Re: Newton Lives !

[David Lloyd-Jones <dlj@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

James R. Olson, jr. wrote:
>
> A good example of what I am talking about was a discussion of velocity of
> circulation, where various relationships were proposed, but unfortunately,
> the conversions produced absurdities.  I never saw a resolution.
>
>                 MV = PT         or      MV = PY
>
>                                 then
>
>                 V = PT/M        or      V = PY/M
>
> I think your famous sharp tongue and defensivness toward your discipline
> has blocked your reasoning.

All of these are arithmetic tautologies, and the supposed contradictions
are _jokes_, Jim.  The idea that money and credit are a thing of fixed
quantity, in flux from place to place like phlogiston, doesn't have very
much of a place in economics as far as I've ever seen.  Economics is
about conflict and resolution over scarce resources, and neither money
nor credit is one of these.

Perhaps you have mixed up the hydraulic metaphors often used for
didactic purpose with the subject matter they are invented to help
teach?

It ain't my profession: I'm just a country boy who sometimes makes a
little money playing with machines.  Methinks the defensiveness is to be
found among people like yourself who are always taking cheap shots at
economics -- and are astonished to find that it is alive and well, and
shoots back.

                                -dlj.