Bill Mitchell says that economists are fake scientists ― true, but MMTers are NOT different

Comment on Bill Mitchell on ‘Why economists kept getting the policies right!’

Blog-Reference

Bill Mitchell gives an inside report of academic economics: “But if you have been inside the profession all your life, as I have, then you get a pretty good feel for what is going on. And it is not what the rest of you think.”

“Economists are not fellow travellers ‘on a mission from god to do god’s work’ …” … “They are part of the capitalist establishment designed to safeguard capital and its profits and keep the working class in its place so that challenges are confined to disputes about wages and conditions around the margin, but, never question the basis of the system ― the ownership of the material means of production and the capacity of those unequal ownership relations to extract surplus value as profits from forcing workers to work longer than they have to to produce their (social) subsistence.” … “the development of neoclassical economics, from which the modern day Monetarism and New Keynesian economics emerged was no accident ― no scientific event.”

True, since the founding fathers, economists were not so much scientists as political agenda pushers: “Economists were hired by industrialists to come up with a body of work that made capitalism appear fair. It was in the second half of the C19th when Marxist thought was spreading among workers and the intellectual class and manifesting into social and political instability as evidenced by the ― Revolutions of 1848 ― and later, the ― 1871 Paris Commune ― among other uprisings.”

And he concludes: “Economists were part of that conspiracy to obfuscate the inner workings of capitalism. And it has been that way ever since.”

Except …

“Me, I was an aberration. A black sheep. That got through this system because my mathematics and mathematical statistics was first-rate and I could jump their hoops with ease.”

And now it turns out that Bill Mitchell and the MMTers got it right: “The author notes how everyone is jumping on the big deficits bandwagon now and no-one is talking much about the public debt issue any more.” #1

This is true; MMT has now become official doctrine. #2, #3, #4

While Bill Mitchell asserts that economists have always been “… part of the capitalist establishment designed to safeguard capital and its profits …” he tries to make the impression that he and MMTers and Progressives are different.

This is NOT the case.

The 3-sector macroeconomic Profit Law Q≡(G−T)+(I−S)+Yd implies Public Deficit = Private Profit. So, the MMT policy of deficit-spending/money-creation is a free lunch for the Oligarchy. Private financial wealth grows in lockstep with public debt. For public debt holds: #OligarchyOwnsIt and #WeThePeopleOwesIt. Public debt as interest cash cow produces perpetual income for the Oligarchy that is taxed from WeThePeople.#5 

COV19 is a godsend for the Oligarchy: more deficit-spending/money-creation produces a profit explosion. Best of all, it can be propagandized as a benefit for WeThePeople. Fact is, though, that in real terms, WeThePeople pay for the economic relief package through stealth taxation.

If anything, Bill Mitchell/MMTers/Progressives are “part of the capitalist establishment”. #6, #7 Like the rest of economists from Adam Smith onward, economists are NOT on a “mission from god to do god’s work”. Economics is failed/fake science. Economists are NOT scientists but clowns and useful idiots in the political Circus Maximus. MMTers are NO exception.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Look, how they jump on the deficit/profit bandwagon

#2 MMT ― now official doctrine

#3 Links on Austerity

#4 Keynes, Lerner, MMT, Trump, Biden, and exploding profit

#5 Twitter, CRFB.org Mar 17, 2021, Federal Government Spending On Interest Payments

#6 Deficit cheerleaders ― the Oligarchy’s useful idiots

#7 Economists are NOT scientists

For more about stealth taxation, see AXECquery.

***

REPLY to Matt Franko on Mar 17

The deficiency of MMTers in literal language is that they are too stupid for the elementary algebra that underlies macroeconomics: Proof of MMT's inconsistency.

***

REPLY to Matt Franko on Mar 18

I said that MMTers (the social media trolls, the academics in general, and Bill Mitchell, in particular) are too stupid for the elementary algebra that underlies macroeconomics and that the MMT sectoral balances equation is provably false. Every MMTer can check the proof.#1-#4

You argue: “Bill is well trained in Mathematics....”

If so, he knows that science is about material/formal consistency and proof. So, he should be able to understand the proof of the inconsistency of the foundational MMT sectoral balances equation. And, as an academic, he should know that science defines itself by the high standards of scientific ethics.

According to these standards, he is obliged to check the proof of the inconsistency of MMT as soon as it comes to his notice and to either point to the exact location where the proof is faulty or to openly confirm the refutation of MMT so that others are no longer misled.

Neither Bill Mitchell nor any other MMTer has done the right thing to this day. MMTers have disqualified themselves and therefore have to be expelled with shame and disgrace from the scientific community.#5

#1 Wikipedia, economics, scientific knowledge, or political agenda pushing? ⇒ Section Provably False/MMT

#2 Proving Bill Mitchell wrong ― burying MMT for good

#3 Modern Moronomic Theory

#4 Proof of MMT's inconsistency

#5 AXEC144f 

Related 'MMT-Refutation for Dummies'.

***

REPLY to Peter Pan on Mar 18

You ask: “Bill has never addressed your critique on his blog?”

Obviously, you still do not understand how economics works, although Bill Mitchell has given you a clear description. Economics does not work according to the principles of science. And this is long known: “In economics we should strive to proceed, wherever we can, exactly according to the standards of the other, more advanced, sciences, where it is not possible, once an issue has been decided, to continue to write about it as if nothing had happened.” (Morgenstern, 1941)

Economists violate scientific standards from Adam Smith/Karl Marx onward and this is why Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, and other long-refuted proto-scientific garbage is still around.#1 What we have is the pluralism of false theories.

Bill Mitchell knows this but claims that MMT is different. That is NOT the case. MMT is refuted but MMTers push it “as if nothing had happened”. Academic economics is politically corrupted and MMT is an integral part of it.#2

#1 The history of economic thought is the history of scientific failure

#2 Political fraud and the silence of academia

***

REPLY to Dean on Mar 22

Answers/continuing links to your 3 questions.

1 Capitalists' consumption

Profit follows from the Profit Law. It can be distributed or not. So one gets distributed profit Yd as a part of total income Y=Yw+Yd. Distributed profit, in turn, splits into consumption expenditures and saving of “capitalists”. See section 7 of Essentials of Constructive Heterodoxy: Profit.

2 Cash

You assume “cash on hand to begin with”. In a fiat money system, things start with zero cash. Money is created ex nihilo by the central bank for the financing of the wage bill.

