Thursday Open Thread -- Back to Work Edition
We're still under a level 2 in Franklin county but I-270 looks like it has been cleared well.
The stimulus bill passed the House yesterday 244-188, with no Republicans
voting for the bill. The Senate has their own ideas for a stimulus so this bill and the Senate's bill will have to be reconciled in conference.
What else is on tap?
Submitted by stinerman on Thu, 2009-01-29 11:06
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Feigned Comrpomise
Anyone know how common it is thought to be, that if one party controls both houses, that on a controversial bill that could have some backlash. The House & Senate side of the majority "fail" to work together before the bill is introduced, with the first house passing a bill down the minorities throats, and then the 2nd house then feigning "bending over backwards" to compromise on the bill, before it goes to back to the 1st house.
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
For the sake of your 401K, you all need to root for the Steelers
In years that the Steelers win the Super Bowl, the DJIA has posted twice the average yearly return:
http://post-gazette.com/pg/09029/945282-28.stm
Does it make any logical sense? No.
But why mess with that kind of mojo?
If the Terrible Towel is good enough for these fighter pilots flying over Afghanistan, it's good enough for you. Join Steeler Nation.
I survived the Bush Administration
Go NW Ohio, Go MAC, Go AFC North
It's just nice to see the MAC, and even Ohio Northern, being represented in a game.
That photo would be kind of funny if the Eagles would have beaten the Cardinals.
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
BTW- European unemployment
The latest stat I could find for unemployment for France is 8.3%. At the beginning of January in the US it was 7.2%. That's before the 70,000 that were laid off last monday.
I'm not really seeing how 1% less unemployment with basically no benefits beats slightly higher unemployment with decent benefits. YMMV.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
So move to France.
.
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4seriously, Tlaloc
Those numbers are all fine and good and it's quite obvious where you always want to go with such stats but let's consider for the sake of full honesty:
You've basically waited for US unemployment to rapidly claim to and hit an abnormal 15 year high on the strength of deep recession and French unemployment to hit the lowest mark it's been at for as long as I can remember to make such statments. That doesn't make for a very objective or honest sounding point. It looks more like opportunism.
I'd be another thing if the US chronically had higher or even just HIGH unemployment compared to countries like France. But it doesn't. As recently as 3 years ago, French unemployment was almost double that of the US. In 2000, it was more than double. France spent of the 1990s in double digit unemployment.
Come on now.
Current events in France
More strikes and large street protests
...unemployment expected to hit 10% this year, according to the BBC.
I suppose this could mean their citizens are much less satisfied than ours at the moment.
Being very connected to France
with close friends, I can tell you that it's a pretty accurate image of the national mood there that is shown is that BBC link.
When my French "sister" arrived in July, she said things were worse than she could ever remember. A lot of frustration, a lot of anxiety, a lot of grumbling. Shopping was painful and people were panicking and there were more riots and demonstrations than at any other point in her young 28 years.
The debate over there right now is about what to do with the massive welfare state to make it sustainable. Like I said in the other thread on this matter, they found it odd watching our campaign discourse that it was centered on trying to start what they are trying to reform or undo or scale back.
Partial privatisation of retirment is gaining steam, serious sacrifices are being discussed for the national health insurance system. Radical reforms in unemployment insurance are also in the works.
What will come of it? I don't know. The point here for Americans that fawn over the system over there is the sugary and rosy image they see is not all that accurate. There is tension over there over these matters. And while getting rid of National Health Insurance is not on the table, most Frenchmen are coming to grips with the fact that changes need to be made keep it afloat and the idea of getting tighter with overly generous benefits for unemployment is no longer a Right issue. It's also a centrist issue.
Well we're talking about the French here
Riots and demonstrations are their national pastime. They get off their duffs when their government isn't in tune with their needs. We watch American Idol.
I never broke the law; I am the law! --
George W. BushJudge DreddI'm listening to...
More correctly a country, at
More correctly a country, at that point under the last grips of a far-left political system that had dominated for quite some time, was experiencing an overall unemployment rate of 10%. More worrysome was the fact that unemployment among young males 18-24 was 23% with concentrations in urban areas showing as high as 40% among that same demographic. It wasn't so much getting off their duffs as much as they were, as my older co-worker likes to say,"young, dumb, and full of...vigor". If American Idle is all it takes I can assure you, having watched a fair share of French television (their "MTV" is so much better I couldn't stop watching it!), that there are plenty of "distractions".
