Economics and Project Augean Stable

Comment on Barkley Rosser on ‘The Man Who Saved The World From Nuclear Holocaust During The Cold War’

Blog-Reference

For every intelligent person, it is crystal clear that economics is a failed science. The two main tasks at this critical juncture are (i) positive, i.e. to promote the necessary paradigm shift, and (ii) negative, i.e. to get rid of the proto-scientific dung of the past 200 years. The latter task compares to the Fifth Labor of Heracles and is therefore called Project Augean Stable: “[Augeas] is best known for his stables, which housed the single greatest number of cattle in the country and had never been cleaned, until the time of the great hero Heracles.”#1

The problem with Barkley Rosser is that he neither contributes to (i) nor to (ii) but steadfastly continues to produce dung.

Since Smith and Marx, economics claims to be a science. And this claim is officially enshrined in the title: “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”.

Economics started as Political Economy. Political Economy is agenda pushing and economists from Smith, Ricardo, Marx, Keynes, Hayek, Samuelson to the present were agenda pushers first and scientists second. As a matter of fact, they were lousy scientists because they never figured out how the monetary economy works. How do we know this? We know this for sure because the profit theory is "still elusive" as every economics student knows from the Palgrave Dictionary (Desai, 2008).

Let this sink in: to this day economists have no idea about what profit is. This means that they have no idea how the market economy works. This, in turn, means, that their policy guidance is not only scientifically worthless but possibly harmful if applied. This, in turn, means that economists bear the intellectual responsibility for the social devastations of unemployment, depression etcetera. With their proven scientific incompetence economists are a menace to their fellow citizens.

Project Augean Stable starts with a clear separation of political economics (= agenda-pushing) and theoretical economics (= science). The project proceeds with flushing out all proto-scientific dung and expelling all political economists.

I had no idea who Schelling was until I read Barkley Rosser’s posts. In his last piece, he said: ... Schelling never wrote about or cared about profit rates or how profit and income are defined”. Looking up Wikipedia I learned that Schelling got the economics Nobel Prize.

Questions: (i) how can it be that an economist who does not know what profit is and who does not care to define the pivotal phenomenon of his discipline is awarded a prize for “economics sciences”, and (ii), why is Barkley Rosser hell-bent to sell an annoying political busybody who has failed in his own discipline as brilliant military/strategical thinker, and (iii), why is Barkley Rosser abusing an economics blog for propagating his silly version of the history of the Cold War, and (iv), why has Barkley Rosser not realized to this day that in the Cold War scientists were either abused or volunteered as useful idiots or fig leaves and that they NEVER were in any position to “save the world”?

Augean Project’s answers: Cold War gossip/storytelling out of economics ― flush. Abolition of the economics Nobel Prize ― flush. Expulsion of economists who cannot tell what profit is from the scientific community ― flush. Expulsion of all political agenda pushers from the sciences ― flush. Retiring Barkley Rosser from EconoSpeak ― flush.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


#1 Wikipedia

Source: Wikipedia

Preceding Economics: Science or cheap talk? and Samuelson or Who is the smartest smartie?.

Related 'A heap of proto-scientific garbage'

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REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Aug 17

(i) You say: “I should not waste my or other readers of this blog’s time, ...” For once, I agree with you.

(ii) I said, “I had no idea who Schelling was until I read Barkley Rosser’s posts.” So, when I asked, “why is Barkley Rosser hell-bent to sell an annoying political busybody” I paraphrased his own characterization “Schelling pushed tirelessly in numerous channels, most of them private but highly placed, ...” from the perspective of those highly placed.

(iii) The whole story is surreal. Tell a highly ranked military that Schelling saved the world in the Cold War and he will laugh three days and then drop dead of apoplexy. Einstein was very well aware that for the scientists the game was over before it began: “When a reluctant Albert Einstein wrote the letter to President Roosevelt that set the American atomic bomb project in motion, he ruefully predicted to his colleagues: ‘You realize, once the military have this, they will use it, no matter what you say.’”#1

(iv) Not knowing more of Schelling than Barkley Rosser posted here, I am pretty sure that Schelling knew all this, too. After all, he was more brilliant than the brilliant but arrogant von Neumann and the brilliant but inferiority-complexed Samuelson and the brilliant equilibrist Arrow taken together. So, yes, it is probably Barkley Rosser who is the busybody here. I am pretty sure that Schelling, now age 95, is rather annoyed of being paraded as a world saver before politically retarded economics students by the storyteller, name-dropping sitcom economist, and time waster Barkley Rosser.


#1 Source

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'.

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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

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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

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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?

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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

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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?

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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

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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?

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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.”

Legitimacy lost

Comment on Barkley Rosser on ‘Trump Destroys His Favored SCOTUS Nominee’

Blog-Reference

After a long phase of degeneration, the institution of POTUS has now obviously lost the last bit of legitimacy.

After a long phase of degeneration, the institution of SCOTUS currently loses the last bit of legitimacy on the open stage.

We know this from the economist Barkley Rosser. That’s a bit strange, provided one realizes that it is NOT the business of the academic economist to dabble in politics. Politics is the proper business of Political Science. The business of the economist as a scientist is to figure out how the economy works ― not less, not more.

Economists have failed at their mission. They have to this day produced NOTHING of scientific value. The fact is that economists have messed up
• profit theory, for 200+ years,
• microfoundations, for 150+ years,
• macrofoundations, for 80+ years,
• the application of elementary logic and mathematics since the founding fathers.

Economists do not know to this day how the price- and profit mechanism works. The major approaches ― Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism ― are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, and materially/formally inconsistent. Because of this, economic policy guidance has NO sound scientific foundation since Adam Smith/Karl Marx.

As we speak, Stephanie Kelton, her academic fellow campaigners, and the hyper-active MMT sales force on social media pull off “one of the greatest cons ever perpetrated on the American people.”#1

MMT is proto-scientific garbage, the Post-Keynesian sectoral balances equation that underlies the whole analytical edifice is provably false but, curiously, the academic economist Barkley Rosser turns his eyes away from his own profession and prefers to comment on the reported sex and drinking scandals of SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Why does a failed/fake economist repeat at great length what everybody knows already from the extensive media coverage and why does he let us know that he does “not feel sorry for Brett Kavanaugh”? Economics is NOT about feelings but about knowledge, NOT about politicians but about the economy.

Academic economics has entirely abandoned scientific standards and integrity. Economists over the whole spectrum from Orthodoxy to Heterodoxy, from Paul Krugman to Brad DeLong to Simon Wren-Lewis to Barkley Rosser to Steve Keen to Lars Syll to Yanis Varoufakis are full-time media clowns and useful political idiots. Academia, too, has become a failed institution.

To recall, political economics has NO legitimacy since the founding fathers: “A scientific observer or reasoner, merely as such, is not an adviser for practice. His part is only to show that certain consequences follow from certain causes, and that to obtain certain ends, certain means are the most effectual. Whether the ends themselves are such as ought to be pursued, and if so, in what cases and to how great a length, it is no part of his business as a cultivator of science to decide, and science alone will never qualify him for the decision.” (J. S. Mill) #2, #3

As a matter of principle, it is entirely beyond the capacity of economists to make a valuable contribution to the advancement of humanity because economics has no sound scientific foundations to this day.#4

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


#1 Stephanie and Noah ― economics at the intellectual zero lower bound
#2 The end of political economics
#3 The case for pure economics
#4 For details of the big picture see cross-references Political Economics/Stupidity/Corruption

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REPLY to Zachary Smithingell on Oct 3

There is the political sphere and there is the scientific sphere. The political sphere is about agenda-pushing, and the scientific sphere is about knowledge.

In the political sphere, every imbecile is entitled to climb on a soapbox and to vomit the content of his dysfunctional brain all over the place.

In the scientific sphere, people are supposed to contribute something to the growth of knowledge. Scientific knowledge, in turn, is well-defined by material and formal consistency. Confused off-topic blather is NOT appreciated in the scientific sphere.

You certainly agree that Barkley Rosser’s gossip about Mr. Kavanaugh’s beer and sex life has NO economic or scientific content whatsoever. This would be no embarrassment if Barkley Rosser were a talk show host or a yellow press journalist. But Barkley Rosser pretends to be a competent academic economist.

And this is the point: economics claims to be a science and economists claim to be scientists and they communicate this every year loud and clear with the “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”.

Reality is different: economics is a cargo cult science, economists are fake scientists, and Barkley Rosser as brain-dead blatherer is living proof that academia, too, is a failed institution.

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REPLY to Mark Bahner on Oct 4

You let the world know on EconoSpeak: “For the record, I did not vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton...I voted for Gary Johnson, who was a much better candidate than either Trump or Clinton.”

It is pretty obvious that this statement has zero informational content and is not of any interest to anyone.

So, a Mark Bahner, a Barkley Rosser, an Anonymous, and others are producing pure noise on EconoSpeak. This has NO positive effect whatsoever but only prevents economic debate geting above the level of brain-dead nonsense.

Speculating whether this effect is unintentional or intentional is a pointless exercise. Sticking to the facts as they are, what anyone can learn from the beer-sex-asshole noise on EconoSpeak is that the long march of the lowlifes of all walks of life has reached its logical end. The institutions of POTUS, SCOTUS, and ACADEME have lost their function and legitimacy and have been brought down to a noisy clown wrestling show.

So, EconoSpeak and Barkley Rosser have at least one positive purpose: to provide an indicator of how deep the social shithole has become by now.#1


#1 By the way, with his tortured irony “… you could get support from Egmont if you declare him to be the only person in worl history to have approached economics scientifically, with his theory of profits being an even greater scientific discovery than the discovery of the DNA molecule.” Barkley Rosser unintentionally hit the metaphorical nail. The three macroeconomic axioms (A1) Yw=WL, (A2) O=RL, (A3) C=PX are actually the DNA of economics. They replace the monster-producing Walrasian and Keynesian axioms. This is called evolution in biology and paradigm shift in methodology.

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REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Oct 5

Every economist knows from the Palgrave Dictionary that Walrasian, Keynesian, Marxian, and Austrian profit theories are false: “A satisfactory theory of profits is still elusive.” (Desai, 2008) So, there is only one interesting question in economics: is the axiomatically founded macroeconomic Profit Law Qm≡Yd+(I−Sm)+(G−T)+(X−M) true?#1

As long as economists have not definitively clarified the concept of profit, economics is not merely a sick proto-scientific joke but a betrayal of the general public. As things stand at the moment, economics has NO scientific legitimacy.

You are on the F-side of the fence. F stands for false. I am on the T-side of the fence. T stands for true. It does not matter how many of your friends and colleagues stand also on the F-side. The number of followers does not make a false theory true.

There is no need to tell the world that you are good friends with Meghnad Desai and Roy Weintraub and that they are on your side. Everybody on your side of the fence shares your fate and will end up at the Flat-Earth Cemetery. There is enough space for the whole of the academe.


#1 Go! ― test the Profit and Employment Law

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REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Oct 6

You say: “If you go back and reread that long post I put up here about capital and profit that you and I had our longest exchanges about, I clearly states that we did not have clear agreement on the topic, that it remains an open matter of debate.”

No. The matter was settled then.#1

I started the debate with: “The representative economist fails to this day to capture the essence of a capitalist market economy.”

I concluded the debate with: “Barkley Rosser cannot get out of his self-created muddle. Who cannot handle three macro axioms (Yw=WL, O=RL, C=PX), two conditions (X=O, C=Yw), and two definitions (Qm≡C−Yw, Sm≡Yw−C) and UNDERSTAND IMMEDIATELY that Qm≡−Sm, i.e. that business profit and household saving are NEGATIVELY related, is OUT of economics. When the pivotal concept of profit is not properly understood the rest of the analytical superstructure of economics falls apart and there is NO use at all to filibuster about capital and equilibrium. The best the representative economist can do for the welfare of humanity is to get out of the way.”

This is the stupidity feature of all those economists who stand together with you on the F-side of the fence. It is accompanied by the corruption feature. The representative economist violates scientific standards and habitually denies refutation: “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).

And it is quite obvious why economists habitually violate scientific standards: “… suppose they did reject all theories that were empirically falsified ... Nothing would be left standing; there would be no economics.” (Hands)

To deny refutation, to obscure matters, and to claim that the debate is still open is the modus operandi of economists for 200+ years.#2 This is the reason why economics is a failed science and never rose above the proto-scientific level.#3

The corruption of economists consists of deliberately keeping things in the swamp between true and false where “nothing is clear and everything is possible” (Keynes) The apex of corruption is telling the general public that what they are doing is science and congratulating themselves with the “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”.

The fundamental concepts of economics are inconsistent for 200+ years. Economics has NO scientific legitimacy.


#1 Economists: scientists or political clowns?
#2 And the answer is NCND ― economics after 200+ years of Glomarization
#3 The biggest scientific mistake of the last centuries, and it has much to do with academic economists

Reverse Alchemy: from scientific gold to political shit

Comment on Barkley Rosser on ‘MbS Must Go’

Blog-Reference

The key to understanding economics is that there are TWO versions: political economics and theoretical economics. The main differences are: (i) The objective of political economics is to successfully push an agenda, and the objective 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 (= science) had been hijacked from the very beginning by the agenda pushers of political economics. Political economics has NOT achieved anything of scientific value. This is the actual state of economics, provably false:
• profit theory, for 200+ years,
• microfoundations, for 150+ years,
• macrofoundations, for 80+ years,
• the application of elementary logic and mathematics since the founding fathers.

Needless to emphasize that this was not a linear process. There were always economists who were committed to the scientific standards of material/formal consistency but in the end, political agenda-pushing retained the upper hand and economics never got out of the proto-scientific swamp.

The vast majority of economists have been devoured by the swamp. Barkley Rosser is a case in point. His post ‘MBS Must Go’ has ZERO scientific content and is plain political agenda-pushing.

Since the founding fathers, economics violates the first rule of science, i.e. the strict separation of science and politics.#1 As a result, economics fell prey to the Reverse Alchemy of Communication which means: If transposed from the sphere of science to the sphere of politics, every scientific idea (tentative or well-established through numerous logical and empirical cross-checks), is with absolute necessity perverted/inverted in the process.

As a failed science, economics needs a Paradigm Shift. Paradigm Shift means in methodological terms a change of foundational premises/axioms. Needless to emphasize, economists also perverted the concept of Paradigm Shift. Transposed from the scientific sphere to the political sphere of agenda-pushing it now means nothing else than a change of policy.

