Tag: Economists

Via Ritholtz, I see bonddad is upset about the politicization of economics by econ-illiterate political bloggers.  I presume Ritholtz somewhat approves of this message, even though he adds it’s more about “dishonesty” and “lack of integrity.”  Bonddad posts some questions for both the left and right to answer before they open their stupid yaps again.

I have some questions for bonddad, Ritholtz, and economists more generally, in return:

1. How is it possible to have infinite growth on a finite planet?  Who are the genius economists who have repealed the laws of thermodynamics?

2. On a related note, if you can’t have infinite growth, how long before a debt-based economy implodes or is forced to declare a debt jubilee as debt inevitably outstrips real wealth?  Again, we’re talking about a measurably finite planet.  I’m pegging it at some time around Lehman, but Europe will also do nicely.  (also, what is the notional value on outstanding CDS; and when is a default not a default?)

3. How many species will be extant by 2050?  How much polar ice will be left?

4. Where is the accountability for outright fraud on Wall Street?  For “privatizing gains, while socializing losses?”

5. To what extent did tax cuts for the rich and imperial wars of aggression contribute to our debt?  Globalization?  Free trade agreements?  If the United States in not an empire, then what is it?  If an empire is not a wealth pump aggressively pursuing wealth from the periphery to pump it into centers of power (and how!), then what is it?

6. When did we return to “mark-to-market” accounting?

7. How’s the “experiment” in austerity working out?

8. Are the busses still running in Detroit?  Do they have streetlights?  Jobs?  Is everyone’s tummy full?

That’s just for starters.  

Right wingers and liberal Democrats both love to say that I advocate for some kind of nebulous utopian dream.

 from The Progressive Dilemma in the Diary What to do now? by tahoebasha3

The terms Utopia and utopian are often used as terms of disparagement, and not without reason. Massive social experiments based excessively on theory or reason have wreaked social havoc from The Terror during the French Revolution to the Maoist Great Leap Forward in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet one of the most dramatic Utopian experiments was never so labeled. The fact is that both Classical Economics and Neo-Classical Economics were/are utopian systems. In this sense Adam Smith predates Classical Economics. He was more practical and descriptive. Benthan, James Mill and Ricardo were prescriptive and axiomatic. And the economic system they created was, in fact, utopian, but of the dystopian flavor for all but the very wealthy. The 20th Century extension of Classical Economics — Neo-Classical Economics — retains all of the original utopian features despite the problems it has been shown to exhibit. Between them, Classical and Neo-Classical Economics as applied in the UK and the USA constitute the longest running Utopian experiment of which I know. We need to understand this history, which has been actively shunned, in order to understand where we are and where we are headed, unless we can change direction.