Not my fault
that the topic came up during a time when the US economy is falling apart. Nor, I think, is it beside the point. More freemarkets means more boom and bust, which sounds great during boom times. Strangley the picture is a bit darker (a hell of a lot darker) during busts.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
That argument makes no
That argument makes no sense. You used France as positive example of a market not riddled with the problems of our "free" system but then ignore evidence that it has just as many problems given the fact that it's current employment rate is not the norm. I can't tell if you just don't get it or if you are being obtuse... And darker than what, exactly?
Just as many problem
is not the same as saying the problems are just as severe. A system more like france puts the onus more on the businesses and less on the people, which is where I think it belongs.
"Darker than what?"
I was saying during a bust the picture is a hell of a lot darker than during the boom. The point being that risking hell (which is what a depression boils down to) just for some extra money during the good times is a very bad idea. A more stable path is vastly preferable.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
No, it's not your fault BUT
you are well aware of the historical backdrop and, as magilson says, it makes your point a little obtuse.
You basically used a short term fluke to make a general and broad and statement. It's misleading.
Like I said, your argument would have much more strength if French and American unemployment numbers were always so close...but they are not.
No. It doesn't. More highly coaxed and cajoled markets (beyond what free markets would do) make for more boom and bust. And pointing to deregulations only strengthens my argument because if the nature of the deregulation seeks to accentuate incentives for gain while minimizing or obscuring incentives for caution and prudence, we get horrid imbalances and misallocations that push us into busts after a falsely coaxed boom. IOW, deregulating on the plus side of the equation without making countervailing adjustments on negative side is not "free".This is also very hard to do...which is why regulators are always trailing the action.
Think of as two strong opposite gusts of wind holding something upright. Increase the velocity on one side without doing the same to the other will cause it to topple over.
And besides, finance is the second most regulated in industry after health care. The laws, exceptions, regulations, special conditions, loopholes and seemingly illogical mish-mashed blends of do's and don't's, carrots and repellants make the head spin.
Historical anomaly
Sure. Of course there's always the possibility that it is the start of a trend. We've been making a lot of bad economic decisions. But regardless if france is at 10% unemployment and the US is at 5% the french system is still better because the unemployed in france are not facing deprivation the way that many employed in the US are.
You can choose a system to take care of CEOs or a system to take care of people. Not both. The US has chosent he former and we've paid for that choice. Other countries have leaned more toward th second option. When we view the situation with the correct priorities we see they are to be envied, not mocked.
As for boom and bust, I have to disagree with you. The single most consistent feature of capitalism is chaos. It is turmoil. Regulation, when done right, is an attempt to make it more orderly, more controlled, more, dare I say, human.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Bingo.
See, this why I posted to your comment above the way that I did. The fact that the difference in employment numbers usually has been much closer to those figures you posted of 10% and 5% is really irrelevant to you because of other factors.
And speaking of those other factors, people in this country really overstate the depth and generosity of the unemployment compensation in France. Yes, it's more...but it is made out to be much, much more swell and toasty than it really is. Moreover, such benefits are a big point of contention these days and have been for some time due to fiscal restraints and budget realtiies. Moves are being made to get people off the welfare roles who are being quite unmotivated about finding work as fast as they should. Of course, the relative difficulty in finding work (many other reasons for that) doesn't help.
But France is following the lead of Nordic countries who have begun doing the same thing with good results. Funny how quickly people work when given a little harder push.
That doesn't really pass for an explanation.
This article is less than a year old:
France to tighten rules
.
Laurent Wauquiez, the Labor Minister:
Well the point was
that if the difference is worth it when they are at their worst and we are at our best it is way more worth it when you flip the adjectives around.
Boom and bust is a function of capitalism because capitalism mimics the most extreme version of ecological action. When every actor is essentially a bad faith actor seeking any advantage over rivals (which is the case of pure capitalism and ecologies where symbiosis is marked by parasitism) leads to boom and bust because you have no built in negative feedback systems. A predator or company that gains some significant advantage is likely to extend that advantage until they dominate the energy resources. Because there are hard physical limits though this domination can't be maintained. Eventually the predator kills off its food supply. Or bankers make so many bad trades they eventually realize than nobody has any faith in the system and credit dries up entirely.
Regulation is an attempt to take an active hand in smoothing out precisely this kind of behavior which is why anti-monopolistic action is one of the most basic regulatory practices. You stop any one actor from controlling too much, or causing serious harm to the system as a whole. Regulation is about maintaining the system, capitalism is about breaking the system to personal benefit. That's precisely why boom and bust is a function of capitalism, and it is inhibted by well thought out and implementd regulation.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Do you make this stuff up?
