From “Capital in the Twenty-First Century:” To put it bluntly, the discipline of economics has yet to get over its childish passion for mathematics and for purely theoretical and often highly ideological speculation, at the expense of historical research and collaboration with the other social sciences. Economists are all too often preoccupied with petty mathematical… Continue reading Piketty on Economists
Author: Matt Bruenig
Dumb Graph Shows Nothing
This graph purports to show an increase in regulation activity in the United States: The Federal Register is the place where administrative agencies put notices of proposed rulemaking (NPR). The assumption underlying the graph is that more pages in the Federal Register means that there are more proposed rules and therefore more regulatory activity. But… Continue reading Dumb Graph Shows Nothing
One Thing A Conservative Wrote This Week That Is Really Bad
Courtesy of Zach Beauchamp, I found my way to this really badly done piece from Ramesh Ponnuru. Here is the part Beauchamp quoted approvingly: A bigger flaw with the argument comes with Bartels’s second piece of evidence. He cites scholars at Columbia University who have concluded that Social Security, the earned income tax credit and… Continue reading One Thing A Conservative Wrote This Week That Is Really Bad
What do voluntary mean?
Consider this tweet: In a truly liberal society, anyone could refuse to engage in private commerce with anyone for any reason http://t.co/UxqCQKYyb4 — JustinGreen4000 (@JGreenDC) March 7, 2014 Now ask yourself this question: can people in the U.S. refuse to engage in private commerce with anyone for any reason? The answer is clearly yes. If… Continue reading What do voluntary mean?
Trigger Warning: Mao’s Cultural Revolution
Jenny Jarvie has a piece in The New Republic about trigger warnings, the phenomenon in which people warn others that the content of some piece might trigger emotional trauma for certain people. The author does not like them, bemoans their spread to college classes, and thinks there is no logical stopping point once you begin… Continue reading Trigger Warning: Mao’s Cultural Revolution