RE: Re: re: profit rates

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

> I've worked with BEA people in the past.  A friend of mine in
> Gov refers to them as "righteous technicians."  They are
> resolutely without political bias in their work.  All of their
> procedures are vetted by panels of outside experts.

one problem is that these "outside experts" are often ideological in their
outlook (people like Boskin).

One thing I noticed was that the BEA's estimates of the rate of return on
capital investment in domestic US nonfinancial corporations used to appear
in the flagship ECONOMIC REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT. It seems to have gotten
some bad publicity, so now it's only in the BUSINESS CONDITIONS DIGEST. Is
there something politicaly incorrect (from a mainstream perspective) about
calculating the profit rate? Of course, the whole concept of the rate of
profit doesn't fit with orthodox neoclassical economics very well. It's
often mushed up with the rate of interest. In the view that the world is
simply one big competitive market, it should equal zero. Etc.

JD