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The Illustrated Guide To Keynesian Vs Austrian Economics
There has been an unsettled debate among economists for a century now of whether government intervention is beneficial to an economy. The heart of this debate lies between Keynesian and Austrian economists (though there are other schools as well). In order to get a full understanding of the two schools of economic thought, the following infographic should help...
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Good post. I think a important Keynes post is missing though. The one about how inflation is a means for govts and central banks to take a % of every single holder of that currencies spending power for themselves, and not one man in a million will notice.
Something like that, anyway
When I really hate someone, I call them a fuckin' Keynesian.
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Damn, that's one unkind crack.
From the looks of your avatar they should just be happy you didn't fart on them.
I thought you meant Kenyan for a minute there.
When I really hate someone, I call them a fuckin' Keynesian.
That's funny, but of course not one in a million know what the heck you're talking about.
"By a contuing process of inflation, Governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily, and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some....Those to whom the system brings windfalls...become profiteers who are the object of the hatred. The process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery. Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner in which not one man in a million could diagnose."
JMK (1921)
Not sure why JMK thought it was only the government that confiscates wealth through inflation. Inflation is caused by everyone that borrows from a bank, whether on a gold standard or not. The very act of borrowing from a bank increases the currency supply which is inflation. So everyone borrowing from a bank is confiscating a tiny amount of wealth from those holding it in currency.
That is only true given a fractional reserve banking system.
Sorry guys, only but save once. Ghostery browser on my phone
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We have often called pResident Obama "Keynesian Slim". Pretty funny, huh? (trying to fill in some of the dead air)
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Greenskeeper Carl, in your next few posts can you please tell us what you know about economics? And then share with us anything you learned in life that we may find interesting? Thanks in advance.
Chauncey Gardiner?
Peter Sellers was a genius.
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What the hell, man?
Very sorry about this everyone. Pretty much fucked this thread up. Ian on here using the ghostery browser on my phone, when I hit save, rather than bring me back to the page, it said 'maintenance mode' , so I hit refresh, and it posted the same comment all those times. Not trying to spam or be an asshole or troll or anything like that.
Now worries. It's the fight club - and ur in it! lol
No dot for you!
Yeah, I've been hit with the dreaded Maintenance Mode a lot lately too.
I've taken the precaution of copying the comment before hitting save, then save, if I get the MM I go home then back to the thread to see if it posted, sometimes its yes...sometimes no. If no, paste.
Technology...lol.
Good post. I think a important Keynes post is missing though. The one about how inflation is a means for govts and central banks to take a % of every single holder of that currencies spending power for themselves, and not one man in a million will notice.
Something like that, anyway
PLEASE DELETE THESE TYLER?
This is a good illustration of a Keynesian comment. As you keep printing them, the value of a sentence reduces to a tiny little dot.
Decreasing Marginal Utility of the Next Dot
Warp....drive...11
Time
Continuum
CHANGE! CHANGE!
CHANGE TIME ITSELF!!!!
LOL Julia!
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dot...I totally agree with dot.
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I don't see "gross insolvency of the financial institutions and lenders", as a result of gambling, in the chart.
Not sure if that part of the equation matters when discussing monetary policy......lol
We'll take a quasi-boom over perma-doom any day.
How about a "spoofer boom"?!!!!
WE'RE PRETENDING! YOU JUST DONT THAT!!!!
I dont get it. In economics..doesnt the math just tell you wtf is going on?..theres no theory that changes things... it just is what it is. Supply/demand..savi g/spending.. what the hells goin on here.. you can have the fuckin theorys all day.. but math/trends/history/numbers are real. Its not a theory. Its not a fasion..or a project.this keynsian bs is fuckin killin me. Its wishful/hopeful economics. .and unfortunately that doesnt hold up to say..well..ya know..MATH.
Jesus fuck.
God damn..how are poeple this stupid?
A: nobodys this stupid, must be an agenda.
God!
Fyi..math works the same regardless of the theory its being used in.
;)
(That was for those that are still confused.)
Unless its Common Core then it doesn't matter
Or the numbers appear to you on some type of "screen" or "interface."
You have to be able to do your own math sheeple! Otherwise "you're using someone else's NUMBERS" the "what you see on the screen could be a complete and total FICTION."
2+2= gold star for trying reall hard.
4 is no longer a number
Do I at least get my "I Participated" award?
how about watching the language, thought can be put out there with out it----please
In theory everything works well in theory and practice. In practice, why the debate, 'cause we're just plain fucked
Just y'all wait for the next peddidential debatez betweez Hill and Mitt. Nobody is gonna say shit about smaller government. Gonna be one big drawn out BullShite feast over Who Has The Best Programs.
Hill loves Saul Alinsky
Matt created ObamaCare
If you believe anything the arseholes who manage to set themselves up in 'government' have to say, you deserve what you get.
Even if you don't believe 'em you still get screwed, just a little less, but at least you are pissed off about it.
Anarchism means no leader. That's why the meaning of the word has been corrupted my those who wish to govern and the media they control.
Nothing scares a person who wants to be a leader more than that concept.
JUST MAKE IT UP.
STRAIN CREDULITY....BUT NOTHING MORE....
But without a beneficient leader like Obama I would probably kill everyone I saw.
(do I need to put a /sarc tag here? really?)
Don't worry your pretty little head.
Ain't gonna be no President Hillary.
Ain't gonna be no President Mitt.
President Biden? President Warren? Well . . . .
Everyone has a game plan. Until they get punched in the face. - Mike Tyson
Mike is a Genius
if you grew up in a rural area in the 50's/60' you know which of these models is valid.
Yup! Growing up, I remember asking parents, grandparents, teachers, preachers and basically everybody I thought might know- What makes money valuable? Nobody had a satisfactory answer, a few mumbled something about the gold at Fort Knox, but I figured they must be wrong, 'cos by that time even 'silver certificates' were being phased out.
Somewhere, I think it was JFK, I heard the phrase full faith and credit of the American people. I didn't understand what he meant, though.
It was the answer I was looking for, but I didn't realize it.
So, while my ignorance persisted, I shortly discovered sex, drugs and rock n' roll and that phase consumed the next few years of my life.
That is; until the gal I had been chasin' finally caught me.
Family ensued and three kids later, we're now 'empty nesters'.
I returned to the question- What gives money value?
You know what? JFK had given me the answer many decades before. Too bad he had to die for it.
You still don't know the answer. "Full faith and credit" is bullshit.
Well friend, do you have the straight dope on exactly what gives money value? If so, please share it!
Yeah, I know the PetroDollar arrangement came into being in the early 70's, which has been steadfastly defended by the US MIC. But, dear friend, who exactly populates the MIC? Is it not the people of the US? Enlighten me, O wise one!
Maybe JFK could have said "full faith, credit and force", but at the time, what he said was correct.
Real money
No fractional reserve.
Honest exchange
No interest.
What 'school' is that?
Talmudic?
"old"
Just 'cos it's old doesn't make it untrue. Any society that builds debt upon debt, is destined to fail. Would you care to elaborate?
Fuck you and your 'old', you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground, do you?
imagine the interest rates with 100 percent reserves, bitchez.
Ya know, I wouldn't mind interest if the banks were loaning actual funds, Deus. But they ain't.
What they do is act as an agency which allows individuals and corporations to create funds based on future productivity via promissory notes.
Your promise to pay causes 'money' to be conjured up out of nothing. To require interest be paid on that which did not exist before is criminally insane.
If you make a million dollar 'loan' and pay back 100k, that is pure profit (less the cost of paper, ink, and processor time) to the bank.
Yet by law, they can seize your assets because you didn't pay the full amount as agreed.
They get money for producing nothing, and when their gambling bets go bad, they get bailed out (on the US credit card, no less), and nobody goes to prison?
I could go on, but my BP is is too high already. Have to take a breath!
Add another line for bank failure. Keynesianism love bank failures because it means nobody is saving money.
Is having a lot of ones and zeros on a server somewhere the same as saving money???
Just asking.
Depends on which side the deciimal point they're on.
no if its on the Fed server . they are 1's and zeros. You could do the same thing on your cellphone or laptop and it would be just as valid.
yes if its bank deposits or current account balances at banks that you have unfettered access to whenever you want without limit.
no if its the binary coding system behind a computer program
yes if 1 = own a house mortgage free (or be able to afford a mortgage)
no if 0 = renting
etc etc
:)
Only if you get to realize it when you need it or want it for something else. Same goes for your heirs and assigns.
Look at real asset price histories -- instructive in the extreme:
http://www.showrealhist.com/RHandRD.html
I believe that these are nearly never shown to the citizenry! The relevant professions are conpersons first. QED
Mises, Rothbard, Hayak, Paul are all intellectual and economic giants in the land of Keynesian midgets.
Supporters of government are midgets in the land of Keynesian midgets.
Paul Krugman is the itty bittiest teeny tiny little midget in the Land of the Midgets
Knuck, I'm no Krugman fan, but he has a Nobel and a daily op-ed in the friggin NYT... If he's a tiny little midget, what's that make us... Midget fleas on the midget dogs in the land of midgets?
"Midget fleas on the midget dogs in the land of midgets?"
Isn't this the plot for 'Brigadoon'?
A) 'Keynesian <=> Machiavellianism'
B) 'von Mises & Hayek via Orwell's, dysphemism <=> The Road to Serfdom & 1984'
?Trickle-down Macroeconomic is a patented age`old script, since the 'Dark?Ages',... repeat, rinse, and, wash'd with 'FedSpeak-Sepsis... killing off the generation before a cause and effect can be rectified!?!
Again, and again, and again til generations are butt-jokes of the Oligarchy, as in example of today...
So?... is it, A or B... or does it matter, since Machiavellian has been with us forever, with Hayek and Orwell churning out a ghostly cassandra`phobic dead'end'd,... on deaf ears of lost generations[?], [...]
or ,was Marx's... right, all along (C)?
jmo
thankyou Tyler
Ps. so sorry bout loud`ness
Honest money means those I'm power can't use the system to enrich themselves. It also means one Chinese guy can't amass a net worth of $25 billion in a few hours.
The question to ask is if the trillions made from the speculative financial markets disappear, what do you hold of any worth?
For most of today's billionaires the answer is absolutely nothing.
Well a lot of billionaires own a bunch of young pot smoking wife beating arrogant loud mouth professional athletes. But other than that, not much. Good point....
Austrians are the only economists who actually understand interest rates.
Both of those theories are now old-fashioned irrelevancies.
The real world continued to be organized lies operating robberies, wherein the government became the biggest form of organized crime controlled by the best organized criminals, the banksters.
Any alleged analysis of the political economy which ignores the roles of the banksters being legally allowed to make the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts is deliberate ignorance.
The real world developed for thousands of years, through the history of warfare in which success was based on backing up deceits with destruction, which process made War Kings that created the powers of sovereign states. Then those governmental powers of sovereign states were covertly captured by the biggest gangsters, the banksters, in order to implement systems of debt slavery, whereby private banks were legally allowed to counterfeit the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts.
That debt slavery system was inherently structured to develop more debt, which has generated numbers which have become debt insanity. However, none of the various old-fashioned theories of economics deal with that directly, because economics is a science, like warfare is a science. Political economy is based on enforced frauds. Private property does not exist outside of some system of public violence. Private property is based on backing up claims with coercions, while money is the most abstract form of that, since money is measurement backed by murder.
The power of the government to collect taxes in fiat "money" made out of nothing as debts by the Fraud Kings, the big private banks, backed by the power of governments to deem that fraudulent financial accounting system to be legal tender, ENFORCES THAT FRAUD, which is why, in the real world, the government is the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, who have become so successful for so long that they were able to dominate the mass media and schools, so that the majority of people were brainwashed to believe bullshit.
The most successful economists are intellectual mercenaries, working to promote the kind of bullshit that the banksters' approved of. The less successful economists were the controlled opposition groups, who were tolerated by the banksters, as ways to make sure that the real situation would never be seriously discussed.
Money is measurement backed by murder. The debt controls depend upon the death controls, which is why the runaway debt slavery numbers are headed towards provoking death insanities. Meanwhile, in that context, all of these old-fashioned economic "debates," such as summarized in that inforgraphic, are really RIDICULOUS.
The political economy is inside human ecology. There is no sane way to discuss the money system without looking at the murder system that backs it up. The current way that civilization operates is based on a long history of lies backed by violence, through which the political economy became based on legalized lies backed by legalized violence. Furthermore, it is impossible for the real world to exist as anything else, since human realities are always organized lies operating robberies, because human beings are always entropic energy pumps.
Theoretically, we could develop a better dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies. However, the public world of "debate" about the political economy has been so totally dominated by so much of the banksters' preferred bullshit social stories for so long, that is is practically impossible to have any rational public debates about how the energy systems of political economy actually operate inside of the energy systems of human ecology, inside of the bigger context of the overall natural energy systems.
Instead, it now appears impossible to fix the basic problem that "money" made out of nothing as debts has "paid" to strip-mine the natural resources of the planet, and so, we have already high-graded ourselves to hell. The only sane debates about where we are at now would be to discuss better death controls, to back up better debt controls. However, actually, we are so far gone into the vicious spirals of enforced frauds, where military and monetary success was based on backing up lies with violence, as the decisive real factors that directed economic developments, that we are now already too far gone into the runaway debt insanities causing death insanities, as the only feasible real resolution to the ways that everything was built on the basis of strip-mining the planet, done by those who were the best at being dishonest and violent, and therefore, those whom nobody else could stop from doing that.
Since the established system operate their death controls through the maximum possible deceits, and their debt controls through the maximum possible frauds, while nobody who was successful within those system will directly address those basic social facts, but only will continue to repeat old-fashioned bullshit stories, there are no politically practical ways for the current systems to not continue to spin out of control and become even more madly self-destructive.
Although it would be theoretically possible to develop better evolutionary ecologies, in which political economy made more sense, since the current systems are based on evil deliberate ignorance towards human ecology, and indeed, are based on being able to make "money" out of nothing, in ways which are covert frauds, which overtly violate the basic laws of nature, there are no ways for human beings to engage in any more rational debates about our political economy.
The paradoxes that human energy systems were controlled by the most labile components, and went through their path of least resistance, actually meant that human civilization is controlled by the most dishonest and violent people, and the economic system therefore developed along the path of least morality. Although it would be theoretically possible to organize better resistance, in order to change the path of least resistance, actually, the established systems are so totally dominated by BULLSHIT, that nice little infographics like the one above are presented with a straight face to summarize the allegedly competing versions of that BULLSHIT.
Any genuine discussions of human activities, which are based on the concepts of general energy systems, which can be reconciled with other energy systems, such as industrial and natural energy systems, end up necessarily following the principles and methods of organized crime, because warfare was organized crime on larger scales, and that was what made civilization, which then developed the current political economy based on enforced frauds.
Any saner discussion of political economy would START with the view that money is measurement backed by murder, or that the debt controls were backed by the death controls. However, since the paradox of successful warfare was that was based on deceits, and the paradox of successful finance was that was based on frauds, nobody within those systems is able and willing to engage in any more rational discussions of the political economy.
Instead, we see, over and over again, ridiculous old-fashioned bullshit debates, such as summarized in the infographic above, which both agree to deliberately ignore the most important central facts. All of the dominate forms of current economic theories deliberately ignore ecology, because they deliberately ignore the realities of human ecology, which necessarily have their murder systems' death controls at their core ... which therefore are the topics with the maximum taboos surrounding them, and so, are only discussed in the most bullshit way possible.
In that context, where human energy systems actually operate themselves through the maximum possible deceits and frauds about themselves, the tragic trajectory they are on is towards insane self-destruction, due their MAD Money-As-Debt backed by MAD Mutual Assured Destruction.
Of course, my bothering to point those facts out appears to be practically pointless, since more radical truth will NOT make much difference to those established systems of backing up frauds with force, which FUTURE IS FUCKED!
Ideal Economics: the definition you read in textbooks.
Real Economics: Propaganda
Too long and incorrect analysis. Other than that great job. Now go back to smokin another doobie bro.
Disagree. I think it's amazing that he's able to pack such a breadth of essentially correct analysis into such a short post!
Took me a while to understand what RM was doing. He pops up here and there to post what appears to be the same long comment but he's actually just using ZH as a vehicle to present the evolution of his worldview, mutation by mutation (edit by edit) as new insights are incorporated.
The evolution from where he started to where he is now has been extensive, basically absorbing a completely new set of financial information into an existing political set (he did this in about 1/4 of the time it took me to do the same), and it demonstrates a truly Bayesian system of thinking (though he may not know it). That is something to be respected.
Get familiar with the core "RM Post" and it's simple enough to quickly skim through for the new stuff. Rarely is it not worthwhile.
Thanks, Mediocritas!
Your reply was accurate:
I AM "just using ZH as a vehicle to present the evolution of his worldview, mutation by mutation (edit by edit) as new insights are incorporated."
P.S.
I have been aware of "Bayesian methodology" for a long time, however, using that more explicitly to present my ideas may well make them even more unintelligible? That is not to say that I disagree, only that presenting probablistic statements is a very difficult discussion. It is not for nothing that the quantum mechanics enigmas, or the basic measurement problems, have been around for a Century or so, while nobody has ever been able to prove they understand how to interpret the extreme strangeness found in quantum mechanics.
It is so TYPICAL of our times that one could say that about one third of our current economic activities depend upon quantum mechanics, while that works extremely well for all practical purposes, BUT, nobody fully understands what the basic ideas of quantum mechanics mean on the much larger scale of human beings. So far, we have the paradox that quantum mechanics has been extremely well verified by experiments done on very small things, BUT, what that means to relatively very large things, like human beings and human civilizations, IS NOT WELL KNOWN AT ALL!
I REPEAT, it is so TYPICAL for our economy to be based on science and technology which the vast majority of people do not understand, and even the most expert individuals also do not understand. We HAVE created globalized systems of electronic fiat money frauds, backed by the threat of the force of atomic bombs, while the still dominant religions and ideologies are RIDICULOUSLY OBSOLETE!
"Incorrect,"
The Most Intere...
???
You are apparently an idiot,
who is deliberately ignorant.
My analysis is quite correct!
Private banks, including the Federal Reserve Board, DO make the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts, and that legalized fraud is enforced by the government.
How and why that happened is due to the history of the application of methods of organized crime to dominate the political processes, for thousands of years, which has been getting worse at an exponentially accelerating rate. In the USA the two main milestones in that timeline were in 1913 and 1971. Since 1971, the USA has overall been inside an exponential growth of debt slavery, which has become DEBT INSANITY.
There is NOTHING in any of the well-established dominant theories of economics which can resolve that problem, because they all deliberately ignore the reasons how and why it was possible for the political processes to become such runaway social insanities!
Your flippant ad hominem is both false, as well as stupid, as I have already discussed in previous comments on these articles:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-28/austrian-economics-hits-mainstream-media
Austrian Economics Hits Mainstream Media
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-28/jpm-sees-most-extreme-ever-excess-liquidity-bubble-after-3-trillion-created-first-9-
JPM Sees "Most Extreme Ever Excess Liquidity" Bubble After $3 Trillion "Created" In First 9 Months Of 2013
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-19/bank-england-goes-austrian
The Bank Of England Goes Austrian?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/18/truth-money-iou-bank-of-england-austerity
The truth is out: money is just an IOU, and the banks are rolling in it
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q102.pdf
Money creation in the modern economy
By Michael McLeay, Amar Radia and Ryland Thomas,
in Bank of England’s Monetary Analysis Directorate
In the modern economy, most money takes the form of bank deposits. But how those bank deposits are created is often misunderstood: the principal way is through commercial banks making loans. Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-08/capital-seen-austrian-economist
"Capital" As Seen By An Austrian Economist
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-01/paul-volcker-proposes-new-breton-woods-system-prevent-frequent-destructive-financial
Paul Volcker Proposes A New Bretton Woods System To Prevent "Frequent, Destructive" Financial Crises
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-11/planned-chaos-why-fiat-money-large-scale-fraud-system
"Planned Chaos" - Why Fiat Money Is "A Large-Scale Fraud System"
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-05/austrian-economics-vs-clueless-trolls
Austrian Economics Vs Clueless Trolls
BOTH "the interpretation of the data ... be it Keynesian or Austrian" share the same basic bullshit, whereby economics is able to deliberately ignore ecology. The paradoxes are that human civilizations are general energy systems, which share the traits of all energy systems, however, in the case of humans, their civilization is controlled by its most labile components, and things happen along the path of least action, which means that human civilizations are controlled by the most dishonest and violent people, and that events follow the path of least morality. That is what private banks making the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts MEANS!
The established monetary system is an ABSURD STATE RELIGION. That "faith-based" fiat money only works because there are deeply entrenched social habits to trust that "money," because it was backed up by the full faith and credit of the government, which mean that money was backed by the power of the government to murder anyone that resisted obeying the law, as well as covertly backed up by murders all around the world (e.g., the CIA was set up and staffed by banksters and their buddies), as well as covertly backed up by the methods of organized crime applied to turn most successful, surviving politicians into the banksters' puppets, while the ability of the banksters to dominate influence and control over the mass media and public schools made sure that most people were brainwashed to believe in bullshit, or become muppets.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-25/pocket-guide-understanding-different-schools-economics
The Pocket Guide To Understanding The Different Schools Of Economics
All the dominate, publicly significant schools of economics, as well as the mass media and public schools, maintain the maximum possible attitudes of LYING BY OMISSION and EVIL DELIBERATE IGNORANCE towards the central social facts that the public "money" supply is being made out of nothing as debts by privately controlled banks. As many historians, such as Carroll Quigley demonstrated, as well as many others, such as Edward Griffin, et alia, that did NOT happen by accident.
There was gradual destruction of the American monetary system, which was supposed to be backed by gold and silver, whose value was set by Congress, to become controlled by international bankers, so that "money" was made out of nothing as debts, while all Americans were forced to respect that fraud by taxation and legal tender laws, is the on-going, greatest crime in human history, which is automatically getting worse, faster! In that context, the notions that returning to old-fashioned, superficial theories of economics can cope with those runaway problems are deliberate stupidity!
That the current (political) economy is based on the legalized counterfeiting of the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts, which fraud the government forces everyone else to accept, is simply COOKING THE BOOKS ON AN ASTRONOMICALLY AMPLIFIED SCALE. In that context, mainstream economists' work is to present a false front, based upon deliberately ignoring the most important social fact, which is the SOURCE of the "money," (which is NOT money, BUT, has the appearance of capital, but is in effect "negative capital." Privately controlled banks being able to legally create the public "money" supply out of nothing DESTROYS capitalism, and destroys free markets. However, the deeper solutions to that problem has to face the deeper facts that MONEY IS MEASUREMENT BACKED BY MURDER.
The mainstream economists are deliberately Machiavellians who follow the money, but almost never to its SOURCE. They provide intellectual puzzle solving, through overwhelmingly astonishing and absurd LIES BY OMISSION. Mainstream economists, and most of the other established alternative schools of economics, DELIBERATELY IGNORE the most important social facts, which are the death controls operating the murder systems that back up the monetary systems, and therefore, all the rest of (political) economy. Economists who do that, which is practically all of them, are OBVIOUSLY intellectual mercenaries, and Machiavellians. However, if they did not do work that was approved up by the biggest gangsters, the banksters, that dominate the government, then those people would not be employed as economists. They ARE proportionately employed and paid BECAUSE they ARE Machiavellian, mercenary intellectuals!
Energy is not created out of nothing, nor destroyed to nothing, when it flows through individual human beings, nor when it flows through groups of human beings. Therefore, it continues to be theoretically possible to have human sciences, which are mathematically intelligible. However, that can not be done without going through the profound paradigm shifts to recognize the degree to which lies backed by violence dominate human behaviors, with the history successful warfare creating the systems which segued into the political economy based on enforced frauds.
IT IS PROFOUNDLY WRONG TO ASSERT THAT "ECONOMICS IS NOT A SCIENCE." However, it is correct to observe the degree to which economics is a field dominated Machiavellians, who are apologists, providing rationalizations and justifications for the best organized gangs of criminals, who actually control the civilization, through systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, i.e., banksters and governments.
Anyway,
I WISH that I was wrong that there is no politically practical way to stop the established social pyramid systems, based on their rulers being dishonest and violent, while those they rule over are kept ignorant and afraid, being runaway, self-destructive MADNESS. However, the more one learns, the worse it gets! The science of economics in particular, and political science in general, are almost totally BULLSHIT because all human sciences actually operate inside the context of militarism, which is the self-asserting supreme ideology, because militarism is the way that the human murder systems operate.
All economics is a subset of militarism. However, almost all publicly significant schools of economics deliberately ignore that. Since the actual death controls have been most successfully operated through the maximum possible deceits so much, for so long, and the political economy was actually built on that foundation, so that we have fundamentally fraudulent accounting systems, at the present time it is almost absolutely impossible to have any rational public discussion of economics. The most important central fact, that private banks make the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts, is somewhat more recognized now than ever before (such as on Web sites like Zero Hedge) ... however, the only significant alternative schools of economics are all still controlled opposition groups.
Therefore, the debates regarding the differences between the positions summarized in that infographic above are all silly "tempest in a teapot" stuff, since none of that deals with the real limits of the environment, nor the central issues in human evolutionary ecologies. The great paradoxes are that human sciences all depend upon militarism, or the murder systems, however, none of them admit that in any useful way. Thus, it is typical for schools of economics to never discuss how to operate the death controls to back up the debt controls. It is typical for the most dominate schools of economics to not talk about the basic issue of private banks being the source of the public "money" supply.
The reasons for those glaring absurd contradictions are that if one does not deliberately ignore those facts, then the correct analysis leads to understanding general energy systems that manifest through human beings necessarily do so in ways which correspond to the principles and methods of organized crime. Not only ARE governments the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, but they MUST BE!
The standard pattern in the publicly significant schools of economics is that the more dominate they are, the more they deliberately ignore the ways that the banksters are the biggest gangsters, while the less dominate they are, the more that they address that issue. However, none of the alternative schools of economics that I am aware of continue to propose genuine solutions which are consistent with their relatively better analysis.
In my view, both Keynesian and Austrian economics have become goofy bullshit. The Austrian is slightly better than the Keynesian, however, not enough to matter much. Moreover, the deeper problems persist that history has already selected for the most successful murder systems to be operated through the maximum possible deceits, while the most successful money systems were operated through the maximum possible frauds. Those deeper problems are barely ever mentioned by any of the socially significant schools of economics, while those that do somewhat provide better analysis tend to never continue to be consistent with that better analysis when they turn towards proposing any better solutions to the problems caused by the banksters dominating civilization through integrated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, directing their debt slavery to generate numbers which are debt insanities, while the only ways that the banksters, as well as the masses of muppets that they rule over, are apparently able to resolve those runaway problems is to drive and/or allow there to develop conditions in which there will be death insanities provoked by the debt insanities.
I second Mediocritas it his comment, RM
though I don't really like this "All economics are a subset of militarism"
yes, your main tenet of "they all are gangs" is imo correct, but the "criminal" part you insert... is a moral view
take an island, or any place sufficiently isolated. it could have an economy and a minimum of crime, and a minimum of force being applied
now take a big continent. tah-dah! plenty of Other People. you see what I mean?
economies are peaceful and producing and progressing... until Problems Arise, sometimes directly related and sometimes completely external
GENERALIZATION:
Keynesianism is rooted in the issues of imperialism, big continental upheavals and war. in a way, it's the correct economic response to "we desperately need guns and butter, and we need it now, or there won't be neither guns or butter in the future, so let's do borrow from the better future". note that this is the future where you did not lose everything
the Austrian School is rooted in the issues of isolation, continental blocks, or at least peace. historically, it was birthed in the Austrian-Hungaric Empire when it was embarked in an era of consolidation and containement. in a way, it's the correct economic model for prosperity without war, with organic growth
so the root question is: what are Other People doing? having the perfectly moral environment is utterly self-defeating if you are soon being invaded. it's only when you aren't in danger of an invasion that you can have a choice
I know that pattern...
Engineers start out with dreams of what the end result should be. Fast-forward to the actual outcome and those dreams have been smashed upon the rocks of edge-cases that are abundant in total, individually rare, and catastrophic when they are encountered. Elegance is torn away from the design by having to hack solutions for each edge-case as it is encountered.
Living systems are the same. The human genome, for instance, conforms to the same horror show that destroys engineering projects, the thing we call reality. It's ~6 billion letters are mostly junk, legacy code left over from ancient viral and transposon activity with a whole bunch of inefficient defense systems and backup pathways hanging around or slowly mutating away into noise that are, or were, responsible for dealing with pesky edge-cases.
Understanding that superior systems (those that survive) are ugly as shit is important but is not common sense. The default behaviour is instead for a brash young upstart to survey the mess, scornfully mock its authors as incompetent fools, then throw it all away and start over to do it the "right way" (the elegant way), only to run head-first into all the edge cases the ignorant fool didn't know existed. His "fix" will invariably end up sucking much worse than the thing he was trying to replace. So many of those brash young fools occupy the comments section of ZH, dreaming of overthrowing the current system to replace it with their elegant, theoretical nonsense.
The edge cases for society are the things that destroy society. Any social system that does not hack solutions to these problems as a first priority is a society that's doomed. For this reason, RM's focus on murder-states holds such relevance (they are the only states that can last); invasion is always a threat and any economic system that has been developed for a society must submit to the edge cases (be adapted for warfare).
Which is why your comparison of Keynesian vs Austrian economics is so on-point. Austrians can bitch all they want, but their particular brand of propaganda is simply inferior to the Keynesian brand of propaganda given the reality of conflict between (and within) human populations. This isn't a value statement, it's a statement of fact, evidenced by the reality of which system dominates global affairs during times of war by necessity!
Of course the whole Keynesian vs Austrian debate is pointless anyway and I refuse to give any credit to it because there's no such thing as a purely Keynesian or Austrian set of policies in the real world. There are just the systems as they are and they are invariably hybrids of whatever works best at the time, chopping, mixing, mutating economic "genes" from everywhere as required for adaptation (be it monetarist, chartalist, keynesian, austrian or whatever).
Social systems evolve like any other which is why the static definitions battled over by foolish patriots of School X, and the battles themselves are so irrelevant to the dynamic real world. Were economists disciplined in scientific thinking, they would spend more time observing where society takes itself and rolling with it, rather than trying to project their elegant fantasies into reality and failure.
I surely agreed with this, Mediocritas:
"Austrians can bitch all they want, but their particular brand of propaganda is simply inferior to the Keynesian brand of propaganda given the reality of conflict between (and within) human populations. This isn't a value statement, it's a statement of fact, evidenced by the reality of which system dominates global affairs during times of war by necessity!"
One of the kinds of language that I use to describe what you stated was that we have no other choice but to muddle through the madness of the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies.
Another way that I express that:
"Natural selection commensurates incommensurables,"
because
"Understanding that superior systems (those that survive) are ugly as shit is important but is not common sense."
No choice indeed. Evolution dominates all; what survives does so because it adapts best to the challenges posed by the environment, challenges that can arise from within a population or externally.
It just is what it is, "brutal", "ugly", "inefficient", all value terms that we throw around in evidence of our own denial, when in fact the proper word to be using is: "pragmatic".
I think that "organized lies operating robberies" are unfortunately the natural default and as easily understandable as our tendency to try and convince ourselves that it's not the case. (Only the other guys can be the bad guys!).
Perhaps there is a logical solution, something like a science-driven system where only evidence-based policy is permitted, but I'm more inclined to think that barbarity will always win the day because it's the path of least resistance, and dominates in history.
Ghordius, I regard everything that human beings do as necessarily INSIDE the reality that human being kill each other. They may not do that all the time, however, they did that enough to be the determining factor which directed the ways that civilizations developed, which is why the monetary systems actually operate inside the murder systems, and so, economics is a subset of militarism, because militarism, operating the murder system, is the self-actualizing supreme ideology.
I agree with you that the more people, the more problems! The basic assumptions which drive the Malthusian dilemmas are that there will always tend to be too many people, and thus, there are chronic political problems caused by the basic nature of life, that living beings can reproduce at an exponential rate, which is something that no environment can sustain indefinitely. Instead, ecologies evolve.
I also agree that it is difficult to use the current English language to describe what it means when the government is "criminal." However, it is clear that the murder systems that back up sovereignty, and thus, back up the currently established monetary systems, as enforced frauds, are NOT voluntary cooperation. I describe warfare as large scale organized crime, because the basic activities in warfare are backing up deceits with destruction. That looks like the common sense concepts of "crimes." However, the paradoxes surrounding enforcing legalized frauds, such as in the monetary system, are difficult to discuss in the English language, and there are no good labels to use that most other people will understand to refer to those phenomena!
The normal concepts of voluntary contracts do not apply to the standard situations during history when some people killed other people. That the people being murdered did not voluntarily agree to be murdered was usually obvious. The ordinary understanding of warfare is lies backed by violence, which in turn becomes the foundation of that social system that emerges out of the crucible of conflicts, of thousands of years of the history of warfare. Since the final tests of human realities is who can kill whom, and how, and there is NO way to stop that from being the real bottom line, common understanding of the English language results in that being best described as organized lies, operating robberies, with the murders being the most extreme form of that robbery.
Sovereign states were based on the history of the War Kings winning wars. The power of sovereign states to tax, and enforce their rule of law is what made it possible for the banksters' enforced frauds to become established and prevail, because the same methods of organized crime, perhaps operating in slightly more subtle ways, were behind how and why the banksters were able to dominate the political processes, so that the kinds of systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, that they wanted, ended up being the laws that the governments enforced. The powers of the War Kings, governments, segued into the powers of the Fraud Kings, the banksters.
In my view, in order to be more scientific, we have to understand human beings, and human civilizations, as energy systems. That should be done through unitary mechanisms, as much as possible, rather than through false fundamental dichotomies, because it is all the same energy that flow throughout. In order to apply unitary mechanisms to human systems, the conclusions must be that there are no fundamental dichotomies between organized crime and government, but rather, that governments are the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals.
That is the only view which is both theoretically and empirically consistent. That is the only view which enables integration of the understanding of human energy systems with industrial and natural energy systems. Moreover, the problem that the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories get away with asserting that governments are the "good guys" is one of the main reasons why they get away with being the worst. Therefore, overcoming their bullshit is crucial to correcting the problems caused by the social success of their bullshit.
I repeat that I am promoting intellectual scientific revolutions, which apply to politics, in ways which change the ways that we perceive human realities even more than changing from the views that Earth was the Center of the Universe, or that fire was an element, and so on and so forth, throughout all the other examples in the history of science. I assert that progress in political science has to start regarding human science through paradigm shifts, which enable us to better understand how and why the social facts ARE that governments are the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals.
My objection to Keynesian and Austrian economics is that neither gets remotely close to doing that enough. Neither respects the ways that the production of destruction controls production. Neither can be integrated with an emerging industrial ecology, nor reconciled with the natural ecologies, because both are too dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit world view. Those who promote the ideals of "free markets" tend to deliberately ignore the ways that there ARE "free markets" in fraud and murder, which are only limited by those who are the best at fraud and murder ending up dominating society, which are what it actually means to have sovereign states serving the banksters.
Austrian School is not old fashioned irrelevancy. If anything, it has yet to be implemented. The first thing you do is start to whine about government intervention. Keynes is all about government intervention. Austrian School wants government out of free markets except to prevent force or fraud.
I agree, Ckierst1, that Keynes had some of his ideas followed by government policies, far more than the Austrian School was ever applied. I attribute that to the ways that the banksters' pick and choose which sort of economic bullshit will favour them most.
I regard Austrian economics as better than Keynesian, because it does NOT favour the banksters as much. Of course, if one looks at Keynesian stuff more thoroughly, it appears to me that only his worst ideas were followed, while his better ideas also tended to be ignored.
When one thinks more deeply about that "Austrian School wants government out of free markets except to prevent force or fraud," the deeper problems are what I refer to as the PARADOX OF ENFORCEMENT.
The Paradox of Enforcement with respect to the rule of law is summarized by the statement that NOBODY GUARDS THE GUARDIANS. The only groups that can enforce their "rule of law" are those which are militarily superior, which means that they have to be the best at being deceitful, and backing that up with destruction.
One of the reasons why I think Austrian economics is goofy is that they tend to deliberately ignore the profound paradoxes that "free markets" actually include a free market in fraud and murder, which is what warfare and organized crime are actually based upon. There is no way to stop that de facto free market in fraud and murder, other than through some relative sovereign power, which becomes relatively the best at being dishonest and violent, so that that sovereign can enforce its rule of law.
However, since sovereignty is based on the power to rob, with the greatest power to rob being the power to kill, and since nobody guards the guardians, we actually ended up with the real situation that exists today, namely, that the biggest gangsters, the banksters, were able to dominate the political processes, in order to get their frauds legalized, and enforced by the government. Obviously, that is the opposite of an idealized free market, in which the government prevents force or fraud. Instead, that is a situation where the government is the biggest form or organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals.
In my view, anyone who thinks more deeply about these problems comes to the perspective that I attempted to outline above. The actually existing political economy has no good labels, but I tend to refer to it as a runaway fascist plutocracy juggernaut, wherein the greatest power that the plutocrats have is to create the public "money" supply out of nothing. That actually existing system is what happens after one adds fraud and murder to "capitalism."
The bigger context of human realities necessarily includes murder systems, and any attempts to impose a "rule of law" upon those murder systems suffers from its paradox of enforcement, that only the most successful murderers can control other gangs of murderers. Since nothing in either Keynesian nor Austrian economics deals directly with those issues of basic human ecology, I regard them as both superficial. Although we now live in a world with weapons of mass destruction, how human beings are going to operate their murder systems, to back up their monetary systems, is NOT answered by any established school of economics that I am currently aware of.
It would take profound series of intellectual scientific revolutions to cope with the REALITIES of globalized electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs. Nothing in any of the old-fashioned schools of economics address those emerging issues, which is why I think that they are all now irrelevant (other than metaphorically being like raw ore, which could be smelted.)
You're a bit off track in your reading of the Austrian School RM.
We're living under a neoliberal regime (ascendent since the early 1980's). None can deny this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
This system clearly favours the banksters, at this point in history perhaps moreso than ever (and of course it does because they choose it).
Liberalism created the roaring 20's and set the condition for the subsequent collapse into war (brutal hangover). Keynesianism emerged as a necessary hangover cure. (Certainly not a pattern new to history; echoing the French Revolution, a period of enlightenment and liberalism that fuelled inequality, oppressive rent-seeking and financial instability that led to collapse and would be followed by a socialist swing of the pendulum).
Neoliberalism then emerged as an attempt by disenfranchised liberals to rekindle their flames, along with a sensible admission that they had helped set fire to the world in the first place, so should operate with more constraint this time around. Within that group, one sub-group refused to admit any error and desired a return straight back to the old ways, much to the frustration of the rest. Thankfully this subgroup lost out; the more sensible ordoliberals won and then proceeded to form a workable compromise with Keynesians, helping to shape modern continental European social democracy.
Meanwhile, the English speaking world was heading in a different direction, one in which neoliberalism came to be dominated by the market-fundamentalists' views. Ascending with Reagan and Thatcher in the early 1980's, the USUK returned straight back to the pre-war Liberal economy, and Keynesianism officially stepped down as the dominant paradigm. Surprise, surprise, here we are today, repeating history with inequality high, a disastrous financial collapse imminent, and another world war likely.
So who were these mysterious market-fundamentalist neoliberal fools who opposed the restraint of ordoliberalism and demanded a return to a system that had already been proven to fail? Why, none other than Hayek and Mises! The Austrian School masters themselves literally sat at the table where neoliberalism was being defined and spouted their cognitively dissonant nonsense.
Their followers parrot: "Government should get out of free markets (except to prevent fraud and force)", but it's a senseless statement because for governments to prevent fraud and force, markets cannot be free. The world, scarred by war, once saw the sense in this and ignored the Austrian cranks. Sadly, the lessons have been forgotten and the Silent Generation did not speak up to prevent the cranks taking over. They've held the fort uncontested for 30+ years now, yet they still cry poor because they haven't yet achieved total control with 100% of their demands implemented (it's still a mixed model with Keynesianism the minor power and a big streak of Monetarism). In other words, the banksters don't agree 100% with the Austrian School, just mostly.
"Free markets", as a statement, is as silly as "free sports". Take the referee off the field and sport degrades into its lowest / purest form: gladiatorial combat, much the same as taking the referee out of markets leads them to degrade into their lowest / purest form: war. Sports are heavily regulated, which enables myriad interesting forms to exist, forms (nations) that have been agreed upon by consensus (democracy), encoded in a book of rules (legislature) and enforced by referees with strict penalties for non-compliance (judiciary). An Austrian should be appalled by this. "What? Soccer players can't use their arms? A golfer can't just carry the ball to the hole? Formula 1 drivers have speed limiters on their cars? INEFFICIENT!! OPPRESSION!! DEREGULATE!! SOCIALISTS!!"
Markets are no different to sports. The beneficiaries of markets must be the ones who decide the rules by consensus and the participants must abide by those rules. There is a consensus social contract and markets must abide by it. This is the reason that child labour is illegal, corporate pollution is restricted, working hours are restricted and minimum wage exists. Most Austrians (neoliberals) hate this of course; they reject the very notion of a "social contract" - despite the fact that it is popularly demanded (demonstrating their authoritarian tendencies) - and they do their best to circumvent all social contracts via globalization. The Austrian argues that child labour is perfectly fine, so long as the child chooses to work of their own volition, henceforth demonstrating their complete ignorance of the effects of power asymmetry and their total lack of understanding of the child mind (which is somewhat ironic).
So don't be too ready to buy into the victim myth that the Austrian School peddles. They've held the primary power bloc in applied economics for 30+ years and have overseen a far bigger screwup in that time than all the Keynesians could achieve in the post-war period. Hell, that clown Obama might as well be an Austrian, but the ridiculous fools call him a "socialist"! It's like something straight out of 1984, pure doublespeak! They turn around and blame the consequences of their own flawed dogma on Keynesians and demand more of the same thing to fix the problem (deregulation, privatization, etc). Bring more gasoline to put out the fire!
The Austrian School is nothing more than an extreme right wing fascist organisation, claiming to be liberal. It is the favored economic school of kings, oligarchs and tyrants in the civilized world (just look at who funds their think-tanks) and what they truly stand for can be expressed as "FREEDOM!! (for the rich to control the poor)". Well, they got their way, we're living their "utopia" right now and the vector is hell.
Of course, by calling them out for what they are I'll be accused of being an extreme left wing fascist, which is bullshit, but that's the way they tend to roll.
Thanks for that clarification, Mediocritas.
I have not studied the Bizarro Mirror World of the history of economics enough to prevent getting lost in its amazing mazes. However, I am not surprised by what you say. It seems too typical in political history that the labels that groups get are often the diametrical opposite of what they do, or even more complicated in contradictory tangles!
By the way, I enjoyed this sentence best:
"The Austrian argues that child labour is perfectly fine, so long as the child chooses to work of their own volition, henceforth demonstrating their complete ignorance of the effects of power asymmetry and their total lack of understanding of the child mind (which is somewhat ironic)."
You'll be right most of the time if you just keep with the educated guess that all applied economics is just politics in disguise and that, therefore, the economist (regardless of school) is nothing more than a propagandist charged with presenting a professional, academic and palateable visage over a brutal reality.
I like to think of suited economists alongside a mental image of Aztec priests "consecrating" the Pyramid of Tenochtitlan via human sacrifice.
Faith (belief without evidence) is a terrible thing, the origin of many great human evils. Economics is full of the faithful, following their belief system in spite of supporting evidence or the lack of it. It just isn't natural for us to say "I don't know" and rest comfortably in that state, particularly not in a social situation (where all politics occur), as this is interpreted to be a sign of weakness / diminuition of status, whereas people are drawn to the confidence of the bold liar, as confidence infers strength.
Seeing as we were talking about how systems evolve earlier, it's worth noting that belief systems, in order to survive, must define that which would challenge the beliefs itself as taboo. Desert monotheism, for example, plagiarizes the Roman god Lucifer to play the role of Satan, which is so transparenly obvious it's funny. Lucifer, the God of Enlightenment who tempted Eve into consuming from the Tree of Knowledge, hilarious.
Naughty, naughty! Thou shalt not gain knowledge! (you might figure out that we're bullshitting you and refuse to do our bidding when we send you off to die in the course of our Game of Thrones).
Same holds for economic schools of thought, or representations of national pride. You ask questions, you challenge the dogma and you're an enemy to be destroyed.
Your definition of "organised lies" sitting over "organized murder". Economics is just another manifestation of it and the School is pretty much irrelevant (they're all the same). The different schools just represent different groups jockeying for power. In other words, none is "better" than another, when you get down to it; they're all slimy.
Meh.. I still liked the YouTube video that had Keyes and Hayek rappin' out their theories... even though I hate rap/hip-hop..
Yeah, WOD,
2 philosophical, rap music videos
from http://econstories.tv/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk
"Fear the Boom and Bust" a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc
Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two
I find the socialist, Schumpeter's theory, much more intuitive than the Austrian or the Keynesian models. His creative destruction theory of the boom bust cycle fits the history of economics much better than the others.
Creative destruction is; an entrepreneur comes up with a new idea for a product, service, or way of organizing business. This starts the cycle. As the new idea is put into production more resources are drawn in to implement it. Once the new idea has been fully implemented old ideas that have been rendered outmoded go bankrupt. That brings in the bust part of the cycle. Once the recession has run it's course, and the means of production have become cheap, a new entrepreneur comes up with a new idea starting the cycle over again.
Government policies undermine this cycle by preventing politically favored industries and firms from going bankrupt or displaced by new ideas. Which of course creates friction to economic growth and thereby prosperity. We see this in the lack of small businesses today. Obama's regulation policies, and those who came before him, have short circuited the creative destruction cycle.
How does Austrian economics not account for the concept of creative destruction?
Keynesian vs Austrian, hmmm let me think about that....
WHO FUCKING CARES? They're ALL midgets. A bunch of useless philosophers who produce nothing but hot air. Economies happen and societies advance because people actually DO things in clear SPITE of the nonsense from whatever pointless school of economic thought is popular in the day.
Throughout history, be it a time of monarchy, fascism, theocracy, democracy, communism, capitalism, whatever, the scientists, engineers, farmers, miners, warlords, etc just did their thing while suffering all the economists, politicians and other wasters who did their best to post distractions.
Here's a tip, if it's referred to as a "school of X thought" (economic, art, culture, belief, etc) then it's just a bunch of wasters sitting around arguing about things that can never be tested (falsified). They'll burn joules running in circles endlessly, firing off shots in their religious wars with no benefit except to pass time.
Meanwhile there are no schools of thought in science, mathematics, engineering, medicine, etc. Instead there are lasers, jet aircraft, computers, anaesthetics, electricity, superconductors, satellites, etc. All developed during the same time that Austrians and Keynesians were still arguing over what inflation is.
What the hell do the "giants" of economics have to show for themselves beyond a bunch of fat books full of bullshit that nobody reads and an even bigger pile of corpses that they cheerlead in front of for team red/blue/whatever. Shut up and build something.
I must respectfully disagree, particularly with your take on science. There are good ideas and bad ideas, fruitful lines of study and dead ends, reproducible experiments and inconclusive experiments. There are scientific schools of thought. Some theories stand the test of time and scientific method and are supported and gain adherents. Others are gradually abandoned because supporting studies aren't forthcoming. Competing theories comprise scientific schools of thought. Economics occurs in nature, a natural phenomenon, and thus worthy as a subject of disciplined inquiry. Corruption occurs when there is no debate over the relative rectitude of one theory over another competitor. That occurs when no dissenting views are tolerated, either by starving out its adherents by denying them access to funding. Alternatively, dissenters are simply punished for their dissenting views and they are marginalized. Usually government is variously involved in these circumstances to agendize opinion as a justification for its policy.
You're talking only about the cutting edge of science, where multiple competing Hypotheses (or sometimes more mature Theories) can be debated due to a high degree of ignorance. The majority of human scientific output does not reside there, instead having set into concrete knowledge that forms the foundation of modern technology. The bulk of scientific knowledge does not reside under competing schools of thought, in contrast to economics, but I take the point that I shouldn't say "all" when I mean "most" (criticism acknowledged as correct).
My attack on competing schools of thought stands though, even if it's in cutting-edge science where the unknowns dominate. The only way that proponents of contradicting hypotheses can argue with one another is that there be a lot of ignorance involved and it's only wasters who will participate in that activity extensively. Newton's Flaming Laser Sword is appreciated by most scientists so they will spend their energy working on useful problems rather than getting caught up in pointless inter-school wars, unlike economics. It's very rare to observe the School Wars in science, and they typically don't refer to themselves as Schools anyway, unlike economics where they wear the colours proudly.
Where scientists do engage in conjecture, they do so very carefully with guarded language so as not to draw the flames. This activity is typically presented as a minor sidenote, a flight of fancy in the discussions section of a paper and given low priority by everyone involved, as opposed to the results section, where the meat is. It's common to skip an author's conjecture because s/he's just wanking on pointlessly to try to cover all bases and be able to retrospectively claim first dibs once the facts are finally revealed in the future (yes, I'm guilty of this). Few take it seriously.
Contrast physics to metaphysics, science to economics where the situtation is reversed. Economics is full of intra-school hot-air, conjecture being shouted out as if it were fact. Very little of it is based in replicable experimentation, it's just posturing, little more than politics in disguise. In the few instances that it does indeed approach something that can be described as Scientific then "economics" is the minor component of the activity. For example, some of the interesting findings coming out of neuroeconomics (NMRI scanning of people making "economic" decisions vs any other decision).
Economics is valid science as a sub-category of neuroscience or psychology, emphasis on the sub-category. It is also valid as a sub-category of history as considering the economic situation associated with historic events is often very informative. What it absolutely DOES NOT deserve is to be treated as a 1st class scientific field with enormous power over political decision-making that effects millions of people. It has been granted more power than science and this is absurd.
Thanks to it's strong metaphysical (untestable) streak and it's oversized influence in political decision-making, the entire field is, (as I note you also recognize), highly susceptible to manipulation.
In conclusion, fuck economics (90% of it anyway).
...and both believe in fractional reserve banking.
"...But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Whatever, you have too much time on your hands. Keynes thought he could reinvent the wheel and provide a smoother perpetual motion economy IF tweaked this and that and lots of magic tricks, ummm like today's Keynesians are doing. Austian economics was the wheel.
If economists knew what they were doing 2008 wouldn't have happened.
The reason multiple schools of economic thought exist is that all of them are right some of the time, they are nearly right some of the time and wrong most of the time.
If one school of economic thought predicted all events it would be adopted by all.
Economics is like religion and you just need to believe in your set of ideas, no matter how often the real world begs to differ.
If you are an economist never even think of becoming a scientist.
Just imagine if all events had to conform to your theory.
The world of science would frighten any economist to death.
For the anti-Government, pro-free market amongst you, answer this .........
Why does every generation of ink jet printers have smaller and smaller ink cartridges?
1) Is it a Government conspiracy?
2) Is it the market working efficiently?
3) Is it a cartel operating to boost profits?
1. Buy a different ink jet printer with larger cartridges.
2. Use a cartridge refilling service.
3. Buy a laser printer.
4. Go paperless and buy an Android tablet for $39 and look at your documents electronically.