I was sent the above video, some of which is about events that have taken place in Canada, some of it even in Toronto, and then I caught up with the latest news from home, in the video below. I also have to say that the police who hurried forward at the sound of the gun being fired have my total admiration.
Back in April I noted the birth of what is known as Post Crash Economics. You can read this previous post but basically there is a concern that modern economics, in the way it is taught, is too narrow and shuts out alternative perspectives. As stated in the initial Report that was initiated at the University of Manchester:
This lack of competing thought stifles innovation, damages creativity and suppresses the constructive criticisms that are so vital for economic understanding and advancement. There is also a distinct lack of real-world application of economic ideas, with the focus being on abstract modelling that often seems devoid from reality. Finally, the study of ethics, politics and history are almost completely absent from the syllabus. We propose that economics cannot be properly understood with all these aspects excluded.
Well I agree with all of that, but with me it was Pre-Crash Economics as well. There is a need for wider vistas and a recognition that the various heterodox schools within economics ought to be actively engaged within mainstream discussion of economic issues. With a Deputy Governor of the Bank of England and the endorsement of the Institute of Economic Affairs, there is at least a possibility that the PCE movement may not simply become another leftist rant of no consequence.
The first meeting of the Australian PCE Society was held today at the University of Melbourne and I went along. The chap who spoke, who had come all the way from Manchester to discuss what they had in mind. And while there were various moments when his own underlying agenda was all-too-obvious as a long-ago member of the left, his final slide had the words “It’s time to challenge the orthodoxy” and showed a woman with a “power to the people” fist in the air.
I therefore asked the first of the questions from the floor which was more of a comment than a question. And what I said was something like this:
If you would like to set up a group that widens the study of economics and introduces the full range of the various schools of thought to the education of economics students, then I am with you all the way. But if you are going to just use this grouping as another version of the ratbag left, then you will do nothing other than just create one more meaningless structure which someone such as myself will have nothing to do with. Your presentation was not neutral. You are without any doubt a person of the left. But you will only succeed if what you do really is neutral between all of the various groups that find neo-classical economics wrong in important respects. Economics, however, is not an easy subject that someone without formal training can choose amongst theoretical perspectives without serious study. If this is just one more anti-capitalist rant, then you can forget it. You cannot “democratise” the study of economics as some kind of all-in enterprise where everyone’s opinion counts for one and no one’s counts for more than one. But if you are genuinely interested in broadening the perspectives students receive, then, but only then, will you have the support of those of us from a more market-oriented perspective.
Unfortunately, Robert Conquest’s second law of politics seems destined to be repeated: “Any organisation not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing”. Given what I saw today, it will be sooner rather than later but I shall continue coming along at least for a while.
But let me stress this. The Australians who have done the organisation here are trying to make this work as it is intended to work. I was specifically invited and while only belatedly asked to bring along others, the invitation was sincere. If there is a proper spirit of inquiry – very rare but not unknown – then this could be a useful and interesting forum. There is never any doubt that those of a leftist persuasion will turn out. More difficult will be to find those of a free-market bent. Everyone who comes along does, of course, have their own agenda. But sometimes, as might be possible in this case, the mutual agendas will be reinforcing where each of us can get something of interest. And anyway, I like talking to others about economics and listening to what they have to say.
Which brings me to the lunch that followed the seminar. There I discovered one more reason to study the history of economic thought, one that had not occurred to me before. In studying HET, what you have to be able to do is make logical sense of what someone else has said. You have to be able to understand another person’s argument and make it coherent. You are not, of course, asked to accept this other argument but you have to be able to see why someone else might have thought it was true, and the circumstances that allowed them to think it is true. I don’t say it is easy but I do say it is a valuable skill. It is the academic equivalent to foreign travel. Some people go to other countries and learn not a thing other than how weird other people are and come back unchanged. And then some people go to other countries and find out how others live so that they can learn something about themselves by learning about these different cultures.
