Economics

brehme1989

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A quick question to our economists out here:

I've been very engaged with politics recently and specifically with the divide between left and right. Where does it stem from? Is one right and the other wrong or is it just a matter of preferance. I've had my own swings with this, but nowadays I would categorise myself as quite far left. Especially in the economic department I lean towards the left strongly as I don't believe a free market with no state regulation or control can benefit society or humanity even. Most political economist (at least the vocal ones on the internet) seem to lean to the other direction. I have my suspicions as to why that is, but don't want to get into it. One vocal "socialist" economist I've read about and seen on YouTube and shit is Yanis Varoufakis. My real question here is what is the consensus on this guy? Is he a sound economist? Is he a respected authority on economy or is he too politically driven? I like a lot of what he's saying, but since I don't have the time to dive deep into economics I can't really fact check him on a lot of more in depth economics he talks about.

tl;dr: What is an economists opinion on Yanis Varoufakis?


1) There's no such thing as 'left' and 'right'. There's only what you want and what you don't want. You cannot group your wants and donotwants with the same bunch of other people all the time.

2) Varoufakis is a moron.
 

Aurel

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Ad 1)Well there is a political left and right and I do not group my thoughts with people or groups, but I just wanted to let people know where I stand kinda and I think saying left or right is somewhat indicative of it. I thought maybe it would help people with my question.

...anyway I didn't ask about political or philosophical advice. I am well invested into those things.

Ad 2) Is that so...could you elaborate on that? Do you think he's a bad economist or just stupid in general or what?
 

firmino

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originally, they were called left and right because in many countries they physically sat in the left and right angle of a parliament. this was the case for example in italy up to not many years ago.
 

Aurel

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Yeah, but in most places economically speaking right means more free market and left means a more regulated and controlled economy. And I think the left, right distinction stems from a contract made after the french revolution where the revolutionists sat on the left and the conservatives sat on the right. I might be mistaken here, so anyone more knowledgeable correct me please.
 
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Pimpin

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Traditionally/generally speaking, economists do not go by left or right, rather by the amount of state intervention they advocate for in the markets. With that being said, there used to be a division in that the left tended to advocate for state intervention and the right was more pro free-markets. The past few years there has been a shift in this, in that the right has started to advocate for government intervention in the markets, namely, the whole fiasco of US republicans with the Trump lead anti trade policies. Therefore, only a fraction on the right advocates for free markets (traditional conservatives and libertarians).

In academia however, - strictly speaking - the past few decades, economists generally(again), their views are getting converged more and more. In simple terms, right now, the dust has settled whether the markets are good or not, no sane economist will tell you that there's a better alternative to markets. Generally the accepted view point is that the government should provide the frameworks within which the private sector operates, this is not something new however, this has been known for quiet some time and not even Keynes or anyone else disputed this point. The idea behind is that people act with self interest which provides them gain, which provides the first problem for (new and very old) left economics - incentive. If results didn't differ from action why bother? The second one from "common" economy is the information distribution. No single central government can poses what every person on the state wants, that is without even totalitarian means. Even if by some godly miracle this information can be obtained, the incentive to act upon this information will always be a problem, making a left economy impossible. Or said differently, the common "economy" fails in the very basic of the premise " from each according to their skills and to each according to their needs". While it sounds fantastic, it is simply impossible to dictate someone's skills through coercive subjective means. And don't get me started on the needs bit. 100 years ago a need would be bread, water and shelter now if you offer even the staunches commies that, they won't settle for anything less then their apple products.

Now the modern differences - in academia at least - stem from fiscal policies, externalities and behavioral economics of the private markets - especially in finance investing and market bubbles.
Generally speaking, the economists on the right (and majority of academics) advocate for government dictating monetary policy, low tax as stimulus as well as free trade. The reason for this (and this is what I think as well) is that wherever the government can intervene, it is prone to be corrupted, and choose favorites as well as inefficient (For example, if the government can choose which industries are to be protected and which not from foreign competition, it will choose the ones which voted for him or for political gain ie. trump with the steel industry which has eaten into the margins of the manufacturing industries which use the said product , another example is the tariffs that our wee kosovo has retardly put, which has lead to customs officers accepting bribes from imports and now you have the products and have managed to irritate the international community). If the government can print money for fiscal stimulus, it may invest in regions in which their voter base is, diluting purchasing ability of the others in form of inflation.
On the other hand, same could be said about tax cuts, however, implementing a tax cut is quite easier to implement than bureocrats distributing money, moreover, if someone gets a tax cut, he gets more of his own money back, rather than getting it from someone else.