That doesn't sound like anything from any economics book...left or right...or even any sociology book of any kind that I've ever seen...or even adapted from anything therefrom.
It is authentically and genuinely new. Congrats.
Maybe it'll catch on somewhere.
As for regulation, telling what "is" and what it "could be" in its theoretical maximum are two different things.
And BTW, it still doesn't pass the even the basic muster for any kind of explanation. It makes no sense.
Which would mean more
if economic text books were worth the paper they're printed on.
It's pretty obvious if you stop and think about it, John. When you have a collection of actors all looking to screw everyone else then they will find ways to break the system to their advantage. Look at any Massive Multiplayer Online game as an example. Players always find exploits and use them to the sdetriment of the system unless you have an active body of people monitoring for such and stopping it. Part of the reason ecology is more stable is because you have a lot of mutualist and commensalist relationships. These relationships evolve over thousands if not milions of years and help to make sure no one species can dominate. In capitalism reliationships are formed over lunch and broken by dinner, so they don't have the mitigating factor.
The one thing you said that was right is that regulation can certainly be poorly thought out or implemented, in which case it may fail to restrain capitalism or even promote the latter's worst behaviors. No argument there. But you can also say that medicine practiced badly can kill the patient. Of course it can. So make sure you do it well because going without isn't a good option.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Oh, the irony.
Economic text books are written by economists. Well, I suppose Keyens was really just a probability mathemetician who's pops got him a job by bribing Cambridge. But other than that... Anyway, the point is that for someone who doesn't believe in economists and instead relies on really bad biology analogies you sure have a lot of faith in the economists Obama has chosen. Remember when I couldn't tell if you didn't get it or were being obtuse? It's the former. But luckily the public libraries I've held cards with have all had excellent selections to combat your ignorance!
Indeed they are, that's the problem.
Economics is a hell of a long ways from being a real science. It is on par right now with alchemy and astrology. Hence why economics text books deserve no credence. Some day we will have a real science of economics. That day is a long ways off. In the mean time economists would be far better off determining the most basic principles of their field than telling other people what to do.
Right now an advanced economics degree almost qualifies you to flip burgers.
You'll find this a fairly common viewpoint among people who are real scientists and know what science is and how it works (i.e. physical scientists). An example:
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2007/09/economics-is-bull.html
The various social studies have mostly come a long ways, and some might even be close to becoming actual sciences. Economics isn't among them.
I should point out that I do not think economists are necessarily stupid by any means. In many ways economics is a much harder field of study than physical sciences, and it is completley reasonable that our understanding in this matter lags severely behind our understanding of physics, chemistry, and biology. That said it is incumbent on economists to know how little they know and not try to act as experts, because they aren't, and they do everyone (including themselves) a disservice when they pretend otherwise.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
I'll remember never to bother
I'll remember never to bother having an economics or economics related conversation with your from here on out. Thanks for saving me the time!
*shrug*
There's only one measure of a field of human knowledge- how accurate a prediction it can make.
Can you honestly tell me that you believe economists can make predicitions that are more accurate than those of random guessing?
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
As an engineer, it bothers me
As an engineer, it bothers me that you think physics is that cut and dry. Sure the equations are simple, but the dynamics of real life cause deviations all the time. I can make semi-accurate predicitions. But as for what you appear to be looking for... well, good luck.
Uh no.
The dynamics of real life do NOT make varietions to the equations at all. What they do is introduce enough elements that accurately applying the equations becomes hard to impossible but the underlying science remains exactly the same (or else the underlying science is wrong and needs to be changed (as it was to incorporate relativity and then QM).
Physics of any conventional situation is extremely well defined. Some situations, like dynamic fluids for instanc, can be extremely complicated to model but the underlying principles are known. The same cannot be said of economics where the most basic definitions are still in debate among economists every day.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
political economics is political, and possibly chaotic
Another relevant post from FreedomDEmocrats
:
FWIW, I'm not convinced that there will ever be a science of economics. For all we know, economic systems are essentially chaotic--meaning that there may not be any persistant patterns at the mactroeconomic level, and we will never have enough information about the micro-economic conditions of the world (let alone the unknown parameters of the material world) to predict the future development of the economy.
In my expert opinion, you should do what I tell you to do.
So the only logical conlusion
So the only logical conlusion one could develop from such an idea is that the constant tampering of the left is futile and quite possibly counterproductive when defended with multipliers and bar charts? ;)
I'll stick to the principles of freedom rather than forcefully requiring people to excersize in whatever form of futility I've chosen as in their best interest.
macroeconomic management is futile
Yes, the conclusion is that macroeconomic management is futile...all the risks of power without the benefits of management.