I went to hear a quite entertaining presentation by the former comedian, Rod Quantock today, speaking on global warming. Well, we are all doomed and he has a pitch that is well honed and nicely presented. And myself now being ready to believe that we are past peak oil and may well be heading into very rocky terrain no matter whether the planet is warming, cooling or doing nothing at all, I asked what he thinks we should do. So he said, as a joke I suppose, that what we should be doing is starting twenty years ago. Since in his view we are anyway locked into massive heating with water and oil running out in the reasonably near future, and since there is nothing that can now be done about it, I cannot see why he believes it’s his duty to go around terrifying young children about a world with no Tim Tams (well I guess it’s a living). I am a bit on the aged side so most of this when it happens will be well past my bedtime (and his as well since we were born in the same year, apparently), so I might as well keep flying and enjoying life, along with Al Gore and the American President. No self restraint of mine today will make the slightest difference so why bother trying?
Yet in the conversations afterwards although not with him, I trotted out my global cooling story which really is a great pleasure for me in such moments. Because if you really do think we are at peak oil, and who is to say we are not, and we don’t switch pronto to some form of nuclear power, there is no story so pessimistic that it may not fit the facts of the world as it will unfold if oil really does become scarce. I don’t know and you don’t know what is happening. But David Archibald, who teaches strategic energy policy in Washington, wrote this in his Twilight of Abundance:
The logistic decline plot of world oil production shows that the year of peak output arrived in 2005. The oil market began tightening slightly earlier, in June 2004. The oil price today is three times what it was in that year, but oil output has not increased in response to that price signal. The reason it has not is because it cannot. Almost all of the world’s oilfields are producing as fast as their owners can make them. There is only a little spare capacity on the planet. Global production of conventional oil has been flat since 2005. The logistic decline plot tells us that the world’s supply of conventional oil will fall away soon, and rapidly.
There are seven billion on the planet. If we run out of oil without a cheap replacement a very large number of us will not survive into old age. We have the technology to build safe nuclear power but those, too, are off every green agenda. So just for fun, next time you are in such a conversation, do what I did:
Agree that we are running out of oil, in fact insist on it
Point out there are no cheap substitutes for oil
Say you think hundreds of millions if not more may die and relatively soon if some cheap source of energy is not found
Point out that neither wind nor solar are cheap and reliable and cannot be used as a replacement
Ask what should we do?
You will by doing this outdo any green-leftist on the planet with your pessimism. You will leave them as the optimists in the room and you as the only stone cold sober realist. The only problem then comes when you start to wonder yourself whether you might in fact be right. Because what if you are?
Crimes and Misdemeanors was released a quarter of a century ago. The link tells the story right through so if you haven’t seen the film don’t read the review until you have watched it yourself. But the quote from Allen at the start of the article is worth thinking about and gets to the essence of the film’s storyline:
I firmly believe . . . that life is meaningless. I’m not alone in thinking this – there have been many great minds far, far superior to mine, that have come to that conclusion. And unless somebody can come up with some proof or some example where it’s not, I think it is. I think it’s just a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I’m not saying that one should opt to kill oneself. But the truth of the matter is, when you think of it, every 100 years, there’s a big flush, and everybody in the world is gone. And there’s a new group of people. And this goes on interminably towards no particular end, no rhyme or reason. And the universe, as you know from the best of physicists, is coming apart, and eventually there will be nothing, absolutely nothing. All the great works of Shakespeare, and Beethoven, and Da Vinci, all that will be gone. Now, not for a long time, but shorter than you think because the sun is going to burn out much earlier than the universe vanishes . . . So all these plays and these symphonies, the height of human achievement, will be gone completely. There’ll be no time, no space, nothing at all, just zero.
