Category Archives: The dismal science

Philip Pilkington: Budget Hawk Socialism – Why Calls for Balanced Budgets Lay the Path for Socialism

By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland. You can follow him on Twitter at @pilkingtonphil

What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

– Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels ‘The Communist Manifesto’

Calls for balanced budgets in the present environment have long appeared somewhat confused, of that we have had little doubt for some time now as balanced budgets seem to exacerbate the problems they target rather than solve them and may lead to higher debt-to-GDP levels due to the reduction in real economic growth that they lead to.

Philip Pilkington: Keynes’ Alleged Totalitarianism – The ‘Malign’ Forward to the German Edition of the General Theory

By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland. You can follow him on Twitter at @pilkingtonphil

In 1936 Keynes wrote a forward to the German edition of his General Theory. Since then it has, as far as I can see, been ignored by his defenders and held up by his most virulent detractors (notably, Austrian School ideologue Henry Hazlitt).

UNCTAD as the Battleground for Role of the State, Trade Policy

We’ve featured past Real News Network segments on the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. UNCTAD has increasingly become a forum for struggles between advanced economies and developing economies over what the rules of the road should be in trade. UNCTAD was early to call the benefits of financialization into question, and has also been taking issue with the comparatively small take countries in the “south” get from extended supply chain production. This, needless to say, is a vision that is a direct challenge to how multinational like to conduct their affairs, so it should be no surprise that the big, rich countries are trying to bring UNCTAD to heel.

Michael Hudson: Paul Krugman’s Economic Blinders

By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His new book summarizing his economic theories, “The Bubble and Beyond,” will be available in a few weeks on Amazon.

Paul Krugman is widely appreciated for his New York Times columns criticizing Republican demands for fiscal austerity. He rightly argues that cutting back public spending will worsen the economic depression into which we are sinking. And despite his partisan Democratic Party politicking, he said from the outset in 2009 that President Obama’s modest counter-cyclical spending program was not sufficiently bold to spur recovery.

Philip Pilkington: Democrats vs. Technocrats – Son of Neoliberal Economist who Manufactured Policies that Led to Argentina’s Default is the Source of Contrary Statistics on Inflation

By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland. You can follow him on Twitter at @pilkingtonphil

We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.
– Goethe

There is a great deal of truth contained in Goethe’s old refrain. The fewer facts we possess the more certainty we are likely to have. But as facts proliferate, so too does doubt.

Economic statistics are notorious in this regard…

Adam Davidson Parrots Disinformation as He Extols Rule by the Top 0.1%

Adam Davidson is moving up in the world. He has gone from fellating the 1% to the top 0.1%.

Philip Pilkington: Inflation-Targeting Experiment May Start in Japan… But at What Cost?

By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland. You can follow him on Twitter at @pilkingtonphil

Rumors abound that a deal is fomenting in Japan that might lead to the inflation targeting proposal that so many progressives champion on their blogs being put in place.

The Renegade Economist Speaks with Ann Pettifor

This is the sort of talk that makes Americans jealous of the British. Heterodox economist Ann Pettifor predicted a global debt deflation in 2003 (!) and critiques conventional thinking in the economics discipline. She also has a wonderfully theatrical manner of speaking.

Dan Kervick: The Astonishing Case of the Impenetrable Zero Bound

Yves here. I rather like the storytelling format of this post.

By Dan Kervick, who does research in decision theory and analytic metaphysics. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives

In a small, peaceful town there once lived three people: Abbie, Baker and Carlie.

Philip Pilkington: Paul Krugman’s Fairy Fantasyland

By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist based in Dublin, Ireland. You can follow him on Twitter at @pilkingtonphil

Fairytales and nursery rhymes are quite popular among the economists. Economists and economic commentators will couch magical thinking in rational sounding phrases — but that doesn’t stop it from being hokum.

Bill Black: Mankiw Hearts “Governmental Competition” That Made Romney Rich

Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives.

This is the second part of my discussion of N. Gregory Mankiw’s column asserting that governmental competition is desirable for the same reason that private competition is. Mankiw was Chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors from 2003-2005. He was one of the principal architects of the perverse incentive structures that proved so criminogenic and drove the ongoing financial crisis. He gave no useful warnings of the necessity for containing the developing crisis – even after the FBI’s September 2004 warning that mortgage fraud was become “epidemic” and would cause a financial “crisis” if it were not contained. He is now Mitt Romney’s principal economic advisor. His column favors the “competition” argument that led him to support crippling financial regulation even as private sector competition led to endemic fraud.

Mankiw is a moral failure as well as a failed economist.