“So how do you change paradigms? Thomas Kuhn, who wrote the seminal book about the great paradigm shifts of science, has a lot to say about that.
• You keep pointing at the anomalies and failures in the old paradigm.
• You keep speaking and acting, loudly and with assurance, from the new one.
• You insert people with the new paradigm in places of public visibility and power.
• You don’t waste time with reactionaries; rather, you work with active change agents and with the vast middle ground of people who are open-minded.”#2

Of course, these tips are the basics of marketing/public relations/rhetoric/ propaganda/ proselytizing/agenda pushing.

To this day, economists do not understand what science and a Paradigm Shift is all about.#3 Since Adam Smith/Karl Marx, they have never risen above the level of useful political idiots.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


#1 For details of the big picture see cross-references Political Economics/Stupidity/Corruption
#2 Links to Twitter, Kate Raworth, Club of Rome
#3 The inexorable Paradigm Shift in economics
From false microfoundations to true macrofoundations
The new macroeconomic paradigm

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Wikimedia AXEC123e

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REPLY to The Economists Challenge on Oct 20

Economics is about how the economy works. Scientists, by consequence, focus their communication strictly on the diverse aspects that constitute the economy. Incompetent scientists, though, do not talk about the economy but about what Walras or Keynes has written in their books or told their students as the oral tradition of their Alma Mater or that Walras was not a Neoliberal but had socialist leanings or that Keynes was bisexual, and all this other irrelevant gossip. In one word, incompetent scientists do not stick to the subject matter but get almost immediately lost in meta-communication = storytelling = empty blather = propaganda = agenda pushing (e.g. Barkley Rosser’s MBS Must Go).

This explains why economists never got to the bottom of their subject matter, i.e. to the foundational concept profit. The historical fact is that economists are too stupid for the elementary mathematics that underlies macroeconomic accounting. Because of this, one can safely forget all the rest from supply-demand-equilibrium to DSGE and New Keynesianism.

In the end, meta-communication boils down to motive-speculation/imputation. Schumpeter has said all about this nuisance: “Remember: occasionally, it may be an interesting question to ask why a man says what he says; but whatever the answer, it does not tell us anything about whether what he says is true or false.”

The only content of a scientific debate is: Is the statement S about how the economy works true or false? With truth well-defined for 2300+ years.

So, all you (or Barkley Rosser, for that matter) say about yourself or this guy Egmont is plain talk-show BS and has NOTHING to do with the subject matter of economics. If you think the macrofounded Profit or Employment Law is false, do what a scientist is supposed to do: demonstrate that it is materially/formally inconsistent.#1 Science is about proof, politics exhausts itself in brain-dead blather and self-stylization as the savior of the nation/world/universe.

The only thing you (or Barkley Rosser, for that matter) can do for the progress of science and the welfare of humanity is to take a shovel and bury yourself at the Flat-Earth Cemetery.

#1 Go! ― test the Profit and Employment Law

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REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Oct 21

Economics is dead. Supply-demand-equilibrium, Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Post-Keynesianism, DSGE, New Keynesianism, etcetera is provably false.

Economics needs a Paradigm Shift from microfoundations to macrofoundations.

There is one elementary question for every economist to answer: which of the two macroeconomic balances equations is true

1 (X−M)+(G−T)+(I−Sm)−(Qm−Yd)=0

2 (X−M)+(G−T)+(I−S)=0?

You have exactly one character for an answer. To recall: “No one ignorant of elementary mathematics and true macrofoundations can be admitted to economics.”

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REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Oct 22

You cannot answer an elementary economic question. “Both are correct” is the false answer because eq. 2 represents a zero-profit economy. There NEVER has been a zero-profit economy in the history of the world.

If simplified, eq. 2 boils down to the Keynesian I=S and this tells everyone that macroeconomics is provably false for 80+ years and that economists ― both orthodox and heterodox economists ― are too stupid for elementary mathematics.

In your bottomless scientific incompetence you have, of course, realized nothing in your whole academic career.

You started this thread with “MBS Must Go”. You produced NOT ONE scientifically valid sentence during the whole debate. So, it is the fake scientist Barkley Rosser who must go.

Take a shovel, go to the Flat-Earth-Cemetery, bury yourself, and deliver us from your brain-dead blather.

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Oct 23

I always acknowledged your superior knowledge of the family tree of the House of Sa’ud.

Jul 13, 2017: “Your true competence has always been insightful comments on the sex life of the House of Sa’ud and other celebrities as demonstrated in two recent pieces:

• Muhammed Bin Nayef Bin Abdulaziz Al Sa’ud Confined To His Palace

• Was Thomas Jefferson A Monstrous Rapist?

