Re: [gang8] Re: [A-List] US Dollar Standard: Deficits Do Matter

["John O'Donnell" <jackodonnell@xxxxxxx>]

Gunnar Tomasson wrote:

Jack:

 

How is "Oh, the imponderables" responsive to the point at issue?

It isn't, and things have drifted so far I'm wondering just what is the point
at issue? Is it the that HPM, also known as the real stuff, is a necessary
condition for monetary analysis whether it be empirical or analytical monetary
economics? Or is there some magic somewhere where it is more important to
classify a particular result of reasoning from or to empirical evidence as
either empirical or analytical when it it more likely to be both?

For some reason you seem to have difficulty separating two things of such
obvious difference that one [the substitutes] cannot exist as a substitute
without there first being a thing for which it is substituted. And, once
such a substitute exists for one particular use of the thing for which it
substitutes does not make it the same as the original for other uses of the
original.

That is, in reference to the habit of economists to call the sum of HPM and
its substitutes by the same name as the original does not make the substitute
a true part of the original; it just confuses the issue to the point that
the original must be renamed. Thus we have HPM or the real stuff to describe
that which should have been left alone with its original name and the substitutes
named more appropriately a la Irving Fisher. However, that's a shoulda, coulda
problem and reality says take the easy way out and rename the original.

Namely, your statement that "Euclidean geometric analysis is [certainly] predicated on, and relates to, "empirical observations"?"

 

And why does it matter, one way or another, whether or not such is the case?

To me it doesn't. I didn't raise the question, you did. As far as I can see,
monetary analysis has nothing whatever to do with Euclidean geometry. It
does, however, have a lot to do with the existence of money [i.e. -- HPM
or the real stuff] before money substitutes [i.e. -- promises to pay money]
can even exist, let alone be meaningful.

<<SNIP>>

--
			-- jbod

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