In a recent post, UL had promised that he's 'not ending the blog' though he is clearly posting a lot less. I had wondered about some of his comments regarding the situation with mainstream econ.
"However, I am also more optimistic about the discipline changing than I used to be. Real life discussions about the state of economics simply don’t have the same air of hostility as those on the internet – in my experience it’s not difficult to find mainstream economists who will tell you macroeconomics, undergraduate economics and ‘free market’ economics, as well as other areas, are generally garbage. The difficulty lies in trying to get them to think in any other way than the ‘individual agent faced with choices’, but su\ch alternative theories are being developed, and as awareness of them increases, economists will hopefully be able to see things in other ways."
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/11/simon-wren-lewis-meainstream-macro-and.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29
This made me wonder if this optimism meant that he now thinks there doesn't need to be a thorough revolution in how economics is done. Does he think it can reform itself within? This is the belief of Simon Wren-Lewis whose views I documented in the above link and Paul Krugman. However, UL assures us that he thinks no such thing.
"I do not think economics can reform itself from the inside out at all. I think economists *know* that there are major problems with their discipline, but that they are generally not able to escape the paradigm they're in, even if they want to. So if there is a shift it will come from the next generation being drawn toward alternative schools and the old one dying off."
I think that description certainly fits Krugman who's about as sharp -a mainstream economist as you are going to find anywhere. He gets it that something's wrong but wants dearly to believe that he can somehow just tinker with a few things-add another friction maybe, debt, and call it a day. This is what his paper with Eggertson was supposed to achieve. Yet he's also made comments that shows that he recognizes that even the original mainstream Old Keynesian line had some real stumbling blocks in it. No doubt this is right, to the extent that you understand that Keynesian economics is one thing and Neoclassical economics is another. I think he suspects as much but won't quite put it together.
If you take everything he has said in preponderance over the last 4 years, you'd have a clear case for escaping the paradigm. As I documented in my previous post, there is some hope for those who want an escape from this paradigm. Nick Rowe basically thinks the same thing UL thinks will happen is in fact happening-the next generation will be quite different.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013_12_01_archive.html
P.S. I feel almost like I have to now write my own 'not ending the blog' post as you may have noticed I've been blogging a little less the last few days. The good news is I have picked up a second evening job-believe it or not, setting up chimney sweeping appointments. It's very convenient as it's right next door to my full time job I've had for 10 weeks selling maintenance supplies over the phone. Who was it that said you can never do enough telemarketing? Oh, right, no one said that!
The good news is it will give me a few more bucks in my pocket. The bad news is that my work day is now much longer and it will be tough to find time to blog during the week-though I did manage to publish one post yesterday during lunch-I'll admit I'm pretty pleased with myself in managing to fire that off in just 20 minutes.
We'll see-this chimney set-up isn't an easy one. I've done quite a decent amount of telemarketing the last few years since 2010.but this doesn't seem like an easy sale. One big problem is most people probably don't even think they have a chimney-they don't have a fireplace so they figure they have no chimney. In reality everyone has a chimney-without one you couldn't heat your home.
In nay case, I guess one way to look at it, is that either I'll get an extra $100 a week or so or I'll have my evening free for blogging soon-which I would prefer really, if only adsense hadn't dumped me without explanation.
In any case, I don't like not having at least 3 posts a day for my readers to consume. At least my archives I think you'll agree are extensive enough that it would take a long time for anyone to exhaust them. So even if there is a little less shopping in the next few weeks there is plenty stocked in the cupboards-though the analogy isn't perfect as it's important to have topical issues as well.
Who knows maybe if I don't get an appointment in the next few days they'll tell me what they've told the people whose place I took Thursday night: 'We want to try some other people tonight.' Then I could get back to enough blogging-though my money problem in this event would remain unsolved.
.
"However, I am also more optimistic about the discipline changing than I used to be. Real life discussions about the state of economics simply don’t have the same air of hostility as those on the internet – in my experience it’s not difficult to find mainstream economists who will tell you macroeconomics, undergraduate economics and ‘free market’ economics, as well as other areas, are generally garbage. The difficulty lies in trying to get them to think in any other way than the ‘individual agent faced with choices’, but su\ch alternative theories are being developed, and as awareness of them increases, economists will hopefully be able to see things in other ways."
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/11/simon-wren-lewis-meainstream-macro-and.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29
This made me wonder if this optimism meant that he now thinks there doesn't need to be a thorough revolution in how economics is done. Does he think it can reform itself within? This is the belief of Simon Wren-Lewis whose views I documented in the above link and Paul Krugman. However, UL assures us that he thinks no such thing.
"I do not think economics can reform itself from the inside out at all. I think economists *know* that there are major problems with their discipline, but that they are generally not able to escape the paradigm they're in, even if they want to. So if there is a shift it will come from the next generation being drawn toward alternative schools and the old one dying off."
I think that description certainly fits Krugman who's about as sharp -a mainstream economist as you are going to find anywhere. He gets it that something's wrong but wants dearly to believe that he can somehow just tinker with a few things-add another friction maybe, debt, and call it a day. This is what his paper with Eggertson was supposed to achieve. Yet he's also made comments that shows that he recognizes that even the original mainstream Old Keynesian line had some real stumbling blocks in it. No doubt this is right, to the extent that you understand that Keynesian economics is one thing and Neoclassical economics is another. I think he suspects as much but won't quite put it together.
If you take everything he has said in preponderance over the last 4 years, you'd have a clear case for escaping the paradigm. As I documented in my previous post, there is some hope for those who want an escape from this paradigm. Nick Rowe basically thinks the same thing UL thinks will happen is in fact happening-the next generation will be quite different.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013_12_01_archive.html
P.S. I feel almost like I have to now write my own 'not ending the blog' post as you may have noticed I've been blogging a little less the last few days. The good news is I have picked up a second evening job-believe it or not, setting up chimney sweeping appointments. It's very convenient as it's right next door to my full time job I've had for 10 weeks selling maintenance supplies over the phone. Who was it that said you can never do enough telemarketing? Oh, right, no one said that!
The good news is it will give me a few more bucks in my pocket. The bad news is that my work day is now much longer and it will be tough to find time to blog during the week-though I did manage to publish one post yesterday during lunch-I'll admit I'm pretty pleased with myself in managing to fire that off in just 20 minutes.
We'll see-this chimney set-up isn't an easy one. I've done quite a decent amount of telemarketing the last few years since 2010.but this doesn't seem like an easy sale. One big problem is most people probably don't even think they have a chimney-they don't have a fireplace so they figure they have no chimney. In reality everyone has a chimney-without one you couldn't heat your home.
In nay case, I guess one way to look at it, is that either I'll get an extra $100 a week or so or I'll have my evening free for blogging soon-which I would prefer really, if only adsense hadn't dumped me without explanation.
In any case, I don't like not having at least 3 posts a day for my readers to consume. At least my archives I think you'll agree are extensive enough that it would take a long time for anyone to exhaust them. So even if there is a little less shopping in the next few weeks there is plenty stocked in the cupboards-though the analogy isn't perfect as it's important to have topical issues as well.
Who knows maybe if I don't get an appointment in the next few days they'll tell me what they've told the people whose place I took Thursday night: 'We want to try some other people tonight.' Then I could get back to enough blogging-though my money problem in this event would remain unsolved.
.
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