e-commentary

. . .

K          “An award acknowledging and celebrating the work of someone on the planet who really knows something about eco-nomics.  Eco-nomics is about making and sharing; e-con-omics is about taking and stealing.”

J          “The Noble Prize in Eco-nomics is a delightful and playful replacement for the discredited and misnamed ‘Nobel’ Prize in Voodoo E-con-omics.  And I get it.  You get what you reward.  You need to reward what you want to get.  Who gets it this year?”

K          “The recipients of the fifth annual Noble Prize In Eco-nomics are . . . Pam Martens and Russ Martens who have researched and crafted ‘Wall Street On Parade’ for decades.  The couple has contributed immensely and with little credit chronicling in clear prose the circus and criminality on Wall Street and the consequences for the ordinary person.”

J          “They should get credit for challenging the credit markets.  They have made a far great contribution to the public discourse than everyone writing at ‘The Wall Street Journal’ for the last two decades.  The age of vicious irony is viciously ironic.”

. . .

[See “The American Nightmare” in “The Automatic Earth” by Byron Bishop dated October 12, 2020; “The Tyranny of Economists  How can they be so wrong, so often, and yet still exert so much influence on government policy?” in “The New Republic” by Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein dated September 30, 2019, the book titled “The Nobel Factor: The Prize in Economics, Social Democracy, and the Market Turn” by Avner Offer and Gabriel Söderberg and “Heretics welcome!  Economics needs a new Reformation” in “The Guardian” by Larry Elliott dated December 17, 2017.]

[See the e-commentary at “Fourth Annual Noble Prize In Eco-nomics (October 14, 2019)”, “Third Annual Noble Prize In Eco-nomics (October 8, 2018)”, “Second Annual Noble Prize In Eco-nomics (October 9, 2017)”, “First Annual Noble Prize In Eco-nomics (October 10, 2016)”, “Announcing The First Annual Noble Prize In Eco-nomics (May 2, 2016)”, “Award Deadlines (Livelines?) (July 25, 2016)”, “From e-con-omics to eco-nomics? (August 1, 2011)”, and “Skip the Nobel in Economics (October 6, 2009)”.]

Bumper sticker of the week:

“Show me the incentives and I will show you the outcome.”  Charlie Munger

Boycott banks; support credit unions

Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day

. . .

K          “For decades, the econ. boys have had their own fraternity house/crash pad/temple and a separate department in academia to give them street cred. and street money.  The peripatetic ghost was harbored first in the Department of Religion / Department of Mathematics and then floated to the Department of Psychology and is now decamped in the current haunt in the Department of Computer Science.”

J          “The great journey from the Monetarists/Mathematicians/Religionists to the Behaviorists to the Coders.  They will be giddy to see the word ‘Science’ on the plaque outside their current hang out.  The great anxiety and anguish for e-con-omists is that the few thinking folks do not regard it as a science.  And the reason the few thinking folks do not regard it as a science is because it is not a science.”

K          “Where will they wander next?  The Department of Astrology?”

J          “The Swedish central bank award for ‘E-con-omic Sciences’ nourishes their delusion and assuages their angst.”

. . .

J          “During the formal religious phase, the Monetarists/Religionists assumed what they proclaimed is an indisputable assumption:  ‘God exists’ and then jumped to the conclusion:  ‘God exists’.  The shamans and the shills collected considerable mammon and lucre for spreading the gospel that the rich and powerful must be rewarded at all costs.  If anyone doubted the conclusion, they dismissed the cavil and reiterated that it followed logically and inevitably from their indisputable assumption.”

K          “They like tautologies.  God is Mammon; Mammon is God.  Their gospel claimed to be air tight, but it lacks any real air.”

J          “It is hot air.  But their God sure made buckets and boat loads of money for those on the inside and spewed a few shillings for those who did their shilling.”

. . .

K          “During their interregnum in the Department of Psychology, at least the Behaviorists claimed to gander at how folks behave en route to positing how folks behave.”

. . .

K          “Now they are into randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that purport to explain and predict behavior.  Testing just like the doctors.”

J          “The real doctors have the Hippocratic Oath and the e-con-omics shamans and charlatans now have their precious computer code.  And they can allay their anxieties because it is after all . . . science!”

K          “But you cannot replicate the studies.  So it is not real science!”

J          “Don’t hurt their feelings.  Don’t undermine their self-esteem.”

. . .

K          “Full circle or moving forward?”

J          “Sideways or backwards?”

. . .

[See “New Nobel Winners Are Latest Bad Sign for Economic Theory” in “Mises Wire” by Peter G. Klein dated October 15, 2019, “Impoverished economics?  Unpacking the economics Nobel Prize” in “Open Democracy” by Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven dated October 18, 2019 reprinted with commentary by Yves Smith in “Naked Capitalism” dated October 18, 2019 and “What randomisation can and cannot do: The 2019 Nobel Prize” in “VoxEU” by Kevin Bryan dated October 29, 2019 reprinted with commentary by Yves Smith in “Naked Capitalism” dated November 2, 2019.]

[See the e-commentary under the Categories “Economics”, “Economics Nobel” and “Noble Prize in Eco-nomics”.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Economics:   If I have to explain, you wouldn’t understand.  With a nod to Oscar Wilde

Not all who wander are lost, but some are