Re: Why economists do not care about high rates of unemployment w

[Steve.Keen@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Dear Paul,
On a similar (if less impressive) note that Bob Clower, I attended a
(generally disappointing) conference on employment policy last week where
an erstwhile neoclassical economist argued that it was time to drop the
requirement to base all macro models on the construct of a utility
maximising agent, and instead to work backwards from the macro data to
construct a micro that fits. This is nothing revolutionary--it's basically
Alan Blinder's position--but it was illuminating to hear it coming from
a previously conservative mouth.

I think Barkley identified one reason why such chinks are appearing now:
it's rather hard to argue for CAPM analysis of finance markets when
they're behaving as at present.

Couldn't agree more about the dangers of brilliant delusions--that's one
reason why I'm making my (not so brilliant but hopefully not deluded)
attempts to apply nonlinear analysis with PK foundations. We can't let
the neo-cs think they have the r territory to themselves.

Cheers,
Steve Keen