Tag Archives: Uncategorized

from David Ruccio The new jobs report is out and, once again, little has changed—including wage growth (the blue line in the chart above), which for production and nonsupervisory workers was only 2.3 percent.  That may not be good for workers but their employers and stock-market investors couldn’t be happier. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (the red line in the chart above) continues to soar, on the expectation of higher future profits. Just in the first couple of hours of trading, the...

Manufacturing continues to muddle through: Highlights There’s really only good news in the July factory orders report where the headline, at minus 3.3 percent, reflects a slowing in what were strong prior gains for aircraft orders. The best news is a 6 tenths upward revision to core capital goods orders (nondefense ex-air) to a 1.0 percent gain and a 2 tenths upward revision to core shipments, now at 1.2 percent. These numbers point to accelerating strength for...

1. Economic Philosophy: complexities in economics, 2nd October – 30th November 2017 2. Monetary Policy After The Global Crisis:How Important Are Economic (Divisia) Monetary Aggregates for Economic Policy? 15th January – 15th February 2018 Deadline for submissions: 15th DecemberOPEN CALL FOR PAPERS

Interesting charts: Over 50 hedge funds attracting investors who want to go long bitcoin and the rest. Helps explain why the prices are going up even as there is no intrinsic or conversion value whatsoever, which, presuming that to be the case, also means that at some point the mania ends and the price goes all the way back to 0: Hedge funds are cashing in on bitcoin mania — there are now 50 dedicated to cryptocurrencies Digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, are powered...

from Lars Syll We must learn WHY the argument for revealed preference, which deceived Samuelson, is wrong. As per standard positivist ideas, preferences are internal to the heart and unobservable; hence they cannot be used in scientific theories. So Samuelson came up with the idea of using the observable Choices – unobservable preferences are revealed by observable choices … Yet the basic argument is wrong; one cannot eliminate the unobservable preference from economic theories....

Here’s an article entitled I Set a Defendant Free And Got Blamed When He Raped Someone. This is what the article is about: A judge explains how he decides whether to release a defendant before trial without bail — and how it can go bad. I found reading any further into the article was a complete waste of time, but the little bit I quoted above does raise an important point. Pretty much every job includes some measure of accountability based on...

The August issue of WEA Commentaries is now available at: https://www.worldeconomicsassociation.org/files/2017/09/Issue7-4.pdf Content is as follows: Eveybody can create money Merijn Knibbe 2 html Adam Smith and Altruism 5   Time for critics of economics critics to move on David Orrell 6 html Two forthcoming WEA conferences 7   Going rogue: Economic practice and hitting the orthodox wall  Andrew Vonnegutt 8 html Why economics needs pluralism Edward Fullbrook 9...

from David Ruccio “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.” Alice in Wonderland (pdf) is the key to understanding much of what is happening in the world today—especially the language of economics. For example, we’re going to hear and read...

from Lars Syll “A wonderful set of clearly written and highly informative essays by a scholar who is knowledgeable, critical and sharp enough to see how things really are in the discipline, and honest and brave enough to say how things are. A must read especially for those truly concerned and/or puzzled about the state of modern economics.”Tony Lawson Table of Contents Introduction What is (wrong with) economic theory? Capturing causality in economics and the limits of statistical...