Monthly Archives: April 2018

The ongoing scandal of modern economic theory

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s the sub-head: Economists show increased research efforts are yielding decreasing returns. And if they mean negative returns, then I am with them all the way. Economic theory is at a lower level of competence today than in the 1850s. It is such a scandal, but once a subject matter falls into a hole the way economic theory has done, it is near on impossible for it to find its way out. The conclusions drawn from modern theory are literally classical fallacies. An economist raised any time between say 1776 and the 1930s would look at a modern text and disagree with almost every word. There would be almost no overlap between anything found in a modern text and a text written before 1930.

I wrote a paper, published by the skin of its teeth in 2015, on John Stuart Mill’s Fourth Proposition on Capital: “demand for commodities is not demand for labour”. You cannot increase the level of employment by increasing aggregate demand. Everyone once knew this. No one now does. Not one economist in a thousand can any longer understand what was plain as day for a century and a half. We keep growing because we keep inventing things. But the generation that is following behind us will find their living standards falling into a great pit, and the last place anyone will be able to find out why will be from economists.

I have mentioned this already, but perhaps another look might be of interest: What is the difference between Keynesian and classical economics? which is a reply I put up on Quora. Go have a look.

Then there’s this I did not so long ago on marginal analysis which, as presented in a modern text, is as near to empty of content as a theoretical demonstration can be. This is how I look at it which is also classical to its bootstraps.

The diagram represents my own version of the marginal revenue and marginal cost diagram. The traditional version has a series of lines many of which can never be realistically drawn (such as the demand curve), with the ultimate point to show the price-quantity configuration for the sale of a single product. The conclusion is that if a firm wishes to maximise profitability on the sale of some good or service, it will price the product just exactly where a lower or higher price would lead to a lower return over cost. Fatuous and useless, with many bits of the real world left out, such as the actual ability to work out the effect on revenue of changing a price. Modern micro truly is as useless as modern macro.

The above diagram – discussed fully in my Free Market Economics – brings in a number of crucial factors:

  • it is about whether some decision should be made rather than deciding on what price to charge
  • it is about trying to make a decision in the face of a future that can never be foretold but is filled with endless uncertainties
  • it recognises that there are costs that almost invariably must be borne before there is a return [Area A]
  • costs continue even after revenues commence and only eventually, in a profitable venture, will revenues exceed costs [when B = A]
  • the point of origin is the present moment when some decision must be made – all of the lines drawn are the expectations of the decision maker
  • reality may turn out to be much different, with losses instead of a net positive return
  • only when total revenue and total costs are equal – that is, when the expected addition to revenues is equal to the expected addition to costs (when MR=MC at the moment the decision is made) does the firm go ahead with the venture

This is the way a business, or anyone else for that matter, makes a decision: in the present with only one’s own conjectures as a guide.

I will lastly mention a very nice note I received the other day:

Steve

Just finished reading your book Free Market Economics and wanted to congratulate you.

I have read plenty of economic texts, but yours is the best by far and helped crystalize a number of things that have been swirling around in my mind.

Great work.

It was truly appreciated. You can get a copy for yourself right here. I didn’t make any of it up myself. It is just a distillation of classical theory, the economics of John Stuart Mill and his contemporaries. It’s never been improved on and I doubt it ever will be. But so what. It is a massive improvement on that junk science we go around teaching today.

Borderline insane

Posted on by
Reply

My nitwit former friend out in California continues to send me articles from the media basically framed around how disastrous Donald Trump has been, is now and ever will be. Although he sends me one or two of these a day, I decided he was no longer my friend when he didn’t wish me a happy birthday since he obviously knows my address and thinks of me all the time. Kind of sad, really, but having become a wealthy, Porsche-driving, profit-maximising, employee-firing Silicon-Valley CEO of his own business, although also a refugee from 1956 communist Hungary, he sent me this the other day: Capitalism: A Disaster for All Seasons, from The Nation of all things. This is the sub-head which is really all you need to know:

For every San Francisco earthquake and Superstorm Sandy, some die—and others profit.

It’s almost as if they think capitalism causes earthquakes and hurricanes, and for all I know that is what they really believe. But why I mention this at all is something he just sent me this the other day: How Trump lost Ann Coulter. It’s from CNN so you already know it’s slanted and inane, but if they are willing to say a nice word about Ann, it must be truly terrible about PDT.

The right-wing rabble-rouser Ann Coulter recently declared at a talk at Columbia University that the President was a “shallow, lazy ignoramus” and that she’s now a former Trumper. “If he doesn’t have us anymore, that’s what he should be worried about,” Coulter later told The New York Times. “He’s not giving us what he promised at every campaign stop.”