Economics has never been your thing. Good for society to learn that you have left profit, capital, equilibrium, and other nonentities behind for good and dedicate your talent now fully to Sexual Research.”#1

Sep 28, 2017: “During his whole professional life as a cargo cult economist, Barkley Rosser never realized that there is something fundamentally wrong with both Walrasianism and Keynesianism. Neither did he resolve any contradictions nor rectify anything, except perhaps the family tree of the House of Sa’ud.”#2

Jun 1, 2018: “You have not realized either that your academic colleagues, the MMT money printers and deficit spenders, are deceiving the general public by obfuscating the profit effect of public deficit spending.

Macroeconomics is provably false since Keynes, academic economists push the agenda of Wall Street by telling people that public debt does not matter, and Barkley Rosser, an economist who never understood what profit is, entertains the audience with the Happiness Curve, how the Saudi crown prince tortures fellow princes, with the assassination of MLK and JFK, the death of Yeshua bin Yusuf, and the infighting of the Bolsheviks back in the 1920s.

Whatever you are doing, it is NOT economics and NOT science.”#3

#1 Economists: scientists or political clowns?

#2 Setting the history of economic non-thought right

#3 Austerity and the political games Progressives play

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Oct 23

You never understood what profit is, so all you ever said about economics is senseless blather/political agenda-pushing.

You are the perfect example of a representative economist. Just like your academic colleagues you have never produced anything of scientific value. You cannot even answer which of the two macroeconomic sectoral balances equations is true: 1 (X−M)+(G−T)+(I−Sm)−(Qm−Yd)=0 or 2 (X−M)+(G−T)+(I−S)=0.

The answers to the questions of The Economists Challenge cannot be found in the heap of proto-scientific garbage called Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy but only in macrofounded Constructive Heterodoxy, see cross-references.

If The Economists Challenge was a serious researcher he had easily found this out for himself. Obviously, he is as fake as Anonymous and the rest of Barkley Rosser’s troll circus at EconoSpeak.

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Oct 25 

You are whining: “There you have it even more, Economists Challenge. You sought advice from Egmont, and what you get for your efforts is to be labeled a ‘fake’ and part of our ‘troll circus’ here.”

You and The Economists Challenge could have easily avoided any effort/pain if your capability of reading/understanding was only slightly above absolute zero.

Take notice of this disclaimer: “This site does not hand out advice about how to avoid taxes, to get rich on the stock market, to be successful in business, to increase the wealth of nations, to run an economy, to maximize welfare, to prevent national/global bankruptcy, to improve the institutional setup, to get out of national/global depression, or how to save humankind or a subgroup thereof. The effective solution of economic problems and the attainment of worthwhile goals presupposes the correct economic theory, which in turn presupposes the correct axiom set, which becomes the ultimate source of accountable advice. Because of this, this site is strictly about axiomatization. Economic advice of any sort is an entirely separate matter.”#1

You have NO correct Profit Theory but pester the world with your advice, I have the axiomatically correct Profit Theory but give NO advice to a random imbecile who calls himself The Economists Challenge.

This exactly is the difference between a soapbox economist and a scientist.

#1 AXEC Disclaimer (III)

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 scientific fake and 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?

“We have sunk very low”

Comment on Barkley Rosser on ‘Trump More Seriously Kowtows To MBS’

Blog-Reference

Barkley Rosser, the failed economist, gives first priority to gossip, agenda pushing, False-Hero-Worshipping, buddy promotion, and last priority to serious scientific work.

Barkley Rosser complains that the White House has recently sunk to a very low level. This distracts from the fact that the representative economist is already 200+ years on a very low level with regard to scientific ethics and integrity.#1

Economics had been captured from the beginning by political agenda pushers. Political economics has produced nothing of scientific value from Adam Smith/Karl Marx onward to DSGE, New Keynesianism, and heterodox Pluralism.

On EconoSpeak, the representative economists Barkley Rosser and Sandwichman gossip, blather, disinform, misinform, distract, applaud one another, manipulate their blogs, and suppress posts they do not like. They have been on a very low level long before the White House.

Curiously, despite its poor scientific quality, EconoSpeak is regularly recommended by Mark Thoma of Economist’s View.#2

Now, Economist’s View is a respected hub of economic information exchange and they surely do not promote political crap and suppress posts they do not like?

Yes, they do.

The only true text line that Barkley Rosser has ― unintentionally ― spoken on behalf of the representative economist is: “We have sunk very low”.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


#1 Fake religion, fake science, fake news, and false complaints
#2 For example here and here

Related 'Feynman Integrity, fake science, and the econblogosphere' and 'When fake scientists call out on fake politicians' and 'Cryptoeconomics ― the best of Mark Thoma’s spam folder' and 'Beware of the moralizing economist' and 'Economists’ rude awakening' and 'The end of political economics' and 'How to make economics a science'. For details of the big picture see cross-references Failed/Fake Scientists.

***

NOTE on Sandwichman on Apr 3, 2019

You and Barkley Rosser have NO idea what profit is but you blather about economics.

