Tag Archives: Uncategorized

from Norbert Häring For international readers, I would like to summarize a piece on false economic research supporting tuition fees, which appeared in German in Handelsblatt on 19 February. As interesting as the fake research itself is the differing reactions of the two main channels, which had been used to publicize it: One was the prestigious Working Paper series of the National Bureau of Economic Research in the US The other was the well-read platform Vox (voxeu.org) of the...

from Lars Syll In my view, scientific theories are not to be considered ‘true’ or ‘false.’ In constructing such a theory, we are not trying to get at the truth, or even to approximate to it: rather, we are trying to organize our thoughts and observations in a useful manner. Robert Aumann What a handy view of science. How reassuring for all of you who have always thought that believing in the tooth fairy make you understand what happens to kids’ teeth. Now a ‘Nobel prize’ winning...

Will Automation Kill Our Jobs? by Walter E. Williams appeared in the Gaston Gazette, Charleston Gazette-Mail, Daily Tribune, Frontpage Mag, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Townhall, Holmes County Times-Advertiser, National Interest, Rocky Mount Telegram and CNS News (not to mention the Dogpatch Völkischer-Beobachter). It features the following cutting edge (& pasting) analysis: People always want more of something that will create a job for someone. To...

from Herman Daly The talking heads on the media explain the recent fall in the stock market as follows: A fall in unemployment leads to a tight labor market and the prospect of wage increases; wage increase leads to threat of inflation; which leads the Fed to likely raise interest rates; which would lead to less borrowing, and to less investment in stocks, and consequently to an expected fall in stock prices. Therefore investors (speculators) rush to sell before the expected fall in stock...

David Ruccio Ed Wolff is right: For the vast majority of Americans, fluctuations in the stock market have relatively little effect on their wealth, or well-being, for that matter. That’s because, as his research shows (and as I illustrate in the chart above), the bottom 90 percent of Americans own (either directly or indirectly) a tiny share—16 percent—of total stock value in the United States.* The rest is owned by the top 10 percent: 40.3 percent by just the top one percent (with a...

from Neva Goodwin  One of the outstanding features of the time in which we live is the terrifying prospect of global climate change, regarding which it has been said that contemporary humankind is suffering from “Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder”. Whether we squarely face what this will likely mean for the coming years, or whether we simply can’t bear to look at the facts, it is getting ever harder to avoid the gut-knowledge that the world is rapidly becoming markedly less beautiful, rich...

from Lars Syll All these pretty, polite techniques, made for a well-panelled Board Room and a nicely regulated market, are liable to collapse. At all times the vague panic fears and equally vague and unreasoned hopes are not really lulled, and lie but a little way below the surface. Perhaps the reader feels that this general, philosophical disquisition on the behavior of mankind is somewhat remote from the economic theory under discussion. But I think not. Tho this is how we behave in the...

from James Galbraith and the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics Paul Davidson, Who’s Afraid of John Maynard Keynes? Challenging Economic Governance in an Age of Growing Inequality, 2017, Palgrave-MacMillan Paul Davidson, in his ninth decade, has produced a crisp and clear exegesis of essential Keynesian ideas and the critical failures of so-called mainstream economic thought. The most critical flaw lies in the treatment of time. Rooted in ancient ideas of equilibrium,...

from Lars Syll Nowadays there is almost no place whatsoever in economics education for courses in the history of economic thought and economic methodology. This is deeply worrying. A science that doesn’t self-reflect and asks important methodological and science-theoretical questions about the own activity, is a science in dire straits. How did we end up in this sad state? Philip Mirowski gives the following answer: After a brief flirtation in the 1960s and 1970s, the grandees of the...