economics, scary variety

Of course there is the obvious (to anyone who isn't a Democrat) fact that something has to be made before it can be consumed.

It's impressive how often they get the causalities backwards, and how they don't understand control theory.

Dismal science indeed.

That's silly. On a planet with 10 billion people, one kilowatt per person, reasonably distributed, would mean that everybody would have light, heat, communucations, transport, running water, namely nobody would be dirt-poor. That requires 1e13 watts, right on the graph.

Imagine averaging 1 watt.

There's a lot of potential for growth there, and it's being vigorously pursued in some places. And again more due to improvements in technology. And again more due to the gradual accumulation of resources (eg factories, roads, trains, tools etc)

NT

that 1 watt is presumably concentrated in industry, with home consumption zero for almost everyone.

NT

Keynesian mantra: "Demand creates supply." That was the 'stimulus' theory too--shower the economy with borrowed money, and activity will zoom enough to make the payments on the new debt.

Works great in Africa--infinite demand, zero supply.

Cheers, James Arthur

If I was in Sri-lanka, on a beach it might be OK.

George H.

They do understand that nobody makes stuff if they don't expect to be able to sell it.

But they do understand that there's pipe-line from the manufacturer to the consumer, and manufacturers stop making stuff when the pile-line is full and the consumers aren't buying enough to empty it.

There's not a lot of point in having economists understanding control theory, which is useful in controlling mathematically tractable systems. The economy isn't mathematically tractable.

Not as dismal as John Larkin's grasp of what economists actually say.

Nah. The bugs would drive you crazy! (Not there, but I've tried it elsewhere :)

Cheers, James Arthur

If

icely.

What James Arthur always fails to mention is that Keynesian stimulus is onl y to be applied to an economy in recession - with appreciable un-used produ ctive capacity. If the economy is running close to capacity, Keynesian stim ulus doesn't do anything useful, and can drive inflation.

Actually, it doesn't. What productive capacity Africa has is already runnin g close to capacity.

I've pointed this out ot James Arthur on a number of occasions, but right-w ing nit-wit brain-washing apparenetly makes it impossible for him to give a rhetorical strope even it's a lie.

I think you know less about economics than economists know about electrical engineering.

Whatever bunch predicts the next crash correctly, their conclusions won't be published in the Daily Telegraph, and they wouldn't be taken seriously if they were.

Fine if you like warm beer, or likely no beer. And forget the lounge chair and the sunscreen and the car to get you home.

Exactly the point--Keynes' mantra is wrong. Demand does not create supply. Or wealth.

People who feel physically and legally safe from predation, engaged in voluntary production and transactions, do.

Cheers, James Arthur

Uh oh. No offense, but fail. Value is no longer coupled very well with resource use.

But we do. There's no shortage of stuff. It's rather like food - in 1790 it took everything everyone could do to just feed people. Now,

Making stuff for which there is no use is not to the good.

May all your amplifiers be single-ended Class A.

This, I agree with. Although control theory may or may not be all that applicable.

Scott Sumner proposes Market Monetarism, which uses at least prediction markets to set monetary policy. GDP is off this year?; too bad - you get more inflation. You still get nominal 4% growth every year.

Keynes was dealing with a specific pathology in which demand had been "artificially" constrained by the money supply. In that case, the element which was the most sensitive to change *was* demand.

The reality is that supply or demand either one can reduce flows. It depends. It's the usual "find the bottleneck" game.