"Material Footprint of Nations" vs "Return on Coordination of Nations"

Commentary by Roger Erickson

Well, some economist wag has come up with the novel idea of finally getting real (hat tip Dan Flemming). How long's it been, 80 years? Fiat mystics are rare indeed!

Regardless, ya gotta wonder if these geniuses will ever catch up with another, truly underwhelming concept - whether we can MOBILIZE our coordinated efforts in order to keep pursuing ongoing reality. Say, like we did from 1933-1945, when we dramatically expanded our Policy Space, and drastically improved our Policy Agility. Since then, it's been a long, staged retreat to the stale, constraining safety of our treacherous old lover and dominatrix, TINA "The Monetarist" Islm (who, incidentally, fervently believes that we have to first GET fiat [i.e., public initiative or teamwork] from some prior owner - conveniently, a "real" plutocrat - before we can leverage it). Who's calling whom mystical? If you're puzzled by the House of Wonkers argument, don't feel bad.

Will the confluence of reality and our pursuit of it ever occur in the charade we call economics? Personally, I've come to doubt whether we even want those two to meet. The ideologues might screw things up even worse, and - once they realize it's out there - simply insist that reality pursue them! Better to keep the economists locked in their ivory tower, where their immunity to reality can't do such immediate harm.

Meanwhile, it's just amazing that we won't let our electorates immediately and directly jump to a real-time comparison - say, of the "material footprint of nations" with the potential "return on coordination within nations."

After all, what's stopping us? Ideology? Admittedly, that and some things called basic intellect and contact with context too.

Until then, it's all kabuki shadow banking, and hot air issuing from where tail meets dog. In all sympathy, if I was in that position, I'd keep wagging too. Anything already overvalued has too much to lose, and either acts with humility for the common good, or - most commonly - turns to self-protective fraud and screws the pooch.