To be clear, I'm not certtain that macroeconomics is (nearly) chaotic, but I don't think we know enough to say that it isn't.
In my expert opinion, you should do what I tell you to do.
I'm of the opinion, as we are
I'm of the opinion, as we are with physics, biology, medicine, etc. that we simply do not yet understand it. That does not mean it isn't understandable.
Micro is the best we've got
It actually tells a lot. But it simply doesn't tell us enough of what we want to know.
Macro seems more interesting and promising for big solutions but it will always disappoint because its foudations are highly suspect and depend on too many assumptions. It's fuzzy math and hazy principles in a lot of ways and should not even be called "economics" in my opinion.
Reductionist and wholistic sciences (micro/macro econ)
Would you agree with this analogy: "Microeconomics is to macroeconomics as thermodynamics is to climatology "?
Using that analogy, micro is the study of why humans make the economic decisions that they do. It's basically psychology (including cognitive science and social psych). I agree that this can be useful for activities like marketing and management.
It's quite a stretch to extrapolate from those low levels of organization to the higher levels of organization, even once you fully understand the lower levels.
Of course, we can study higher levels of organization without much understanding of the lower levels--that's exactly how "reductionist" sciences work: we first study the higher levels of organization and then move on to the more detailed lower levels. The higher levels (such as a living organism) can be described and studied in the absence of understanding their components (e.g. molecular biology).
The difference between macroeconomics and biology is that we can put a fruit-fly into a controlled environment within which we study it, but we can't put the world economy into a controlled environment, nor can we replicate it. Also, with biology we are often interested in processes that occur on the time scale of minutes to months....whereas macroeconomists are interested in processes that occur over the course of years (without the benefit of replication or controlled experiments).
Macroeoconomics is pretty much intractable.
In my expert opinion, you should do what I tell you to do.
Now let's take that further
Any climatologist who tells you that they know precisely what will happen to the climate in the next 100 years is full of &^%$. The system is just too complex to model. The best they can do is give a general trend (more CO2 -> hotter). From that general trend we might be able to make a logical inference about wise policy (producing a lot of CO2 = hotter = dangerous). Can you imagine thousands of hours of prime time television given over to climatologist round tables where the guests each claim singular knowledge of the truth? Further can you imagine the insanity of people actually paying attention? Of these same obviously full of ^%$# blowhards and braggards being routinely consulted by the highest levels of government as oracles to the might environment?
Well you pretty easily can imagine it if you just substitute climatologist with economist and climate with economy because that's exactly the position we find otrselves in. People have been duped into believing that Economics is a first rate predictive science.
The truth is there is no reason on earth for anyone right now to listen to economists. Their time needs to be spent in study, not in speaking. They have nothing to say right now worth hearing.
And yet it is hard to find an occupation that is more widely listened to. That's a fundamental root of a great many of our problems. We've wed ourselves to the advice of charlatans.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
+1
Accurate predictions of complex systems is effectively impossible.
No one can accurately predict the rankings of the top 25 teams year after year. Some may have more hits than misses. More often than not, the one that is most accurate in one year, will not be the most accurate the next year. Too many variables that can dramatically change for anyone to predict what is going on. About the only things that can be predicted will be that the Washington State Cougars are not likely to win more than 10 games next year.
There is a reason why econon equations ignore most variables to come up with the equation they have.
It's not unlike a physics equation saying that, ignoring wind resistance, a 2 oz. feather will travel the same distance as a 2 oz. stone if thrown with the same force, at the same angle, and from the same height. It may be true, but it's useless.
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
Improbable...not impossible.
Though economics is not a exact science, what is.
I still would stake my ass on Baptiste, Hayek, Friedman and the like...especially given the alternative.
Show me where in the world an economy has succeeded with out the presence of the capitalism, or the free market?
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
Interesting statement
'without the presence of capitalism, or the free market?'
That implies that they are not one and the same. As in capitalism is different from the 'free market'.
I'm only half stupid
Your ignorance precedes you...
n/t
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
Your statement
is not conceptual or about the ideas of what does or does not consist of capitalism, or what you do or do not define as the free markets.
Your statement is a purely name calling.
If you can't defend your ideas then you attack the person that disagrees with you?
Dude that is weak.
I'm only half stupid
That is the whole point ...
..I don't need to defend what has been so elegantly proven already.
PS - There is very little in anything you post that meets the criteria you defined. Conceptual? ...LOL!
I have no desire to be "conceptual" about something as fundamental as the free market or capitalism.
