tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post5778683981558339383..comments2024-03-18T11:12:51.114+00:00Comments on mainly macro: The public analyst in crazy timesMainly Macrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09984575852247982901noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-65350020885101370762016-12-13T07:59:00.884+00:002016-12-13T07:59:00.884+00:00Or you could just reduce the retirement age back t...Or you could just reduce the retirement age back to what it was :-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-11427021247618018792016-12-12T22:07:37.062+00:002016-12-12T22:07:37.062+00:00"..economics is NOT a science":
https:/..."..economics is NOT a science":<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/10/politics-shaping-nobel-prize-economics-social-democracy<br /><br />NK.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-11888005705853932382016-12-12T17:26:58.379+00:002016-12-12T17:26:58.379+00:00Biggest concern about democracy of (this and all p...Biggest concern about democracy of (this and all previous) referendum should be that such a huge decision should be taken on a simple majority of those who turn out.<br />And half sensible members or sports club would require a substantial majority to change it's constitution.<br />If one purpose of a referendum of to show that the will of the people is for change, and then to unite the people behind the result/change, then there should surely be at minimum a 2:1 majority in favour?Jim Cuthberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08854078644617098338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-81301916543135825352016-12-12T15:57:27.191+00:002016-12-12T15:57:27.191+00:00The immigrant issue in the UK is well critiqued he...The immigrant issue in the UK is well critiqued here.<br />'The impact of acquiring EU status on the labour market outcomes of East European migrants in the UK: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment' Dr Martin Ruhs COMPAS<br />What I got from this was all the politicians squawking about immigration is a cover for a "hyper-flexible" labour market that has little or no policing and enough work-rounds to allow people to enter the UK labour market and get welfare benefits without full EU employment rights. <br /><br />We must not accept double speak to assuages the masses but all punishes them. We must all as PG points out get caught appeasing, emulations or being quiet. No we must keep shouting quietly.Saffron Raineynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-44617843382146740192016-12-12T11:55:47.205+00:002016-12-12T11:55:47.205+00:00Asking '5 whys' is a recognised analytical...Asking '5 whys' is a recognised analytical tool. Your eldest granddaughter is doing well.<br />The hard part is applying it to your own reasoning. It can uncover some uncomfortable truths.StuartPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13748038209546648459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-15016252662124788392016-12-12T03:25:16.950+00:002016-12-12T03:25:16.950+00:00"This could hardly have happened at a worse t..."This could hardly have happened at a worse time, arguably in all of human history. Just as we are within sight of a post-work world"<br />Well, there you are then.<br />You're either striving to build an ever increasing mountain of beans for an ever shrinking number of asset owners, or you're toast. fancy building a pyramid?<br />any other questions?<br />prpjusticehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10320614572726185472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-44199065480868547402016-12-11T16:28:49.154+00:002016-12-11T16:28:49.154+00:00Corbyn's second election wasn't about Brex...Corbyn's second election wasn't about Brexit - even when Smith's "second referendum" proposal was making the news, the main reaction from the Corbyn camp was simply that it was a daft move politically. The dismaying lurch into God-knows-where came after that.<br /><br />Burnham seems to be working on the basis that UKIP will be running an "if you want a Pole for a neighbour..." campaign in places like Manchester, and that they could win that way. I can only imagine that he's had his own Gillian Duffy conversation, and concluded - <b>unlike</b> Gordon Brown - that this is the voice of the good honest Labour-voting working class, and that it would be wrong for him to oppose what they're saying. If that is the way that leading Labour politicians think these days, I just thank the Lord that we've never had a referendum on capital punishment.<br /><br />As for Corbyn, I can only assume that the major news outlets are operating a soft news blackout on anything coming out of the leader's office, on the basis that "Corbyn is fighting for his political life" is news but "Corbyn says X about Y" isn't. The alternative - that there isn't anything much coming out of the leader's office - is too awful to contemplate.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07009879034507926661noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-4906841593505870682016-12-11T16:14:07.213+00:002016-12-11T16:14:07.213+00:00what, Keynes has been repudiated?what, Keynes has been repudiated?Richard Laymanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02765521217875752850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-5045372894433232302016-12-11T16:12:04.390+00:002016-12-11T16:12:04.390+00:00The other thing about elected officials that neede...The other thing about elected officials that needed to be pointed out to me by my wife, is that they aren't interested in or concerned about the long term at all. They aren't motivated by the idea that they are stewards, working to preserve and improve their locality/state/country over the long term, it's all about what is going on right now.