You have NO idea what history is but you blather about the Frankfurt School and Adorno. Of course, as a jack-of-all-trades blatherer you miss the crucial point: “In the June of 1934 issue of the Nazi monthly Die Musik, Adorno could be found recommending Baldur von Schirach’s chorus cycle Die Fahne der Verfolgten, ‘not only because this volume has a distinctly Nazi character because of the choice of his poetry, but also because of its quality’. Later in the same article, Adorno called for ‘a new romanticism … perhaps of the sort that Goebbels has called romantic realism.” (Jones)

On the other hand, Barkley Rosser solves in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes the Khashoggi case in ten minutes from his writing desk: “He is guilty guilty guuilty”.

All this BS is fictively crowned with self-produced applause: “… the essay is excellent.” (Anonymous)

One wonders what EconoSpeak is really good for and what is going on in academia. After all, this Sandwichman/Rosser proto-scientific garbage is regularly recommended per link by Mark Thoma, Professor of Economics at the University of Oregon, on the central information hub Economist’s View.

***

REPLY to Sandwichman on Mar 3

You assert: “You say that I ‘blather on about the Frankfurt School and Adorno.’ You are a liar. The name ‘Adorno’ has not appeared in any of the three installments I have posted so far.”

See above in your article: “One of the entries in that bibliography was The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories and Political Significance by Rolf Wiggershaus. Lind quoted a passage from the book’s ‘Afterword’ ‘Since the publication in 1970 of his book The Poverty of Critical Theory, Rohrmoser has promulgated, in constantly varying forms, the view that Marcuse, Adorno and Horkheimer were the terrorists’ intellectual foster-parents, who were using cultural revolution to destroy the traditions of the Christian West’.”

You write about the Frankfurt School without proper historical research. Needless to emphasize that you do not even know what you have posted four days ago. No further demonstrations of your scientific incompetence are needed.

***

#PointOfProof
Apr 4

before

after

Freedom for fake scientists?

Comment on Barkley Rosser on ‘A Race To Suppress Academic Freedom?’

Blog-Reference

There are TWO economixes: political economics and theoretical economics. The main differences are: (i) The goal of political economics is to successfully push an agenda, and 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.

It is important to realize that theoretical economics (= science) had been hijacked from the very beginning by political economists (= agenda pushers). Political economics has produced NOTHING of scientific value in the last 200+ years.

Orthodox economics is clearly defined: “It is a touchstone of accepted economics that all explanations must run in terms of the actions and reactions of individuals. Our behavior in judging economic research, in peer review of papers and research, and in promotions, includes the criterion that in principle the behavior we explain and the policies we propose are explicable in terms of individuals, not of other social categories.” (Arrow)

Since the soapbox economists and agenda pushers Adam Smith and Karl Marx, economics is what Feynman called a cargo cult science. In the genuine sciences, peer review is institutionalized as quality control, in economics it has been perverted to an instrument of selection and career promotion of suitable spokespersons and representatives of the prevailing view.

The major approaches ― Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism ― are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent, and ALL got the foundational concept of the subject matter ― profit ― wrong. What we actually have is the pluralism of provably false theories.

This pluralism is not an indicator of academic freedom and creativity but the very proof of scientific degeneration, incompetence, and confusion. Pluralism is a political concept and relates to matters of belief. Science is about knowledge and the sole criterion is true/false with truth clearly defined as material/formal consistency.

Theoretical economics is scientifically unacceptable from Jevons/Walras/Menger onward to DSGE. So, what remains is political economics.#1 And that is exactly what can be observed from Krugman’s liberal soapbox blather to Keen’s leftist agenda pushing. Not to forget Barkley Rosser, the expert for political unrest in Catalonia, Saudi Arabia, and China who, disqualifying for an economist, does still not know what profit is.#2

Economists have never understood the overriding importance of the separation of science and politics and simply ignore that they have NO political mandate. Strictly speaking, there is no place for political economics in academia. Because of this, the question of whether there is more academic freedom in the USA or in China is pointless. In the last 200+ years, economists have never been more than useful political idiots. Time to make economics a science.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


#1 For details see cross-references Political Economics/Stupidity/Corruption
#2 You are fired!

For details of the big picture see cross-references Science.

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Nov 28

You say “As for me not knowing what profit is, well, I know that you think the most important thing about profit is to distinguish between retained and distributed earnings, which is an utter accounting triviality.”

In the last instance, it is not an accounting triviality but one of elementary mathematics. And the fact of the matter is that economists are too stupid for simple math.#1 You still don’t get it.#2

All this, though, does not matter much because academic economics is, to begin with, NOT about scientific excellence but about political agenda-pushing.

Traditionally, there are two methods of governance: carrot and stick. In entrenched/ affluent societies the carrot is preferred (= an offer you cannot refuse), while vulnerable post-regime-change societies rely more on the stick (= a threat you cannot ignore). Neither method has much to do with the Humboldtian ideal of unconditional academic freedom.