It really is astonishing that Ann has gone so 180 on Trump, and if this is really what she thinks, the words “shallow, lazy ignoramus” really do apply to her. The fact of the matter is that there is very little PDT is trying to achieve that I do not agree with. That he is finding it difficult given the opposition from the Democrats, the media and half the Republican Party is incredible to watch, but that he is succeeding on much of it and making progress on most of it, still feels like a political miracle. I might imagine that one day I will come to the conclusion that it was too great a task for anyone to achieve, but I doubt it will ever cross my mind that anyone else could have done anywhere near as well.

AND SPEAKING OF HUNGARY AND CALIFORNIA: Interesting that all this is going on while Hungary and California are so in the news for exactly the same issue: open borders, on which they represent the two extremes of the moment. First Hungary where there was a landslide win for its border protecting President and his party.

Hungary’s Orban wins third term in power…

Populist, patriot…

From the first story:

The rightwing nationalist prime minister projected himself as a savior of Hungary’s Christian culture against Muslim migration into Europe, an image which resonated with millions of voters, especially in rural areas.

“We have won, Hungary has won a great victory,” a jubilant Orban told a large crowd of cheering supporters near the Danube river in Budapest.

“There is a big battle behind us, we have won a crucial victory, giving ourself a chance to defend Hungary.”

According to preliminary results with 93 percent of votes counted, National Election Office data projected Fidesz to win 133 seats, a tight two-thirds majority in the 199-seat parliament. Nationalist Jobbik was projected to win 26 seats, while the Socialists were projected as third with 20 lawmakers.

And then this, a million miles from Silicon Valley if you aren’t interested in looking we have this today: California. Sh*thole if you will pardon the expression.

California is no longer the American Dream. For native born Americans, it is the American Nightmare. A cautionary tale of what happens when you combine open borders; a pathetic welfare state; and radical liberal politicians who see taxpayers as targets to be fleeced and illegal aliens as their core constituency.

44% of Californians don’t speak English at home. It is a foreign state inside America. Soon expect to see employment ads that say, “Americans not wanted.”

California is following “the Mexican model” – ie a population with a tiny sliver of super rich elites at the top…and everyone else is dirt poor. Just like Mexico, the middle class is becoming extinct in California. This is the express train to hell.

Thanks to illegal immigration (which is always a net negative)…thanks to the joys of diversity (which doesn’t always work)…thanks to liberal politicians and voters…

Here, just for emphasis, are some pictures to go with the text.

“Shallow, lazy ignoramus”

Posted on by
Reply

My nitwit former friend out in California continues to send me articles from the media basically framed around how disastrous Donald Trump has been, is now and ever will be. Although he sends me one or two of these a day, I decided he was no longer my friend when he didn’t wish me a happy birthday since he obviously knows my address and thinks of me all the time. Kind of sad, really, but having become a wealthy, Porsche-driving, profit-maximising-to-the-hilt Silicon-Valley CEO, although also a refugee from 1956 communist Hungary, he sent me this the other day: Capitalism: A Disaster for All Seasons, from The Nation of all things. This is the sub-head which is really all you need to know:

For every San Francisco earthquake and Superstorm Sandy, some die—and others profit.

It’s almost as if they think the capitalists cause the earthquakes and hurricanes, and for all I know that is what they really believe. But why I mention this at all is something he just sent me this the other day: How Trump lost Ann Coulter. It’s from CNN so you already know it’s slanted and inane, but if they are willing to say a nice word about Ann, it must be truly terrible about PDT.

The right-wing rabble-rouser Ann Coulter recently declared at a talk at Columbia University that the President was a “shallow, lazy ignoramus” and that she’s now a former Trumper. “If he doesn’t have us anymore, that’s what he should be worried about,” Coulter later told The New York Times. “He’s not giving us what he promised at every campaign stop.”

It really is astonishing that Ann has gone so 180 on Trump, and if this is really what she thinks, the words “shallow, lazy ignoramus” really do apply to her. The fact of the matter is that there is not a single thing PDT is trying to achieve that I do not agree with. That he is finding it difficult given the opposition from the Democrats, the media and half the Republican Party is incredible to watch, but that he is succeeding on much of it and making progress on all of it, still feels like a political miracle. I might imagine that one day I will come to the conclusion that it was too great a task for anyone to achieve, but I doubt it will ever cross my mind that anyone else could have done anywhere near as well.

And you know what? He might even succeed. As for the Ann Coulters of the world, these fair weather friends are political idiots of which there is an endless supply.

Masters of systematic ignorance

Posted on by
Reply

HINT: IT DIDN’T JUST HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT. How A Generation Lost Its Common Culture.

