Economics and Pseudoscience

[Bolshevik 180]

Is mainstream economics the astrology of the day? Think about one of the most basic assumptions, that people are rational actors, which is invalidated by anyone who knows anything about people. There seems to be little focus on the things that matter, commodities, overproduction, unemployment, and more focus on the 'person' a kind of anthropocentric model which really belongs in another century.

[IbelieveInanarchy]

Is mainstream economics the astrology of the day? Think about one of the most basic assumptions, that people are rational actors, which is invalidated by anyone who knows anything about people. There seems to be little focus on the things that matter, commodities, overproduction, unemployment, and more focus on the 'person' a kind of anthropocentric model which really belongs in another century.

in a broad sense modern economics seems to be just throwing sand in the eyes of the general public. after every crisis a group of economists makes up a rescue plan and then fucks it up, another group says we have to do this and bla bla bla. Modern economy is only aimed at perpetuating the capitalist mode of production and any economist who actually adresses the problem in this mode of production is honed aways as a populist.

[ckaihatsu]

In terms of monetary policy all the Fed / government can do is either [1] increase the money supply, or [2] decrease the money supply.

*Increasing* the money supply is synonymous with 'Keynesianism', whatever the label-of-the-day happens to be ('quantitative easing'). And the opposite action -- as with the possible raising of the interest rate by a quarter-percent -- is for the sake of increasing the underlying valuations, or 'price stability'. (This is a *conventional* term now, considering that rampant Keynesian-type policy has *not* caused conventionally-expected inflation, with a *deflationary* regime instead prevailing under current conditions.)

This goes to show that the capitalist economy is its own beast, mostly, so any possible economic intervention, like the Volcker Shock or today's quantitative easing, only goes so far.

I *was* going to wait till the actual end of the month to point out that the Dow Jones has been steadily stagnating for *2 months* now, around the 18,000 mark, but here it is.

Also:


Market calm shattered: Dow closes down almost 400 points on rate fears

http://www.revleft.com/vb/threads/19...-on-rate-fears

[contracycle]

Yes.

[ckaihatsu]

At this point I'd be very interested to see if current market excitement over Trump's election can be sustained after the past two months of plateaued stagnation -- we know the *fundamentals* of economic growth aren't there (GDP), so this recent jump in stock prices hasn't changed the *underlying* dynamics of a bad investment climate. Trump is going to have to deal with the economic situation at some point, and I think his overall isolationist orientation would be *bad* for the U.S. ledger sheet -- not that it would have improved anyway.