All plausible, but the universe we live in seems too perfectly structured to have just been randomly constructed by a series of molecules that happened to cohere in particular ways that led to life. The moment that does shine through to me is the Seder scene (which the non-Jewish reviewer saw as a dinner party!) where Woody Allen’s movie grandfather sees morality in the universe because he chooses to. It is difficult to believe with any kind of certainty that there is, with ISIS running around who also believe they represent justice at its highest level. I believe I share Allen’s own perspective which makes everything possible with a blank empty universe of pain and suffering as likely as anything else. He would like evidence that it isn’t so, but you can see that even if he doesn’t believe there is more because he is unable to prove it to himself, there is that spark of hope that makes him keep looking. And being my favourite Woody Allen film, it is also my favourite film of all time.
There is some controversy over the damage Snowden did but given how easily he was able to pull off what he was able to do, every spy agency in the world had been there before. The American intelligence networks are as open as a pubic library. The rest of the world taps into anything they want. Secrecy to our enemies is nil. The only people this vast network of domestic espionage was unknown to were we citizens of the West. The startling part about the entire story was how someone like Snowden could penetrate the system in the way he did and download what he was able. If you think the Russians, the Chinese and the Iranians had not been there before, you are as blind to the incompetence of the American bureaucratic establishment as it is possible to be.
The core of our Judeo-Christian teaching on kindness to strangers:
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
And when the man who was attacked by robbers had recovered, the man from Samaria would feel very hard done by if the man he had saved then turned around and attacked him.
This is a very long article that ultimately wore me out but even though written by someone on the left side of politics, gets to the heart of the matter. It is titled, I can tolerate anything except the outgroup and is about how we can let pass our true enemies who are really far away and reserve our greatest enmities for those who are nearby. The author, Scott Alexander, practices a very sophisticated form of self-delusion in his attack on conservative beliefs, but it is more interesting than usual. And it is nice that he at least sees some of what is wrong although will not finally grasp the point he continuously alludes to. Here is a bit of a summary:
Freud spoke of the narcissism of small differences, saying that “it is precisely communities with adjoining territories, and related to each other in other ways as well, who are engaged in constant feuds and ridiculing each other”. Nazis and German Jews. Northern Irish Protestants and Northern Irish Catholics. Hutus and Tutsis. South African whites and South African blacks. Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs. Anyone in the former Yugoslavia and anyone else in the former Yugoslavia.
So what makes an outgroup? Proximity plus small differences. If you want to know who someone in former Yugoslavia hates, don’t look at the Indonesians or the Zulus or the Tibetans or anyone else distant and exotic. Find the Yugoslavian ethnicity that lives closely intermingled with them and is most conspicuously similar to them, and chances are you’ll find the one who they have eight hundred years of seething hatred toward.
But he says a good deal more. I thought this was true, although it is not at all true about me. What has alienated me from my high regard for America in the past is how it has embraced the values of the Democrats almost across the board. But I can still see what the author means:
My hunch – both the Red Tribe [Republicans] and the Blue Tribe [Democrats], for whatever reason, identify “America” with the Red Tribe. Ask people for typically “American” things, and you end up with a very Red list of characteristics – guns, religion, barbecues, American football, NASCAR, cowboys, SUVs, unrestrained capitalism.
That means the Red Tribe feels intensely patriotic about “their” country, and the Blue Tribe feels like they’re living in fortified enclaves deep in hostile territory.
Here is the conclusion:
We started by asking: millions of people are conspicuously praising every outgroup they can think of, while conspicuously condemning their own in-group. This seems contrary to what we know about social psychology. What’s up?
We noted that outgroups are rarely literally “the group most different from you”, and in fact far more likely to be groups very similar to you sharing almost all your characteristics and living in the same area.
We then noted that although liberals and conservatives live in the same area, they might as well be two totally different countries or universe as far as level of interaction were concerned.
Contra the usual idea of them being marked only by voting behavior, we described them as very different tribes with totally different cultures. You can speak of “American culture” only in the same way you can speak of “Asian culture” – that is, with a lot of interior boundaries being pushed under the rug.
