tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post1860401141349509018..comments2024-03-29T06:09:37.749-04:00Comments on The Slack Wire: Economists: Actively Evil Neoliberal Ideologues or Soulless Technocratic Hacks?JW Masonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-51482063728634725482020-03-18T11:15:39.243-04:002020-03-18T11:15:39.243-04:00Hello everyone, I'm Patricia Sherman in Oklaho...Hello everyone, I'm Patricia Sherman in Oklahoma USA right now. I would like to share with you my experience of borrowing USD $185,000.00 to clear my bank draft and start a new business. It all started when I lost my house and I took my stuff because of the bank policy and I met some bills and some personal needs. So I became very desperate and started looking for funds in every way. 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Thank you.Benjamin Leehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16009728629993976621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-44969544009694655752016-02-23T10:59:08.138-05:002016-02-23T10:59:08.138-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.stijnvanmijhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02222347374052238053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-75330186791676690262016-02-22T03:18:43.592-05:002016-02-22T03:18:43.592-05:00In the face of financial difficulties? Are you in ...In the face of financial difficulties? Are you in need of a loan? or they were rejected by local banks? Do you need a loan for any reason? Your help is finally here as Business finance offers loans for everyone, both the employed and unemployed, individuals and companies, we offer loans at low interest rate of 2%. Interested borrowers are contact us via e-mail: am.credito@yandex.com and get their loans today. Our services are fast and reliable, so please contact us at (am.credito@yandex.com) and enjoy our offer financial services.Khalifa Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09528989391293577839noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-16256950877761429562012-03-07T14:41:00.642-05:002012-03-07T14:41:00.642-05:00does anyone actually tried to explain precisely ho...<i>does anyone actually tried to explain precisely how rent control is unadviseable?</i><br /><br />Not to my knowledge. This debate, as far as I can tell, is about where the minimum wage was pre-Card and Krueger.JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-81798700334105226452012-03-01T03:09:42.950-05:002012-03-01T03:09:42.950-05:00"Competition is likely beneficial on average...."Competition is likely beneficial on average."<br /><br />When I read that line, I could almost feel my fight-or-flight reflexes gearing up. I understand that it's practically an economic adage or piece of common sense, but it always bugs me to see people saying it in response to one condition or another without adequately explaining how exactly (it does not feel very much like science to me when it is just repetition without referring back to data). It almost always makes me want to quote back with a a favourite line of mine from Keynes. <br /><br />"In the long run, everybody is dead."<br /><br />The average does not always manage to represent everything. As an industrial-organization sort of fellow, I disagree with any opinion how all markets are exactly the same. I'm curious, though, does anyone actually tried to explain precisely how rent control is unadviseable? Or at the very least, do they manage to illustrate how close to perfect competition, and how free from externalities the housing market that other factors need not be considered at this point but price above all? How did they decide what factors are important external considerations in the housing market and what are negligible?<br /><br />Sorry if the questions seems piled rather high and not specific enough, but I know next-to-nothing about the housing market in the US and curious minds want to know.N Hermantohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17950103463338497242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-5147070166775384962012-02-15T13:36:20.041-05:002012-02-15T13:36:20.041-05:00@ Josh:
“The actual defenders of Pol Pot, not j...@ Josh:<br /> <br />“The actual defenders of Pol Pot, not just rhetorically but materially, weren’t on the Left, they were people like Kissinger.”<br /><br />On the left, Noam Chomsky and Edward Hermann defended Pol Pot in The Political Economy of Human Rights, Vol. II. Kissinger bombed Pol Pot. The point is, nobody should defend Pol Pot, rhetorically or materially, whether from ideological or geopolitical opportunism. And nobody should defend Maoism or Kim Il Sungism, either.<br /><br />“You know, I knew I was going to regret writing that comment.”<br /><br />As well you should have. But you should also regret just thinking it, because it shows how badly your common sense and moral faculties can be corrupted by Marxist romanticism.Will Boisvertnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-1054306756389272402012-02-15T12:33:41.105-05:002012-02-15T12:33:41.105-05:00You know, I knew I was going to regret writing tha...You know, I knew I was going to regret writing that comment.<br /><br />I will explain the bit about the Cultural revolution when I get home this evening, tho I don't think my answer will satisfy you.<br /><br />Re Pol Pot, tho, here's the thing: The actual defenders of Pol Pot, not just rhetorically but materially, weren't on the Left, they were people like Kissinger.JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-29426955071986946282012-02-15T12:23:37.405-05:002012-02-15T12:23:37.405-05:00@ Josh,
You write, “I personally find some genuin...@ Josh,<br /><br />You write, “I personally find some genuinely admirable aspects of the Cultural Revolution, tho of course one shouldn’t romanticize it.”<br /><br />Really? Which aspects?<br /><br />I haven’t read Badiou’s book, but I have reviewed some histories of the Cultural Revolution. I found nothing admirable in it, just a parade of sickening atrocities: millions of innocent people tortured and killed; millions more hauled off to labor camps; old women beaten bloody by braying teenaged thugs.<br /><br />It came after Maoist maximalism had been tarnished by the Great Leap Forward and the attendant famine that killed many millions. So it took a time-honored page from the communist play-book: distract from economic catastrophe—and outmaneuver moderate factions—by ginning up a super-pogrom against imaginary class enemies.<br /><br />True, there was an anarchic air to the proceedings, what with Mao, that jolly lord of misrule, spewing his liberationist prattle and exhorting the Red Guards to club and humiliate their elders. Is that all it takes for Marxist academics to discern a progressive tendency?<br /><br />To find anything admirable in this episode is to romanticize it beyond all recognition.<br /><br />--“I’m not familiar with Robinson’s writings on North Korea, but I would say that while today the regime is, of course, indefensible, I’m not sure that was so obvious in the 1960s.”<br /><br />Lots of people, lots of liberals, thought this was perfectly obvious in the 1960s. It took a pretty thick pair of rose-colored ideological glasses not to see it.<br /><br />But there’s always Pol Pot—at least he made the trains run on time, right?Will Boisvertnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-15279194294173916712012-02-14T18:21:06.864-05:002012-02-14T18:21:06.864-05:00Yeah, it's kind of silly/unfair to include her...Yeah, it's kind of silly/unfair to include her here -- she's not much closer to the peak institutions of the economics profession than I am, I don't think. I don't even read her blog, and only saw this post because Peter Dorman linked to it.<br /><br />In my defense, she really did frame her post around the idea that saying that rent control is always and everywhere bad is like saying that the Earth goes around the sun, which is as nice an example as you could ask for of ideological thinking -- treating a contested political claim as if it were a brute fact about physical reality.JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-58742033166436753822012-02-14T18:17:02.695-05:002012-02-14T18:17:02.695-05:00I should add, I think the question of Joan Robinso...I should add, I think the question of Joan Robinson's views on China is complicated, but I personally find some genuinely admirable aspects of the Cultural Revolution, tho of course one should't romanticize it. As it happens, I just recently read Alain Badiou's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Communist-Hypothesis-Alain-Badiou/dp/1844676005" rel="nofollow">The Communist Hypothesis</a>, which includes a long discussion of the Cultural Revolution, and it's surprising how many affinities you can see with the Occupy movement. I'm not familiar with Robinson's writings on North Korea, but I would say that while today the regime is, of course, indefensible, I'm not sure that was so obvious in the 1960s.JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-36537751701013525702012-02-14T18:11:41.542-05:002012-02-14T18:11:41.542-05:00indeed I do. Joan Robinson is one of my intellectu...indeed I do. Joan Robinson is one of my intellectual heroes! <br /><br />However, I freely admit that 50 years ago, the range of opinion in the economics profession was quite different from the range today, as represented in the Booth surveys. So if you're saying that if there were people like Joan Robinson at top departments then this post would be nonsense, then, you are right.JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-46543124604365535412012-02-14T16:53:14.034-05:002012-02-14T16:53:14.034-05:00Odd that when talking about the evil of economists...Odd that when talking about the evil of economists you forgot to include Joan Robinson's praise of the culture revolution and Maoism or her praise of North Korea.<br /><br />Oh wait, you probably consider her one of the "good guys."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-18597527002552860812012-02-12T14:27:37.204-05:002012-02-12T14:27:37.204-05:00And by 2003 I mean 1993. Brain fart.And by 2003 I mean 1993. Brain fart.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-4607270840845477442012-02-12T14:23:02.032-05:002012-02-12T14:23:02.032-05:00The article you cite contains the following senten...The article you cite contains the following sentence: "The second hole is that rent control ordinances are normally replete with measures intended to maintain supply incentives," such as, for example, exempting new construction from rent control rules.