Slashdot Mirror
A New Way to Learn Economics (newyorker.com)
John Cassidy, writing for The New Yorker: With the new school year starting, there is good news for incoming students of economics -- and anybody else who wants to learn about issues like inequality, globalization, and the most efficient ways to tackle climate change. A group of economists from both sides of the Atlantic, part of a project called CORE Econ, has put together a new introductory economics curriculum, one that is modern, comprehensive, and freely available online. In this country, many colleges encourage Econ 101 students to buy (or rent) expensive textbooks, which can cost up to three hundred dollars, or even more for some hardcover editions. The project is a collaborative effort that emerged after the world financial crisis of 2008-9, and the ensuing Great Recession, when many students (and teachers) complained that existing textbooks didn't do a good job of explaining what was happening. In many countries, groups of students demanded an overhaul in how economics was taught, with less emphasis on free-market doctrines and more emphasis on real-world problems.
[Golf clap].
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Science isn't leftwing or rightwing. Science supports a lot of things, but one of the things science does, is force people to prove their points. The process of Politics is a separate process. Science should be left to scientists, not politicians. I'm sick of people selectively remembering "science" when it is politically expedient.
Case in point, all the left wing loons that are blaming two hurricanes on Trump's election and global warming. Where were they the last 10 years or so, when hurricanes were practically none existent, where they citing the lack of hurricanes on Global Cooling?
And I don't see any Coastal Elitists volunteering for living in 3rd world conditions to lower their own carbon footprint. They want their coal fired electricity to power their Teslas, releasing more carbon than if they drove a SUV (exaggeration to make a point) . http://shrinkthatfootprint.com...
Science shows what is, not what ought to be. It shows what is possible, not what is capable.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
What works? Socialism ? BHAHAHAHAHHA
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
From the Article:
" In many countries, groups of students demanded an overhaul in how economics was taught, with less emphasis on free-market doctrines and more emphasis on real-world problems." Read: Karl Marx good, Adam Smith Bad
To the contrary. For some reason, right-wingers never actually read Adam Smith; they just heard somewhere that he talked about the invisible hand, and they fail to pay attention to all of the many, many parts of Wealth of Nations in which he discusses ways that unregulated free markets fail without government intervention, and that some things can't possibly function well in the free market, so they need to be run by the government for the sake of the greater good.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
In a true "free market" everything is free and equally available to all participants at equal cost: most importantly knowledge.
False. This assumption assumes that all goods are of equal value and availability and cost the same to make everywhere. Hurricane Irma proved this to be false where normally supplied goods were simply not available. Free Markets allow for price changes to compensate people for supplying goods in short supply that are harder to get during certain circumstances. While we all hate gouging, price freezes keeps additional supply from entering that market, because the cost to bring those goods in isn't rewarded with higher prices. Which leads invariably to ... no supplies at all. (I will give a good example)
profit derived from trade available to merchants and so on is wholly due to the lack of a free market: where both products and information are not available to all participants.
Again, this is patently false. Profit is derived from providing a product or service as a price someone is willing to pay, sufficient to cover the cost of doing business with extra left over. (example following)
Hurricane is bearing down on Florida, government declares "No Price Gouging" (subjective term) and Cases of bottled water sell for the same price as the day before, and pretty soon, all supplies are gone. People buying WAY more water than they need (irrational), and others not able to get any water at any price. The price doesn't matter to those that don't have any water, or the people who have more than they need. Because "No Price Gouging" is the law, nobody is able to take a truck from Atlanta or New Orleans, fill it up with Cases of water and drive to Miami and sell water, because ... there is no "profit" in it at the "No Price Gouging" price (whatever that is)
In a free market, prices adjust to the market conditions. As supplies become rare, the price goes up, as supply is returned because there is higher profits, the price drops back to normal. The information doesn't change, what does change is irrational behavior (I'm buying 199 cases because!!!!) becomes more reasoned (I can't afford $40 case x 199 cases) and others who wanted water can now get the water they need. In the No Price Gouging world, there were no limits placed and plenty of people did without bottled water.
Yes, raw economics is void of any compassion. It is also without any passion. It just is. It accounts for pure rationality when that is the case, and pure irrationality when that is the case (see Dutch Tulip case) Eventually equilibrium happens.
The fact is, we don't live is a economically free environment, we already have plenty of interference and controls placed. And it is never enough. My last example is in regard for the case of Net Neutrality, instead of fixing the problem (government interference in free market, via Franchise agreements) we add in more government controls which won't do what proponents think it will do, and cause more issues than it actually solves. The real solution is to build out last mile in such a way that the free market offers people the services they want, at whatever price the market will bear. I want municipal owned infrastructure, but be able to order the services I want from the vendor of my choice, rather than have my only option be Comcast with Net Neutrality.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
If you will allow me a small rebuttal.
* The 2008 collapse: according to the free-market ideology, we should have allowed all the banks to fail. The fallout from this would have been an actual depression.