In fact, it is you pulling these misbegotten theories out of your ass that is the embarrassment.
Read a book, preferably something besides Kant or Hegel.
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
Exactly what has
been so elegantly proven is that when folks disagree with you, you start calling names.
You claim that pure capitalism is the be all and end all that has made our country great while completely ignoring the fact that our laws have worked to soften the hard edges of capitalism with regulations and anti-poverty programs for those who slip through the cracks.
If folks chose to ignore the laws and regulations put in place to safeguard our capitalist structure from becoming out of balance, well we can see in the today's financial crisis how well that works out.
Free markets don't believe in laws, because the theory is money (productivity, merit) is the great equalizer.
I'm only half stupid
That's not true.
Free Marketers do not oppose all legislation. But they are usually very particular about what legislation does good, and what legislation does bad in the name of doing good. And maybe John's point (through his links) is that any economist that is set in stone as to policy shouldn't be taken entirely seriously; But I still think a clear path can be drawn.
And it's become more evident to me (and others, I'm sure) that economics is not a strong suit for yourself or Tlaloc. You may be interested in it, but it would appear you haven't done much research beyond whatever you could find that justified your own personal views. I could recommend some reading if you'd be interested. Until then please stop making generalizations based on your perceptions rather than fact.
I would like to see that list...
To find out if there is somethings there I don't have, or maybe even know about.
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
Do you consider Alan Greenspan
a free marketer? He was a strong Ayn Rand acolyte.
Is Grover Norquist a free marketer?
Ron Paul?
Is there more than one off shoot of this kind of economics that you speak of?
The perception is that Wall Street bankers mocked regulations to the end of the earth, yet these same people are now blaming the regulators for not doing their job.
It's pretty difficult to find a free marketer that doesn't argue against any kind of regulation of the markets, as it interferes with the 'process', of letting business and money do it's kind work of liberation. Also laying claim to the notion that all taxes are a violence upon your liberty, a redistribution of wealth, or as the political rhetoric goes, evil socialism.
It galls me no end that the anti-government crowd drives on the roads built by the sweat of our forefathers, paid for by taxes, and all other manner of tax funded infrastructure and public institutions, but now suddenly if it's their turn to pay for improvements for roads or education, they claim it's not in their self interest, because it redistributes the wealth.
They always seem to forget that our country has thrived specifically because it has been a mixed economy.
Just because I and Tlaloc don't agree with your philosophy of economics, that free markets are the be all and end all, does not mean that we don't have the liberty to think differently than you do.
Is your assumption that if only we understood free markets better we would be converts. That's tricky because you have said your self that free markets do not exist.
Now you ask me to be silent.
I'm only half stupid
Get over the public works rationale...
For what seems like the hundredth time...We all agree that the common welfare includes the roads, street lights, briges, etc., etc., etc. OK?
And of course, as Magilson stated earlier, some rgulation is neccessary to guide the proccesses and procedures of commerce.
So it appears, in the end, once all your pretense is removed, these claims you continue making but are indeed erroneous, your argument is thread bare.
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
What you haven't heard of toll roads?
If I don't use it then why should I have to pay taxes for roads I don't drive on.
Sound familiar.
Even worse if you want good and effective regulators, you have to pay them enough money to do the job which means you have pay * taxes *.
I'm only half stupid
omg...are you really convincced of all this...?
Toll roads, at least in California, are shortcuts that relieve traffic congestion, and are tolled so they can be paid for, so if you use it, you pay, if you don't you don't.
Now in SF the bridges are tolled long after the bond was paid, they have now become sources of income for the state.
What is your fascination with raods...We all agree the raods are common welfare, ok, drop it already.
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
I second Magilson
Perhaps...
Hayek's:The Fatal Conceit or The Road To Serdom.
Friedman's: Why Government Is The Problem, or Capitalism and Freedom.
All should be easy to find, and the later by each are staples in anyone's collection.
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
How do you define "succeeded"?
I can certainly show you where capitalism has failed, catastrophically. Since there's no real end goal of an economic system except to survive it's hard to say one has succeeded.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Ah, you are too easy....
You digress...
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
Um, okay...
You asked for something, apparently you didn;t really want it though.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
You kind of twisted Adam's point
Adam, continuing on my point about macro vs. micro, said that micro is thermodymanics as macro is to climatology.
Therefore, if you consider and appreciate the points being made, the correct follow up would be that a climatologist is like a MACROeconomist.
One thing that you seem to repeatedly do is call out economics for not being a predictive science. The problem there is that economics is NOT SUPPOSED to be a predictive science. It's a social science for understanding human behavior with respect to scarcity. I've made this point many times. Either you don't believe me or you don't care. I'm not sure which.