My students are know-nothings. They are exceedingly nice, pleasant, trustworthy, mostly honest, well-intentioned, and utterly decent. But their brains are largely empty, devoid of any substantial knowledge that might be the fruits of an education in an inheritance and a gift of a previous generation. They are the culmination of western civilization, a civilization that has forgotten nearly everything about itself, and as a result, has achieved near-perfect indifference to its own culture.

It’s difficult to gain admissions to the schools where I’ve taught – Princeton, Georgetown, and now Notre Dame. Students at these institutions have done what has been demanded of them: they are superb test-takers, they know exactly what is needed to get an A in every class (meaning that they rarely allow themselves to become passionate and invested in any one subject); they build superb resumes. They are respectful and cordial to their elders, though easy-going if crude with their peers. They respect diversity (without having the slightest clue what diversity is) and they are experts in the arts of non-judgmentalism (at least publically). They are the cream of their generation, the masters of the universe, a generation-in-waiting to run America and the world.

But ask them some basic questions about the civilization they will be inheriting, and be prepared for averted eyes and somewhat panicked looks. Who fought in the Peloponnesian War? Who taught Plato, and whom did Plato teach? How did Socrates die? Raise your hand if you have read both the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Canterbury Tales? Paradise Lost? The Inferno?

Who was Saul of Tarsus? What were the 95 theses, who wrote them, and what was their effect? Why does the Magna Carta matter? How and where did Thomas Becket die? Who was Guy Fawkes, and why is there a day named after him? What did Lincoln say in his Second Inaugural? His first Inaugural? How about his third Inaugural? What are the Federalist Papers?

Some students, due most often to serendipitous class choices or a quirky old-fashioned teacher, might know a few of these answers. But most students have not been educated to know them. At best, they possess accidental knowledge, but otherwise are masters of systematic ignorance. It is not their “fault” for pervasive ignorance of western and American history, civilization, politics, art and literature. They have learned exactly what we have asked of them – to be like mayflies, alive by happenstance in a fleeting present.

And not, as I said, by accident.

From Instapundit

PDT 50% approval!

Posted on by
Reply

And from Powerline: Trump is now more popular than Obama.

Media hostility to President Trump has been unremitting since he secured the Republican nomination. It didn’t stop, or even slow down, with his inauguration. The many achievements of his young administration haven’t given the press pause, either: his coverage continues to be just about 100% negative.

What, then, to make of the fact that Rasmussen Reports, which conducts the only daily presidential approval poll of likely voters, finds Trump at 50% approval and 49% disapproval? Those are better numbers than Barack Obama had in the same survey at the same point in his administration, and the press boosted Obama almost as relentlessly as it denigrates Trump.

At a minimum, it means that a great many Americans have figured out that the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, NBC, CNN, etc. are partisan outlets and not to be trusted. This, of course, is a process that has been going on for a long time. Indeed, it largely brought into being the “blogosphere” of a decade and more ago. But it seems to me that we are seeing something like its culmination. The liberal media have so thoroughly squandered their standing with the public that their capacity to do ill is limited.

That doesn’t mean that the press does no damage at all. As I have often said, we can’t even imagine what a world without a liberal press, academia and entertainment industry would look like. In a neutral world, among many more profound consequences, President Obama could never have won a second term, President Trump would be riding high, and no one would be worried about the midterm elections. Still, the fact that most Americans seem to be tuning out the press can only be a good thing.

It must have been the Stormy Daniels story that’s made the difference.

Lindsay Shepherd crosses over

Posted on by
Reply

Lindsay Shepherd was the bunny caught between the Moloch of the modern left and a three minute video of Jordan Peterson which she showed in her classroom on communications at Wilfred Laurier University in Ontario last year. Her story was told here: Resolved: “there are no biological differences between men and women”. Her experience has caused her to have done some serious soul-searching, and has come out non-left which means, by definition, she is on the right. This is what she says at the end, and bless her for her bravery and moral strength.

What I want to get across is that I no way want to be associated with what the left has become. I am not a leftist any more, I would not call myself that. Does that make me right wing, or does that make me a centrist? I don’t know. You tell me. But all I know is I do not want to have any part in this disgusting leftist culture. Sometimes I see myself brought up as an example of leftists who advocate for free speech. I just want to clear the air. That does not describe me anymore.

From Small Dead Animals which also provides this convenient list from her presentation:

What is the Left all about?

  1. They’re pro-censorship
  2. They are victimhood culture
  3. They are all about moral righteousness
  4. They are taught that claiming to be offended results in a moral victory
  5. They don’t believe in personal responsibility
  6. They are completely intolerant of diversity of thought
  7. They are humourless people
  8. They want to make society boring
  9. They want to make it that no one can make a joke
  10. If you are not on their side 100% they will slander you mercilessly

No doubt many more can be added.

