gmane.science.economics.progressive-economists

Re: Michael Spence - puzzling sentence?

Jim Devine — 2013-05-25T00:55:41



It's an example of simple Keynesian economics of the sort that was
very unfashionable until 2008 (and may still be so): if fixed
investment spending is blocked (for example, by low demand for the
product and pessimistic expectations), extra saving might cause
interest rates to fall (vis the supply of and the demand for loanable
funds), but because investment is blocked, it has no positive effect
on the aggregate demand for GDP to counteract the direct effect of
saving, i.e., lowering aggregate demand. Falling demand and over-all
incomes then reduce saving, cancelling out the initial increase in
saving due to distributional shifts. In the end, saving stays equal to
fixed investment spending, whatever it is, due to income effects. In
sum, as in old-fashioned Keynesian economics, there's a paradox of
thrift.

Also, with nominal interest rates so low (at the so-called "zero
bound"), the only way that real interest rates could fall any more is
if there's an upward surge of inflationary expectations.

Re: Michael Spence - puzzling sentence?

michael perelman — 2013-05-25T00:44:29

Could he have the good sense to mean that giving money to the rich means
that much of those funds will gravitate to the financial sector, which does
little to stimulate investment?


On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 3:11 PM, Eugene Coyle <eugenecoyle-viWR4oFGN3Q< at >public.gmane.org> wrote:

Michael Spence - puzzling sentence?

Eugene Coyle — 2013-05-24T22:11:24

Here is a puzzling sentence in a Nobelist Michael Spence essay:


Is that implicitly assuming that the savers put the coins under the mattress?  I.e. savings don't get spent?  Don't get invested?  

Or is it a cry for income re-distribution?  

What is Spence telling me that I'm not grasping?

Gene


the full Spence essay can be found at:http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ten-years-of-cooperation-between-china-and-the-us-by-michael-spence
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Paul Pillar: if Syrian rebels balk at US-led peace talks, they shouldn't get US assistance

Robert Naiman — 2013-05-24T14:30:28

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/balky-syrian-rebels-8509

May 23, 2013

By Paul R. Pillar

Reasonable people can disagree on what to do about Syria, a problem with no
good solutions, and particularly about what to do regarding aid to Syrian
rebels. There ought not to be disagreement, however, on not letting the
United States, a would-be benefactor, get pushed around or have its
diplomacy subverted by the rebels, who are the supplicants.

Yet that becomes a possibility when we hear the head of the rebel Syrian
National Coalition<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/05/22/syria-kerry-assad-peace-talks/2351799/>throw
cold water on the peace conference that Secretary of State John Kerry and
his Russian counterpart agreed to arrange and say that his group will
withhold agreement to attend until it sees who from the Assad regime might
be coming.

In a public statement at this week’s “Friends of Syria” meeting, Kerry
linked<http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-to-assad-talk-peace-in-syria-or-w

Re: Boy Scouts

Carrol Cox — 2013-05-24T13:51:28


What does this refer to?

Carrol


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Boy Scouts

Jim Devine — 2013-05-24T13:44:24

so are the Boy Scouts going to allow members to be (out of the closet) atheists?

the PROGRESSIVE on the droning speech

Jim Devine — 2013-05-24T00:39:53

In Drone Speech, Obama Gets Slippery on Killing U.S. Citizens


By Matthew Rothschild, May 23, 2013


http://www.progressive.org/obama-drone-speech

President Obama has an eerie and alarming ability to detach himself
from his own dubious actions.

This character trait was on full display in his speech on Thursday at
the National Defense University.

When he talked about the need to shut down Guantanamo, he said: “Look
at the current situation, where we are force-feeding detainees who are
holding a hunger strike. Is that something that our Founders foresaw?
Is that the America we want to leave to our children?”

Wise words, but hollow ones.

Hollow, because he could have closed Guantanamo on day one in his
first term, as he promised.

Hollow, because even today he could be releasing those prisoners
himself, rather than overseeing their force-feeding.