<br /><br />Whereas I am constantly disappointed by politics and governance because for the most part the long term is avoided. While I am not an economist, I do understand the basics. <br /><br />My joke is that at the local scale, politics is about doing everything in your power to approve and ensconce policies and practice to avoid or mitigate the reality of economics. E.g., "parking." If you want to deal with parking, f*ing charge for it. That sends the clearest signals about cost. If it's high, some people will be motivated to make other choices towards sustainable mobility. If it's low or nonexistent, then more people will have cars and want to park them then there is available space.Richard Laymanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02765521217875752850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-55179604445577766722016-12-11T15:47:15.350+00:002016-12-11T15:47:15.350+00:00To be honest I just see exasperated assertions fro...To be honest I just see exasperated assertions from you about the benefits of free movement of labour. It would be so much more convincing if you either gave compelling arguments or gave links to them. I'd like to see a point by point rebuttal of Kate Hoey https://heatst.com/world/kate-hoey-the-left-wing-case-for-brexit/<br /><br />“British workers (and this must include settled immigrants and sons of immigrants) won’t do the jobs… so we have to get immigrants to do it.”<br /><br />By which they mean new immigrants, cheap immigrants. And the bit they leave out is… for the low wages offered. They won’t do the jobs for the low wages offered. This is the crux of the EU intentions on labour.<br /><br />Just as the Victorians tried to make trade unionism immoral, so the present middle classes brand any worker who complains of non-union or cheap labour.<br /><br />It was immoral to protect your wages in Victorian times, it is immoral now. Morality often coincides with middle class economic interests.<br /><br />The EU supports the low-wage economy, and tries to create it where it didn’t already exist, for example in Sweden where it prosecuted the unions, and sequestrated their funds (as the Tories did to the miners) when they tried to get union rates for migrant workers."stonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07670385074640188296noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-78239827380449638492016-12-11T01:45:42.922+00:002016-12-11T01:45:42.922+00:00I watched much of the Treasury Select Committee ev...I watched much of the Treasury Select Committee evidence from Tuesday, online, and was struck by two things - how much of the questioning and the framing of the agenda etc was actually almost a charicature of many of the issues you highlight as media macro; and the total absence of a gallery of interested parties (unless of course onlookers were forbidden). Steven Taylornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-4491996644783370902016-12-10T22:31:54.957+00:002016-12-10T22:31:54.957+00:00It's fine to rage but it's also important ...It's fine to rage but it's also important to tell the truth as we latte drinking elites see it. After all, we academics spend our life studying a problem we know stuff. This madness in public life will fail and do so badly. What I most fear is we 'elite' give up on democracy and on our fellow citizens. I campaigned against Tories, Brexit going door to door. Yet I sit at grad dinner and at senate with colleagues who openly despair of democracy but do nothing. I also hear open contempt for right wing voters yet adulation for the bearded one (Fiedel). Votes go wrong, but if we stay sane, defend voting, listen to people, campaign and most of all 'love the sinner whilst pointing out the sin' things will right themselves. The real danger is we on the left centre resort to the same tactics. You and I tangled over this before. We are different and must be seen to be. Uncle Abehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06275542135616491069noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-90347122825679239592016-12-10T16:00:03.981+00:002016-12-10T16:00:03.981+00:00RA: So you’re not surprised that Greenspan and Ayn...RA: So you’re not surprised that Greenspan and Ayn Rand were good mates and actually that she talked to him about sociology. You’re not surprised about that?<br /><br />MH: When I worked on Wall Street for Chase Manhattan, he was brought into a study I was doing on the oil industry. Chase was very worried that just his presence on the study would discredit it, because he was notorious for saying whatever a client asked him to say. He was a lobbyist already in 1966 when this occurred. So I was given the job of firing Alan Greenspan from the study, and removing it, because they said “He’s such a little bastard, we don’t want him to come after us. You’re a little guy, you’re in your 20s, he doesn’t even know who you are. So give them the information that we know he faked the figures, we know where he faked.”<br /><br />I was given the job of finding where he faked them from and writing it all up in the small print. So when Greenspan finally left the Federal Reserve, the BBC had on its screen for that day, “After me, the deluge.” with Michael Hudson because they asked me what do I thought of it. He left the economy knowing he was jumping ship, just like investors are jumping ship today from the economy that they’ve driven into debt deflation.