Category: Economics – General

Truth, truthiness and balance

John Quiggin18 Comments

Arthur Brisbane, Public Opinion editor for the NY Times, has copped a well deserved shellacking for a column in which he asked whether reporters should act as ‘truth vigilantes’ in relation to statements made by public figures.

Having observed the silliness of asking whether newspapers should (aspire to) tell the truth, the obvious question is: How should they telll it. Here are a some suggestions

1. Its unreasonable to expect reporters to take the burden from scratch in refuting zombie lies. Newspapers, including the NYT, should include a set of factual conclusions, regularly updated, in their style manuals. The most relevant current example is that of global warming. As with the current account deficit (routinely glossed as ‘the broadest measure of the balance of payments’) the NYT should formulate a standard set of words, such as “a conclusion endorsed by every major scientific organization in the world’) to be used whenever the views of Repubs on the issue are mentioned. Similarly, any reference to claims about ‘Climategate’ should include the words ‘a conspiracy theory refuted by a number of inquiries in the US and UK’. Rinse and repeat wrt evolution, the Ryan budget plan etc

 

2. If the approach suggested above, it will rapidly become apparent that Republicans lie all of the time about everything, whereas Democrats only lie some of the time about some things. A serious paper of record would acknowledge this, noting the partial exceptions like Jon Huntsman. That is, if the NYT were reallly serious about truth, it would gloss every statement by a Repub as (X, a member of the Republican Party claimed Y. Extensive studies by the NYT have shown that most statements by members of the Republican party are false. In this case …)

 

3. This is a sad state of affairs, just as its sad that Americans won’t have a chance to vote for a serious  Presidential candidate who opposes indefinite detention of innocent people. But that is the situation and organizations like the NYT have limited choices – they can either publish lies or be ‘truth vigilantes’.

Posted via email from John’s posterous

Unions: outdated or needed more than ever?

John Quiggin17 Comments

Writing in today’s Fin[1], Paul Gollan argues that unions are outmoded and that workers would be better off bargaining directly with their employers. Since it’s paywalled, I’ll quote the passage to which I want to respond

Recent examples of industrial conflicts involving the use of the good faith bargaining provisions demonstrate the difficulty of trying to establish workplace engagement in advancing business and employee objectives under the current Fair Work Act. The recent industrial disputes at Qantas, Cochlear, on the waterfront and at Rio Tinto’s Bell Bay aluminium plant and BHP Billiton’s Queensland coalmines, have reinforced this impression, not only for big business but also for many Australians.

Given the seriousness of these disputes, unions and the Gillard Labor government will need to re-examine their position on workplace reform. Importantly, it seems that unions have failed to understand the difference between unions servicing their members and the broader concept of unionism.

Unionism encapsulated a common ethos of solidarity around a cause that all members could understand and relate to under a working-class banner. While years ago unions were enmeshed in this working-class culture, this is not the case in many workplaces today. They are now seen by workers as some distant, third-party organisation external from the workplace.

There may well be examples where Gollan’s claims are true, but I find it pretty hard to swallow the ones he cites. Does he really think that the employees of firms that haved locked their workers out, like Qantas, Rio Tinto and Patricks, or that have repeatedly ignored pro-union votes like Cochlear, are desperate to negotiate one-to-one with their bosses? Clearly, these firms want to get rid of unions for precisely the same reasons as the workers want to keep them, because they are an obstacle to measures that would raise profits at the expense of the workers.

I find the spurious concern for workers expressed in pieces like this even more annoying than the openly pro-boss position of, say, the Institute of Public Affairs.

fn1. One of the consequences of the separation between editorial and market functions that is part of the newspaper ethos is that, even though I’ve been a contributor to the Fin for nearly 20 years, I’ve never been given access to their online version. I had a fairly good deal for the print version, so I was never willing to pay the exorbitant price they asked. But my deal has run out, and the Fin’s prices have been cut, so now, I can at least copy and paste for fair comment purposes.

Land of (unequal) opportunity

John Quiggin19 Comments

A little late to the game, the NY Times has quite a good piece by Jason DeParle on the well-established finding that the US is not only the most unequal of developed societies but is also at the bottom of the scale for social mobility.

I’ve been arguing since the Triassic era of blogging that this isn’t a coincidence – a society with highly unequal outcomes can’t sustain equality of opportunity, but until this year (in fact, until the emergence of the Occupy movement) I didn’t see any evidence that the facts were sinking in, even among the majority liberals. Now it’s as if a dam has broken. Some thoughts, cautionary and otherwise over the fold.

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Conservatives and reactionaries

John Quiggin45 Comments

Corey Robin’s new book The Reactionary Mind has attracted plenty of attention both favorable and otherwise. I don’t want to offer a full-scale review, but to respond to the central thesis. As I read Robin, his central claim is that the current situation in which people who call themselves “conservative” are in fact radical reactionaries is not an aberration, but the norm, and that this has been the case ever since the first self-conscioulsy conservative thinker, Edmund Burke.

I’d put this more broadly – conservatism (and, it’s opposites, progressivism radicalism) are, in essence ideas about process, but the most people active in politics are more concerned about pursuing particular goals than about the way they get there.

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Blogging the Zombies: Expansionary Austerity – Further Reading

John Quiggin8 Comments

Thanks to everyone who has made comments on the drafts of the new chapter of Zombie Economics, on Expansionary Austerity, for the forthcoming paperback edition.  I’m now editing in response, and adding a section on Further Reading. I’d welcome any suggestions for this chapter, as well as any useful references that weren’t in the hardback edition.

Posted via email from John’s posterous

Blogging the Zombies: Expansionary Austerity – After the Zombies

John Quiggin19 Comments

This is the final draft section of the new chapter of my Zombie Economics book, on Expansionary Austerity. 

As before comments are welcome. That includes everything from typos and suggestions for better phrasing to substantive critiques of the argument.  If I can get organized, I will try to post the edited version of the entire chapter and invite another round of comments.

As an aside, I just got an email link to the Journal of Economic Literature (behind a login screen), which contains Stephen Williamson’s review of my book, including his claims that both the Efficient Markets Hypothesis and DSGE macro are devoid of any implications. I bet that if I had submitted an article to any publication of the American Economic Association making such claims, it would have been shot down in flames by the referees. But, now it’s been published – anyone keen on a radical critique of mainstream economics can now cite the JEL to the effect that the whole enterprise (at least as applied to finance and macroeconomics) is irrelevant to reality.

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Cognitive dissonance and detention without trial

John Quiggin22 Comments

 

Now that Obama has signalled that he will sign the National Defense Authorization Act, US citizens have no legal rights that can’t be over-ridden by miltary or presidential fiat. Anyone accused of being a terrorist linked to Al Qaeda can be arrested, shipped overseas and held indefinitely without trial, or alternatively tried by military commissions.[1] And, if arrest isn’t feasible or convenient then (at least outside the US), they can be hunted down and assassinated, with or without warning.

On the face of it, that makes the US a scary place to live. But, as a matter of everyday reality, most Americans aren’t scared at all.[2] Should they be? 

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Zombie Economics: The movie

John Quiggin2 Comments

My plans for a full-length movie extravaganza based on my hit book Zombie Economics have gone nowhere. But, now, thanks to the wonders of Xtranormal, reader Paula D’Itallo has produced her own movie version, Zombie Mourning: Exploring the Lives of Dead Economic Theory. Watch and enjoy, as zombie financial theorists explore the risks and opportunities created by an apocalyptic zombie bubble.

 

Posted via email from John’s posterous