Now the bits where the old left triumphed and are to large extent accepted in the mainstream - Behavioral Economics and some Externalities. The main bit which the whole market economy is based, is the rationality of the consumer. Many economists however, have found that in some cases the people do not behave rationally, but the remedies are far less of what your average youtube leftist would leave you to believe. A professor from Chicago University (though business and not economics) which is known for being neo-liberal and anti keynesian, won a nobel price for economics for his work in behavioral economics. His example is quite funny and illustrative of when a government intervention is needed.

As Thaler explains in his latest book, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, the guests while waiting with cocktails for the meal, were devouring the cashews—the entire bowl half-eaten in minutes. So Thaler, worried that his guests would fill up on the salty snacks, whisked the bowl away.

He recalled that when he came back, his friends thanked him for it (and found themselves with room to enjoy a big dinner)

Behavioralist perspectives have attained wide currency in the world of private pension planning. Instead of asking employees to opt in to pension savings plans, many companies and nonprofits now automatically enroll employees and offer them the opportunity to opt out. Changing the default has drastically raised the uptake of pension deductions among workers while increasing their long-term savings, Thaler writes in Misbehaving. This is the “nudge” in the right direction that people need.

https://www.chicagobooth.edu/magazine/fall-2015/features/a-bowl-of-cashews

Another instance is deflationary cycles which could get vicious if no fiscal stimulus is inserted, externalities like pollution and building houses that would stop the sun light from getting in your houses and lastly drugs (opiods) which would stop the consumer from acting rationally. While the right is filled with plenty of idiots, the left is even more so. I mean all the successful utopias they quote stem from some country advantage rather than sound public policy. The money generated from oil revenues are mistaken for good economics, and once shit hits the fan, free money runs out, corruption grows and the countries collapse. It is not a problem peculiar to past communists, to present day ones as well such as most recently Venezuela. Deducing from all I said, the ones that want economic freedom are libertarians, and the ones that want government dictating the economy are communists/fascists and Varoufakis calls him self anarcho-communist. If that is not an oxymoron than i do not know what is. He is full of bs statements and needless to say, no one really takes him seriously. No one takes AOC seriously either, neither they take Bernie seriously. The few renegades that make it in the news are those with outlandish claims of nonsense bottom 20% chat(as if it is mathematically possible to erase statistical categories), or the ones that speak of "super rich" and so on. Capitalism has raised the fortune of billions of people, liberated billions around the world, it is the reason why plebs like us have a voice and live better than kings in 15th centuries (unless you are a sadist and would rather prefer to lead the life of a wicked king because literally nothing they had then -minus executing people powers- is better than ours, nothing.

As a fitting ending,

GDP-per-capita-in-the-uk-since-1270.png

poverty.jpg


Compare these statistics with the murderous regimes that communism has brought, the forced labour camps, the misery to our people and so on. Just because instead of of two people, each getting 10$ capitalism has made it possible for one to get 100$ and the other 1500$ does not mean it is not working, we take for granted the existing wealth it has created and vilified it beyond measures, especially considering the alternative. No matter how big the urge is to act as if we are strategical masters in dictating policy and winning interstates disputes, perhaps we should stick to the most sound policies which are not as emotionally pleasing.

By the way, you sound like kyrie irving quoting youtube videos to shape your economics views :p.
 

brehme1989

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Varoufakis is... "alternative". But his theories are nonsensical and baseless.

He's pompous and thinks that he's smarter than everyone else and that whatever he says must be obeyed and treated as gospel. Typical [extreme] leftist (political, not economic as I said that doesn't really exist in economics) who thinks that he has all the answers and that the world is set up wrong. I'm not gonna argue the intelligence part because he does have that, but not to a great degree compared to great people of that sector historically or even presently. Most academic economists are quite far off from real economy anyway, so it's not rare to see someone be wrong despite his accolades in this line of work.

I could literally go on about how terrible his ideas are. Terrible in both the sense that they are badly constructed and also, if implemented they will simply be catastrophical to those imposed upon.

I could also literally go on about how useless Varoufakis was as a Finance Minister, not in terms of Greek economic policy (which is just lol worthy for all observers), but to the core. As a member of the Eurogroup. The guy didn't even understand what the others were telling him and he thought that he'd be there as some sort of superstar that would preach the Finance Ministers of Europe the true light of monetary policy.

And I could also go on about how arrogant and stubborn he is as an economics professor at university level.

But I will simply leave it to a simple phrase. The guy is out of touch with reality.

Varoufakis could very well be classified as an insane person, but when it comes to religion and politics you are apparently allowed to believe whatever you want.

P.S: In politics, the terms left and right as you said derive from the post French revolution era, but it was random. They just happened to sit that way at the time. It wasn't decided that the guys on the left would be x and the guys on the right would be y.


edit: Great post by Pimpin, well done and well presented.
 

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That’s correct, it stems from revolutionary France where the members of the assembly sat in their respect sides.

I view lefty economics like chemotherapy: Necessary in many instances, but not exactly how one would choose to start every morning. If I’m selling you a copy of Universe’s erotic writings (Volume III), you and I are in the best position to work out what price we agree on, not some humourless bureaucrat sitting in his sterile office.

You put yourself in “the far-left”, can you think of any far-left economies that succeeded? Or even any that didn’t implode in utter collapse and ruin? That shit sounds good when Varafakis or Michael Moore are talking, but centrally planned economies and have never worked and never will. I can expand on this.

On the other hand, look at countries that have embraced the (mostly) free-market:
South Korea, which was poorer than Ghana in the 60s, turned into a giant after following the US model. Japan, which was basically like ISIS in east Asia, turned into an economic superpower under US guidance. Chile, I think now has the highest GDP/capita in the South America after adopting right-wing economics (compare that to the classterfuck that it is far-left South American economics). In fact, you can make these comparisons all day long: West Germany be East, Taiwan/Hong Kong vs Pre-reform China. North vs South Korea etc...

For the record, I’m not one of those “always trust the free market” people. For what it’s worth, I voted for a centre-left party. My point is that the free-market is the best model to work with. Tweaks and changes when necessary. No alternative model has yet been proven to work, in the long run, they have all failed catastrophically and without exception.

Edit: go Pimp! :fuckyea:
 

Aurel

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Well, I didn't expect an economy lesson here, but thanks nevertheless. I want to state that I am by no means an expert in economics nor do I want to be. I am far more interested in other things. At the moment I just find it important to shape my world view and an insight into economics can't be avoided for that.

By the way, you sound like kyrie irving quoting youtube videos to shape your economics views :p.

I will not pretend, that this isn't the case. Most of my economic views do stem from YouTube videos. Unfortunately I don't have the time to read and understand papers or books.

However, thank you for the short history and economics lesson. I trust your views, since you do sound very educated in this topic (and I know you have a degree in this). Nevertheless I do not agree with everything. But then again, most of my disagreements come from gut feelings and I would not be able to articulate an argument properly since I am well below your level of understanding economics. I would like to say more about all that you posted, but really there's nothing to say. Good job!

@brehme1989: Thank you for elaborating your thoughts. I can understand better why you dislike the guy. And I think, that you have multiple points. I do agree with you on many points. Sorry if I came across as a bit of an ass earlier. I just was speaking about left and right more in the broad sense of politics, not in the sense of economics. I just associate certain economic views with certain political tenedencies and perhaps that is not an accurate description of reality. Same as with pimpin, I do not agree with everything, but certainly with some things. As you said, it's all about what you want and don't want and it seems I want different things than most people in this thread. The question is if what I want maybe has moral value (as in good or evil). If good then it's worth pursuing and if evil then it's worth abolishing. That is another question I suppose.

You put yourself in “the far-left”, can you think of any far-left economies that succeeded? Or even any that didn’t implode in utter collapse and ruin? That shit sounds good when Varafakis or Michael Moore are talking, but centrally planned economies and have never worked and never will. I can expand on this.

This is my mistake, I meant to put myself quite far left in politics, not in economics. Basically I support capitalism, but with certain regulations and certain framework, which as you all have pointed out is the standart capitalism that can be observed in most western countries (or in most countries in general). I just have my gripes with certain aspects of capitalism and meritocracy (I know they're not the same, but philosophically seem connected) and think they should be tweaked. What makes me radical I guess is that I am open for economically/socially radical ideas. Doesn't mean I support them, but I am not opposed to them. Thank you for your post as well. As an admirer of platonic philosophy I am very welcome to discourse as a form of education and philosophical discussion.

Alright, sorry for the long post and thank you again to everyone that responded. I really appreciate it. I respect all your guy's opinion and as pimp has pointed out, I am guilty of just being that guy that watched youtube videos on certain topics. At least I watch videos from all perspectives, so that's something.
 

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Despite what the media portrays, most mainstream economists (whether they consider themselves left or right) agree on more things than they disagree. They agree that the free market is generally best with gov't intervention when necessary (externalities, for example). The vast majority of economists would immediately veto ideas like rent control or a nationwide $15 min wage on the left or dissolution of central banks on the hard right, and for good reason.

Examples of things economists agree on: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/02/news-flash-economists-agree.html

The problem is that the media and populists think that economists derive their views from right-wing ideology. Consensus comes from evidence, not ideology. If evidence overwhelmingly suggests that something is true, then economists tend to agree with it. The problem is some of the policies that people like Sanders or Corbyn are advocating for have been rejected by the evidence, and that's why economists are dismissive of them.
 

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economics as a pure science like math with no ideology is a myth. cause ideology, and any kind of philosophy for that matter, play an important role in defining what is to be considered "good".

change the ideology and you can say of the same country that economy is going well, or bad. this is a tricky topic as it's hard (and in my opinion, frankly impossible) to talk about it without talking about politics.
 

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economics as a pure science like math with no ideology is a myth

The idea that economists view it as an exact science like maths IS the myth.

I’m not an economist, but the way I see it, it’s more akin to something like ecology. Not an exact science, but something you can model with okay precision. It need not import ideology. Think of the economy like a hyper-complex ecosystem. The free market is like an evolved ecosystem where each node, acting in its self-interest has adapted to be in harmony with its surroundings. The planned economy on the other hand is a bunch of intellectuals deciding what goes where, what the pH level of the soil should be, how often it should rain, what bugs to introduce etc. Precisely because it’s not an exact science is why economists are against central planning.

The government is still necessary if the bitch catches fire, a virus spreads, not enough water or sunlight is getting through etc.

As Wings pointed out, people like Corbyn (and also those on the right) come along and import their cultish ideology. We don’t have that phenomenon in ecology. There’s no global movement pushing for a pH level of 4 and quoting a 19th century dead German.

Incidentally, the socialist regimes in the 20th century did do this with biology and it contributed to the starvation of millions in the USSR and China. There was a hack Marxist scientists call Lysenko who proposed a new socialist form of farming which denied Darwinian biology (Darwinian biologists were shot or sent to the gulags).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
 
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Aurel

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I don't want to get political here, but I think it's impossible to regard economy as apolitical. In my philosophical reading I have just found that economy is too strongly tied to ideas like liberty, freedom, equality, progression and so on. These terms are not defined and freedom or liberty do not mean the same thing for everyone. So depending on your understanding of liberty you will favour an economic system over the other.

I wrote quite a bit here, but decided to delete it. I fear this whole discussion might get too political and I don't want things to get out of hand. I love 'difficult' discourse myself, but am aware that it's not the same for everyone on this forum.
 

Raul Duke

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Depends what level you look at it. To stay with my ecosystem analogy:

a) From the outside, we can objectively, though imprecisely, observe how the ecosystem behaves.

b) From the inside, if we can change the ecosystem politically, then we may have different preferences whether we’re the bird or the worm, so to speak.

Just because we can’t avoid (b) getting political, doesn’t mean that the level of analysis at (a) needs to be political in theory.

I don’t know if that makes sense.
 

Aurel

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Makes perfect sense to me under the presumption that 'the' economy is a given system that exists and it is the way it is. Then I think your ecosystem analogy makes perfect sense.

If, however, we assume that economy does not have it's 'natural' laws but is 100% dependant on how we shape it. Then I think the analogy falls short. Because then we set the rules so to say. And then it will behave in a way that we make it behave. Objective outside perspective seems impossible then.

In my opinion the truth lies somewhere inbetween. I think the economy's behaviour is set to a certain extent. The system has it's rules and we cannot make them up ourselves, not all of them at least. The goal of the economic system and the value behind it is set by us I think.

So I would argue that we can propose economic systems according to our beliefs and social/moral values and once we have agreed on that, then it behaves similarly to an ecosystem, where it has its own laws and rules and we can observe and predict certain outcomes.

So I agree with what you have said, just I think it's important to note that we create the system in the first place, so our political preference comes before the system is in place. Afterwards we observe. I do not deny the possibility that an economic system can outgrow us though. I think that is a possibility to consider and in that case your post above would be quite accurate.
 

brehme1989

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There is obviously a political connection to economics as economic policy is dictated by politics. It is also on average the main aspect of someone's voting decision, so economics is a political tool. But economics are not political. When sports or something else becomes popular, enter politics to leech some of that influence.
 

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Economics are not neutral. I have often heard supposed experts sing the praises of an X's economy which to me doesn't look healthy at all. Those people judge by numbers by the standards of an ideology. Which isn't bad per se, except many of them act like they don't.
 

brehme1989

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Economics are not neutral. I have often heard supposed experts sing the praises of an X's economy which to me doesn't look healthy at all. Those people judge by numbers by the standards of an ideology. Which isn't bad per se, except many of them act like they don't.

Economists are not neutral, economics is just a way to read and express the economy in numbers. In very simple terms of course as there are tens of various economics sub-categories.

Sophisticated statistics if you wish. And statistics are worse than damn lies according to the adage.
 

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I'd suggest reading Daron Acemoglu's brilliant book on the subject of the intersection of politics and economy "Why nations fail". To summarise - it's all about policy.
 

brehme1989

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Very enjoyable read indeed.
 

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Any of you nerds read “ The Ascent of Money” by Niall Ferguson?

It’s a brilliant history of finance.
 
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