Category: Economics, Finance, and Political Economy

  • Use of the Word ‘Natural’ in Economics

    (re: Tyler Cowen/ Scott Sumner / Econlib ) (important idea )

    —“Economic activity consists of interactions between people, and it’s not ever independent of human influence, and so it’s never “natural”.—

    [O]ne can however, increase the truth content of human relations, or one can decrease the truth content of human relations. One can increase the truth content of human relations in times of shock. One can decrease the truth content of human relations in order to accelerate consumption. So human relationships are in a natural state any time we improve institutions that improve information by reducing informational asymmetry, or distributing information that was previously unavailable (prices, interests rates, money supply, etc). Human relations are in an unnatural state when we insert disinformation in order to fool people into acting other than they would in the natural state. For this reason it is perhaps more accurate to distinguish not between natural and artificial, but truth and deception, morality and immorality. The most accurate model of the social sciences, like the physical sciences is information. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

  • Bankers Rarely Know They’re Work is Immoral

    (worth repeating) [W]ell to be honest, they don’t even know that themselves. I think a better test is the evidence of the volume of insider trading in the stock market, and the manipulation of the market by large houses in order to bait and trap retail investors on momentum plays. Other immoralities are anti-consumer nonsense like penalties for cell phone usage, entrapment into contracts one cannot afford, baiting people into mortgages they can’t manage, the multitude of investment and insurance schemes, and the entirety of the democratic political process which is a race-to-corruption. Most if not all but a few bankers are too ignorant (and from too low in their class rankings) to have any idea what they are really doing. I don’t think most politicians know that they are corrupt.

  • Bankers Rarely Know They’re Work is Immoral

    (worth repeating) [W]ell to be honest, they don’t even know that themselves. I think a better test is the evidence of the volume of insider trading in the stock market, and the manipulation of the market by large houses in order to bait and trap retail investors on momentum plays. Other immoralities are anti-consumer nonsense like penalties for cell phone usage, entrapment into contracts one cannot afford, baiting people into mortgages they can’t manage, the multitude of investment and insurance schemes, and the entirety of the democratic political process which is a race-to-corruption. Most if not all but a few bankers are too ignorant (and from too low in their class rankings) to have any idea what they are really doing. I don’t think most politicians know that they are corrupt.

  • (Americans have 1 fighter jet for every 130K people (2200)) Defense Budget: $577

    (Americans have 1 fighter jet for every 130K people (2200))

    Defense Budget: $577,100,000,000

    External Debt: $15,680,000,000,000

    Reserves of Foreign Exchange and Gold: $150,200,000,000

    Purchasing Power Parity: $16,720,000,000,000

    Total Population: 320,202,220

    Available Manpower: 145,212,012

    Fit for Service: 120,022,084

    Reaching Military Age Annually: 4,217,412

    Active Frontline Personnel: 1,400,000

    Active Reserve Personnel: 1,100,000

    Total Aircraft: 13,892

    Fightersllnterceptors: 2,207

    Fixed-Wing Attack Aircraft: 2,797

    Transport Aircraft: 5,366

    Trainer Aircraft: 2,809

    Helicopters: 6,196

    Attack Helicopters: 920

    Tanks: 8,848

    Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFVs): 41,062

    Self-Propelled Guns (SPGs): 1,934

    Towed-Artillery: 1,299

    Multiple-Launch Rocket Systems (MLRSs): 1,331

    Aircraft Carriers: 20

    Frigates: 10

    Destroyers: 62

    Corvettes: 0

    Submarines: 72

    Coastal Defense Craft: 13

    Mine Warfare: 11

    (Germans have 1 fighter for every 760,000 people (105))

