From[Bill Williams 12 April 2004 12:15 PM CST]
Bill Powers asks,
[From Bill Powers (2004.04.12.0930 MST)]
Bill Williams 10 April 2004 4:00 PM CST --
What's the matter, Bill? Do you really want to get back in that groove?
There is nothing that is, as you say "the matter." Not with me, at any rate.
It isn't a "matter" of my wanting to get back in the "grove." Although I
Don't mind if that is what you want. Rather it is a "matter" of your still
being stuck in a ditch.
And, Bill, it _is_ my perception that you are one that is still in the
ditch.
Consider what you said in this thread recently.
... I have often suspected that the myth about investment driving growth
may have something to do with the fact that the first thing an
entrepreneur
does after persuading a lot of people to invest their money in his
enterprise is to vote himself a very large salary plus bonuses. In that way
if he happens to lose all that money, at least he comes out a winner (since
the corporation, not he, is liable for blowing all the cash).
As it happens I am not an entirely uncritical fan of capitalism. However,
this sort of argument is not one that even Marx would have taken seriously.
Marx, at least, had an appreciation for the very real strengths of the
system to which he was opposed. And, he attempted to make use of the most
up-to-date economic understandings in his analysis of the capitalist system.
That is why he chose to use the caption "scientific socialism" for his
approach to economic questions. Marx, what ever his mistakes had a fair
understanding and appreciation for economic analysis.
What you are doing in the above is engaging in self-indulgent moralizing.
Everyone I think who has considered for any length of time the nature of
a capitalist economy is aware that those who direct and control the
existing order are inclined to favor and see to their own interests
first of all. What if anything does this routinely assumed feature of a
capitalist society have to do with how income is determined? Your argument
is one that was abandoned by nearly everyone who once held it in the late
1930's. The reason for this arguments abandonment was the emergence of the
Keynesian analysis. You along with your dad are still fighting a battle
That took place between the under-consumptionists ( you and your dad's
Position ) and the over-investment theorists. One side argued that
consumption drove the economy, the other side that investment was the
source of economic growth.
Now, Keynes to whom your comment concerning the "myth" that investment
drives growth is directed developed an analysis that integrated both
investment and consumption expenditure into a single explanation. It
is an analysis the application of which has managed to regulate the
level of employment and income in the central core of the world
economy -- that is principally the United States ever since WWII. The
goals which this regulation has pursued may not suit you, but the
regulation has been on the whole quite successful in terms of generating
the conditions that those in control have wished for.
You and your dad have for some reason adopted an animus against the
Keynesian analysis that is so extreme that it prevented your dad from
understanding how the Keynesian system functions. You retain this
animus. You from time to time make snide remarks-- like the one about
Keynes' developing the user cost analysis as a way of justifying the
capital depreciation write-offs for corporations. What your comment
indicates is that you have almost no understanding of of the economic
culture in which you live. Your position really does approximate in
some ways the befudlement of my "chief head designer" in my "Runnning
Naked in the Forest" fable.
When I see you express this animus, and it does pops up periodically,
I intend to pound it down. I will use reason, and ridicule and what
ever else is handy and effective. Given the way you approach these
questions-by way of a massive exercise of equivocation-witness your
Mars argument. Or, your continued use of an argument concerning
Investment which combines three different items which are not a part
Of private net investment, it seems apparent that you are not
concerned with even elementary consistency in pursuing the economic
Issue. In countering disingenuous arguments I am finding Fables to be
one of the most devastating means of all of exposing your fallacies.
Once a fable enters ones mind it is like a pink elephants- the its
can be extremely hard to run them off.
You go on to say,
I sometimes wonder whether the story of economics, once we get
all the smokescreens out of the way, is not going to turn out
to be extremely simple.
Going at the way that you are going about this you won't ever get
close of figuring stuff out.
It is unfortunate that you have adopted this attitude-- that the
economists, all economists, as far as I can tell are in your opinion
servants of a ruling class engaged in a constant and consistent
effort to keep the rest of the population in a benighted servitude.
What utter nonsense. There are lots of people, me included, doing
The best that we can to do economics in a way that is critical and
of service to the population as whole rather than to the vested
interests who are plundering it.
Beyond that, what you are saying is an attack upon my intellectual
integrality. And, I am not going to ignore it. Now it is an attack
that is directed toward a feature of myself about which I do not
feel especially vulnerable. You in attacking are being foolish.
You are of the opinion that the answer to the economic question is
as you say, "extremely simple." I after having spent most of a
life time in studying the economy and economic theory I am of the
opinion that finding an answer to the economic question is going
to require a fair measure of sophistication. Actually, it is the
sort of sophistication that you exhibit when you are actually
engaged in the modeling. If you stick to the modeling I am confident
that you are, eventually going to arrive at some correct answers.
Your intuitions about the economy are, however, extra ordinarily
mis-informed. You could say comically misinformed
From the way I look at it you are the one who is in the ditch with
mud in your eyes. Maybe there is not much I can do if that is the
way you like go about your effort to understand the economy. But, I
can without too much effort expose that attitude for it is. And, I
can have some fun at your expense while doing so.
Bill Williams
Bill Williams
···
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Powers" <powers_w@EARTHLINK.NET>
To: <CSGNET@listserv.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2004 10:32 AM
Subject: Re: Economics Paper
[From Bill Powers (2004.04.12.0930 MST)]
Bill Williams 10 April 2004 4:00 PM CST --
What's the matter, Bill? Do you really want to get back in that groove?
Best,
Bill P.