How money emerges out of nothing ― the functional account

3 Investments

You say “investments create fixed capital” and “Investments only create profits because of a time lag between borrowing and repaying”. For the exact relationship of investment expenditures and profits see Squaring the Investment Cycle.

***

NOTE on Barkley Rosser on Mar 31

You take toilet paper shortages in Venezuela as proof that they are “corrupt and incompetent”. These two keywords bring us immediately to the current state of economics.

Bill Mitchell gives an inside report of academic economics:#1 “But if you have been inside the profession all your life, as I have, then you get a pretty good feel for what is going on. And it is not what the rest of you think.”

“Economists are not fellow travellers ‘on a mission from god to do god’s work’ …” … “They are part of the capitalist establishment designed to safeguard capital and its profits and keep the working class in its place so that challenges are confined to disputes about wages and conditions around the margin, but, never question the basis of the system ― the ownership of the material means of production and the capacity of those unequal ownership relations to extract surplus value as profits from forcing workers to work longer than they have to to produce their (social) subsistence.” … “the development of neoclassical economics, from which the modern day Monetarism and New Keynesian economics emerged was no accident ― no scientific event.”

True, since the founding fathers, economists were not so much scientists as political agenda pushers and disinfotainment clowns in the political Circus Maximus.#2

The temporary shutdown of the Suez Canal may trigger physical toilet paper shortages in Western markets. Due to the superiority of Capitalism over Saint-Simonianism, though, this does not affect the production of intellectual toilet paper in US academia.#3

#1 Why economists kept getting the policies right!

#2 Economists are NOT scientists

#3 Macroeconomics ― still dead after 80+ years

The GDP death blow for the economics profession

Twitter-Reference and Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference on Nov 5

“Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced in a specific time period.” And “GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, theoretically, give the same result. They are the production (or output or value added) approach, the income approach, or the speculated expenditure approach.” and “The second way of estimating GDP is to use ‘the sum of primary incomes distributed by resident producer units’. If GDP is calculated this way it is sometimes called gross domestic income (GDI), or GDP (I). GDI should provide the same amount as the expenditure method described later. By definition, GDI is equal to GDP. In practice, however, measurement errors will make the two figures slightly off when reported by national statistical agencies. This method measures GDP by adding incomes that firms pay households for factors of production they hire ― wages for labour, interest for capital, rent for land, and profits for entrepreneurship. The US ‘National Income and Expenditure Accounts’ divide incomes into five categories: 

1. Wages, salaries, and supplementary labour income
2. Corporate profits
3. Interest and miscellaneous investment income
4. Farmers' incomes
5. Income from non-farm unincorporated businesses

These five income components sum to net domestic income at factor cost”. (Wikipedia) #1

To reduce matters to the core, the list 1-5 is condensed to the straightforward formula National Income = Wages (1) + Profits (2). This formula looks plausible, but, in fact, constitutes the foundational blunder of economics to this day. The conceptual blunder invalidates Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT, and Pluralism. #2-#6

The fact of the matter is that economists are too stupid for the elementary algebra that underlies macroeconomics. With regard to scientific incompetence, there is NO difference between Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy ― it is the whole of academic economics.

Macroeconomics has to be based on a set of objective and consistent axioms.#7 This is the correct core of premises

(A0) The objectively given and most elementary systemic configuration of the economy consists of the household sector and the business sector, which in turn consists initially of one giant fully integrated firm.

(A1) Y_W=WL wage income Y_W is equal to wage rate W times working hours. L,

(A2) O=RL output O is equal to productivity R times working hours L,

(A3) E_C=PX consumption expenditure E_C is equal to price P times quantity bought/sold X.

The price P follows as the dependent variable under the conditions of budget-balancing, i.e., E_C=Y_W, and market-clearing, i.e., X=O, as P=W/R, i.e., the market-clearing price is, for a start, equal to unit wage costs. This is the most elementary form of the macroeconomic Law of Supply and Demand.

By lifting the condition of budget-balancing, one gets the saving/dissaving of the household sector as S≡Y_W−E_C and the profit/loss of the business sector as Q≡E_C−Y_W. S and Q are the balances of two flows. It holds Q≡−S, that is, the profit of the business sector is equal to dissaving/deficit-spending of the household sector, and loss of the business sector is equal to saving of the household sector. This is the most elementary form of the macroeconomic Profit Law. #8-#10

Profit Q is a balance, i.e., the difference of flows, and NOT a flow like wage income Y_W. So, profit is NOT income. Economists not only confuse stocks and flows but also balances and flows. The Flow-Balance Inconsistency makes the whole of established economics proto-scientific garbage.

It is obvious that the business sector’s loss is something quite different from income. Wage income is a flow from the business sector to the household sector. Loss is the difference between the two flows E_C and Y_W. So it is inadmissible to speak of loss as a type of income. This conceptual blunder is called a category mistake. Wage income and profit are NOT two different forms of income. The inexcusable blunder of the representative economist consists of confusing balances and flows.

This blunder carries over to the concept of National Income as given above, with 1-5, and thus ruins National Accounting and the concept of GDP. In technical terms, according to standard economics, GDI and GDP should be identical. Because the foundational concepts of macroeconomics ― profit and income ― are ill-defined, the whole analytical superstructure of macroeconomics is provably false. Economics is a failed science for 200+ years now. #11

The inescapable Paradigm Shift consists of the move from false microfoundations and false macrofoundations to the true macrofoundations (A1) to (A3).

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Wikipedia Gross domestic product

#2 Debunking Squared

#3 Ricardo, too, got profit theory wrong

#4 MIT dilettantes (I)

#5 The Common Error of Common Sense: An Essential Rectification of the Accounting Approach

#6 MMT and Marxism ― blather as immunizing stratagem

#7 “Research is, in fact, a continuous discussion of the consistency of theories: formal consistency insofar as the discussion relates to the logical cohesion of what is asserted in joint theories; material consistency insofar as the agreement of observations with theories is concerned.” (Klant)

#8 Macroeconomics for dummies (II)

#9 Wikipedia and the promotion of economists’ idiotism (II)

#10 Profit

#11 See Ch. 13, The indelible scientific disgrace of economics, in Sovereign Economics

Related 'MIT dilettantes (I)' and 'Wikipedia, economics, scientific knowledge, or political agenda pushing?' and 'Macroeconomics is proto-scientific garbage just like microeconomics' and 'Too stupid for the elementary algebra of macrofoundations' and 'Economists’ scientific incompetence is worse than the plague' and 'Your economics is refuted on all counts: here is the real thing'. For details of the big picture see cross-references Profit and cross-references Accounting and cross-references Refutation of I=S.

For more about Flow-Balance (In-)Consistency, see AXECquery.

For more about the economics profession, see AXECquery.

For more about GDP, see AXECquery.

For more about (material/formal) consistency, see AXECquery.

***

Graphic AXEC109i

Graphic AXEC121i For a start, the distributed profit DN can be set to zero

***

Twitter Aug 25, 2022 GDP and GDI are supposed to be identical ― the lethal blunder

Twitter Apr 20, 2023 Roughly speaking, since according to the macroeconomic Profit Law #PublicDeficitIsPrivateProfit and profit are mistakenly subsumed under total income there is a close "correlation" between GDP and debt which is the numerical integral of deficits

Fake economics great again

Comment on Barkley Rosser on ‘In The Face Of Total Turbulence, Go Totally Conventional For The Nobel Prize’

Blog-Reference

Barkley Rosser gives his assessment: “But this year's award was clearly in the works after Jean Tirole and Alvin Roth got theirs. The real question for this one was which of the ‘Gang of Four,’ David Kreps, Paul Milgrom, John Roberts, and Robert B. Wilson, who coauthored the super important game theory paper on reputation effects, allowing for cooperation over time in prisoner's dilemma and other games, would get it.”

Clearly, the EconNobel is something economists in U.S. academe feel entitled to. They feel betrayed and even hang themselves if things do not turn out as expected. This happened in 2019 with Martin Weitzman: “Marty Weitzman was the pre-eminent environmental economist of the modern era, which is to say of all times,” (Nordhaus) and he committed suicide ― “depressed at his not getting the Nobel Prize” (Rosser).

There is, obviously, a strong tendency of self-aggrandizement in academic economics. And it seems that the main purpose of the creation of the EconNobel has been to satisfy an urgent personal/national PR need.#1

There would be no problem at all if economics were some nutty sort of talk show and the Swedish monarch would annually proclaim a winner in a glitzy ceremony because he/she had collected more than 100,000 google scholar citations. The problem is that economics claims to be a science, but is NOT.

The lethal defect of economics is that the main approaches ― Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT ― are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent, and ALL get the foundational economic concept of profit wrong.#2 Economics is a heap of proto-scientific garbage.

To put improvements of auction theory on the same level with achievements like quantum physics proves a serious lack of scientific sense. Note that economists are supposed to explain how the economy works and they come up with a proposal of how to improve the auction of radio frequency bands.

The EconNobel has always been a fake prize for fake scientists. It has nothing to do with science but is a reward for loyal services in the propagation of oligarchy-approved economics.#3

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Philip Mirowski, The Neoliberal Ersatz Nobel Prize

#2 Profit

#3 Scrap the EconNobel

No false-hero memorials (III)

Comment on Barkley Rosser on ‘Assar Lindbeck Passes On’

Blog-Reference

Barkley Rosser remembers: “There are some oddities I shall recount based on gossip from primary sources I have heard from. So when I went to his [Lindbeck’s] Wikipedia page to double check on details of his career, it claimed that the award for James Buchanan in particular in 1986 was especially important for him as part of this general ideological agenda. … At the time Buchanan was pushing for a balanced-budget amendment to the US Constitution, basically a silly idea. But supposedly Lindbeck saw that as a way to send a message to the Reagan administration of disapproval for their high budget deficit policies, and this overcame whatever it was that had previously made Lindbeck so negative on Buchanan.”

Economics is NOT a science. Economists are NOT scientists but clowns and useful idiots in the political Circus Maximus. Because of this, the Bank of Sweden Nobel is a scientific fraud.#1, #2, #3

The EconNobel has never been anything else than a piece of political propaganda. Barkley Rosser “(I used to have good sources on that famous committee, …)” deserves praise for presenting the proof.

To this day, the ‘Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel’ has nothing to do with sciences because there is NO such thing as economic sciences.#4

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Links on the Economics Nobel

#2 No False-Hero Memorials (I)

#3 Economics is a disgrace ― now more than ever

#4 How to spot economics trolls

***

Twitter Sep 5

#Economics#FailedScience#FakeScience#CargoCultScience

NoFalseHeroMemorialshttps://t.co/4KbKjjoSoH

— E.K-H (@AXECorg) September 5, 2020

Fake America great again

Comment on Barkley Rosser on ‘The End Of Special Fiscal Stimulus’

Blog-Reference

Barkley Rosser reports on the actual state of the economy: “Dems indicated that they were willing to compromise on many issues. To pick a big symbolic one has to do with the total spending level. Going into this the Dems were pushing $3+ trillion and the GOP was pushing $1 trillion. Gosh, looks like $ 2 trillion would be an obvious compromise, and the Dems have publicly indicated they would be willing to go to that, but, no, … As it is, Meadows left town and the Senate has gone on leave until after Labor Day. No deal.”

This is Barkley Rosser’s usual newspaper digest. Not one small crumb of real economic analysis. That is regrettable because what unfolds before our eyes is the spectacular finale of the so-called free-market economy.

In the elementary production-consumption economy with a state sector, macroeconomic profit comes ultimately from the household and state sector’s deficit-spending/money-creation, i.e. Q_m≡(G−T)−S_m.#1

For Sm=0 this boils down to (G−T)=Q_m, i.e. public deficit equals private profit. The profit of the monetary economy is in this analytical limiting case produced entirely by the state. This case is at odds with the popular ideas of a free-market economy and Laissez-faire but it is practically the new normal.

The greater part of the profit in the United States is actually produced by the state. The US economy hangs for a long time already on the state ventilator for its survival. With the current boost of deficit-spending, the situation becomes even more extreme.

The policy of deficit-spending/money-creation is ultimately a means of postponing the breakdown of the US economy. Deficit-spending/money-creation is a free lunch for the Oligarchy. Financial wealth grows in lockstep with public debt. While employment and wage income go down, Mr. Trump’s current policy will blow up macroeconomic profit to hitherto unimaginable proportions. This profit will nearly 100 percent be state-produced.

Say, economists, what exactly has always been the strong point of Laissez-faire capitalism?

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


#1 Wikipedia, economics, scientific knowledge, or political agenda pushing?

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser Aug 18

You say: “Second you have the oddity that while you claim profits are tied to budget deficits, why is it that it is pro-business Republicans who are now opposing larger deficits thereby endangering business profits?”

Economics is about how the economy works and NOT about how the brains of GOP Senators work.

Btw. this question has already been dealt with. See
Stephanie Kelton and the self-destructive stupidity of the super-rich

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser

You say: “Yo are one of those caricatures of an economist who when confronted with facts that do not coincide with his theory declare that the facts are either wrong or irrelevant because the theory is true.”

The voting behavior of GOP Senators is NOT part of any economic theory but your re-telling of what you have read in the newspapers, which is obviously your main intellectual occupation.

What I told you is that profit in the US economy is nowadays entirely produced by the state and that the exploding deficit-spending will explode profit within a short time span.

This perverse correlation of high unemployment and high state-produced profit is a bit at odds with the popular idea of a free-market economy and should, therefore, provoke the interest of the professional economist.

I realize that it is impossible to get you above the newspaper level.

Anyway, I take the opportunity and, in order to honor myself as the author of the Axiomatic Profit Law, I call the correlation of exploding unemployment, exploding public debt, and exploding profit Handtke’s Law of Exitus Capitalism. It replaces the Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall.

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser Aug 19

You say: “Sorry, Egmont, but your claim tha profit is produced by the state is simply wrong, so wrong that it is not even wrong, as they say.”

What “they” say is absolutely irrelevant, because it is known by now that “they” are scientifically incompetent. Economics is a failed science. That is a fact.

The macroeconomic Profit Law for a closed economy is given by Qm≡Yd+(I−Sm)+(G−T) and this implies Qm=(G−T), i.e. macroeconomic profit is equal to the state’s budget deficit.#1 In order that there is a surplus in the business sector, there must be a deficit in the state sector. Balances always add up to zero.

So, I am right and you and “they”, i.e. the rest of American academics, are wrong. This is elementary algebra, the proof is in the public domain, and you can do NOTHING against it.


#1 Wikipedia, economics, scientific knowledge, or political agenda pushing?

Economists can hardly wait for their burial at the Flat-Earth Cemetery

Comment on Barkley Rosser on ‘Is The Latest Apparent Economist Suicide A Sign "Economics Is A Disaster"?’

Blog-Reference

“Economics is the study of the economy, not the study of economists.” (Ricardo Reis)

Economists, though, are not very talented scientists (they fail already at elementary macroeconomic algebra #1) and therefore every professional debate turns sooner or later into gossiping about idiosyncratic aches, pains, and neuroses. #2 Thus, academic economics has completely lost its scientific status and has become just another shitshow in the political Circus Maximus.

What economics needs after the obvious failure of Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT, and Pluralism is a Paradigm Shift. What it gets is another report about economics as a human cesspool.

Claudia Sahm, who mentions as their credentials bipolar disorder and an econ Ph.D. has recently given a report of the psychological toxicity of economics and its on-duty tormenters. #3

No word about economics as a failed/fake science, though. And that means that she is part of it. #4,#5

Not even at gossiping economists are overwhelmingly smart. Claudia Sahm “names names of quite a few prominent economists she charges with bad behavior of one sort or another.” “At least one of those she criticizes has engaged in public behavior that is well known and notorious, namely Larry Summers, who is also notoriously arrogant, and some of these the charge of arrogance is a large part of her argument, indeed mostly towards those beneath them, as well as simply to rivals, with it being especially nasty when directed at women or minorities.” (Barkley Rosser)

However, what is also well-known is that Summers and Epstein were best buddies. #6

I wonder why neither Claudia Sahm nor Barkley Rosser ― the Sherlock Holmes of EconoSpeak ― nor anybody else connects the dots that seem to neatly explain the human and institutional rottenness of academic economics.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Cross-reference: Scientific Incompetence

#2 Economics as storytelling and entertainment for the masses

#3 Economics is a disgrace (Sahm)

#4 Economics is a disgrace (EKH)

#5 Economics is a disgrace ― now more than ever

#6 Twitter, Michael Krieger, here and here

Source: Twitter

Source: Twitter

***

Twitter Aug 8

Source: Twitter

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser Aug 10

Where is Barkley Rosser (“He is guilty guilty guuilty”) when you need him?

These are the dots to connect:

• Barkley Rosser mentions Larry Summers “At least one of those she [Claudia Sahm] criticizes has engaged in public behavior that is well known and notorious, namely Larry Summers, who is also notoriously arrogant, and some of these the charge of arrogance is a large part of her argument, indeed mostly towards those beneath them, as well as simply to rivals, with it being especially nasty when directed at women or minorities.”

• Larry Summers, though, is not only known for nasty behavior but for heavy-duty political agenda-pushing. Epstein was convicted in 08. So, how could LHSummers possibly have known something was amiss? Clearly, he was in the dark; like when he scrapped Glass-Steagall, blocked the regulation of derivatives, & lost $1bn for Harvard. Poor Larry, how could he have known?” #1

• The Epstein/Maxwell duo was not only in the sex business but also in the science business.

• There are four suicides in academic economics in the wake of Epstein’s suicide. #2

• Claudia Sahm attributes these strange events to the psychological toxicity of economics: “Many graduate students and economists have mental health issues. Research at Harvard found notably higher rates of depression and anxiety among economics PhD students than other PhD students and the general population. Departments often do send students to campus health resources. The faculty place unrealistic expectations on the students. … Faculty suffer too. [Krueger, Weitzman, Sandholm, Farhi, rest in peace. I am so sorry.]”.

• Barkley Rosser knew Krueger, Weitzman, and Sandholm personally. Not to forget Mark Thoma, who retired unexpectedly and abandoned the leading blog Economist’s View.

Strange things happen in economics. Being a lifelong insider, Barkley Rosser maintains that “economics and economists have some very serious problems to deal with.”

Yes, the first and foremost problem is, how could it happen that economics has become a scientific fake/fraud from the peer review selection process onwards to the EconNobel?

Barkley Rosser concludes cryptically, “I could say more, actually a lot more, but I think this will do for now.”

What shitshow economics is!

#1 MarkGB, Twitter

#2 Is doing economics really depressing?

***

Twitter/X Nov 18,2025 A member in good standing of the economic community until 2025

The U.S. economy hangs on the State ventilator for its survival

Comment on Nathan Tankus on ‘Where do profits come from?’* and Barkley Rosser on ‘Donald Trump's Only Chance’

Blog-Reference

Macroeconomic profit is not made from a longer labor time, not from higher productivity, not from innovation/creative destruction, not from a lower wage rate, not from more greed, not from exploitation, not from monopoly power, not from risk-taking, not from rent-seeking, not from profit maximization or any other subjective factor, but in the most elementary case of the production-consumption economy from the dissaving/deficit spending of the household sector, i.e. Qm≡−Sm. Starting with a balanced-budget economy, macroeconomic profit presupposes credit/money creation by the banking sector (central bank and commercial banks). Macroeconomic profit has nothing to do with property rights. The Profit Law holds for capitalism and communism.

Accordingly, microeconomic profit is the result of the continuous redistribution of macroeconomic profit between the firms that constitute the business sector. If macroeconomic profit is zero, i.e., if the household sector's budget is balanced, then the sum of microeconomic profits is equal to the sum of microeconomic losses.

In the elementary production-consumption economy with a state sector, macroeconomic profit comes ultimately from the household and state sector’s deficit spending/money creation, i.e., Qm≡(G−T)−Sm.#1-#6

This means that the greater part of the profit in the United States is actually produced by the state. The U.S. economy has been hanging on the state ventilator for survival for a long time already. The outstanding amount of public debt is a rough metric for the dysfunctionality of the system.

The policy of deficit-spending/money-creation is ultimately a means of postponing the breakdown of the U.S. economy. Deficit-spending/money-creation is a free lunch for the Oligarchy. Financial wealth grows in lockstep with public debt. Mr. Trump’s current policy will blow up macroeconomic profit to hitherto unimaginable proportions. This, after all, is why the Oligarchy put him into office in the first place.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


* Notes on the Crises
#1 Profit
#2 The Levy/Kalecki Profit Equation is false
#3 Truth by definition? The Profit Theory has been axiomatically false for 200+ years
#4 The profit theory is false since Adam Smith
#5 Cross-references Profit
#6 Graphic AXEC143d The Profit Law with growing complexity

Related 'The question economists could not answer for 200+ years' and 'Mathematical Proof of the Breakdown of Capitalism' and 'OMG, after 200+ years, economics becomes a science' and 'MMT, money creation, stealth taxation, and redistribution' and 'Deficit-spending/money-creation is ALWAYS a bad deal for WeThePeople' and 'Links on Austerity'.

***

Twitter Jan 28, 2021

Twitter Mar 15, 2021

Economists: at the end of the wrong track

Comment on Barkley Rosser on ‘July 24 Society For Chaos Theory In Psychology And Life Sciences Conference’

Blog-Reference

As usual, Barkley Rosser promotes cargo cult stuff. Cargo cult was the name that Feynman gave the ‘social sciences’, in order to clearly distinguish them from genuine science. Here are some programmatic highlights from the ongoing aberration:

• "Applications of prisoner's dilemma modeling in search of a more socially just dominant strategy: Overcoming anxiety associated with group oppression: Lessons from a single case study"
• "Stability swtiching in Cournot duopoly games with three delays"
• "Covid-19 and the nonlinear dynamics of everyday life"

All this fits perfectly with Feynman's definition: “They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. ... But it doesn’t work. ... So I call these things cargo cult science because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential.”

The essential insight that economists are missing is that they are for 200+ years now on the wrong track, i.e., in the wrong Paradigm. Economics is not a 'social science' but a systems science.#1, #2

For Barkley Rosser, it is too late, but for those who are fed up with 200+ years of proto-scientific garbage and want to know what the Paradigm Shift looks like, there is now the first scientifically valid economics textbook available.#3

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


#1 Wikipedia, economics, scientific knowledge, or political agenda pushing?
#2 Your economics is refuted on all counts: here is the real thing
#3 Sovereign Economics

Related 'Dilettantes at the end of the coal-pit' and 'Modern macro moronism' and 'Economics: 200+ years of scientific incompetence and fraud'.

***

REPLY to Fred C. Dobbs on Jul 5

You say, “Kanye West tweets he’s running for president this year.”

That’s a nice try to distract from the fact that Barkley Rosser is promoting the agenda of the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology And Life Sciences. The title reminds one immediately of a $30 bill.

Note that economists do not know to this very day what profit is. They are simply too stupid for the elementary algebra that underlies macroeconomics. Just check the proof. #1 What do you think one can learn from failed economists about psychology or any other topic?

Nothing. Right.

By the way, if Caligula made his horse a Roman consul, Kanye West can be made president. What goes on in contemporary politics is old hat in academia. After all, Barkley Rosser has been made an economics professor. And he is not as smart as a horse.

#1 Wikipedia, economics, scientific knowledge, or political agenda pushing?
Section Provably false

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Jul 6

Name-dropping again ... the world's leading blablahblah ... cited many tens of thousands of times ... Princeton ... RAND ... John von Neumann ... And almost all are best buddies of the academic busybody Barkley Rosser.

Yes, Barkley Rosser, you know a lot of people from the academic entertainment industry, too bad that you have no idea how the economy works.

You say, “It is true that economists have used game theory a lot, but they did not invent it, and people from many other disciplines have used it.” Did it ever occur to you that game theory is zero-sum and that the market economy is not zero-sum? For 200+ years now, macroeconomic profit is obviously greater than zero. So, to begin with, game theory does NOT apply to economics. Von Neumann’s Theory of Games and Economic Behavior is plain methodological BS because it gets the pivotal economic concept of profit wrong.

And you hang around in academia and all these pointless conferences and have not realized that something is deeply wrong with economics. Guess what, it has nothing to do with animal behavior or the nonlinear dynamics of armed groups in Yemen and Pakistan.

Learn economics, Barkley Rosser. The canonical textbook Sovereign Economics#1 is your last chance.


#1 Amazon or BoD

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Jul 7

You say, “Wow, I have not seen you fall so spectacularly on your face practically ever. I do not know where you went to econ grad school, but apparently they did not teach you even the most elementary game theory.” and “Sorry, Egmont, but no, it is not in general zero sum. Indeed, the classic example of it not being zero sum is that most famous of cases you poked at: the prisoner's dilemma.”

Take notice first, Barkley Rosser, that the term game theory covers TWO different approaches, that of von Neumann and that of Nash. The prisoner's dilemma belongs to Nash. Von Neumann had only utter contempt for the Nash approach (see Mirowski, who has extensively dealt with the issue).

Here is the summary: “Finally, algorithmic rationality infected game theory itself, changing von Neumann’s original project considerably. The Nash Equilibrium, for Mirowski the paradigm case of the ‘rationality of the paranoid’ (p. 343), stands for him in marked contrast to von Neumann and Morgenstern’s earlier work. Mirowski points to various sources that report von Neumann’s rejection of the equilibrium concept; further, he finds in Nash’s work all of the ingredients that had beset the Cowles Commission: ‘hyper-individualism, non-accessible utility functions, constrained maximization, and cognition as a species of statistical inference’ (p. 348). The Nash equilibrium, Mirowski concludes, is to be seen as a ‘logical extension of the Walrasian general equilibrium tradition into the Cold War context’ (p. 339), but not as a continuation of von Neumann’s project.”#1

Obviously, it is you who is not familiar with the most elementary facts about game theory. No surprises here.

The term zero-sum game relates to the von Neumann approach and has nothing to do with the prisoner's dilemma.

Von Neumann was well aware that there are non-zero-sum n-person games, but he transformed them into zero-sum games with the introduction of the n+1th player.

Take notice, second, that von Neumann had no idea of what macroeconomic profit is. There are three references to profit in the index and they tell you that von Neumann did not understand the essence of economics. He simply redefined utility as profit for the entrepreneur, see footnote 2 on p. 33 ToG.

No way leads from game theory in any version to macroeconomic profit.#2 Game theory is essentially a new version of the old angels-on-a-pinpoint blather that is so beloved in scientifically incompetent academic circles, of which you are a card-carrying member.

Economics is a fake science, and you are living proof.


#1 Economica Till Gruene
#2 Wikipedia, economics, scientific knowledge, or political agenda pushing?

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Jul 8

The lethal defect of game theory is that neither von Neumann nor Nash got the foundational economic concept of profit right. This defect they share with the representative economist to this very day.

So, this whole set-theoretical fireworks with Brower's and Kakutani's fixpoint theorems is scientifically beside the point and serves only to train mentally retarded economists to dance around false-hero memorials.

Von Neumann got his math from Hilbert in Göttingen. There, he was one of many talented mathematicians. He learned soon that he could sell his talent at a premium in the United States. In an environment that runs on the principles of show business, he hyped himself or was hyped to the status of mathematical demi-good (Mirowski, Machine Dreams).

Von Neumann was on the payroll of the military and he died as an alcoholic in the Institute for Advanced Salaries as he himself called it. In sum, von Neumann was instrumental in weaponizing mathematics and swapping the principles of science for the dictates of show business. In the history of science, von Neumann will feature as one of the corruptors of mathematics.

The sickest joke in the sick story of game theory is that the foundational blunder of economics lies on the level of elementary algebra.#1 So much for the achievements of mathematical economics. It is proto-scientific garbage, just like the rest of economics.

Here is the three-step program for the New Paradigm
1. Defund economics.
2. Fire economists.
3. Scrap the lot and start again. (J. Robinson)


#1 Your economics is refuted on all counts: here is the real thing

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Jul 8

You say: “What? Joan Robinson accepted your wacko profit theory, Egmont? I never knew.”

Of course, you know nothing because you are not only stupid but also lazy. Go to the library and get Robinson, J. (1956). The Accumulation of Capital. London: Macmillan. See pp. 400-402.

“… an excess of investment over saving is an undistributed profit to the firm, …” (p. 402), and this corresponds formally to equation (32) in my 2011 working paper Keynes’s Missing Axioms.

Do you need more proof of your utter scientific incompetence, wacko Barkley?

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Jul 9

You say, “I have never said that your theory is wrong, but rather that it is a vcuous tautology. Everybody knows about retained earnings, and it is a matter of no importance except slightly in determining investment.”

No, you did not say that my profit theory is wrong, you said that it is wacko.

You try to suggest that for me “… thinking about retained earnings is the most important thing in economics, …”.

No, the most important thing in economics is to get the foundational concept of profit right. And the fact of the matter is that economics is provably false on this all-decisive score for 200+ years.#1

Economics is NOT a science, economists are NOT scientists but clowns and useful idiots in the political Circus Maximus. The representative economist is stupid or corrupt or both. The economics Nobel is a fraud.


#1 Your economics is refuted on all counts: here is the real thing

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Jul 10

You say, “The wacko part is that you think it is important. It is utterly trivial. It is rather like somebody deciding that the fundamental key to understanding all of mathematics is to realize that 7 + 2 = 9. This is certainly true, and it is also something that anybody who knows even basic arithmetic knows.”

By trying to trivialize the absolutely devastating proof that economists got profit wrong for 200+ years, you shoot yourself in the head.

Ultimately, the Profit Law for the investment economy, i.e., Q_m≡I−S_m, is indeed trivial. It is elementary algebra. The point is that economists are too stupid for elementary algebra.#1 And because of this, they get profit for the elementary production-consumption economy, i.e. Q_m≡−S_m, wrong, and then the more complex investment economy with profit distribution, i.e. Q_m≡Y_d+I−S_m, and so on. By consequence: because economists are too stupid for the elementary algebra of macroeconomic profit determination, the whole analytical superstructure of economics is provably false. As a consequence, economic policy guidance has never had sound scientific foundations.

This proven scientific incompetence does not only apply to Barkley Rosser, it applies also to his faculty. More, it applies to ALL economics faculties in the United States, and it applies to the American Economic Association and the peer-reviewers of its journals. ALL these folks get the trivial algebra of profit wrong.


#1 See section ‘Provably false’ in Wikipedia, economics, scientific knowledge, or political agenda pushing?

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Jul 11

You say “Weil, Egmont, my evolutionary game theorist friend, Bill Sandhlm may have just blown his brains out, at least he did himself in somehow or other. Perhaps he read your recent writings and took them too cloaely to heart. Heck, he might even have come to believe that 2=7=10. ”

The University of Wisconsin–Madison says “Colleagues knew Bill as “a genuine scientist; detail-oriented, open-minded, and uncompromising in the pursuit of truth,” “a humble scholar with an enormous love for research,” “an exceptional human being, generous with his time,” “kind and supportive to all, and a cherished mentor.” and “After years of struggling with depression, Bill ended his life earlier this week.”

Failed economics and the losers’ closed circle of mutual promotion

Comment on Barkley Rosser on ‘Econospeak And Angry Bear Still On List Of Top Economics Blogs, Now For 2020’

Blog-Reference

“Intelligent Economist has again put out its annual list of the top 100 economics blogs, with some new ones and some gone, although two of those were due to retirements, especially the much-missed Economists View of Mark Thoma.”

A few points to note

• ‘Intelligent Economist’ is an oxymoron, there is no such thing as an intelligent economist. The proof is in the so-called history of economic thought.#1
• Economics is a failed science due to the utter incompetence of economists. For details see Chapter 13 ‘The indelible scientific disgrace of economics’ in the canonical textbook Sovereign Economics.#2
• All Top Ten/Hundred lists are worn-out marketing/PR gimmicks since Hollywood invented the Oscar for self-promotion and political agenda-pushing.
• Economics is not a science but has always been a part of Circus Maximus.

EconoSpeak has been shown to suppress comments, to be scientifically worthless, to push a political agenda, to erect false-hero memorials, and to look the other way when academic colleagues like MMTers deceive the general public.#3

What economics needs is a list of the most corrupt economics blogs.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


#1 Wikipedia, economics, scientific knowledge, or political agenda pushing?
#2 Sovereign Economics
#3 Cross-references MMT

Related 'Needed: The Worst of the Worst of economics blogs' and 'Needed: the Top 10 of substandard economics blogs' and What the Top 20 heterodox economists say and 'Econblogosphere: The flawed Top 101'

Economics: Not a pretty story

Comment on Bill Mitchell on ‘Be careful of what parades as academic research’*

Blog-Reference and Blog-Reference

Bill Mitchell directs attention to ugly facts and top names: “Remember the 2010 film ― Inside Job ― which documented how my profession had become corrupted by the financial services sector into producing, allegedly, independent research reports extolling the virtues of deregulation etc and not admitting they were being paid for by the beneficiaries of the propaganda masquerading as research. It shows how corruption runs deep in the economics profession to accompany the incompetence that mainstream macroeconomists display. Well, I have been following an unfolding story about how Uber has decided to draw on that corrupt tendency for their own gains. It is not a pretty story.” and “I will leave it to you to check if you are interested. 1. Top names in the field ― Judd Cramer, Alan B. Krueger, Jonathan V. Hall, Peter Cohen, Robert Hahn, Steven Levitt, Robert Metcalfe, 2. Top ranked journals ― NBER Working Papers, American Economic Review.”

By pointing at an individual case of wrongdoing Bill Mitchell draws the attention away from (i) that economics as a WHOLE is a scientific fraud since the founding fathers, and (ii), that he is part of it.

The general public and the representative economist have NO proper understanding of what economics is all about. For a start, it is of utmost importance to distinguish between political and theoretical economics. The main differences are: (i) The goal of political economics is to successfully push an agenda, the goal of theoretical economics is to successfully explain how the actual economy works. (ii) In political economics anything goes; in theoretical economics, the scientific standards of material and formal consistency are observed.

A closer look at the history of economic thought shows that theoretical economics (= science) had been hijacked from the very beginning by the agenda pushers of political economics. The founding fathers were quite outspoken about their agenda: “That Political Economy is a science which teaches, or professes to teach, in what manner a nation may be made rich. This notion of what constitutes the science, is in some degree countenanced by the title and arrangement which Adam Smith gave to his invaluable work. A systematic treatise on Political Economy, he chose to call an Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations; …” (J. S. Mill)

Political economics has produced NOTHING of scientific value in the last 200+ years. The major approaches — Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism — are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, and materially/formally inconsistent. Economics does NOT satisfy scientific standards to this day.#2

From this follows that economic policy guidance from Adam Smith/Karl Marx onward NEVER had sound scientific foundations. Left/center/right does NOT matter, ALL of the economics is proto-scientific garbage, or in other words, political propaganda in a scientific bluff package.

To point at individual wrongdoers obscures the fact that economics is failure/fake/fraud from Econ 101 to textbooks to the peer-review process of journals to the EconNobel.#3

This holds also for MMT#4 and Bill Mitchell#5. MMT claims that deficit-spending/money-creation is for the benefit of WeThePeople and the solution of almost all problems between unemployment and the survival of humanity. This is not the case, MMT is provably false as economic theory and MMT policy is ultimately for the benefit of the Oligarchy. The observable distribution of financial wealth is the result mainly of public deficit-spending. MMTers are not scientists but agenda pushers.

Bill Mitchell claims: “In fact, as a life-long educator, I clearly form the view that most of the distasteful things we read or hear from others are the result of ignorance and a lack of education. These things are clearly manipulated for ideological and political purposes by others but at the root of the problem is a lack of education. Education is the path to a more enlightened, tolerant and inclusive society. That is the driving principle I have always operated on. Which is why the relatively recent trend on social media that is variously called ― Cancel culture or Call-out culture ― is disturbing to say the least.”

True, but entirely beside the point. Bill Mitchell is NOT a teacher but a manipulator of public opinion. He is NOT a progressive fighter for WeThePeople but an agenda pusher for the Oligarchy. Like his academic colleagues, Bill Mitchell lacks the defining characteristic of a scientist: “A genuine inquirer aims to find out the truth of some question, whatever the color of that truth. ... A pseudo-inquirer seeks to make a case for the truth of some proposition(s) determined in advance. There are two kinds of pseudo-inquirer, the sham and the fake. A sham reasoner is concerned, not to find out how things really are, but to make a case for some immovably-held preconceived conviction. A fake reasoner is concerned, not to find out how things really are, but to advance himself by making a case for some proposition to the truth-value of which he is indifferent.” (Haack)#6

For economics in general and MMT, in particular, there is NO future. It holds: “Scrap the lot and start again.” (Joan Robinson)

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


* Billy Blog
#1 For details of the big picture see cross-references Failed/Fake Scientists
#2 Failed economics: The losers’ long list of lame excuses
#3 Links on the Economics Nobel
#4 For the full-spectrum refutation of MMT see cross-references MMT
#5 Bill Mitchell’s dishonorable discharge from the sciences
#6 Circus Maximus: Economics as entertainment, personality gossip, virtue signaling, and lifestyle promotion

Related 'Economics, MMT, and the corruption of science' and '“Inhumane stupidity” ― bad economic policy as inevitable consequence of false economic theory' and 'The problem with economics as a discipline' and 'Trust in science? Yes, but economics is NOT a science' and 'Econogenics: economists pose a hazard to their fellow citizens' and 'False economic theory makes bad economic policy'. For details of the big picture see cross-references Political Economics/Stupidity/Corruption.

The failed search for the “most useful idea in economics”

Comment on Sandwichman on ‘What is the Most Useful Idea in Economics?’ and ‘War, Peace and the End of Shorter Hours’.

Blog-Reference

“NPR’s Planet Money went to the 2020 American Economic Association conference in San Diego, where they asked economists, ‘what is the most useful idea in economics?’ David Autor appears near the end of the episode to talk about the lump-of-labor fallacy. Almost exactly 87 years earlier, on January 18, 1933, Arthur Dahlberg appeared before a Senate subcommittee to give testimony on the thirty-hour work week bill. The lump-of-labor fallacy would be a useful idea indeed if it would show economists how little they have learned and how much they have forgotten in the intervening 87 years.”#1

For a summary, Sandwichman quotes Dahlberg: “The whole economic mechanism is so involved that we get lost in following the process,” and “… I tried to devise a technique by which I could more vividly present these economic interrelationships. I concluded the technique of the use of words for describing social process is inadequate. It is almost impossible to get agreement on what is happening, much misinterpretation over words. The memory forgets, and the best ones can not consider more than one aspect of the problem at a time.”

Indeed, that is why economists have not figured out in 200+ years how the economy works. Economists are still in the proto-scientific swamp where “nothing is clear and everything is possible” (Keynes), and they have NOTHING of scientific value to show for. The major approaches — Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT — are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent, and all got the foundational economic concept of profit wrong. The usefulness of economists consists NOT of any scientific achievement but their employability as useful political idiots.

This keeps economists occupied in decently paid jobs. Economists, in turn, keep their lump-of-labor intact by recycling brain-dead stuff ad infinitum.

Now, the fun is over. The Employment Law is given as a testable formula.#2 This puts an abrupt end to the conversation and makes scores of economists unemployed — including Sandwichman.


#1 To begin with, it is a naive idea to go to the ASSA in order to find out whether economists have produced anything useful or worthwhile. ASSA is a rally where economists get their communicative marching orders. See ASSA2020 has been a success ― sorta kinda.
#2 Go! ― test the Profit and Employment Law

***

REPLY to Sandwichman on Jan 26

“Economics is the study of the economy, not the study of economists.” (Ricardo Reis)

So, it is absolutely irrelevant that you are a devout non-economist.

The question is how the actual economy works. If you know, tell it, but do not recycle silly dialogues from the history of garbage economics.

***

Switch of threads

***

REPLY to Sandwichman on Feb 1

The time evolution of the most elementary economic system is given by the economic God Equation.#1

Because the equation consists of measurable variables, it is testable in principle and therefore satisfies basic scientific requirements.

The equation fully replaces the Dahlberg/Goldberg depictions, which can now be disposed of for good on the garbage dump.


#1 AXEC25a

The objective reality of economics

Comment on Barkley Rosser on ‘Is There An Objective Reality?’

Blog-Reference

As always, before he comes to the point, Barkley Rosser has to inflate his ego with name-dropping: “Lee [Smolin] is a friend of mine, and the big cheese at the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, ON, CA. This is the place where the critics of string theory hang out, and Lee is their leader. … So, Lee is the leader of those who question the String theory explanation of ultimate reality. … Anyway, Smolin recognizes that this debate over the nature reality is important for current policy discussions.”

OK, but what about objective reality? Here it is: “More fundamentally, on a point I take seriously. reality was around for billions of years before we showed up. Does somehow its reality depend on us on observing it? Bottom line is that I agree with Lee that despite all the oddities of quantum mechanics in the end there really is an objective reality. So now let us bring this to the current ongoing debates in political economy an admittedly less well-founded ‘science’.”

First of all, microfounded economics deals with middle-sized objects of production/trade/ consumption and, by logical consequence, quantum mechanics is absolutely irrelevant. Not even classical physics is dealt with in economics: “Political Economy, therefore, presupposes all the physical sciences; it takes for granted all such of the truths of those sciences as are concerned in the production of the objects demanded by the wants of mankind; or at least it takes for granted that the physical part of the process takes place somehow.” (J. S. Mill)

So, economics leaves the physical aspect of reality to Physics and the psychological/ sociological aspect to Psychology/Sociology. Economics deals with the economic system and tries to figure out the systemic laws. The de-hyped reality is that economics has NOT been successful at its proper task. The major approaches — Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT — are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent and all got the foundational economic concept profit wrong. Economics is a failed science from Adam Smith/Karl Marx onward to Barkley Rosser.

The contribution of economists to science is exactly zero. How could this happen? Well, there is political economics and theoretical economics. The main differences are: (i) The goal of political economics is to successfully push an agenda, the goal of theoretical economics is to successfully explain how the actual economy works. (ii) In political economics anything goes; in theoretical economics, the scientific standards of material and formal consistency are observed.

Theoretical economics is a scientific failure. Because of this, economics has nothing to offer in the way of scientifically well-founded advice: “In order to tell the politicians and practitioners something about causes and best means, the economist needs the true theory or else he has not much more to offer than educated common sense or his personal opinion.” (Stigum)

The fact is that economists do not have the true theory and that, consequently, economic policy guidance NEVER had sound scientific foundations.#1

Economists have NO grasp of economic reality. The outstanding characteristic of the representative economist is utter scientific incompetence. Economists are even too stupid for the elementary algebra that underlies macroeconomics.#2

The economist’s lack of scientific capacity is confirmed with Barkley Rosser’s summary: “So, on climate change, yes, science is pretty clear: global warming is happening. What we do about is another matter. But global warming is a real reality actually happening. Also, human beings got here through evolution. That is also an objective fact supported by virtually all of the available evidence, despite some odd details in evolutionary history. We really need to defend science against its attackers in the public arena.”

First of all, science has to be defended against the fake scientists and real political agenda pushers from the economics departments who award themselves the Oligarchy-sponsored “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”.#3

In order to protect science from fraudsters, economists have to be expelled from the scientific community.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


#1 Economics ― the science that never was
#2 Get it econ suckers: behavioral microfoundations ⇒ false, systemic macrofoundations ⇒ true
#3 Cross-references Political Economics/Stupidity/Corruption

Related 'What’s the trouble with some Canadian economists?' and 'Econogenics: economists pose a hazard to their fellow citizens' and 'Trust in science? Yes, but economics is NOT a science'.