    Defense Budget: $40,200,000,000

    External Debt: $5,717,000,000,000

    Reserves of Foreign Exchange and Gold: $248,900,000,000

    Purchasing Power Parity: $3,227,000,000,000

    Total Population: 80,996,685

    Available Manpower: 36,417,842

    Fit for Service: 29,538,413

    Reaching Military Age Annually: 790,368

    Fightersllnterceptors: 105

    Fixed-Wing Attack Aircraft: 192

    Transport Aircraft: 322

    Trainer Aircraft: 49

    Helicopters: 355

    Attack Helicopters: 34

    Active Frontline Personnel: 179,046

    Active Reserve Personnel: 145,000

    Tanks:408

    Armored Fighting Vehicles (AFVs): 5,869

    Self-Propelled Guns (SPGs): 154

    Towed-Artillery: 0

    Multiple-Launch Rocket Systems (MLRSs): 50

    Aircraft Carriers: 0

    Frigates: 11

    Destroyers: 0

    Corvettes: 5

    Submarines: 4

    Coastal Defense Craft: 8

    Mine Warfare: 15

    No meaningful Air or Sea Power.

    Insufficiently meaningful personnel.

    Sufficient bombers.

    Light but reasonable armor and helicopters.

    Assuming sufficient missile defense of the airspace it’s a worthwhile territorial defense strategy.


    Source date (UTC): 2015-11-11 13:51:00 UTC

  • All costs are opportunity costs. The Chinese preferred a set of costs and benefi

    All costs are opportunity costs. The Chinese preferred a set of costs and benefits suitable to them. Our preferred costs differ. 😉


    Source date (UTC): 2015-11-11 08:19:22 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/664356730743164928

    Reply addressees: @ProSyn

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/664350111628046336


    IN REPLY TO:

    @ProSyn

    #China: The one-child policy’s human toll has been greater than that of the Cultural Revolution, says Minxin Pei https://t.co/PX0T1Mb5gP

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/664350111628046336

  • BANKERS RARELY KNOW THEY’RE IMMORAL (worth repeating) Well to be honest, they do

    BANKERS RARELY KNOW THEY’RE IMMORAL

    (worth repeating)

    Well to be honest, they don’t even know that themselves. I think a better test is the evidence of the volume of insider trading in the stock market, and the manipulation of the market by large houses in order to bait and trap retail investors on momentum plays. Other immoralities are anti-consumer nonsense like penalties for cell phone usage, entrapment into contracts one cannot afford, baiting people into mortgages they can’t manage, the multitude of investment and insurance schemes, and the entirety of the democratic political process which is a race-to-corruption.

    Most if not all but a few bankers are too ignorant (and from too low in their class rankings) to have any idea what they are really doing.

    I don’t think most politicians know that they are corrupt.


    Source date (UTC): 2015-11-09 05:45:00 UTC

  • USE OF THE WORD “NATURAL” IN ECONOMICS (re: Tyler Cowen/ Scott Sumner / Econlib

    USE OF THE WORD “NATURAL” IN ECONOMICS

    (re: Tyler Cowen/ Scott Sumner / Econlib ) (important idea )

    —“Economic activity consists of interactions between people, and it’s not ever independent of human influence, and so it’s never “natural”.—

    One can however, increase the truth content of human relations, or one can decrease the truth content of human relations. One can increase the truth content of human relations in times of shock. One can decrease the truth content of human relations in order to accelerate consumption.

    So human relationships are in a natural state any time we improve institutions that improve information by reducing informational asymmetry, or distributing information that was previously unavailable (prices, interests rates, money supply, etc).

    Human relations are in an unnatural state when we insert disinformation in order to fool people into acting other than they would in the natural state. For this reason it is perhaps more accurate to distinguish not between natural and artificial, but truth and deception, morality and immorality.

    The most accurate model of the social sciences, like the physical sciences is information.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine


    Source date (UTC): 2015-11-09 04:39:00 UTC

  • Economic Methodologies As Expressions of Class Philosophy and Reproductive Strategy