#1 National Accounting: scientific incompetence or political fraud?
#2 How the intelligent non-economist can refute every economist hands down

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Nov 29

You say: “Every accountant and the vast majority of economists are fully aware that retained earnings and distributed earnings are not the same thing, yes, this is trivial arithmetic we all know, even the dumbest of us, …”

No, you simply don’t get it.

Macroeconomics is false since Keynes. Here is the corpus delicti from the General Theory: “Income = value of output = consumption + investment. Saving = income − consumption. Therefore saving = investment.” (p. 63)

This two-liner is conceptually and logically defective because Keynes did not come to grips with profit: “His Collected Writings show that he wrestled to solve the Profit Puzzle up till the semi-final versions of his GT but in the end he gave up and discarded the draft chapter dealing with it.” (Tómasson et al.)

Because macroeconomic profit is ill-defined
(i) the whole theoretical superstructure of Keynesianism is provably false,#1
(ii) all I=S and IS-LM models are provably false,#2
(iii) Post-Keynesianism is provably false,#3
(iv) MMT is provably false,#4
(v) all microfounded approaches are a priori false.

Macroeconomic profit is in the Keynesian case given with Q_m≡I−S_m. The Profit Law says that the monetary profit of the business sector Q_m is equal to the difference between investment expenditures of the business sector I and monetary saving of the household sector S_m (or dissaving −S_m as the case may be).

The correct macroeconomic Profit Law Q_m=I−S_m REPLACES the untenable Keynesian I=S.

The scientific incompetence of the representative economist consists of not having realized in 80+ years the foundational error in Keynesian and After-Keynesian macro. No more proof of utter scientific incompetence is needed.

All this elementary stuff comes well before the distinction between profit and distributed profit is introduced as even the dumbest member of orthodox and heterodox academic economics has to admit.

When distributed profit Y_d is taken into the picture the Profit Law expands to Q_m≡Y_d+I−S_m. Only Allais got this equation right,#5. The rest of econ academia is still lost in the proto-scientific woods.

The fact is that economists have not gotten the Profit Law right in the last 200+ years. Academic freedom has been perverted into the privilege of producing cargo cultic trash for the political Circus Maximus and violating the scientific standards of material and formal consistency with impunity.


#1 Keynesians ― terminally stupid or worse?
#2 Mr. Keynes, Prof. Krugman, IS-LM, and the End of Economics as We Know It
#3 Why Post Keynesianism Is Not Yet a Science
#4 Where MMT got macro wrong
#5 How Keynes got macro wrong and Allais got it right

Related Macroeconomics without Keynes

***

ADDENDUM on Nov 30

Behind the facade of academic freedom, peer review has long ago been corrupted to gatekeeping. See James Heckman’s Summary Chart on Twitter.

Source: Twitter, James Heckman

Accordingly, the scientific content of AER and the rest of economic journals has been zero for generations.

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Dec 1

This is the track record of economics:

• profit theory, false for 200+ years,
• Walrasian microfoundations (including equilibrium), false for 150+ years,
• Keynesian macrofoundations (including I=S, IS-LM), false for 80+ years,
• Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism = mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/formally inconsistent,#1
• unresolved pluralism of provably false theories,#2
• scientific content of economic journals = zero,
• scientific content of economic textbooks = zero,#3
• economics is what Feynman called a cargo cult science: “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.”,#4
• what is entirely missing among economists is scientific competence,#5
• economics never rose above the proto-scientific level.#6

#1 Fact of life: your econ prof is scientifically incompetent
#2 “There are always many different opinions and conventions concerning any one problem or subject-matter …. This shows that they are not all true. For if they conflict, then at best only one of them can be true.” (Popper)
#3 The father of modern economics and his imbecile kids
#4 Yes, economics is a bogus science
#5 For details of the big picture see cross-references Science and cross-references Failed/Fake scientists
#6 The real problem with the economics Nobel

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Dec 2

With regard to economics, academic freedom has been clearly defined: “It is a touchstone of accepted economics that all explanations must run in terms of the actions and reactions of individuals. Our behavior in judging economic research, in peer review of papers and research, and in promotions, includes the criterion that in principle the behavior we explain and the policies we propose are explicable in terms of individuals, not of other social categories.” (Arrow)

In economics, peer review ensures that only papers that conform to methodological individualism ≈ Walrasianism ≈ Neoclassics ≈ Orthodoxy are accepted. It is plain that the AER as its flagship journal has executed these methodological guidelines faithfully for generations and the rest has followed suit. Unfortunately, methodological individualism is proto-scientific garbage for 150+ years.

What more proof does anybody need that, with regard to economics, academic freedom has been perverted to a license for morons to crowd out scientists.

Your comparison of academic freedom in the USA and China is simply absurd and a deflection of the plain fact that economics is a cargo cult science and that the representative orthodox/heterodox economist is either stupid or corrupt or both.

