And then they came for The Holocene: New paper suggests “removing the Holocene Epoch from the geologic timescale”
16 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in economics
Yes, Paul: It is Hayek versus Keynes
16 Sep 2014 4 Comments
in economics
by Mario Rizzo
Although by the standards of contemporary economics, I am a historian of economic thought, I am not a historian of economic thought, properly considered. Thus my major interest in F.A. Hayek’s business cycle theory is not from the point of view of a historian. My interest is only incidentally in how Hayek’s contributions were perceived in the 1930s and 1940s, especially in light of John Maynard Keynes’s Treatise on Money and General Theory.
I am interested in Hayek’s business cycle theory because I believe it has much to teach us today – both in the style of reasoning it embodies and for its substantive points. Of course this is not to say that Hayek’s approach cannot be improved upon and revised in light of more recent theoretical and empirical developments.
But now comes Paul Krugman with his sometimes-echo Brad Delong (or is it vice versa?). Krugman thinks…
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Ha Joon Chang: Wrong on Free Trade, Markets and Development
16 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in economics
My first post on 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism addressed Ha Joon Chang’s dubious debating tactics when discussing ‘free market economics’. I turn now to some of Chang’s more specific critiques of economic liberalism to illustrate these tactics in greater detail.
Summarising his work in Kicking Away the Ladder and Bad Samaritans Chang tries to debunk the claim that free trade and open markets are the key to prosperity in developing countries. He claims that historically free trade was rarely if ever practiced by developed nations such as Britain and the USA. To the extent that they prescribe free trade for today’s developing nations, therefore, free market economists and their political supporters are guilty of a ‘do as I say, not as I did’ hypocrisy. What the developing world needs is the freedom to pursue the protectionist industrial policies that Chang himself favours. The economic success stories…
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More on Economics of Secession
16 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in economics
The Oxford Review of Economic Policy has a brand-new special issue on the economics of independence. The entire issue seems to be open-access right now, so check it out. (HT: Doug Irwin)
In Scottish news, polls have turned a bit against independence, and betting markets now price a “Yes” at around 22-24%. I will take another look at how this affected capital markets, and what that implies about the economics of independence, a bit later in the week.
Climate Consensus: Do Little for Now
16 Sep 2014 1 Comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics of natural disasters, environmental economics, global warming, health economics, liberalism, technological progress Tags: climate alarmism, cost benefit analysis, global warming, moral panic, richer is safer, wealthier is healthier
Edward Snowden Is No Hero – The New Yorker
16 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in liberalism, war and peace Tags: Edward Snowden, leaking versus dumping, narcissism, national security, oppositional identities, treason
Any marginally attentive citizen, much less N.S.A. employee or contractor, knows that the entire mission of the agency is to intercept electronic communications…
What makes leak cases difficult is that some leaking—some interaction between reporters and sources who have access to classified information—is normal, even indispensable, in a society with a free press.
It’s not easy to draw the line between those kinds of healthy encounters and the wholesale, reckless dumping of classified information by the likes of Snowden or Bradley Manning.
Indeed, Snowden was so irresponsible in what he gave the Guardian and the Post that even these institutions thought some of it should not be disseminated to the public. The Post decided to publish only four of the forty-one slides that Snowden provided. Its exercise of judgment suggests the absence of Snowden’s…
The American government, and its democracy, are flawed institutions. But our system offers legal options to disgruntled government employees and contractors. They can take advantage of federal whistle-blower laws; they can bring their complaints to Congress; they can try to protest within the institutions where they work.
But Snowden did none of this. Instead, in an act that speaks more to his ego than his conscience, he threw the secrets he knew up in the air—and trusted, somehow, that good would come of it. We all now have to hope that he’s right.
Richard Cohen: NSA is doing what Google does
16 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, liberalism, war and peace Tags: conspiracy theories, Edward Snowden, Left wing paranoia
Greenwald likens Snowden to Daniel Ellsberg, who revealed the Pentagon Papers to The Post and the New York Times more than four decades ago.
Not quite. The Pentagon Papers proved that a succession of U.S. presidents had lied about their intentions regarding Vietnam — Lyndon Johnson above all. In 1964, he had campaigned against Barry Goldwater for the presidency as virtually the peace candidate while actually planning to widen the war.
As the Times put it in a 1996 story, the Pentagon Papers “demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance.”
In contrast, no one lied about the various programs disclosed last week. They were secret, yes, but members of Congress were informed — and they approved.
Safeguards were built in. If, for instance, the omniscient computers picked up a pattern of phone calls from Mr. X to Suspected Terrorist Y, the government had to go to court to find out what was said. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act established a court consisting of 11 rotating federal judges. These judges are the same ones who rule on warrants the government seeks in domestic criminal cases. If we trust them for that, why would we not trust them for other things as well?
via Richard Cohen: NSA is doing what Google does – The Washington Post.
Some people are still shocked when they learn that governments spy on people. What next? Will people be shocked to learn that the police investigate innocent people in the course of routine enquiries.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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