    (good piece)(useful)(for austrians) [J]ust as in physical science, information is the model by which we fallible humans least inaccurately carry on a discourse and achieve understanding. Accuracy matters not just because convenience and tradition introduce errors, but because these errors are externalized to the rest of the population. Perhaps more importantly, as economists, we are more accountable for the externalities produced by our use of ‘terms of convenience’ than are thinkers in other fields. For example, the Cantorian fallacy of multiple infinities rather than ‘the rate at which we pair off positional numbers’ has led to intellectual externalities in popular culture if not philosophy and physics departments as well. Just as very few of those entities that mathematicians refer to exist as numbers, but instead exist only as functions. Just as economists refer to the movement of the curve rather than the behavior of individuals resulting in a change in an aggregate measure. These are habituations but they are unscientific terms in that they fail the test of existence unless stated operationally. And that is the problem with much discourse in economics. DEFINITIONS 1) Natural : evolutionarily extant deterministic patterns absent the intentional or accidental intervention of man, and/or outlier events such as shocks. –“the natural rate of interest refers to the amount that would balance supply and demand for money (or maybe investment) in the evenly rotating economy.”– 2) Austrian: the program whose members search for improvements in institutions of cooperation within the voluntary organization of production, distribution and trade through improvements in information, improving the ability of actors to plan. Purpose: improve symmetry of information. (Long term – Conservatism – K-selection – Capital – Aristocracy – Force/Law – Virtue Ethics ) 3) Chicago(Freshwater): the program whose members search for rules by which to extend non-discretionary rule of law by incorporating economic policy, such that interference via disinformation in the voluntary organization of production distribution and trade is procedural and non-discretionary, preserving the ability of actors to plan. Purpose: repair asymmetries of information. (Medium term – Liberalism – “Production-Selection” – Productivity – Bourgeoise – Exchange/Trade – Rule Ethics) 4) Keynesian(Saltwater): the program which seeks the maximum discretionary limits of disinformation insertable into in institutions of cooperation within the voluntary organization of production, to accelerate consumption without dis-incentivizing consumption and production. Purpose: produce misinformation as an incentive to produce and consume. (Short Term – Progressivism – r-selection – Consumption – Working Classes – Gossip-Rally-Shame/Boycott – Outcome Ethics) 5) Socialist: the program which seeks to circumvent the volatility and meritocracy of the voluntary organization of cooperation by providing information and institutions necessary for the involuntary organization of production, distribution and trade. Purpose: Eliminate individual need for information and decision. (Authoritarian – dysgenic selection – Proletarian Class – Revolt – non-ethical). This spectrum from NATURAL to SOCIALIST, constructed by changes in discretionary information, provides limits, and therefore greater tests of necessary truth content than any analysis of the meaning individual terms. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

  • Economic Methodologies As Expressions of Class Philosophy and Reproductive Strategy

    (good piece)(useful)(for austrians) [J]ust as in physical science, information is the model by which we fallible humans least inaccurately carry on a discourse and achieve understanding. Accuracy matters not just because convenience and tradition introduce errors, but because these errors are externalized to the rest of the population. Perhaps more importantly, as economists, we are more accountable for the externalities produced by our use of ‘terms of convenience’ than are thinkers in other fields. For example, the Cantorian fallacy of multiple infinities rather than ‘the rate at which we pair off positional numbers’ has led to intellectual externalities in popular culture if not philosophy and physics departments as well. Just as very few of those entities that mathematicians refer to exist as numbers, but instead exist only as functions. Just as economists refer to the movement of the curve rather than the behavior of individuals resulting in a change in an aggregate measure. These are habituations but they are unscientific terms in that they fail the test of existence unless stated operationally. And that is the problem with much discourse in economics. DEFINITIONS 1) Natural : evolutionarily extant deterministic patterns absent the intentional or accidental intervention of man, and/or outlier events such as shocks. –“the natural rate of interest refers to the amount that would balance supply and demand for money (or maybe investment) in the evenly rotating economy.”– 2) Austrian: the program whose members search for improvements in institutions of cooperation within the voluntary organization of production, distribution and trade through improvements in information, improving the ability of actors to plan. Purpose: improve symmetry of information. (Long term – Conservatism – K-selection – Capital – Aristocracy – Force/Law – Virtue Ethics ) 3) Chicago(Freshwater): the program whose members search for rules by which to extend non-discretionary rule of law by incorporating economic policy, such that interference via disinformation in the voluntary organization of production distribution and trade is procedural and non-discretionary, preserving the ability of actors to plan. Purpose: repair asymmetries of information. (Medium term – Liberalism – “Production-Selection” – Productivity – Bourgeoise – Exchange/Trade – Rule Ethics) 4) Keynesian(Saltwater): the program which seeks the maximum discretionary limits of disinformation insertable into in institutions of cooperation within the voluntary organization of production, to accelerate consumption without dis-incentivizing consumption and production. Purpose: produce misinformation as an incentive to produce and consume. (Short Term – Progressivism – r-selection – Consumption – Working Classes – Gossip-Rally-Shame/Boycott – Outcome Ethics) 5) Socialist: the program which seeks to circumvent the volatility and meritocracy of the voluntary organization of cooperation by providing information and institutions necessary for the involuntary organization of production, distribution and trade. Purpose: Eliminate individual need for information and decision. (Authoritarian – dysgenic selection – Proletarian Class – Revolt – non-ethical). This spectrum from NATURAL to SOCIALIST, constructed by changes in discretionary information, provides limits, and therefore greater tests of necessary truth content than any analysis of the meaning individual terms. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev, Ukraine