Macro is what gives real economics a bad name. Like I said elsewhere, it's not true economics.
Nonsense
Of course economics is supposed to be predictive. All fields of knowledge are. Economics is not special. Social sciences are supposed to predict human behaviors, either in regard to resources (economics), individual behavior (psychology), mass behavior (Sociology), political action (political science), et cetera.
There is absolutely no use to economics if it cannot predict, quite literally. If all it could do is tell the past or describe the present there would not be any use to its study because neither the past nor the present are controllable. One is gone and the other already arrived. The entire point of knowledge is to control, or at leat influence, the future. With out that it is merely sisyphean drudgery.
As for microeconomics, as you already pointed out nobody is talking about microeconomics because nobody cares. As I already said it boils down to mere common sense (yes yes people buy more of things that are cheap and less of things that are expensive, wow, neat). It isn't the problem. So yes we aretalking about macroeconomics and macroeconomists.
A better name for a microeconomist is a cashier.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Says who? YOU?
Like I said, it's to UNDERSTAND, not predict. You seem to be asserting out of some gut feeling or personal impression rather than what is actually stated anywhere on the topic.
The only way to know you understand
is to be able to predict, that's the test. This is centuries of scientific methodology speaking, John. Without being able to make predicitoons there is NO way to know if you understand something.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
As a "scientist" of sorts
you should not be saying this.
Man understands many things that he cannot truly predict.
some people believe climate models -- go to Daily Kos
Some people at Daily Kos assert absolute confidence in (some arbitrary) climate models for global warming. They talk about things like thresholds as though we have good idea of where such threshold lie (not just that they probably exist).
In my expert opinion, you should do what I tell you to do.
I know
and they're putting entirely too much faith in the modelling. Like I said it can tell us general trends, specific results though are just not possible due to the chaotic nature of what they are looking at.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
...at the D/Kos....
...okay_________?
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
If you understood or cared to understand economics
a little better, you would see the flaws in some of what you say:
Some thoughts:
1. No, economics will never be a "real science" like a natural science because it involves people. I love returning to Mises for this point:
2. Economists actually agree on a lot. But what they agree on doesn't get a lot of press nor is it "useful" in politics. Most of this agreement is in Microeconomics...which actually is as close to "scientific" as economics usually gets. Think of this as quantum physics. The disagreement comes in Macroeconomics...which is nowhere near as cohesive and comprehensive and exact and clear as micro. Much of macro is, sadly, where politicians seek opinion to buttress desires to "do things". Macro is not really economics in my opinion.
So, economics does have much to tell us that is clear and correct. Problem is that it's not juicy and highly sought after stuff for public policy. That stuff is mainly macro and it is not worthy of such high attention in my opinion.
Without Macro, economists would have much less to say to or share with public policy people looking to "do stuff".
Ironically I'm more sanguine than you are here
1) I think eventually we will learn to model human behavior well enough to make at least moderate sized group behavior under known conditions accurately predictable. Maybe not the single individual.
2) The problem with that dichotomy John is that it is in macroeconomics that economists are constantly venturing their opinions as facts. That hurts all of us. The false presumption of authority is horribly corroding our nation and institutions with consistently poor decision making.
You can rationalize it by saying that these poor decions don't really reflect economics but they are coming from economists using their credentials as such to amplify their voice. That's bad.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
explain this
Because I think the problem is more in macro than micro.
EDIT: I misunderstood. I thought the quoted part said micro. It says macro. My eyes deceived me the first time I read it.
DOUBLE EDIT: I don't however see this as a problem with my dichotomy. It simply illustrates the two ends of the dichotomy. The dichotomy is not wrong. It sheds light on where economics has its problems. And lately, if you look around, you'll see liberal macroeconomists like Krugman and Brad DeLong getting really, really nasty and defensive with micro guys (many of which are stimulus skeptics) and calling them names for not agreeing with them.
It'e not so much that the dichotomy is wrong
as that it is pointless. You say Macroeconomics isn't real economics. I say Macroeconomics is akin to alchemy. Same difference except you assume that there is some "real" economics apart from macro and I don't. Take away that difference and we're really saying the same thing.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
But there is more.
It's called micro. You may not agree. But it's true and it's definitely there. BTW, it's more than just supply and demand. Read about it. It's quite a bit more than that.
BTW, on your first point,
I kind of disagree that we can possibly know as much as you hope we someday will. I think it's a bit telling in that you get far more disillusioned with economics than I do. You seem to expect more as if what you think is missing can be mastered. I don't.
