Re: The Repo Market Time Bomb

[knowware@xxxxxxxx (Tom Walker)]

At 05:38 PM 4/12/99 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:

>Oh, best place to go to answer an empirical question about the late 20th
>century is to return to a theoretical text from the late 19th. Gosh, why
>didn't I think of that? That must be why you're on CNBC regularly and I'm
>not.

Not so fast, Doug. I have nothing to say on the repo market thing but having
been immersed for the last six months or so (since that night we wined at
Nick's Spaghetti House) in late 19th century theoretical texts I can attest
to at least one long-forgotten theoretical argument by an *orthodox*
Marshallian from the early 20th century that is vastly superior to anything
since. A footnote on page 363-365 of S.J. Chapman's article "Hours of
Labour" in the September 1909 Economic Journal says more than all the
mathematically meaningless differential equations of all the post-war,
neo-classical Pareto parroting popinjays combined. And Chapman's theory
essentially formalizes remarks Marshall had made back in 1892.

Don't read it. Don't even think of reading it. It's old and Scientific
Progress guarantees that something newer is better. Eh?

regards,

Tom Walker
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm