By Al Schumann on Sunday August 5, 2012 08:20 PM
If you have any desire to see economists excoriated, and you should, have I got a blog for you. Stroll on over to Robert Vienneau's Thoughts On Economics.
Comments (17)
Utterly delightful, though I understood maybe one word in ten. I love the laconic, early-Wittgenstein style.
Posted by MJS | August 6, 2012 12:14 AM
Posted on August 6, 2012 00:14
He's right about the rudeness of spouting lies and nonsense. In economics, that rudeness signifies an ugly intent—similar to doctors deliberately planning malpractice.
Posted by Al Schumann | August 6, 2012 3:41 AM
Posted on August 6, 2012 03:41
This guy is very careful as he recovers the cambridge critique
between say 1960 and1980
The b4 aeems to funnel thru that gauntlet and the after
At least so far as I see any of it as rendered according to V
seems a wasteland of pre Keynesian restorationist idiocy
But I have barely scratched the surface over there
Posted by Op | August 6, 2012 10:45 AM
Posted on August 6, 2012 10:45
You're still the econ con we love most, Owen. It's not like we're stepping out on you.
Posted by Al Schumann | August 6, 2012 6:44 PM
Posted on August 6, 2012 18:44
Here’s another economics writing that might be of interest also:
Dire Train
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/08/dire-train/
Posted by diane | August 6, 2012 6:49 PM
Posted on August 6, 2012 18:49
It is, Diane. Straight to the point.
Posted by Al Schumann | August 6, 2012 6:59 PM
Posted on August 6, 2012 18:59
(I'm guessing the author may have been barred from taking snaps (Linh, the author, is a wonderful photographer) of the elaborate homeless communities along the banks of the Gaudalupe River, in the gut of Sly Con Cali, ... or, it may have been too close to home to deal with, ...I'm hoping that Linh might be able to add them in the future, to such a wonderful testimony)
Posted by diane | August 6, 2012 6:59 PM
Posted on August 6, 2012 18:59
(uugh, wonderful testimony, really doesn't get it, though I think what Linh is doing is beyond wonderful ... (and thanks Al, Owen and Michael ...a kiss!))
Posted by diane | August 6, 2012 7:12 PM
Posted on August 6, 2012 19:12
Linh is pretty seering. I expect to be on the train pretty soon when I'm laid off in December. Not even sure I care anymore.
Posted by Brian M | August 6, 2012 7:49 PM
Posted on August 6, 2012 19:49
I thought so too, Brian, and very, very sorry to hear about your situation. The best to you sounds vapid, but I mean it.
So many, just told to basically disappear (AND QUIETLY!) with no ultimate safety net whatsoever. Meg[a] Bitch Whitman recently announced a 27K Hewlett Packard Layoff, yet one wouldn't know the misery going on to read the two major Sly Con Valley newspapers, which cover some of the most obscenely wealthy (wealthy at the hands, minds and eyesight, literally, of the unacknowledged and scrambling to stay afloat) in the world and one of the largest economies in the world.
Posted by diane | August 6, 2012 8:41 PM
Posted on August 6, 2012 20:41
Are you okay Owen? You've been very quiet, and missed.
Posted by diane | August 6, 2012 11:10 PM
Posted on August 6, 2012 23:10
"If you have any desire to see economists excoriated"
Not excoriated, just ignored. Their models ignore too many external factors and make too many assumptions. So much so that physical reality becomes a passing inconvenience to their beautiful minds.
Like how Krugman and his ilk keep saying we just need to goose the economy with showers of money, aka fiscal stimulus, so we can keep the old growth train going forever. They ignore external factors that might act as restraints on the old eternal growth train, such as the fact the planet has finite resources and capacity to contain and process the accumulated excrement of the human race.
Thus more and more humans are living in their own shit while economists keep babbling about their economic models.
Feh...
Posted by Drunk Pundit | August 6, 2012 11:58 PM
Posted on August 6, 2012 23:58
Diane, Owen is okay as far as I know. He spends a lot of time helping economists bump into walls. They never thank him and often accuse him of pushing them. The physical effort and their ingratitude leaves him tired.
Drunk Pundit, I get your points and agree. But I think excoriation is also necessary.
Posted by Al Schumann | August 7, 2012 12:59 AM
Posted on August 7, 2012 00:59
thanks AL, I shouldnt be, but I'm always worried about boots dropping on decent people, it's been hapening way, way, way too much.
Posted by diane | August 7, 2012 1:28 AM
Posted on August 7, 2012 01:28
d
Nothing happens to me that causes cracks
my soul is made of a rubber much like
What u get On the bottom of a pair of snow boots
I wish I had AL's emotional discipline ...I don't
Nor do I have
Father S's
Relentlessly self produced and producing witnessing powers
What goes in me must come out
In one shape way of formulation
But what that might be
has it's own reasons not mine
Posted by Op | August 7, 2012 9:03 AM
Posted on August 7, 2012 09:03
If true about your rubber soul, I envy you. I usually (at least eventually) spit out what I take in, but much of it leaves wounds inside.
Posted by diane | August 7, 2012 10:56 PM
Posted on August 7, 2012 22:56
I almost never remember the degree in Economics granted to me in 1976, but alas it was granted. I have not been much of a practitioner of the dismal science, but its simplemindedness has not escaped my attention. For example,here: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2006/yates141006.html
With respect to the Cambridge controversies Owen wrote about, it is wise to remember what Joan Robinson said---that while capital helps make labor more productive, owning capital is not a socially productive activity.
Also, we can criticize economics all we want, but no matter how vacuous it is, how naked the neoclassical emperor stands, it is only radical class struggle that can bring the emperor's reign of terror to an end.
Posted by michael yates | August 8, 2012 6:45 PM
Posted on August 8, 2012 18:45