I think that if this is all it can do
then it's past time to abandon the field as useless. I am however more sanguine about there being a future economic science.
I strongly suspect that the next century or so will see a huge leap forward in psychology which will then advance the other social sciences. This advance in psychology I believe will come from a number of sources- a rise in fuzzy logic processes that can more readiily mimic our thought processes, advances in brain-to-mind mapping from direct neural interface controls, and possibly even the creation of actual artificial intelligence (which would then be available for scientific study not possible on humans).
I certainly coul be wrong. Maybe humanity will continue to confound social scientists for millenia, but if that's the case then resources put towards social studies would be better directed elsewhere.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Magilson
can you point out where exactly I have professed any faith in Obama's economists? I can't imagine why you say that since I'm not a proponent of the stimulus (I'm neutral). What I have said is that a system that works more like the western European countires is desirable. That's not based on economists at all but on observations. That's what scientists do- make observations.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
Which, as a few of us have
Which, as a few of us have been pointing out, has been based on half-truths, false understandings, and rose colored spectacles. If you don't lend much credence to economics, and your current understanding involves poor observation (even by scientific standards) then I don't see how any future economics converstations with you would be worth my time. I appologize if you feel I've wasted any of yours.
Correction
you've asserted the observations are bad. I'm still waiting for anything beyond send or third hand anecdotes.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
ditto
n/t
scientific observation requires controlling for variables
does it not?
We can observe a lot of things. Observing scientifically takes a lot more work as in regressions.
The problem with observing economic phenomena and trying to draw simple conclusions is that so much is always happening and controlled experiments are v ery hard without a lot of assumptions and simpltistic modeling.
I agree
and I've said repeatedly that what economists want to do is a very hard thing. I have total respect for the task they want to take on. It is hard and important. And if they would just dedicate themselves to that task instead of earning a quick meaningless degree and hitting the talk show circuit to blather nonsense, then I'd be a huge supporter. Sadly the latter case seems to be all too common.
Doubtless there are many real economists- people slaving away in labs and offices trying to put together the real pieces of an economic science yet to be born. I have nothing but admiration for those people. Seriously. They are not even remotely the problem. The problem comes from the ones who speak as economists, as economic experts when no such thing exists.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
you are referring with justified critique
to MACROeconomists. Microeconomists are far more humble yet more wise (IMO).
Looking at that Arnold Kling with his 19 points should show that.
Believe it or not, if you look around, the microeconomists are the ones with far less to offer willingly to "solve problems".
The Blowhards are on Macro side as they stumble over themselves to offer far more than they are possibly capable of knowing.
Also, the quiet micro economists who work on real advancement far outnumber the Macro people you see on TV.
Tlaloc? LOL!
It's like you have this perverse streak where by you always want the good, to be the bad, and the contumacious to be accepted?
(Hopefully, one day you will trace it back to your childhood, and relize it wasn't your fault, or whatever...)
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
Good word
"contumacious"
You get +2 points for that one ;)
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
;-)
n/t
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
A cartoon that hits the nail on the head
You can substitute "Limbaugh" with "Congressional Republicans" and it works just as well.
I survived the Bush Administration
Somehow that flag says more than everything else!
n/t
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
That flag indicates a distress call....
....distress caused by the people that ran things for the past 8 years.
If you understood flag etiquette, you would know what it means.
I survived the Bush Administration
I'll just give him the benefit of the doubt for now.
n/t
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
If you understood flag
Flag Terminology
Same difference
Flag Etiquette
"The flag should never be dipped to any person or thing. It is flown upside down only as a distress signal"
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
Yes I know what it means PM...
...so why are we spending $735 BILLION dollars on BS
that does not fix anything, and only $90B on actual stimulus??
Point is, is that we are in distress, and the liberals are doing what they always do, looking for ways to spend our money and expand our government, and very, very little to address what the flag is indicating.
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
Should we return
to tax cut nirvana, that the GOP keeps pushing, in other words Bushonomics? Pretty sure we tried that and it didn't work.
Stimulus is putting a finger in the dam to stop the flooding from job losses, keeping people in their jobs while at the same time trying to create new jobs that build, little things like the internet highway which is in need of an upgrade.
I'm only half stupid
Which is it then?
Is it a stimulus or a recovery plan? You keep switching back and forth on the name so much that I'm not sure if you just use one or the other to try and prop up whatever argument suits you at the time...
Stimulus
for recovery.
So sorry that I didn't put my words together in a consistent enough communications chain of command for your comprehension.