<br />http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/michael-hudson-economists-deadly-but-innocuous-seeming-proclamations.htmlmauisurferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01601009270900738480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-7144251559277935182016-12-10T14:53:33.850+00:002016-12-10T14:53:33.850+00:00"As I used to say about austerity around 2012..."As I used to say about austerity around 2012 or 2013, we had won the intellectual debate but the world went on as if we had lost."<br /><br />Not "as if" - you really lost because of the bad quality of your arguments.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-66003585743408858842016-12-10T14:14:31.852+00:002016-12-10T14:14:31.852+00:00I read for the first time this article by Ben Mosh...I read for the first time this article by Ben Moshinsky Oct. 30, 2016 at business insider that:<br /><br />"Leave beat Remain by a close 51.9% to 48.1% in the official result of the June referendum...but when the referendum vote is applied to traditional parliamentary constituencies, rather than the total percentages used to calculate the vote, only around 39% of constituency seats voted to Remain, according to data from the University of East Anglia and analysts at Nomura."<br /><br />Clinton looks like she will win the popular vote by around 2.5 million at the 2016 US election, whatever the Russians were up to. <br /><br />What is in evidence here are two electoral systems that are unfit for democratic purpose, before you even reach for quality of debate. <br /><br />That was why I was thinking of Tebbit's "I grew up in the 30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot; he got on his bike and looked for work and he kept looking 'til he found it" made in a speech to the Conservative Party Conference 15 October, 1981.<br /><br />In fact, the Trump and Tebbit side of the argument is the side of those who have not got on their bikes and looked for work, they have gone to the ballot box in huge numbers seemingly to protest against the change from manufacturing to service sector jobs. <br /><br />But then you look at the age profile of these voters, and for Brexit the switch from Remain to Leave is the late 40s. Perhaps some of these people are those who feel if they are fired they will not find it easy to get another job?<br /><br />So in the US they have sought protection from the billionaire businessman, and in the UK they have sought to remove the competition of Europeans. <br /><br />And it will not work.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-82972571997974534602016-12-10T13:30:41.514+00:002016-12-10T13:30:41.514+00:00I am not sure any of Prof Krugman's options, o...I am not sure any of Prof Krugman's options, or indeed yours, really address the fundamental post-truth challenge. <br />What language can we use to talk to people who have asserted their intent to no longer listen to our language? They, having concluded (been persuaded) science and experts have failed, have gone looking for alternatives. How will taking science, knowledge, facts, and wisdom be heard, far less persuade?<br /><br />This could hardly have happened at a worse time, arguably in all of human history. Just as we are within sight of a post-work world, where the only source of money to live will become capital to invest, those without capital have been persuaded to give near absolute power to capital. That it would be smarter to use democracy to vote to retain democracy is to miss the point that democracy has already been bought and sold. Or indeed that it will sooner or later become apparent to the voters that the alternative is not any better. That of course need not lead to a recanting of their conversion to populism and a return to science and facts. More likely, there will be a herd like jump to the next snake oil salesmen, with a plausible story of a better future.<br /><br />The few remaining enlightenment thinkers do however have an opportunity to jump a generation of thinking. The current alt-right is still reactionary in a rapidly progressing technological world. As long as technology is making money, it will be allowed to progress, leading to the near total elimination of employed work, or any equivalent, by robots and AI. Quickly the AI will replicate and eliminate the designers. Only the owners will be left, and the AI may even work out how to own the capital itself.<br /><br />The post-work world will need radical new political and economic models. These models will evolve. They can evolve haphazardly from the end game of the 18-21st century industrial model, or they can evolve from fundamental thinking about the needs of the human condition post-work.<br />That creates an opportunity to speak of threat and opportunity, if a vision of how life could be for coming generations, for our grandchildren. <br />"What's happening" now and soon will determine whether we descend into a dystopia, or whether we can realise the potential of humanity.<br />It's that big.<br />We need to start creating a vision of a fair human existence, and start working out how to get from here to there. <br />That vision will give us the language to start talking to those voters who have given up on the establishment. There is a better way out there, going forward (not back to coal and heavy manufacturing).<br />But it will require a generational recalibration of what it means to be a man or a woman, how we value ourselves, and each other, how we find meaning in our work-free lives.<br />Science, facts and knowledge can become the alt-alt-right. But we have to become the outsiders, think like insurgents.<br />Jim Cuthberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08854078644617098338noreply@blogger.com