  • ECONOMIC METHODOLOGIES AS CLASS PHILOSOPHIES (good piece)(useful)(for austrians)

    ECONOMIC METHODOLOGIES AS CLASS PHILOSOPHIES

    (good piece)(useful)(for austrians)

    Just as in physical science, information the model by which we fallible humans least inaccurately carry on a discourse and achieve understanding. Perhaps more importantly, as economists, we are more accountable for the externalities produced by our use of ‘terms of convenience’ than are thinkers in other fields. And these externalities matter.

    For example, the Cantorian fallacy of multiple infinities rather than ‘the rate at which we pair off positional numbers’ has led to intellectual externalities in popular culture if not philosophy and physics departments as well. Just as very few of those entities that mathematicians refer to exist as numbers, but instead exist only as functions. Just as economists refer to the movement of the curve rather than the behavior of individuals resulting in a change in an aggregate measure. These are habituations but they are unscientific terms in that they fail the test of existence unless stated operationally. And that is the problem with much discourse in economics.

    DEFINITIONS

    1) Natural : evolutionarily extant deterministic patterns absent the intentional or accidental intervention of man, and/or outlier events such as shocks. –“the natural rate of interest refers to the amount that would balance supply and demand for money (or maybe investment) in the evenly rotating economy.”–

    2) Austrian: the program whose members search for improvements in institutions of cooperation within the voluntary organization of production, distribution and trade through improvements in information, improving the ability of actors to plan. Purpose: improve symmetry of information.

    (Long term – Conservatism – K-selection – Capital – Aristocracy – Force/Law – Virtue Ethics )

    3) Chicago: the program whose members search for rules by which to extend non-discretionary rule of law by incorporating economic policy, such that interference via disinformation in the voluntary organization of production distribution and trade is procedural and non-discretionary, preserving the ability of actors to plan. Purpose: repair asymmetries of information.

    (Medium term – Liberalism – “Production-Selection” – Productivity – Bourgeoise – Exchange/Trade – Rule Ethics)

    4) Keynesian: the program which seeks the maximum discretionary limits of disinformation insertable into in institutions of cooperation within the voluntary organization of production, to accelerate consumption without dis-incentivizing consumption and production. Purpose: produce misinformation as an incentive to produce and consume.

    (Short Term – Progressivism – r-selection – Consumption – Working Classes – Gossip-Rally-Shame/Boycott – Outcome Ethics)

    5) Socialist: the program which seeks to circumvent the volatility and meritocracy of the voluntary organization of cooperation by providing information and institutions necessary for the involuntary organization of production, distribution and trade. Purpose: Eliminate individual need for information and decision.

    (Authoritarian – dysgenic selection – Proletarian Class – Revolt – non-ethical).

    This spectrum from NATURAL to SOCIALIST, constructed by changes in discretionary information, provides limits, and therefore greater tests of necessary truth content than any analysis of the meaning individual terms.

    Curt Doolittle

    The Propertarian Institute

    Kiev, Ukraine


    Source date (UTC): 2015-11-08 05:15:00 UTC