Oh those lazy words of mine and their shameless lack of productivity.
I'm only half stupid
Sounds good. I just watched
Sounds good. I just watched Biden call it a stimulus as well so that settles it. I'm just glad you won't change it's purpose whever it suits you, or when you're talking to RW
.
White House accountability? This can't be right...
The new U.S. Treasurer, Timothy Geithner, has posted in-depth information on all of the bailouts of the past four months:
http://www.treas.gov/initiatives/eesa/agreements/index.shtml
Bush/Paulson kept this stuff secret from us.
Obama/Geithner are keeping the promise of open and transparent governance.
I survived the Bush Administration
Where's the original of his birth certificate then?
:)
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4In Hawaii... right where the Hawaiian Sec. of State saw it...
...and verified its legitimacy.
;-)
I survived the Bush Administration
Really, when was this?
n/t
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
Not sure about Sec. of State
but the Dept. of Health
- you know, the department that actually oversees vital records - has certainly confirmed it.
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
Great, so like they are all saying....
...it's right there, let them see what is says then...
Why not?
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
Sorry
Unable to parse that sentence. Are the "they" and the "them" different people? Can you rephrase?
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
Nevermind, I am curious about this, but not obsessed w/ it...
I have no desire of being the local standard bearer for this issue...
*FYI, what I was saying is ...
Like the people who have been seeking to see it have said all along, great, the document is right there, let us see what it says and we can all drop this....
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
Then he shouldn't mind letting the rest of us have a look. :)
Assuming all this "openness" is for real.
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4The Obama effect.
Holy crap, Batman! Less than two weeks in office and Obama has already driven unemployment to record highs. I knew he was going to be bad, but who would have ever thought it could be like this? Well on track to being the worst President evah.
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4It's ok...He has 4 years...
...to spend like a drunken sailor, grow our federal government to outrageous proportions, get us into a full on war in Pakistan, blow up Iran's reactor, keep the Russians from colonizing central and south America, and all the while sending or country into a REAL depression...
...then we can get back to work.
In fact at this rate we may just sweep the 2010 elections.. ;-)
LOL!
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman
Aww..that's too cute GR..
We should also take note that Obama Has Kept Us SafeTM since he's been in office. And that is most important.
http://wealthweekly.blogspot.com
Wii FC:2805-8311-8040-2678 Brawl: 2277-7051-2186
Short little video
Do You Want Global Government?
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
The problem is his argument
applies just as well to nations as it does to a global govenment. What he's arguing for is basically a reduction to very small local power structures. I'm cool with that but it really doesn;t seem like the direction we're heading. If we're going to have huge nation states is better to have one or several? I'm not at all convinced that several is better, particulalry when you have international corporations moving money and resources between nations.
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
"Entitlement Reform".
I've seen a few politicos & news types begin to talk about it. It seems to mean different things to different people. I think it covers:
Medicare, Social Security. That's all I figure it covers.
When I hear folks speak of "reform" I can't help but think they're talking about wacking the thing. Social Security is covered in the near term but will need addressing for the long term. I know some here disagree so I wan't ask for agreement. See....us liberals aren't all that unreasonable.
Now Medicare....that's another issue. Right now the rates it's paying physicians isn't enough to cover costs so many/most physicians won't touch it. And since dubya added all those drug "entitlements" to it it's really hurting. Maybe now that there's a Democrat in the Big House they can change the law so that the Medicare folks can actually ask for a discount just like Walmart does. Only in America is a for profit corporation allowed to search for a discount but the goverment is ordered not to. Really, medicine and it's associated costs are what sets America apart from the rest of the industrialized world. The rest of the industrialized world has single payer government health care. Here....nada. How the English can offer better care for less than HALF the price we pay is killing not only the taxpayers but the corporations who are paying for their employee's health care. it has to be solved. Sadly, the same folks are lining up to run the same scam they pulled in the 90's.
Oh my...the BS just keeps coming...
SS will not just "need to be addressed
", it's a complete disaster 
!
As far as the whole drug benefit goes...What blows my mind is why Democrats refused to just make it what it is, a necessary evil, and cover only low income seniors who don't have, or can't afford it otherwise, then it could be a relatively small size program and have a hope for some degree of efficiency, instead they insisted on forcing a universal Medicare entitlement. They seem to want to forget the fact that the majority of seniors already have coverage from a variety of sources. Though I totally agree about the negotiating, the above far out weighs it in potential economic benefit. Why waste dough on coverage for those that have it? We should do both.
Funny you say killing, and British Health Care in the same sentence...
You want British health care
huh? Not 
!
Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman