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Monkeys Exhibit the Same Economic Irrationality As Us
grrlscientist writes "Laurie Santos is trying to find the roots of human irrationality by watching the way our primates make decisions. This video documents a clever series of experiments in 'monkeynomics' and shows that some of the stupid decisions we make are made by our primate relatives too."
I think one significant difference between humans and monkeys, is that if you convince monkeys that little tokens can be traded for grapes, but then "suspend convertibility", they will go -- pardon the term -- apeshit.
In contrast, if you convince humans that their paper banknotes can be redeemed for an indicated quantity of gold and then suspend convertibility, they handle it pretty well.
I'm in talks with some central banks to try the experiment again...
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Disagree that Keynesian economics relies completely on "rationality", at least as defined as "free individual rational choice". Keynesian policies such as FDR used to help the US out of the great depression involved a massive increase of government spending to give money and jobs to the poor and middle class, regardless of deficits - and NOT leaving things to the "invisible hand of the free market". Which you can guess how I feel about by my sig.
And the current bubble collapse we're still suffering from, the housing market, is more adequately described as a Milton- Friedman-esque bubble. As it certainly was not produced by the Bush administration following Keynesian policies.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
Disagree that Keynesian economics relies completely on "rationality", at least as defined as "free individual rational choice". Keynesian policies such as FDR used to help the US out of the great depression
FDRs policies did not get us out of the Great Depression (which was only called that in the US). What got us out of the Great Depression was getting into a war. Pulling millions of men out of the labor market had the obvious effect of lowering unemployment.
Nobody ever got rich by spending more money than they have. If an individual can't get out of debt that way, it is irrational to believe that a nation can. In fact, no nation has ever done it and ever single nation that tries it ends up in revolution or has their money inflated out of existence.
The current bubble collapse we're experiencing was caused by policies provided by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (under a Republican congress). So at least there I agree with you.