Which means they hate you

Posted on by
Reply

The rest is from Steve Hayward’s post at Powerline: REMINDER: THE LEFT HATES OUR CIVILIZATION.
 

I know I’ve made the point before, but there is fresh evidence in recent weeks of how much the left today hates western civilization and human excellence in general. Once again the left is determined to flunk what I’ve long called “the Churchill test.”

Once upon a time leading liberals loved Churchill. Think of Isaiah Berlin’s great 1949 Atlantic Monthly essay, “Churchill in 1940,” or how much Arthur Schlesinger loved him, not to mention the total fanboy crush JFK had on Churchill. Remember, too, that in the 1950s some leading American conservatives were not all that enthusiastic about Churchill; William F. Buckley Jr. was downright hostile to him (though he changed his mind), and Pat Buchanan still dislikes Churchill.

But in the aftermath of Darkest Hour and the best actor Academy Award going to Gary Oldman, voices on the left are at it again, calling Churchill a “war criminal” and mass murderer on the same scale as Hitler or Stalin. A popular Indian politician, Shashi Tharoor, wrote in the Washington Post that “In Winston Churchill, Hollywood Rewards a Mass Murderer.” Apparently the Washington Post has decided to reward morons.

Here’s the breathless conclusion of Tharoor’s Post piece:

This week’s Oscar rewards yet another hagiography of this odious man. To the Iraqis whom Churchill advocated gassing, the Greek protesters on the streets of Athens who were mowed down on Churchill’s orders in 1944, sundry Pashtuns and Irish, as well as to Indians like myself, it will always be a mystery why a few bombastic speeches have been enough to wash the bloodstains off Churchill’s racist hands.

Many of us will remember Churchill as a war criminal and an enemy of decency and humanity, a blinkered imperialist untroubled by the oppression of non-white peoples. Ultimately, his great failure — his long darkest hour — was his constant effort to deny us freedom.

Tharoor’s case depends on repeating a number of undying myths about Churchill, or gross distortions of badly tangled affairs. Soren Geiger does a terrific job of unwinding the more egregious claims Tharoor makes in this article in the American Spectator. But Tharoor has lots of company. Shree Paradkar, the “race and gender columnist” of the Toronto Star . . . actually I could pretty much just stop right here, couldn’t it? But no, you need to take in some of her “Winston Churchill, the barbaric monster with the blood of millions on his hands” article to believe it. It includes gems such as:

Oldman might as well have danced on 3 million dead bodies, many of whose loved ones were too weak to cremate or bury them.  Such tributes for a heinous white supremacist who once declared that “Aryan tribes were bound to triumph.” Words as hollow as the tunnel-visioned ideals on which people fashion this man, but they can’t stem the drip, drip of blood from his hands.

Fortunately we have Terry Reardon of Hilldale College’s Churchill Project on the job refuting Paradkar’s paranoia point-by-point, but see also Richard Langworth, who offers up a catalogue of fresh attacks on Churchill from leftist ignoramuses. Richard notes at the end of this bibliography of nihilism:

Nearly forty years ago an equally great Churchill performance, Robert Hardy in The Wilderness Years,  was received with equal acclaim by press and public. There was no chorus of hate, no trumped-up charges, no hint that Churchill’s overall record was in any way debatable. Alas times have changed.

As for the calumny of Churchill’s supposed role in the Bengal famine of World War II, I wonder if any of Churchill’s detractors have ever asked how many would have starved if Japan had succeeded in conquering the Asian subcontinent, which is what surely would have happened if any of them had been in charge?

Times have changed indeed. The left’s fundamental self-loathing of the western inheritance, hostility to human excellence, and childlike grasp of political reality has led to these increasingly candid expressions, for which in a sense we should be grateful—at least the left is being more honest.

Here once again we should repair to the observation of British historian Sir Geoffrey Elton, who wrote: “There are times when I incline to judge all historians by their opinion of Winston Churchill: whether they can see that, no matter how much better the details, often damaging, of man and career become known, he still remains, quite simply, a great man.”

Ah—that “great man” thing: contemporary leftist egalitarians cannot tolerate such distinctions among human beings.

“This is extremely dangerous to our democracy”

Posted on by
Reply

https://youtu.be/pL1zwMtz_Ho

Original title, and correct title, “This is what mind control looks like.”

UPDATE FROM ACE OF SPADES: With a few videos at the link worth a watch.

Media Currently Freaking Out About Sinclair Coordinated Message Seems to Have Forgotten Their Own Message Coordination

—Ace of Spades

 

They literally know nothing.

This is one of those videos.