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Tag Archives: Uncategorized

Presentism and veganism: If I’m wrong, I’m wrong now and forever (crosspost from Substack)

Within pretty broad limits[1], I’m an advocate of historical ‘presentism’, that is, assessing past events and actions in the same way as those in the present, and considering history in relation to our present concerns. In particular, that implies viewing enslavers, racists and warmongers in the same light, whether they are active today or died hundreds of years ago. Protesters pulling down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol, England, during a demonstration organized...

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Scientific fraud

from Lars Syll In 2022, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) placed a large bet on an experimental drug developed to limit brain damage after strokes … The gamble seemed warranted. Lab studies, most by a longtime grantee, prominent University of Southern California (USC) neuroscientist Berislav Zlokovic, had generated promising data. A small safety study of the drug, sponsored by a company Zlokovic co-founded called ZZ Biotech, was also encouraging. Because of its potential to...

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In defence of effective altruism

With corrupt crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried as its most prominent representative, the Effective Altruism movement is not particularly popularly these days. And some other people associated with the Effective Altruism movement have bizarre and unappealing ideas. But the worst form of ad hominem argument is “someone bad asserts p, therefore p is bad”[1]. Whether under this name or not, most economic research on both welfare policy and development aid takes the premise of effective...

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The biometric-digital marking of all citizens of the world is becoming reality

from Norbert Häring Shortly after it has become known that hackers are offering the identity data of most Indians from the world’s largest digital identity database for sale, the European Parliament and Council have agreed to introduce something similar for Europeans, while Washington praises the Ukrainian version as an export model and Bill Gates wants to impose a biometric digital marker on every newborn child in Kenya for life. In early October, IT security...

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Milanovic gets feisty

from Peter Radford To ignore power is to ignore reality. How can you construct a theory of economic activity that excludes the power embedded in relationships between the various actors on the stage you are directing?  More to the point why would you?  To ignore power is to ignore reality. I think, perhaps we need to reverse those two questions.  You see, power matters even in the construction of economic theories. The reason you ignore power is because the powerful want you to. It’s that...

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Book reviews in the RWER Blog

Two days ago in a comment, Yoshinori Shiozawa offered the following suggestion. I have proposed to create a forum in which heterodox economists can inform each other and discuss the future directions of heterodox economics. The simplest and easiest [way] to start is to organize a series of book reviews (or paper reviews if necessary) in this RWER Blog. If the editors of this blog offer a space (a post for reviewing a book or a paper) once a month, or each two months, for example, it will...

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The purist streak in economics

from Lars Syll So in what sense is this “dynamic stochastic general equilibrium” model firmly grounded in the principles of economic theory? I do not want to be misunderstood. Friends have reminded me that much of the effort of “modern macro” goes into the incorporation of important deviations from the Panglossian assumptions that underlie the simplistic application of the Ramsey model to positive macroeconomics. Research focuses on the implications of wage and price stickiness, gaps and...

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The European Central Bank, “Fisher dynamics” and the dire plight of Euro Area households.

Will lower central bank interest rates at this moment lead to lower consumer rates? No, they won’t. The, at this moment, low rates on existing debt will continue to increase for years on end, cutting in household spending and hampering the possibility of households to pay down their debt. Figure 1. Interest rates for new mortgage contracts, the Netherlands. At this moment, Central Banks seem to take a break when it comes to increasing their interest rates. Maybe they will even...

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Η αλληλεγγύη στην Παλαιστίνη και η πάλη κατά των πολέμων του κεφαλαίου – 15/11/2023 6.30μμ ΕΜΠ

ΕΚΔΗΛΩΣΗ ΝΑΡ-νΚΑ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ ΠΑΛΑΙΣΤΙΝΗ Την 1η μέρα του τριήμερου εορτασμού των 50 χρόνων από την εξέγερση, μέσα στο Πολυτεχνείο. Εκδήλωση: Η αλληλεγγύη στην Παλαιστίνη και η πάλη κατά των πολέμων του κεφαλαίου ΤΕΤΑΡΤΗ 15 ΝΟΕΜΒΡΗ 2023, ώρα 6.30 μ.μ., στο Ε.Μ. ΠΟΛΥΤΕΧΝΕΙΟ, στον υπαίθριο χώρο – πύλη Τοσίτσα ▸Ομιλητές: – Μιχιάρ Εκτάμι, Ένωση Παλαιστινίων Εργαζομένων – Γιάννης Ελαφρός, μέλος ΠΕ ΝΑΡ, δημοσιογράφος – Σταύρος Μαυρουδέας, Καθηγητής Πολιτικής Οικονομίας Παντείου...

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Threats to the US dollar’s role as global reserve currency

from Maria Alejandra Madi and RWEA pedagogy Blog 2021 marked the 50th anniversary of the “weekend that changed the world”, when US President Richard Nixon suspended the convertibility of the dollar into gold. From a monetary point of view, since then there has been continued dominance of the dollar as a vehicle for international transactions. However, Is the dollar as the world’s reserve currency under attack? The dollar’s dominance in global markets is still significant, with its role in...

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