I've read numerous times how Truman, Eisenhower, and especially FDR and the politicians before thought nothing of economists and would hear them and after chuckling move on so to speak.
Even the profession didn't think itself that serious back in the day. Until the 1960's and the technocrats came into being from Havard and Yale specifically did the economists really start pushing the I'm a scientist too. This is what the universities propagate, be scientific. If not, no one will listen. You'll be called a Christian, irrelevant.
Economists are socio-political entities. They are not scientists. This scientist thing is so overused. Everybody wants to put fancy math figures on a whiteboard and look scientific. Please, stop.
"The point of economics is to create a language/methodology for governing to hide political assumptions from the public. Successful economists, like Summers, spend their time winning bureaucratic turf and placing checks on elected officials."
I found “Technology for the American Family” to be very interesting. It’s not a long article and I know it’s meant to be thought provoking but I found myself thinking of examples that made me agree and disagree with each point, indicative of how complex the issues are. Also funny reading “conservatives should” when I don’t think current American Conservatives/Republicans would align these ideas.
Thinking that DOGE will solve the deficit is a huge failure, but an incredibly useful fiction for politicians: "see, we're taking runaway spending... look at DOGE." The fact is, we could eliminate ALL discretionary spending, including the entire military budget, and still not close the deficit. (This is easily verified with a few clicks.)
Waste is not the cause of or ills. Poor political choices are. DOGE has no control over the latter.
BTW: As an econ grad myself, I laughed my ass off at the title.
Agree. But would like to point out that deficits and debt (both public and private) are unavoidable in our debt-based (equivalently, credit-based) monetary systems. FWIW, as of 2019, private debt was larger than public (government) debt!
"Is free trade “the closest thing to a universally held value among economists”
The funny thing is, once you allow free mobility of capital (which Adam Smith was against btw) in combination with low tariffs, you are no longer talking about the theory of free trade strictly speaking. The problem can be analyzed using plain old neoclassical economics 101, which is much easier to understand, especially when it comes to the flows of trade and investment between countries with vastly different capital/population ratios.
Granted, even in that case you can show that in theory at least everyone in a rich country like the United States could still be made better off than before. But that assumes we knew of a fair and efficient way to redistribute income from capital to labor at scale without destroying the incentives to save and invest. Unfortunately, that is a problem that today's economists would seem to have no clue how to solve. Allow me, therefore, to describe a solution made possible by the revolution in information technology: https://shorturl.at/YIzHD
On the downside, implementation would require an end to shell corporations and unregistered bank and brokerage accounts in overseas tax havens. Which, in turn, would require the cooperation of all OECD countries. In other words, it would require statesmanship on a scale not seen since the end of WWII.
I've read numerous times how Truman, Eisenhower, and especially FDR and the politicians before thought nothing of economists and would hear them and after chuckling move on so to speak.
Even the profession didn't think itself that serious back in the day. Until the 1960's and the technocrats came into being from Havard and Yale specifically did the economists really start pushing the I'm a scientist too. This is what the universities propagate, be scientific. If not, no one will listen. You'll be called a Christian, irrelevant.
Economists are socio-political entities. They are not scientists. This scientist thing is so overused. Everybody wants to put fancy math figures on a whiteboard and look scientific. Please, stop.
To quote Matt Stoller:
"The point of economics is to create a language/methodology for governing to hide political assumptions from the public. Successful economists, like Summers, spend their time winning bureaucratic turf and placing checks on elected officials."
I found “Technology for the American Family” to be very interesting. It’s not a long article and I know it’s meant to be thought provoking but I found myself thinking of examples that made me agree and disagree with each point, indicative of how complex the issues are. Also funny reading “conservatives should” when I don’t think current American Conservatives/Republicans would align these ideas.
“Economists are socio-political entities.” There you have it!
I had a neighbor who displayed a bumper sticker that read, ‘Take money out of politics’. How absolutely absurd. The economy is political.
Thinking that DOGE will solve the deficit is a huge failure, but an incredibly useful fiction for politicians: "see, we're taking runaway spending... look at DOGE." The fact is, we could eliminate ALL discretionary spending, including the entire military budget, and still not close the deficit. (This is easily verified with a few clicks.)
Waste is not the cause of or ills. Poor political choices are. DOGE has no control over the latter.
BTW: As an econ grad myself, I laughed my ass off at the title.
Agree. But would like to point out that deficits and debt (both public and private) are unavoidable in our debt-based (equivalently, credit-based) monetary systems. FWIW, as of 2019, private debt was larger than public (government) debt!
https://www.econlowdown.org/v3/public/making-sense-of-private-debt
Did you read Scott Alexander’s latest “Bureaucracy Isn’t Measured in Bureaucrats? : https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/bureaucracy-isnt-measured-in-bureaucrats?r=1417y&utm_medium=ios
NAFTA killed America. And they knew it from its inception.
America was sold out, first by deregulation, then NAFTA.
The Unions were destroyed and blamed for the costs. All the while corporations stole “their” right to work and be paid “fairly.”
"Is free trade “the closest thing to a universally held value among economists”
The funny thing is, once you allow free mobility of capital (which Adam Smith was against btw) in combination with low tariffs, you are no longer talking about the theory of free trade strictly speaking. The problem can be analyzed using plain old neoclassical economics 101, which is much easier to understand, especially when it comes to the flows of trade and investment between countries with vastly different capital/population ratios.
Granted, even in that case you can show that in theory at least everyone in a rich country like the United States could still be made better off than before. But that assumes we knew of a fair and efficient way to redistribute income from capital to labor at scale without destroying the incentives to save and invest. Unfortunately, that is a problem that today's economists would seem to have no clue how to solve. Allow me, therefore, to describe a solution made possible by the revolution in information technology: https://shorturl.at/YIzHD
On the downside, implementation would require an end to shell corporations and unregistered bank and brokerage accounts in overseas tax havens. Which, in turn, would require the cooperation of all OECD countries. In other words, it would require statesmanship on a scale not seen since the end of WWII.
Tech for the Am family was on the mark — best thought piece I’ve read in a while promoting the centrality of family. Will share widely!