***

NOTE on Barkley Rosser’s ‘Are Voters In Nations With A Poland Problem Especially Sophisticated?’ on Jan 16

Over the past weeks, Barkley Rosser, the alleged economist, identified a “Poland Problem” in the USA, Germany, Iran, and Poland. These are obviously journalistic exercises in political economics. Political economics, though, lacks sound scientific foundations since Adam Smith/Karl Marx. For this simple reason, political economics has been vacuous blather or fake news for 200+ years.#1

While the alleged economist Barkley Rosser has been occupied with newspaper reading, the formal impeccable proof has been given that MMT rests on macroeconomic foundations that are false since Keynes’ General Theory.#2 The fact that Keynesianism is axiomatically false obviously escaped Barkley Rosser over the last 50 or so years. So, while he was distracted by the “Poland Problem” he entirely missed that just under his nose developed an MMT problem.#3


#1 The end of political economics(I)
#2 MMT = proto-scientific garbage + deception of the 99-percenters
#3 For the full-spectrum refutation of MMT see cross-references MMT

***

REPLY to Barkley Rosser on Jan 23

The mission of economics is to figure out how the economy works. The mission of sociology is to figure out how society works. The objective of science is the true theory with truth defined for 2300+ years as material and formal consistency.

Obviously, economics is a failed science. Obviously, economists are incompetent scientists. What they have done in the last 200+ years is folk sociology, folk psychology, and political agenda-pushing.

Worse, economists are not only incompetent scientists but in direct opposition to plain evidence claim that what they are doing is science: “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”.

Barkley Rosser, that much is clear, is doing neither economics nor science. Neither does Peter T, Bruce Wilder, and the rest of the self-styled political experts at EconoSpeak.#1

The institutional choice of current economics is to speedily clean the Augean stable or to drown in shit.#2


#1 For details see cross-references The Representative Economist
#2 Time to retire political economists

***

Twitter Jan 29, 2020  Problems with peer review

Source: Twitter

Barkley Rosser, fake scientist

Comment on Barkley Rosser on ‘The Financial Crisis Tenth Anniversary’

Blog-Reference

Economics is a failed science or what Feynman called a cargo cult science. Needless to emphasize that the general public cannot tell the difference between genuine science and cargo cult science. Feynman defined the latter as follows: “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.” What is missing is scientific competence.

There are some typical identifiers for the cargo cultic economist.

(i) Barkley Rosser, as a prime example, maintains that science is about predicting the future: “As one of those who analyzed what was going on better than most and with better timing, …, which analyzed what had been happening and forecast a full-out crash coming soon, which indeed occurred a bit over two months later.” and “Needless to say, I have praised her [Janet Yellen] forecasting abilities on several occasions, and she was calling the housing bubble from 2005 on.”

As a matter of principle — science is NOT AT ALL in the business of prediction because it is long known among scientists: “The future is unpredictable.” (Feynman)#1 Only charlatans predict the future, and only morons take them seriously.

(ii) Barkley Rosser cannot tell the difference between prophecy and a scientific ‘prediction’. The latter is a conditional proposition that presupposes: (i) the exact knowledge of initial conditions, (ii) the knowledge of one or more universal laws, (iii) the absence of disturbances. (Popper)

Scientific ‘prediction’ presupposes the true theory. Economists, though, lack the true theory. The major approaches ― Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism ― are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, and materially/formally inconsistent.

For lack of the true theory, economic prediction is an exercise that is in no way different from the poultry entrails reading of the old Roman haruspex.

(iii) Barkley Rosser does not know how the actual market economy works. He does not even know what profit ― the foundational concept of all of economics ― is.#2

(iv) Barkley Rosser represents the wrong type of economics. There are TWO economixes: political economics and theoretical economics. The main differences are: (a) 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. (b) In political economics anything goes; in theoretical economics, the scientific standards of material and formal consistency are observed.

As a political economist, Barkley Rosser routinely violates scientific standards. His economic policy assessments and proposals do not follow from a valid theory because there is none.

(v) Political economics degenerates quite naturally to proto-scientific inconclusive blather, pure gossip about colleagues, celebrities, or political figures, and sitcom reputation management with vacuous euphemism/slander.

The lack of scientific knowledge is compensated for by the hint to piles of hot and exclusive insider knowledge: “There is so much more I have to say about all this, but these are a few items that either were not well known at the time or have been largely forgotten since.”

Political economics is essentially storytelling of the ‘throng of superfluous economists’ (Joan Robinson).#3

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke


#1 Scientists do not predict
#2 Economists: scientists or political clowns?
#3 Fact of life: your econ prof is scientifically incompetent

Related 'In search of new economists' and 'Economics and Project Augean Stable' and 'Economists are NOT scientists but stupid/corrupt storytellers'. For details of the big picture see cross-references Incompetence and cross-references Political economics.