As the great constitutional scholar David Cole notes in the New York
Review of Books, “Current law permits the executive branch to waive
some of the requi

Re: Hannah Arendt

Chuck Grimes — 2013-05-23T22:40:47

The short answers are no and no.

I studied Strauss because I wanted to know how an intellectual in Weimar who 
had nearly the identical background to Arendt and whose circle included many 
on the left who came here in the 1930s could have possibly been so wrong 
headed, to the point of becoming a rightwing ideologue. How do you get from 
there to there? There are multiple answers and some of them are not very 
generous to movements based on concepts like `our people' and their movement 
toward nationalisms and collective identities. Arendt went down this path 
and managed to tranform it into concepts like citizenship that are relevant 
today in endless ways.

Strauss represents the enemy and I wanted to understand what motivates the 
highest form of enemy within an intellectual milieu. All of this is a much 
more drawn out story but nobody has the patience and I have certainly tired 
of trying to write and think about it. It forms a history of ideas from the 
French Revolution and Enlightenment into the 20

Hannah Arendt

c b — 2013-05-23T18:54:17

Chuck,

I've been reading your discussion of Strauss for years now.  I
probably asked you this before, but is there a contribution to advance
of humanity that he makes ?  Do you study him to extract something or
do you think of his whole thinking as worthwhile ?

Does the Heidegger/Marcuse anti-technology idea really pan out as a
worthwhile critique of capitalism ?

Charles

From: "Chuck Grimes" <cagrimes42-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org>



Nice essay. It adds some detail and thoughts that make me reflect on
Heidegger, Arendt, and Strauss. Strauss went to Heidegger's lectures and was
interested in his ideas. The way I understand the motivation and attraction
has to do with several themes in Strauss's life.

Heidegger's version of existentialism has features that would have attracted
a particular kind of student (search for meaning types). H's work forms a
core of sorts for understanding the (alienated) individual identity in
relation to mass society. He also links this theme with the ancient greek

Bhaskar Sunkara’s vain hopes | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

Louis Proyect — 2013-05-23T15:35:45

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/bhaskar-sunkaras-vain-hopes/
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Bloomberg: Wall Street Seeks Dodd-Frank Changes ThroughTrade Talks

Robert Naiman — 2013-05-23T14:51:53

A single U.S. Senator can wield a tremendous amount of power.

If Elizabeth Warren could stop this, it would be world-historical.

You'd be able to say to people in the United States, "Look, democracy
matters. We elected Elizabeth Warren, and she was able to stop the bad guys
from doing bad guy things they were planning to do."


On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 7:21 AM, Dolan Mike <MDolan-KoGrml8g/Phg9hUCZPvPmw< at >public.gmane.org> wrote:

Engels was therefore right to call Adam Smith the Luther ofPolitical Economy

c b — 2013-05-23T14:40:15

To this enlightened political economy, which has discovered – within
private property – the subjective essence of wealth, the adherents of
the monetary and mercantile system, who look upon private property
only as an objective substance confronting men, seem therefore to be
fetishists, Catholics. Engels was therefore right to call Adam Smith
the Luther of Political Economy [See Outlines of a Critique of
Political Economy]. Just as Luther recognised religion – faith – as
the substance of the external world and in consequence stood opposed
to Catholic paganism – just as he superseded external religiosity by
making religiosity the inner substance of man – just as he negated the
priests outside the layman because he transplanted the priest into
laymen's hearts, just so with wealth: wealth as something outside man
and independent of him, and therefore as something to be maintained
and asserted only in an external fashion, is done away with; that is,
this external, mindless objectivity of wealth is don

only the political economy which acknowledged labour as its principle – Adam Smith –

c b — 2013-05-23T14:33:56

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/third.htm

Private Property and Labour.
Political Economy as a Product of the Movement of Private Property

||I2| Re. p. XXXVI [This refers to the missing part of the second
manuscript. - Ed.] The subjective essence of private property –
private property as activity for itself [29], as subject, as person –
is labour. It is therefore evident that only the political economy
which acknowledged labour as its principle – Adam Smith – and which
therefore no longer looked upon private property as a mere condition
external to man – that it is this political economy which has to be
regarded on the one hand as a product of the real energy and the real
movement of private property (it is a movement of private property
become independent for itself in consciousness – the modern industry
as Self) – as a product of modern industry – and on the other hand, as
a force which has quickened and glorified the energy and development
of modern industry an

