tolerance limits for too long, we need both action and agility. How does a culture achieve those skills except through prior practice?
What kind of practice? Active, even agile, responses by a whole culture require culture-wide feedback - to guide accelerated achievement of desired outcomes. Why don't all stages of our education systems focus more on scalable teamwork? Any lesser outcomes in a national culture occur only for those electorates who get exactly what they deserve - in return for their bickering. Instead, we could be taking the easy route of full coordination - and enjoying the insane returns that coordination generates. Ben Franklin nailed it over 200 years ago, we must all hang together, or we shall surely all fail as a nation.
Smart makes easy accrue. Only stupid makes thing hard, long term, via short-term hoarding and long-term neglect.
Please, insist on the former.
Currency Choices for an Independent Scotland: Response to the Fiscal Commission Working Group
Another monetary union in the works?
Currency Choices for an Independent Scotland: Response to the Fiscal Commission Working Group — April 2013
(h/t Alex Little via Twitter)
Here's the call for austerity already.
The Guardian (UK)
An independent Scotland could endanger sterling, Treasury warns
Severin Carrell | Scotland correspondent, The Guardian
Monday, April 22, 2013
Greg Palast — Did Chavez’ Pick Steal the Election in Venezuela?
US engineered Venezuelan coup in the works? Lots more in Palast's account than Venezuela.
Greg Palast Journalism and Film
Did Chavez’ Pick Steal the Election in Venezuela?
Greg Palast | Investigative Reporter
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