Who Were the Sea Peoples?

Bob Murphy recently asked me, "Do you believe in the very concept of economic theory at this point?" Well, on one level, how could one not "believe" in economic theory? There is obviously tons of it. It would be like not believing in trees. But Bob surely means "Do you approve of economic theory?" or "Do you think economic theory is..." Is what? Well, hmm, there's the rub. I think economic theory is a fine thing. I teach it. Some times I even engage in it . But is it true? Well, there certainly are true and false conclusions in economic theory. For instance, it is false that an increase in demand will, ceteris paribus, result in a lower price for a good, and true that it will result in a greater quantity demanded. But is economic theory true, strictly speaking, of the world? Well, no, because no theory is. Every theory is literally false, in that a theory is always a partial and abstract description of the world, and, as such, defe...

and even know how to spell his name? George Soros writes : "Friedrich Hayek is generally regarded as the apostle of a brand of economics which holds that the market will assure the optimal allocation of resources — as long as the government doesn’t interfere. It is a formalized and mathematical theory, whose two main pillars are the efficient market hypothesis and the theory of rational expectations. "This is usually called the Chicago School, and it dominates the teaching of economics in the United States." It's really hard to imagine how anyone could do worse than Soros and still know how to spell 'Hayek', since: 1) Hayek did not think the market will "assure the optimal allocation of resources." 2) Hayek's theories were not "formalized and mathematical." 3) Hayek rejected anything like "the efficient market hypothesis." 4) Hayek was most definitively not a member of the Chicago School. Soros's piece is st...

There once was a prince. He hoped that a larger nation, one near to his tiny republic, would help the republic fight its large, rapacious neighbor. "How can I best ensure the support of that larger nation?" he wondered. He finally hit upon the perfect plan: He had himself made king of the larger nation, taking it over as though it were his sock puppet! Then naturally it fought on the side of his beloved republic.

What happens if you let the Irish run loose: "Yourselves forced to fly destitute of bread and harbour, your wives prostituted to the lust of every savage bog-trotter, your daughters ravished by goatish monks, your smaller children tossed upon pikes... whilst you yourself have your own bowels ripped up..." -- Popery and Politics in England: 1660 - 1699 , quoting Henry Care The author, in the course of the sentence, got so worked up by the savage bog-trotters and goatish monks that he forgot "yourselves" had already fled (deserting your wife and kids, by the way!) in the first clause, and has you sticking around getting disemboweled in the final one.

An interesting post by Brad DeLong here . The first item in it that is too little noted is that JB Say changed his mind about general gluts : 'Yet Say changed his mind. By 1829, in his analysis of the British financial panic and recession of 1825-6, Jean-Baptiste Say was writing that there could indeed be such a thing as a general glut of commodities after all: "every type of merchandise had sunk below its costs of production, a multitude of workers were without work. Many bankruptcies were declared..."' That's correct. In the Malthus-Say debate, Say conceded to Malthus. Which makes a comment like this one interesting: "Say emerged victoriously from his polemics with Malthus and Sismondi." Well, except in his own eyes! Secondly, DeLong clarifies something that only became apparent to me last year: the deepest divide in macro is between those who believe that general overproduction is possible and those who think that only sectoral imbalances ca...

In Turgot's project of secular salvation, "Mankind faces a rich and meaningful existence through artificial fertilizers and irrigation projects." Voegelin is my inspiration in the art of the understated but crushing put-down.

surprisingly is a piece of crap on the big screen as well .