Economic Misinformation
There is a New York Times article this morning proclaiming that BP has had a “History of boldness and costly blunders.” What the article does not come out and say is that the boldness and blunders, culminating in the oil spill, reflects a history of indulgence at many levels. We are indulged when we rely [...]
There’s an article in Science titled “The Psychological Consequences of Money.” The authors liken the effects of money to an intoxicating drug that encourages antisocial behavior. People enamored with money want to be left alone. The problem with the article is that they label this antisocial state as self-sufficiency, a serious bit of misinformation. How [...]
A teachable moment recently occurred on The Middle Class Forum. I received a comment faulting how I related entitlements to stockholders. I approved and replied to that comment, but I’m going to cut and paste that reply here for three reasons: 1) my original reply was “off the cuff” and there was sloppiness in my [...]
There is a simple one-size-fits-all solution to restoring economic balance, a solution that no one would disagree with in principle, a solution that will never be implemented: good economic indicators. We are bombarded with stock market indicators incessantly. Consequently, that is where our focus lies for “restoring balance.” When the stock market does well it’s [...]
Continue reading about Restoring Economic Balance – Good Economic Indicators
“Think Tank Explosion” is a white paper produced by the Government Research Service, reporting on their Think Tank Directory. The paper starts off by stating that think tanks have had a major impact on public policy. This statement is, in a sense, beside the point. The mission of a think tank is to influence policy; [...]
I’ve asked the following, somewhat rambling question over on the forums page. A person who is not an economist, like myself, gets so easily confused by the things certain types of economists say these days. For example, many an economist from many a “free market libertarian” think tanks are claiming our government has been moving [...]
(Started on 6/27. Update added below on 6/28) As I was writing Systems out of Balance I tried to keep abreast of the misinformation being used to persuade us to continue with laissez faire policies. The enhancement of liberty and wealth were the most dominant types of misinformation when I started. Laissez faire economists twisted [...]
I received an anonymous comment the other day that casts some doubt as to whether a true meritocracy would benefit the middle class because of the vitality function (curve). In essence I have addressed this already on The Middle Class Forum in a post that brought up the Pareto Principle. The Pareto Principle theorizes that [...]
Every once in awhile I still read my “Morning Bells” sent dutifully by that bastion of “freedom,” The Heritage Foundation. Last week the title, something about wind and solar energy being bad investments, drew my interest and I braced myself for the misinformation I knew I would encounter next. There were juicy nuggets in the [...]
This past week I received a notice for a program offered by the water company to help people struggling to pay their water bills. I’ve received notices like this from my electric utility provider as well. I suppose these programs are a good thing for these corporations to coordinate, but there is something a little [...]