[PEN-L:29547] Re: Re: economists

[phillp2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

>From today's Globe and Mail, a poem by Johnn Allemang.

Economics for Dummies

Too bad he drank his way through school --
He might not look like such a fool,
As business titans crash and burn 
And all Geoge Bush can do is turn
The Clock back to that fateful day 
When his worst foe was not Ken Lay.

Al-Quaeda, Enron -- which hurts more?
Depends on how you're keeping score.
In body counts, bin Laden's worse
Than crooks who raid the public purse
By hidden strikes you barely feel
Till Wall Street's crash makes losses real.
In moral terms ... but what's the use?
The argument is too abstruxe
For Dubya's brain. His friends' stock fraud
Is just another act of God,
Sent down to test his country's will 
While there are tyrants still to kill.

That pesky scandal at WorldCom?
Come spring he'll have Baghdad to bomb.
The virtues of Bush laissez-faire
Will all come clear in Gulf wartare.
No need to know your Marx or Hobbes:
Invade Iraq! It creates jobs.


Paul Phillips,
Economics,
University of Manitoba

> Jim, I certainly agree with your last sentence.  The function of the
> neo-classical micro, and the Chicago sub-set, is exactly to serve the
> purpose of the business types.  They need that story to train the press,
> politicians, opinion leaders.  The economists' job is to tell the story.
> 
>     Here are a paragraph from Wendell Berry and a paragraph from me from
> a forthcoming publication:
> 
> 
> > This idea of a global "free market" economy, despite its obvious moral flaws and its dangerous practical weaknesses,
> >
> > is now the ruling orthodoxy of the age. Its propaganda is subscribed to and distributed by most political leaders,
> >
> >  editorial writers, and other "opinion makers.  Ö Wendell Berry
> >
> >         Economists produce the propaganda Wendell Berry decries.  Like "The Shadow" in the old radio drama,
> >
> >  economists have the power to cloud mens' minds.  Prestigious universities, more powerful than radioactive spiders,
> >
> >  harbor a corrupted discipline in the service of greed.
> >
> 
> Gene
> 
> 
> "Devine, James" wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > [was: RE: [PEN-L:29531] Re: RE: Liu on Stiglitz]
> >
> > Gene writes:>I also disaggre w/Jim's assesment of economists.  I see
> > few "seeking truth" and way over 99% Pleasing the Boss. <
> >
> > I hope I didn't give the impression that it was a significant number
> > of economists who had a worthwhile understanding of the world. I do
> > think that a lot "seek the truth" but find it in mysticism, e.g., the
> > holy cult of the Invisible Hand or the worship of mathematics for its
> > own sake. This may "please the boss" objectively, but it's not the
> > same as being a technocrat. Indeed, I am told that business types love
> > the "Chicago school" vision of economics because of its rah-rah
> > pro-Market stuff, but that they find its details just as irrelevant to
> > their concerns as the most abstract Gerard Debreu-type stuff.
> >
> > JD
>