Chomsky and other scholars ask NYT public editor to investigate paper's bias on

Julio Huato — 2013-05-23T13:18:33

Chomsky and other scholars ask NYT public editor to investigate
paper's bias on Honduras and Venezuela:

http://www.nytexaminer.com/2013/05/petition-on-venezuela-honduras/
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Re: opinions on "axiomatic economics."

Jim Devine — 2013-05-23T02:22:14

me:

Chuck Grimes  wrote:

it's not that different in style from some "respectable" theory, such
as Gerard Debreu's THEORY OF VALUE (where "value" means "price").

Re: opinions on "axiomatic economics."

Chuck Grimes — 2013-05-23T02:19:02

How could the benefits exceed the costs?

Jim Devine

-----------------

It took maybe a second, probably less for the design stuff on the page to 
register NUTTER!

CG 

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Re: opinions on "axiomatic economics."

Jim Devine — 2013-05-23T01:40:03

I wrote my letter at 9 p.m. last night. I didn't think that this stuff
[ahem] would be available on-line. It's not worth the effort.
(Actually, it turns out that I was vaguely aware of this stuff. But I
had decided that it wasn't worth the effort. How could the benefits
exceed the costs?)

Re: opinions on "axiomatic economics."

Chuck Grimes — 2013-05-22T23:15:06

You would be remiss in your duties as an educator if you didn't type Aquilar 
Axiomatic Theory of Economics in google:

http://axiomaticeconomics.com/

where you can find answers to questions you never heard of.

CG 

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Re: Hypocrites in the Air: Should Economists Lead byExample?

raghu — 2013-05-22T20:36:22




I think there is a lot to be said for adopting low-carbon lifestyles
including avoiding air travel.

It is best though, not to be absolute about such things for the sake of
some illusory notion of consistency with political principles.

If Frederick Engels had thought like you do, he would have sold his factory
and given his money away, rather than financing the writing of Das Capital!
-raghu.
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admitting the obvious

Jim Devine — 2013-05-22T20:26:44

 BREAKING NEWS ALERT

NYTimes.com

BREAKING NEWS Wednesday, May 22, 2013 4:19 PM EDT
Justice Dept. Acknowledges Deaths of 4 Americans in Drone Strikes

One day before President Obama is due to deliver a major speech on
national security, his administration on Wednesday formally
acknowledged that the United States had killed four American citizens
in drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan.

In a letter to Congressional leaders obtained by The New York Times,
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. disclosed that the administration
had deliberately killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who
was killed in a drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen.

The American responsibility for Mr. Awlaki’s death has been widely
reported, but the administration had until now refused to confirm or
deny it.

Copyright 2013 | The New York Times Company | NYTimes.com 620 Eighth
Avenue New York, NY 10018

--
Jim Devine /  "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your
own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing

opinions on "axiomatic economics."

Jim Devine — 2013-05-22T19:38:11

The following is an edited version of a note I sent to a father who's
worried about his son being seduced by "axiomatic economics" (as
exemplified by his planning to take geometry in preparation). He
blames the economic melt-down of 2008 on axiomatic economics.

Since I haven't read Aguilar's article on axiomatic economics, I
can't criticize it. However, I have some points that may help.

1) ...  studying axiomatic economics (if the name means what it says)
might _help_ your son's academic career, with the emphasis on
_academic_. Most academic economists love mathematics, perhaps because
it's impenetrable to old fogies such a myself (or at least to most of
us). Knowing fancy math -- and being able to use it -- is a way of
proving one's chops with younger economists, too. However, as stressed
below, mathematics totally idealizes the world, missing on all of the
gray areas and rough edges. So even if it helps one's academic career,
the math almost never helps make the world a better place. Most of it
is what I