-- Citation needed. If we bring back the risk to banking institutions and allow them to actually work in a free market, you won't have the huge bubbles that we do now. The collapse in 2008 was brought about because people like Maxine Watters and Al Franklin thought it best to remove the risk to banks to provide very risky home loans to people who should have never obtained them.
* Healthcare: according to the free-market ideology, if you don't like what they are charging for medications or surgeries, you just don't buy it. This has resulted in the untimely death of sick people.
-- Odd that the portions of healthcare that are only free market are far cheaper than the government regulated side. (laser eye surgery) The notion that the free market can't work in healthcare is to be blind to how it actually does work.
* Disaster events: according to the free-market ideology, we shouldn't help those who are now homeless because they did not pay for the proper insurance.
-- Yes, because the free market doesn't allow for charity?!? WTF.
* The prison system: according to the free-market ideology, private prisons should be attempting to maximize the number of inmates by any means. This results in a higher prison population with longer sentences. This is actually happening.
-- This is the one argument I will give you credit for. It really has become much like the fire departments of old. Where they would start fires just to respond to them to make money. I suspect the answer here is more of a change in attitude towards things like illicit drugs and such. Being a libertarian, I do find a need for a small government, and this is one area where I depart ways with my AnCap brethren.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
Marxism has failed every real world test it's been put to.
Reverse of no true Scotsman: if it didn't fail, it's not true Marxism. :)
The Scandinavian socialist countries (Denmark, Sweden, etc.) seem to be doing quite well for themselves. And there are plenty of capitalist countries where you wouldn't want to live there unless you were among the ruling elite.
Point being, there's isn't some straight and narrow path where one little misstep leads to disaster. Some countries have high taxes and do reasonably well while other countries have low taxes and do reasonably well.
That's not to say that good government doesn't matter: it does - a lot. But it's not a simple black and white matter of communism versus capitalism.
Neither of which alternatives deterred you from responding as if you had.
To be clear, teaching socialism is teaching failure. Teaching capitalism is teaching they only system demonstrated to be capable of improving the lives of common people.
Neither is perfect. One is oppressive and crushes the spirit. The other holds promise, demonstrated by recent attempts.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
It's also not generally appreciated that the quantitative part of Marx represents the foundations of econometrics even to this day, and while things have become generally more sophisticated since his time, that aspect of his work is not particularly questioned or devalued by contemporary economists with right-wing political leanings.
.: Semper Absurda
LOLwut? These were bought-and-paid-for politicians doing what their masters wanted, which was a bailout at taxpayer expense and with little change to how they do business, which was enabled by the same corrupt politicians to begin with.
It used to be that churches, benevolent organizations, and private charities filled the role of healthcare safety net before the massive expansion of government entitlement programs as regular people could afford to give to charities because they were not being taxed to the edge of insolvency to pay for bloated, corrupt, and hugely wasteful government entitlement programs and the massive bureaucracy that goes hand-in hand with them.
People voluntarily & freely gave of their money, time, and resources. It was the most "free market" possible.
People give more when they aren't forced under threat of deadly force or imprisonment as government "charity" is.
The basic idea of privatization is sound from an economic standpoint, the problem is with trying to implement such a system within a bloated, corrupt government that has grown far too large & powerful as the US government has.
I wrote what I meant. Crony corruption occurs in every form of government. There is 'crony-capitalism', 'crony-communism', 'crony-socialism', etc etc etc. As I stated in my previous post, it occurs when any government becomes too large & powerful. It is not endemic to capitalism, it is endemic to governments which have grown too large & powerful. "Free market" or not is irrelevant.
Well, not too long ago East Germany had this little tourist attraction called the "Berlin Wall". Maybe you've heard of it? I don't recall East Germany building it while they were a capitalist nation.
Selective memory, much?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I just finished Nancy MacLean's "Democracy in Chains". (https://history.duke.edu/book/democracy-chains) I recommend it highly to anyone who thinks the "free market" is the be-all and end-all of economics and economic politics. It is a heavily researched and footnoted, yet very readable account of how the "economic freedom" crowd is incrementally taking over the USA using diabolical strategies hatched over the past 70 years or so. My reading staple lies in the genre of mysteries, horror and the like, but I will say that MacLean's book is the scariest thing I have ever seen.
Hey y'all frogs: enjoy the warm bath!
You are promulgating a lie. "Perfect information" is a straw man created by some enemies of capitalism in order to discredit capitalism. FWIW information is also a product, which can be charged for.
Any claim that some system of human affairs is perfect is untrue. Knowledgeable and honest adherents of Capitalism do not claim that Capitalism is perfect. Capitalists acknowledge the necessity of a court system to handle disputes, that alone shows that they understand that Capitalism isn't perfect.
First, a lesson in English grammar and logic: in any statement like the above made without any qualifiers, the qualifiers "all" and "always" are presumed. Thus your statement reads in full "All companies always lie and cheat all their customers." This is obviously false, and a little thought reveals that if it were close to true civilization would be impossible.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate