August 2011
1 post
Scientific Socialism and Marx
What is “Scientific Socialism”?The usage of the word science by Idealists philosophers seems to me to be problematic. “Scientific Socialism” appears to be a commonly used term with Marx and Marxists. Yet, I am absolutely, positively, certain that socialists in the 20th century didn’t use the term “scientific socialism” with an eye to someone like...
July 2011
2 posts
Economics is not Math
The sooner we recognize that the field of economics is a branch of Sociology and not Mathematics, the better off we will all be. —Barry Ritholtz Posted via email from Quote for the day | Comment »
Economics is not Math
The sooner we recognize that the field of economics is a branch of Sociology and not Mathematics, the better off we will all be. —Barry Ritholtz Posted via email from Jim’s Theory Blog Posts | Comment »
June 2011
9 posts
The loudest complainers... #quote
“It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.” —Edmund Burke Posted via email from Quote for the day | Comment »
Time for the Administration to Pivot to More...
Time for the Administration to Pivot to More Stimulus via Grasping Reality with Both Hands by J. Bradford DeLong on 6/12/11 So say we all!! For example, here: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b3c143b6-952d-11e0-a648-00144feab49a.html#axzz1P7M3EyCp The thinking of Lawrence Summers: [The] US is now halfway to a lost economic decade. In the past five years, our economy’s growth rate averaged less...
Deficits More Than Pay for Themselves
Deficits More Than Pay for Themselves via Economist’s View by Mark Thoma on 6/10/11 The old “tax cuts pay for themselves” justification for cutting the tax rates of the wealthy is back: despite a host of Republican economists telling them otherwise, Republican policymakers can’t resist arguing that tax cuts pay for themselves. That’s the old voodoo economics. There’s no...
Doug Henwood: Lots of fresh audio product
Lots of fresh audio product via LBO News from Doug Henwood by Doug Henwood on 6/10/11 Four shows newly posted to my radio archives: June 11, 2011 Vincent Reinhartat the Council on Foreign Relations on Greece and the political trick of austerity (thanks to the CFR for allowing broadcast; full event here) •Greg Grandin, author of Fordlandia, on all the great political developments in South...
Department of "Ahem!": Unemployment Edition
Department of “Ahem!”: Unemployment Edition via Grasping Reality with Both Hands by J. Bradford DeLong on 6/8/11 Back a month or so ago, at Stanford, Christina Romer said: Zale Lecture: Let me start with continued high unemployment. This has obviously been a terrible recession. The collapse of the housing bubble and the resulting financial crisis set in motion a horrible decline in...
Are All Labor Market Matching Problems Structural?
Are All Labor Market Matching Problems Structural? via Economist’s View by Mark Thoma on 6/11/11 I had a radio interview not too long ago on cyclical versus structural unemployment, and in rereading some old posts on the topic I came across this statement from Brad DeLong: Let us remember what structural unemployment looks like. The economy is depressed and unemployment is high not...
Reversing the Great Risk Shift: Federally Funded,...
Reversing the Great Risk Shift: Federally Funded, Income-Linked Student Loans? via A (Budding) Sociologist’s Commonplace Book by Dan Hirschman on 6/12/11 In recent, years, the U.S. has undergone what political scientist Jacob Hacker calls “The Great Risk Shift“. Hacker explains this concept succinctly on his website as follows: For decades, Americans grew both steadily richer and steadily...
Hannah Arendt: Total Domination
Okay, first draft of a summary of a section from Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism. Feel free to send me feedback (Jim.Nichols@gmail.com) Hannah Arendt Summary of Total Domination. Hannah Arendt, in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, wrote about the concentration and extermination camps of the Nazi’s and Soviets, in a section called Total Domination. The...
Never trust a businessman
“The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from [the business community] ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of...
May 2011
4 posts
Nietzsche on Beethoven and Raphael
“Who could refute a phrase by Beethoven, and who would find error in Raphael’s Madonna?”Nietzsche, in a letter to Gersdorff in August 1866. Posted via email from Quote for the day | Comment »
Andy Harless: Whats Wrong with the Taylor Rule
Andy Harless: Whats Wrong with the Taylor Rule via Brad DeLong’s Grasping Reality with Both Hands by J. Bradford DeLong on 5/14/11 AH: Employment, Interest, and Money: Fixing What’s Wrong with the Taylor Rule: I see four problems with the original Taylor rule: It’s not really a rule at all… [but] depends on an estimate of potential output… the discretion that goes into central...
Interest rates, inflation, and cargo-cult...
Brad Delong: If Stephen Williamson were to have spent any time reading, say, Milton Friedman, he might not make elementary mistakes such as this one here: Stephen Williamson: New Monetarist Economics: How to Get Worked Up Over Nothing: Suppose a cash-in-advance model with a representative consumer, period utility u(c), discount factor b, constant aggregate endowment y. c is consumption. The...
Headline Inflation and Wages
Krugman: I suspect that this article by Heleen Mees will get a lot of attention from the inflationistas, who will see in it another reason to worry. So I guess I’d better weigh in to say that the, um, core argument doesn’t seem to make any sense. Mees looks at this picture: and tells us that it shows that “Hourly wages in the US track headline inflation much more closely than core inflation.”...
April 2011
7 posts
Boethius, Divine foreknowledge, and Free will
note: Boethius makes absolutely zero sense to me on this one but here it goes….————————- Divine foreknowledge (omniscience) creates a problem for the existence of free will.The form of this problem goes as follows… 1) If God has foreknowledge then God know beforehand with certainty everything I am going to do2) If God knows I am going...
Augustinian theodicy and the problem of Evil
The problem of evil is traditionally seen as the problem of a world in which an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God exists and yet pain and suffering still exist. Any response to this problem needs to explain two kinds of evil—human evil (murder, child abuse, theft) and natural disasters (tornado’s, earthquakes, disease).The logical form of this problem is… 1) If God is...
Anselms Ontological Proof
Anselm’s Ontological Proof —> his goal was to refute the fool that in his heart says there is no God 1) We have an understanding of God who is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” (TTWNGCBC)2) If God existed only in our understanding (A), and not outside our mind then God would not be the greatest possible being (B) 3) It is greater to exist outside the...
Lucretius on Sisyphus and public office
“Sisyphus too exists before our eyes in real life. He is the man who thirsts to run for the rods and cruel axes of public office, and who always returns beaten and dejected. For to pursue the empty and unattainable goal of power, and in its pursuit to endure unremittingly hard toil, that is the struggle of pushing uphill a stone which, in spite of all, at the very peak rolls back and...
Marcus Aurelius -- your mind vs. outside events...
You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. ~ Marcus Aurelius Posted via email from Quote for the day | Comment »
Free-market ideologues
“The ‘truths’ peddled by free-market ideologues are based on lazy assumptions and blinkered visions” —Ha-Joon Chang Posted via email from Quote for the day | Comment »
Ludwig Wittgenstein... try to understand people...
“Understand people. Whenever you feel like hating them, try to understand them.” —Wittgenstein Posted via email from Quote for the day | Comment »
March 2011
6 posts
Aristotle: those who teach...
“And in general, a sign that distinguishes those who know from those who do not is their ability to teach. Hence we think craft, rather than experience, is knowledge, since craftsmen teach, while merely experienced people cannot.” —Aristotle Metaphysics book 1 Posted via email from Quote for the day | Comment »
Your Descartes quote of the day...
“For it is not enough to have a good mind, rather the main thing is to apply it well.” —Rene Descartes Discourse on Method Sec. 1 Posted via email from Quote for the day | Comment »
Wittgenstein: "leave a dozen white sheets for the...
Wittgenstein in a letter to Ogden, the eventual publisher of the Tractatus, May 5, 1922: “Rather than print the Erganzungen [supplements] to make the book fatter leave a dozen white sheets for the reader to swear into when he has purchased the book and can’t understand it.” pg. 6 James Klagge’s Wittgenstein in Exile MIT Press 2011 Posted via email from...
political double-speak
“Republicans so often tout the term ‘markets’ but it’s double-speak.” —Nick Nichols Posted via email from Quote for the day | Comment »
Zizek's beard
Posted via email from Jim’s Theory Blog Posts | Comment »
Leiter on Foucault, Weber, and postmodernism
Brian Leiter:Much of Foucault’s corpus is of a piece with the Weberian project of analyzing the “iron cage” of the modern world, though Foucault locates the features of the cage in places Weber had not thought about (e.g., in the concepts of “normality” promulgated by the human sciences). Foucault’s notion of a genealogical inquiry is, insofar as it is borrowed...
February 2011
3 posts
Heraclitus themes
In my History of Ancient Philosophy class I’m writing my paper on Heraclitus. Right now I’m churning on a thesis so I reread through all 115 fragments (in Cohen, Curd, Reeve) and tried to organize them around some key themes I hoped to find and/or found a lot of.I had considered his fragments on polymathy and insight yet they only had two references so that may be a dead end. ...
Nietzsche, Heraclitus, and barbarian souls...
This fragment from Heraclitus struck me for its similarity to Nietzsche’s disdain for all things German/barbarian… Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to people if they have barbarian souls Posted via email from Jim’s Theory Blog Posts | Comment »
Descartes: 3 elements to his method of doubt
Descartes was on a personal quest to discover the fundamental nature of the universe and human beings, to unify science he has no way of knowing which of his beliefs are really true must start afresh by subjecting his beliefs to a test of doubt no time to test every belief as that would be an endless task must go to the root, the principles upon what all opinions rest principles that survive the...
January 2011
2 posts
Democratic capitalism, a regulated species of...
p. 21 Roger Sherman, Market Regulation: The Industrial Revolution in England marked the emergence of capitalism, which organizes economic activity around markets and places central decision power in the hands of those representing capital. The corporation shows the capitalist form, with shareholders as residual claimants running the show. In the modern age, the central power is tempered by...
Nietzsche bio
R.J. Hollingdale’s translator note, Twiglight of the Idols p. 25 Nietzsche was born in Rocken, a village in Prussian Saxony, in 1844. His father and both grandfathers were Lutheran pastors and as a boy he was a pious believer. He attended Pforta school, the Rugby of Prussia, from 1858 to 1864 and then went to Bonn and subsequently Leipzig University (1864-9). At Bonn he studied...
December 2010
3 posts
A man who is holding up his trousers isn't a...
— Shared using Google Toolbar Early one morning another man and I had gone out to snipe at the Fascists in the trenches outside Huesca. Their line and ours here lay three hundred yards apart, at which range our aged rifles would not shoot accurately, but by sneaking out to a spot about a hundred yards from the Fascist trench you might, if you were lucky, get a shot at someone through a...
George Orwell: Looking back on the Spanish War
“We have become too civilized to grasp the obvious. For the truth is very simple. To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil. Those who take the sword perish by the sword, and those who don’t take the sword perish by smelly diseases. The fact that such a platitude is worth writing down shows what the years...
The Bond Market and Interest Rates
The economics of Money, Banking & Financial Markets; p 3-5 A security (also called a financial instrument) is a claim on the issuer’s future income or assets (any financial claim or piece of property that is subject to ownership). A bond is a debt secruity that promises to make payments periodically for a specified period of time. The bond market is especially important to economic...
October 2010
2 posts
Rawls and his influences
Understanding Society has a set of really interesting posts on Rawls and his influences… Influences and arguments Rawls and economics Rawls and the history of economics Posted via email from Jim’s Theory Blog Posts | Comment »
The Reaganite economic conviction 25 years...
James K. Galbraith The Predator State p 3-4: The Reaganites offered up a famous combination of policies that had grown largely from seeds planted in the academy during the long years of liberal rule. The central element was reduction of taxes on wealth, intended to unlock the productive powers of capital, spurring saving and investment. Tight money was intended to end inflation quickly,...
September 2010
59 posts
Republicans Want To Cut Federal Spending But Have...
Think Progress has a run down of the Republican efforts to pretend their platitudes aren’t just the same hot air that got us into the mess during the Bush years…. Part of the GOP’s election strategy this year has been to try to claim that it is the Party of fiscal conservatism. As part of that campaign, Republicans regularly repeat the mantra that in order to get the deficit under...
Primaries, Tea Party, and IRV
Christine O’Donnell perpetuates that myth of the angry small government majority in her Value Voters speech: Christine O’Donnell, who rode Tea Party fervor and funding to a stunning win Tuesday in Delaware’s Republican Senate primary, brought her us-against-the-D.C.-ruling-class-elites message to a decidedly friendly Washington crowd Friday afternoon, promising a...
Companies Still Hoarding Tons of Cash
Economix: American companies are still sitting on mountains of cash, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve. The Fed’s quarterly Flow of Funds report, released today with data for the second quarter of 2010, found that total credit grew for the first time in over a year, mainly because the federal government increased its borrowing. Consumers, however, continue to deleverage: Net...
Temporary Tax Cuts For The Rich? Bad idea...
Paul Krugman: Greg Sargent notes the growing number of Republicans suggesting a “compromise” in the form of temporary extension of high-end tax breaks, and urges Democrats not to take the bait. His argument is essentially political: Republicans are obviously aware that they’re in a fix, and Democrats shouldn’t help them out. But there are reasons beyond partisan maneuvering to reject any deal...
Ayn Rand
Dave Johnson on the pathology of Ayn Rand: . I mentioned Ayn Rand. Rand’s work is very popular among conservatives now. It forms a core justification for their “on your own” philosophy praising the wealthy and discarding the rest. So it is useful to explore the formation and core of this philosophy. Early in her writings Rand became fascinated with a serial killer named William...
The State of Young College Grads «
One of the most common themes I hear on the campaign trail in my state senate race are concerns from young people about the cost of school, the burden of student loans, and major fears about being able to pay them off. These are people going to Med School, law school, getting bachelors, getting associate degrees—-basically across the spectrum. Everyone is concerned about their ability to...
Edmund Burke predicts responses from Rightwing to...
“I know that many have been taught to think that moderation, in a case like this, is a sort of treason” Edmund Burke Posted via email from Jim Nichols | Comment »
Changing Poverty Demographics
Annie Lowrey Matt Yglesias posts a good chart of the changing poverty demographics over the past forty years: Poverty declines sharply for seniors. For families headed by single mothers, it declines significantly before tracking back up during the 2000s. The aughts saw a slow rise in poverty for the working-age and children, as well — the first time ever that poverty has increased during a...
Economist's View: Poverty and Redistribution
Mark Thoma: Here are two links: We Should Strengthen the Safety Net as the Recession Swells the Ranks of the Poor - Brookings Institution All Time Record Level of Severe Poverty - Angry Bear And an argument for redistribution: Superstars & redistribution, by Chris Dillow: Alex Tabarrok explains how increasing inequality can be due to “winner take all” superstar effects. This raises an...
Fears over computers’ impact on lives
Financial Times: “For me this is almost as important as climate change,” she said, ahead of a speech on Tuesday night at the British Science Festival in Birmingham. “While it doesn’t threaten the existence of the planet like climate change, I think the quality of our existence is threatened – and the kind of people we might be in the future.” Lady Greenfield said the possible benefits of modern...
The trucks won't load themselves...
I’m headed to work. Here are your morning reads…. Quote for the day: Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. —George Bernard Shaw FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf - Germans are wrong: the eurozone is good for them http://goo.gl/zyLy quotes: Jonathan Bernstein on conservatives http://post.ly/xQeq Real Interest Rates Please...