<br /><br />That is an extremely salient point, and it's worth pointing out that all of those measures are specifically NOT rent control. The textbook model of rent-control-as-price-floor makes predictions about an implementation of rent-control-as-price-floor. That model is so unassailably correct that no city in its right mind would implement rent control this way. In real life we get "soft" rent control, which predictably has weaker effects on the housing market, though the effects certainly run in the same direction. For proof look no further than Boston, which eliminated rent control in 2003 and experienced the predictable effect of rising rents at the low end and substantially increased residential construction at the drop of a hat.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-58721762955505724442012-02-12T11:55:46.225-05:002012-02-12T11:55:46.225-05:00Sure, I don't mind using my name. I'm the ...Sure, I don't mind using my name. I'm the anonymous above. <br /><br />Glad you realize that its not that way everywhere, and yeah, the real beef definitely is with Chicago. I think the reason they're so orthodox is multi level. One, Chicago gets to pick who works there, and the idea that there is a "Chicago School" of thought in economics brings prestige, whether people agree with their views or not. Diluting that coherent school of thought takes that away. Not to mention the fact that the ones choosing new profs are the old profs who interview them, and while people like to be intellectually challenged, its another thing to constantly bickering over basic ideas like the role of government with a colleague you share a wall with.Thomasnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-18437766297903120262012-02-12T07:11:12.013-05:002012-02-12T07:11:12.013-05:00Jodi Beggs? The only funny thing with her is her p...Jodi Beggs? The only funny thing with her is her photo collection with various animals and unanimated objects studying Mankiws principles.Stephanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01963650071969867405noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-24204152393043206182012-02-12T00:24:55.321-05:002012-02-12T00:24:55.321-05:00dunno, the idea that residential turnover is bad s...<i>dunno, the idea that residential turnover is bad sounds to me like an excuse for the centuries-old bigotries against "nomadic" or "itinerant" peoples and preference for "settled" peoples. </i><br /><br />This is an interesting point. It would certainly be progress if we were debating rent control on these grounds rather than spurious proofs that departures from market prices are always bad. That said, I don't agree: it's true that invocations of "community" have often been a cover for bigotry, but it's also true that communities are real and important and worth preserving, or so I think. That said, I think you're on much stronger ground criticizing building restrictions that are justified as preserving the "character" of a neighborhood, etc. But the whole subject is complicated and probably deserves its own followup post. (problem is, this is true of basically everything.)<br /><br /><i>Perhaps instead of neighborhood stabilization we need workforce stabilization, which is to say, the opposite of workforce "flexibility."</i><br /><br />Why not both? Note that rent-stabilization still preserves a lot more flexibility than our actual housing-affordability policy in the past 50 years, subsidized homeownership.<br /><br /><i>Distributional questions can be ignored in practice because they are simply proxies for allocational questions, right?</i><br /><br />You've cracked the code!<br /><br /><i>Whence does one get empirical data from which to plot a "demand curve?"</i><br /><br />Actually, this is one bit of conventional economics that I think is ok -- lots ot hings *do* have downward sloping demand curves. (Just <a href="http://slackwire.blogspot.com/2012/02/noah-clue.html" rel="nofollow">not labor</a>.) Upward-sloping supply curves are much more problematic -- outside of primary production, it's much ore realistic to think of modern capitalist economies as featuring constant marginal products.<br /><br />Re the commenting machinery, your guess is as good as mine. The whole system just changed recently, with threading and force-justify (ugh) added without my doing anything.JW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-92095413279484612682012-02-11T14:49:46.877-05:002012-02-11T14:49:46.877-05:00Oh, sure, I know the whole economics profession is...Oh, sure, I know the whole economics profession is not like Chicago. Lots of my friends are economists. Come to think of it, I'm an economist myself, or I will be if I ever get this dissertation finished.<br /><br />But here's the thing: If you're offended by markets-in-everything-yay! being presented as the professional consensus, your complaint is with the U of C, not with me. Because they say explicitly that's what they're presenting, a survey of what economists at top institutions all agree on. (Or it's with people like Beggs, who not only says Rent Control Bad, but thinks that claim is on a level with the earth going round the sun -- that's literally what she titles her post.) So if there are people in top departments who don't agree that we should eliminate rent regulation and privatize the schools, that rising inequality is all about returns to skill, etc., or even who just think this stuff is more complicated than intro micro, they really need to speak up and make it clear that this survey does not represent them.<br /><br />I do agree, though, that if you were to take a broader sample of economists you'd find more diverse views. It's an interesting question why the peak institutions of economics are so much more orthodox than economists at large. But whatever the reason, it's a fact about the world, not something I just made up.<br /><br />Oh, and just one favor -- could you use a handle of some kind? A pseudonym is fine, but there are enough comments here that multiple Anons gets confusingJW Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10664452827447313845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-48787618861939708882012-02-11T13:39:24.927-05:002012-02-11T13:39:24.927-05:00Come on. Chicago is the bastion of freshwater econ...Come on. Chicago is the bastion of freshwater econ, know for being right wing and in some cases almost Austrian. Of course their survey is biased. Don't paint all us economists as the same people thinking the same way. Maybe others don't like rent controls for market reasons, but because maintenance tends to slip and housing quality falls, which isn't good for neighborhood stabilization either. And every reasonable economist believes not in government just for property rights, but to fix market failures like public goods. Education is definitely in need of state control. So are a myriad of other areas. This is offensive generalization to an extreme.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-7238906430294993582012-02-11T08:33:11.468-05:002012-02-11T08:33:11.468-05:00I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. I&#...I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. I'm aware of some new feature on Blogger where you can comment on comments, but I can't seem to find the place to comment on the original post. Anyway...<br /><br />I dunno, the idea that residential turnover is bad sounds to me like an excuse for the centuries-old bigotries against "nomadic" or "itinerant" peoples and preference for "settled" peoples. And not much farther down the same slippery slope is the idea that homeowners are more desirable residents for a community than tenants, and the subsidy of homeownership for its own sake that some say caused the housing bubble. Also, there must be armloads of people who want to be low-turnover residents somewhere, but due to the casualization of work, are denied the opportunity to be low-turnover (i.e. permanent, full-time) employees. Perhaps instead of neighborhood stabilization we need workforce stabilization, which is to say, the opposite of workforce "flexibility."<br /><br />Distributional questions can be ignored in practice because they are simply proxies for allocational questions, right? :-)<br /><br />"Replacing the public school system with vouchers is a far-right, fringe position in almost any significant demographic -- except, it would seem, professional economists."<br /><br />Don't know the cite, but Thom Hartmann on his radio show keeps referring to some study (I think by the RAND Corporation) which found that while game theory failed to predict the behavior of humans in general, it rather successfully predicted the behavior of two categories of humans, namely criminals and economists.<br /><br />Anyway, I only know economics from introductory textbooks, but those introductory textbooks read to me more like math books (derivation of "proofs" from "axioms") than science books (development of "models" from empirical data). Whence does one get empirical data from which to plot a "demand curve?" By conducting a phone survey of consumers and ask them randomized questions in the form "how many boxes of baking soda would you buy if the price of each is $2.3415098?" No, really, how? Oh, and then there's <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/69297" rel="nofollow">polemics masquerading as textbooks</a>.Lorihttp://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/Pubwannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-8549490790304796872012-02-11T08:08:50.294-05:002012-02-11T08:08:50.294-05:00Do rent regulations in New York apply to buildings...Do rent regulations in New York apply to buildings <em>maintained</em> since 1974?Elihttp://elidourado.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-89363368186476848452012-02-11T04:27:55.591-05:002012-02-11T04:27:55.591-05:00Economists set themselves too easy a task if all t...Economists set themselves too easy a task if all they can say is 'I wouldn't start from here if I were you'.5371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5154389358831836369.post-29278403925248275582012-02-11T02:45:52.302-05:002012-02-11T02:45:52.302-05:00Been down so long it looks like up to me
Asking &...<i>Been down so long it looks like up to me</i><br /><br />Asking "whether rent regulations have had 'a positive impact <b>over the past three decades</b>'" has something in common with asking: So how are things since you've been dying of cancer?<br /><br />Thirty years is time enough for people to grow up and to become economists without ever having experienced a good economy. <a href="http://www.polyconomics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2584:the-way-we-were&catid=37:1998&Itemid=30" rel="nofollow">You have to have lived in the 1950s and 1960s to have experienced a good economy.</a><br /><br />ALL of these studies of things "since 1980" or things "since the 1970s" -- throw them away.The Arthurianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16501331051089400601noreply@blogger.com