Sandwichman — Is the Economic System Self-Adjusting?

Keynes contra Krugman. (Nice Keynes quote you may want to file.)

Econospeak
Is the Economic System Self-Adjusting?
Sandwichman

John Aziz — Minsky, the Lucas Critique, & the Great Moderation

Looks at Ben Bernanke, Scott Sumner, and J. M. Keynes as well. If you read this, don't overlook the link to Brad DeLong's debunking of misconceptions about Keynes's assert that in the long run we are all dead.

Azizonomics

Minsky, the Lucas Critique, & the Great Moderation

John Aziz

Matias Vernengo — The meaning of short and long-term and the natural rate

Good (Post Keynesian, i.e., post capital debates) explanation of "the natural rate of interest," as well as "long run" and "short run."

Naked Keynesianism
The meaning of short and long-term and the natural rate

Matias Vernengo | Associate Professor of Economics, University of Utah

Alexander the Weight-of-Logic vs the Guardian Knotheads

There is infinite trivia to uselessly argue about in every situation, but only one adaptive group survival path to extend.  What's orthodox is simply an instantaneous tangent to unpredictably unfolding adaptive paths.  Our job is simply to avoid staying on orthodox tangents too long.  Capiche?

How?  Well, what's eventually obvious in any situation is simply an operational result left after cutting through what's discovered to be irrelevant in our current tangent. In practice, that means asking "what part of what we KNOW has to be discarded first?" That can always be determined fastest by exploring all the options with the fastest parsing strategy (aka, natural selection). [ps: If you're uncomfortable with certain uncertainty, just drop out and wait for the truck described below to pick you up. You won't feel a thing.]

So far, accelerating adaptive rate involves the 2-stage strategic combination of expanding the diversity of feedback AND monitoring all inter-dependencies between feedback channels. That's the simple reason why evolving systems always expand in order to win adaptive races. If we ever run out of Adaptive Space in our universe, we'll know it's time to change some fundamental limit on the selection tempo. When that happens, we'll presumably trigger another Big Probability Event (aka, a Little Whimper). Succeeding generations of Luddites will only perceive it - eventually - as yet another Big Bang (i.e., the last truck to hit 'em; they never do get the license plate #, because such trucks scavenge the road kill & throw it in back of the truck).  Luddites only wake up on the next iteration of endlessly nested rides.  Face it.  In the long run, we're all Luddites waiting to happen.

Currency Operations (MMT) is just one example of diverse operations accelerating net Adaptive Rate, dragging Luddite theorists along, kicking and screaming irrelevant inanities.

Ongoing politics provides countless other examples of theory trying to triumph over real operations.  Here's another informative example where credentialism fell off the wagon.

Good Riddance Petraeus

"If only Petraeus and his colleague generals remembered the smaller -- but far more relevant -- ideas inculcated in all of us Army officers in Infantry School at Fort Benning in the early Sixties. This is what I recall from memory regarding what an infantry officer needed to do before launching an operation -- big or small -- division or squad size.

Corny (and gratuitous) as it may sound, we were taught that the absolute requirement was to do an "Estimate of the Situation" that included the following key factors: Enemy strength, numbers and weapons; Enemy disposition, where are they?; Terrain; Weather; and Lines of communication and supply (LOCS). In other words, we were trained to take into account those "little ideas," like facts and feasibility that, if ignored, could turn the "big ideas" into a March of Folly that would get a lot of people killed for no good reason.

Could it be that they stopped teaching these fundamentals as Petraeus went through West Point and Benning several years later? Did military history no longer include the futile efforts of imperial armies to avoid falling into the "graveyard of empires" in Afghanistan?

What about those LOCS? When you can't get there from here, is it really a good idea to send troops and armaments the length of Pakistan and then over the Hindu Kush? And does anyone know how much that kind of adventure might end up costing?

To Army officers schooled in the basics, it was VERY hard to understand why the top Army leadership persuaded President Barack Obama to double down, twice, in reinforcing troops for a fool's errand. And let's face it, unless you posit that the generals and the neoconservative strategic "experts" at Brookings and AEI were clueless, the doubling down was not only dumb but unconscionable. [highlight mine]

Here's a suggestion. Let's add the following as part of every Oath of Public Office, from local towns up to Federal elected officials.

"Do you swear to adjust to the Situation, the Whole Situation, and nothing but the honest Situation - so help you Reality?" That's one suggestion for how we could continuously select better ways to cut through the Guardian Knotheads of Ludditeville. Simply hew them with the weight of logic, and quickly move on.

Collective allegiance to the weight of adaptive logic is always more important than any few Truths, no matter how artfully selected.

Selecting too few truths from many constitutes perversion, in the form of Selection Strategy gone awry.

"EVERY process is too important to be left to the presumed process owners." Without that full-group review of all relevant feedback, we have doomed mob, not a democracy.