So the Jobs Report Is Dismal. The Fed Has No Place to Go but Up. By JONATHAN
FUERBRINGER
New York Times
August 8, 2004
That will Fed policy makers do this week in the face of surprisingly weak job growth
in the last two months? Raise interest rates, of course.
Despite the awkward timing of the Fed
It is almost incredible from this side of the Atlantic to see the
Republicans and Democrats falling over themselves to tear up decades of
sado-monetarism, to which we were told there is no alternative throughout
the years dominated by Reagan and Maggie Thatcher's influence. Money? Now
it seems
Hi again, Jim,
Sed I:
I'd've thought you could make a case for a logical, empirically tenable
methodology that allows for what a symbol/institution/action might mean in
the context of its day, or of any particular time and place?!
Sed you:
I'm not sure what that has to do with literary
Rorty, an old teacher of mine, views himself as a left liberal. His Achieving Our
Country is advertised as a way of rethinking reformist (we might say) politics. He
writes for Dissent. He is an anti-Marxist, but that is not enough to make you not on
the left. Dewey was an advocate of worker
(Stick a fork in it (or in me). I think this thread is done.)
I wrote:
I didn't say that "a single abstraction" could do so.
Tom Walker writes:
Why do I get the feeling that your favorite tropes are "I didn't say" and
"what you said implies . . ."
On the first, communication is very
I had written:
But the positive/normative mix could be very different: it seems to
me that the NAIRU theory could easily be interpreted as an argument for
overthrowing capital. "Capitalism requires a reserve army THAT BIG to
keep it from punishing us with accelerating inflation??"
I wrote:
In a passage which seems to summarize his message, Tom Walker
wrote: The NAIRU story and the Phillips curve story make sense if one
assumes that capital's brief is efficiency and labour's is waste.
Tom, that sure seems like you're mixing normative concepts (efficiency)
and
At 04:37 PM 06/06/2000 -0700, you wrote:
I can't help mentioning an article that I view as the classic statement
of the moral sentiment underlying NAIRU, J. Laurence Laughlin's "The
Unions Versus Higher Wages," _Journal of Political Economy_, Vol. 14,
Issue 3 (March 1906) pages 129-142.
How
The only way to beat the PC is by developing a better theory.
BTW, this is not something I dreamed up by myself. There is a rich
literature on it ranging from critical theory to hermeneutics to
deconstruction.
References to hermeneutics and deconstruction don't convince me. I've never
been
I wrote:
References to hermeneutics and deconstruction don't convince me. I've
never been into that kind of lit crit sh*t. I prefer logic, empirical
research, and the philosophy of science (methodology).
Rob writes:
Strong words, Jim!
that's what pen-l is for.
I'd've thought you could
Jim Devine wrote,
To beat an empirical generalization, you have to show that the data can
be explained better by another generalization or a different deductive
theory, i.e., show that the correlation isn't based on any reasonable
causation that it is instead is an accident which can be
Jim Devine wrote,
I'm not sure what that has to do with literary criticism (which is
basically supposed to help us understand the fiction we read).
I wish I could remember who it was who referred to Marx as an heir to the
intellectual tradition of Swabian Pietism. Critical theory refers not
References to hermeneutics and deconstruction don't convince me. I've
never
been into that kind of lit crit sh*t. I prefer logic, empirical
research,
and the philosophy of science (methodology).
If there would be a philosophy or literature person here, s(he) would
*really* be pissed, not
I'm not sure what that has to do with literary criticism (which is
basically supposed to help us understand the fiction we read). It is true
that the meaning of a theory varies with context, but that says we have
to
be very clear by what _we_ mean by the theory. The sociology or
psychology
[Tom Walker's] theory: bottlenecks not tides
Inflation happens because industries have discrete requirements for
specific kinds of labour and other inputs, not continuous requirements for
generalized inputs.
But when real GDP grows quickly (and unemployment falls), that represents a
I wrote:
I'm not sure what that has to do with literary criticism (which is
basically supposed to help us understand the fiction we read).
Tom Walker writes:
I wish I could remember who it was who referred to Marx as an heir to the
intellectual tradition of Swabian Pietism.
wasn't it
Mine,
I am actually a "philosophy person"--used to be a philosophy professor before I was a
lawyer. Although I do not necessary share the vehemence of the rejection of (the very
different, as you remark) approaches of deconstruction or hermeneutics, I am fairly
suspicious of their value
Jim Devine wrote,
But when real GDP grows quickly (and unemployment falls), that represents a
_general_ increase in aggregate demand.
Aggregate demand is a reification. An increase in the aggregate of demand
would, except by a fluke, also change the relative weights of demand for
different
Robert Leeson has shown that Phillips' work lay dormant until Samuelson and
Solow popularized it is a way to give a the Democratic presidential campaign
cover to show that Keynesian-inspired Democratic policies would not create
runaway inflation. I think the reference can be found in Leeson.
At 01:25 PM 6/7/00 -0700, you wrote:
Robert Leeson has shown that Phillips' work lay dormant until Samuelson
and Solow popularized it is a way to give a the Democratic presidential
campaign cover to show that Keynesian-inspired Democratic policies would
not create runaway inflation.
That
I wrote:
But when real GDP grows quickly (and unemployment falls), that represents a
_general_ increase in aggregate demand.
Tom Walker writes:
Aggregate demand is a reification. An increase in the aggregate of demand
would, except by a fluke, also change the relative weights of demand for
If there would be a philosophy or literature person here, s(he) would
*really* be pissed, not only by the unprofessional use of language but
also by ignorance. I am not a big fun of hermeneutics and deconstruction
either, but I never make the mistake of considering those theorists
writing
Christian wrote:
As for PC [the Phillips Curve], Jim said its empirical data waiting for a
theory. Certainly. But it's not treated as such, generally--least of all
by people like Greenspan and Co., who treat it as a full blown theory that
needs to be disproved...
Frankly, I think that once
Jim Devine wrote,
Some sort of abstraction is needed if you believe that the macroeconomy
is more than the sum of its parts. The measure of aggregate demand is an
abstraction, but without it one is stuck with a pre-Keynesian vision of
the world (which basically saw the macroeconomy as the
i wrote:
Some sort of abstraction is needed if you believe that the macroeconomy
is more than the sum of its parts. The measure of aggregate demand is an
abstraction, but without it one is stuck with a pre-Keynesian vision of
the world (which basically saw the macroeconomy as the
Justin,
Please see my reply to Tom Walker where I both criticize hermeneutics and
empiricism.
btw, to my knowledge, Richard Rorty has nothing do with left. He is a new
pragmatic following the footsteps of Dewey...
thanks,
Mine
Mine,
I am actually a "philosophy person"--used to be a
Jim Devine wrote,
I didn't say that "a single abstraction" could do so.
Why do I get the feeling that your favorite tropes are "I didn't say" and
"what you said implies . . ."
I agree with Levins Lewontin, in their DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST, that
neither the whole not the parts have
To claim that inflation is driven (mainly or generally or typically) by
wage pressure is to forget that capital confronts living labour as dead
labour. In that relationship, neither the chicken nor the egg necessarily
comes first. The relative contributions of labour and capital to an
wage-price
In a passage which seems to summarize his message, Tom Walker wrote:
The NAIRU story and the Phillips curve story make sense if one assumes
that capital's brief is efficiency and labour's is waste.
Tom, that sure seems like you're mixing normative concepts (efficiency) and
positive concepts
Jim Devine wrote,
In a passage which seems to summarize his message, Tom Walker wrote:
The NAIRU story and the Phillips curve story make sense if one assumes
that capital's brief is efficiency and labour's is waste.
Tom, that sure seems like you're mixing normative concepts (efficiency)
I can't help mentioning an article that I view as the classic statement
of the moral sentiment underlying NAIRU, J. Laurence Laughlin's "The
Unions Versus Higher Wages," _Journal of Political Economy_, Vol. 14,
Issue 3 (March 1906) pages 129-142.
Laughlin's *positive* argument can, I believe, be
The timing of this quote is extraordinary, since it comes after the great
merger wave put an end to much competition. Combinations work for industry;
not for workers.
Timework Web wrote:
8. "In these days few people realize the grinding, eager, intense, and
minute competition which goes on
But the positive/normative mix could be very different: it seems to me
that
the NAIRU theory could easily be interpreted as an argument for
overthrowing capital. "Capitalism requires a reserve army THAT BIG to
keep
it from punishing us with accelerating inflation??"
The way the PC gets
Michael Perelman wrote,
The timing of this quote is extraordinary, since it comes after the great
merger wave put an end to much competition. Combinations work for industry;
not for workers.
It would be petty of me to point out that Laughlin was a paid spokesman
on behalf of the Chicago
Pen-l's Brad deLong has a useful little article on Monetarism in the Winter
2000 issue of his journal, THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES. He makes
the point I've made many times, i.e., that the "New Keynesian" school that
currently dominates macroeconomics is basically Monetari
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