The outgroup of the Red Tribe is occasionally blacks and gays and Muslims, more often the Blue Tribe.
The Blue Tribe has performed some kind of very impressive act of alchemy, and transmuted all of its outgroup hatred to the Red Tribe.
This is not surprising. Ethnic differences have proven quite tractable in the face of shared strategic aims. Even the Nazis, not known for their ethnic tolerance, were able to get all buddy-buddy with the Japanese when they had a common cause.
Research suggests Blue Tribe / Red Tribe prejudice to be much stronger than better-known types of prejudice like racism. Once the Blue Tribe was able to enlist the blacks and gays and Muslims in their ranks, they became allies of convenience who deserve to be rehabilitated with mildly condescending paeans to their virtue.
It’s a spooky article since where it leads is to the disintegration of all community feeling for those of a different political perspective. But what it most importantly means is that groups from alien cultures and far different practices and beliefs [FGM, for example] become the allies of convenience for the left, meaning there is no assimilation required and the fracturing of American society continues apace.
At the end, the conclusion is the same old same old that what is needed is more tolerance only that the tolerance should be directed at the outgroups of the left. What really needs to happen is that there is less tolerance for the ruining of American society by assuming everything everyone does is just fine and none of anyone else’s business but their own.
I am personally in virtually all of the characteristics part of the blue team but my sentiments are almost entirely red team. There is nothing I or anyone else on the conservative side of things can do to stop the ruin, but this kind of smarmy smugness about Democrat virtue and tolerance does make me smile at the self-delusions these people have.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the UN on 29 September said what needs to be said. Here’s the central point of what he said in discussing Iran:
It’s one thing to confront militant Islamists on pick-up trucks, armed with Kalashnikov rifles. It’s another thing to confront militant Islamists armed with weapons of mass destruction.
But it’s coming, and it will not just be Israel in the firing line.
Sure the planet is warming. Look at all the evidence: NOAA: 1695 Low Max Records Broken or Tied From Sept 11 to Sept 20. One record broken by 25F. I wrote my article on Global Cooling because the evidence that the planet is cooling and not heating is becoming more abundant. This is from the link:
1695 Low Max Records Broken or Tied From Sept 11 to Sept 20 according to the NOAA.
A “Low Max” means that the maximum temperatures for the day was the lowest it has ever been. This indicates daytime cooling.
Above is a screenshot showing location and the biggest difference between old record and new record.
The list is just the ones I could capture in a screenshot.
From The Age, ‘Bigger threat than terrorism’: Barack Obama signals Australia, India and China must improve on climate change:
The US President argued that the problem of climate change had surpassed terrorism as the biggest threat to life on Earth.
“For all the immediate challenges that we gather to address this week – terrorism, instability, inequality, disease – there’s one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other, and that is the urgent and growing threat of a changing climate,” Mr Obama said.
The most ignorant man in every room he enters, not just because he is astonishingly devoid of much if any useful knowledge, but also because of the circles he travels in where everyone has earned their positions because of what they know. The UN is filled with total climate sceptics. Whatever they may say in public, there is not one country in which such beliefs are seriously harboured by almost anyone at the highest levels of political decision making. And it is not just Obama’s beliefs on climate that are so bizarrely empty but on almost every topic of importance today. Obama may be near unique in his ignorance of so much, or more likely, is simply trying to create as much damage to the West as possible with not a personal belief in sight.
And no sooner do I put this post together, but up on Drudge I find this: Obama’s breathtaking naivete at the United Nations.
President Obama on Wednesday delivered a speech at the United Nations filled with his usual soaring rhetoric of global collectivism and the importance of “international norms.” But the president also displayed a shocking naivete about global affairs, religion, Islam — a Pollyannaish interpretation on the state of the world and America’s role in it.
You can read it all but if you don’t know these things already you probably never will.
Law of Markets 