Anybody still here? - Page 3

I'd say the modern monetary theorists are the most important critics in economics right now. The major barrier to progress in western capitalist nations is this belief that government debt would spiral out of control if governments have sustained deficit spending. This prevents things like any sort of green new deal (whether its green growth or degrowth) from being passed.

Any sort of economic transition, whether its focused on 100% renewable/nuclear transition or one that seeks to shift away from a consumerist society that exploits third world countries through material extraction will need some sort of deficit spending from governments.

The best book on climate change right now is Greta Thunbergs "The climate book". It can easily be read by anyone with a high school diploma, and contains 100 points of view from a wide range of experts (the ones that know what they are talking about). It gives a far better overview than the IPCC imo, and is 10x easier to read.

Ok, that's my monthly reminder to everyone that economists are violent extremists. I'll come back next month to see if people still need reminding.

Thank you Stroggoz

On March 12 2023 19:59 Stroggoz wrote: 1) William Nordhaus recommended we raise the global temperature to 4 degrees celcius by 2150 in his nobel prize lecture, which he won for environmental economics. His entire research group come to this conclusion from measuring temperatures across states and comparing gdp. To see how dumb this is, compare the difference in temperature of canada and qatar. It is about 30 degrees, but their gdp per capita is about the same. If global temperatures dropped 6 degrees, north america would be covered in ice. Some of them even say society would benefit from global warming until about 2 degrees. Does that sound logical? I recommend this paper, which is mostly readable by a layman. The latest IPCC report says that 6 of the tipping points are now at a serious risk level. At 1.5-2 degrees, that's generally considered to be the level at which many of the thresholds are passed. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/1...47731.2020.1807856?journalCode=rglo20 2) Austerity economics was invented in the 1920's by economists to help Mussolini's Italy and Britain crush the labour movements that were about to overthrow capitalism. Since then it has become a disciplinary feature of capitalism. The most recent example being Greece. As for books, you can read the same one Drone's wife gave him. It's great. Can also read Clara Mattei's book. Can also read about modern monetary theory (MMT) which explains how governments don't need to run surplus's outside of recessions. MMT is almost at the point of becoming mainstream now, (the economics profession will come to accept it and pretend they knew it all along). I've heard keltons book the deficit myth is the easiest one to read for a popular audience. But it's quite a headache to learn imo. 3) Their role in the global financial crisis was a result of ignoring the financial instability hypothesis by Hyman Minsky, and choosing to believe in an obviously false theory called the efficient markets hypothesis. If you don't have time for books, the doco 'inside job' is a great one. Exposes a lot of the fraud going on between banks and ivy league economists. Hyman Minsky was ignored because he didn't accept the assumptions in bullet point 5). 4) NAIRU is a fraud. Can't explain much, dean baker and william mitchell write a bit about this. I had to teach myself econ for 2 years to understand what was going on here. So can't really explain this one. Current inflation is caused by supply side shocks. One consequence of NAIRU is that real wages have stagnated since the 1970's, completely fucking over people on min wage. Which would otherwise be around $26 or more, instead of $7.50 5) Models based on assumption that human beings are immortal, omniscient, supercomputer time travelors. This originates from Milton Friedman. There's been some questioning of it in the mainstream, but they still teach the same crap. 6) 300 top economists recommended NAFTA because of the theory of comparative advantage. Which has nothing to do with NAFTA, since it was protecting agribusiness. Can go back and see an article in the new york times in 1993 about this. This is basically the same attitude towards globalization in general. https://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/17/us...ists-favor-free-trade-agreement.html. People in power knew that NAFTA would screw over so much of Mexican agriculture that they militarized the border at the same time it was being implemented. That's all for now folks. Obviously, my definition of violence is similar to Ghandi's. It includes structural violence. That's why I think Mao was a violent person in 1962. Most capitalists and libertarians cannot say that Mao's famine was an act of violence, since they completely reject the same standards for capitalism. Education is the path to freedom. Economics needs serious reform, which will only come from educating the minds of the young, instead of indoctrinating them. Politcal science and philosophy have similar problems but not nearly as bad. In fact, economics is so much worse that I often have no trouble getting anyone on my side. More research can be done in 30 seconds than what some do in 10 years simply from questioning assumptions.

quoted for this page

Stroggoz New Zealand. Today 20:59. Posts 5129
#40
1) William Nordhaus recommended we raise the global temperature to 4 degrees celcius by 2150 in his nobel prize lecture, which he won for environmental economics. His entire research group come to this conclusion from measuring temperatures across states and comparing gdp. To see how dumb this is, compare the difference in temperature of canada and qatar. It is about 30 degrees, but their gdp per capita is about the same. If global temperatures dropped 6 degrees, north america would be covered in ice. Some of them even say society would benefit from global warming until about 2 degrees. Does that sound logical? I recommend this paper, which is mostly readable by a layman. The latest IPCC report says that 6 of the tipping points are now at a serious risk level. At 1.5-2 degrees, that's generally considered to be the level at which many of the thresholds are passed.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/1...47731.2020.1807856?journalCode=rglo20

2) Austerity economics was invented in the 1920's by economists to help Mussolini's Italy and Britain crush the labour movements that were about to overthrow capitalism. Since then it has become a disciplinary feature of capitalism. The most recent example being Greece. As for books, you can read the same one Drone's wife gave him. It's great. Can also read Clara Mattei's book. Can also read about modern monetary theory (MMT) which explains how governments don't need to run surplus's outside of recessions. MMT is almost at the point of becoming mainstream now, (the economics profession will come to accept it and pretend they knew it all along). I've heard keltons book the deficit myth is the easiest one to read for a popular audience. But it's quite a headache to learn imo.

3) Their role in the global financial crisis was a result of ignoring the financial instability hypothesis by Hyman Minsky, and choosing to believe in an obviously false theory called the efficient markets hypothesis. If you don't have time for books, the doco 'inside job' is a great one. Exposes a lot of the fraud going on between banks and ivy league economists. Hyman Minsky was ignored because he didn't accept the assumptions in bullet point 5).

4) NAIRU is a fraud. Can't explain much, dean baker and william mitchell write a bit about this. I had to teach myself econ for 2 years to understand what was going on here. So can't really explain this one. Current inflation is caused by supply side shocks. One consequence of NAIRU is that real wages have stagnated since the 1970's, completely fucking over people on min wage. Which would otherwise be around $26 or more, instead of $7.50

5) Models based on assumption that human beings are immortal, omniscient, supercomputer time travelors. This originates from Milton Friedman. There's been some questioning of it in the mainstream, but they still teach the same crap.

6) 300 top economists recommended NAFTA because of the theory of comparative advantage. Which has nothing to do with NAFTA, since it was protecting agribusiness. Can go back and see an article in the new york times in 1993 about this. This is basically the same attitude towards globalization in general. https://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/17/us...ists-favor-free-trade-agreement.html. People in power knew that NAFTA would screw over so much of Mexican agriculture that they militarized the border at the same time it was being implemented.

That's all for now folks. Obviously, my definition of violence is similar to Ghandi's. It includes structural violence. That's why I think Mao was a violent person in 1962. Most capitalists and libertarians cannot say that Mao's famine was an act of violence, since they completely reject the same standards for capitalism.

Education is the path to freedom. Economics needs serious reform, which will only come from educating the minds of the young, instead of indoctrinating them. Politcal science and philosophy have similar problems but not nearly as bad. In fact, economics is so much worse that I often have no trouble getting anyone on my side. More research can be done in 30 seconds than what some do in 10 years simply from questioning assumptions.

*Quoted for larger font

Cliffs:

It is an empirically verifiable fact that neoclassical economics is a violent ideology. More people need to know this.

I'm sure I will get to some of this but I don't like economics. Never did. The farthest I got was an Econ 200 class taught by some guy who could barely speak English who we all assumed was there for research. 1 hour lecture 4 days a week and a recitation on Friday with a Chinese guy who could barely speak English. There were 500 students in that lecture. Luckily, he posted his Power Point slides online. I only showed up to class one time after getting an A on the midterm and that was to take the final and I probably spent a grand on that class if not more.

Why would the establishment teach economics any other way?