>Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2001 12:48:01 -0500
>From: "Mina Kumar"
>Subject: Re: Blum on rebuilding Afghanistan
>The one time we met, you asked me the same question, and I described some
>of my own and friends' experiences, so I'm not sure why you would ask
again,
>nor for that matter, ask in such a unpleasant, dismissive manner. I would
>like to give this the response it deserves, but I'm in the awkward
position
>of also doing some work for you, and I know dangerous it is for someone
>waiting for paymet to be truthful about these things. If you wish to ask
>yet again after a check is received (and clears!), I will give you another
>response.
If this is a real problem, I am prepared to underwrite an amount of 1000 US dollars, for the purpose of compensating any tradesperson who has been stiffed on a payment due from Doug as a result of comments they have made on lbo-talk.
Please note that this guarantee does not cover legitimate trade disputes between Doug and tradespeople over the actual work rendered, nor does it cover fora other than lbo-talk; given the prevalence of all sorts of nefarious behaviour on the internet, it will also probably be necessary to do a little bit of investigation into bona fides before paying out the money. Assuming he is willing, I would nominate Carl Remick as the binding arbitrator for any claims.
I'm not anticipating losing any money over this one ....
---------------------------------------------
Luke wrote:
>
>Of what sort? Freedom of the pocketbook takes precedence in the US, and
>the
>best way to argue against it is to point out that it's diametrically
>opposed
>to the majority's welfare.
For a man who can dismiss the question of whether people should be forced to do what the state thinks is good for him as "uninteresting", you seem pretty dang happy with monstrously sweeping claims about empirical issues which are very interesting indeed. Your argument would appear to have the implication that the USA does not enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world ... unless your definition of "diametrically" is as sloppy as your definition of "welfare".
by the way, the description of important issues as "uninteresting empirical questions" is pretty damn irritating. Bertrand Russell got away with it, but only just, and that doesn't mean that we should try.
Oh yeh, and I lost my webmail access while we were discussing the question of whether a roulette wheel which has come up on the same number 600 times is likely to be fixed, but you were dead wrong on that one too.
dd, never knowingly missing a chance for a cheap shot at a target of opportunity.
---------------------------------------------
>Dimissiveness takes many forms. Your responses to people on this list
>have often been made in the tone of someone too impatient to explain
>to the irredeemably dull or blinkered.
>Doug
Just taking this opportunity to remind people that at least one list member (me) _is_, on many issues, irredeemably dull _and_ blinkered, and that it is never wasted time puttting folk through what Ken Lawrence memorably called "kindergarten for socialists".
- --
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2001 14:16:36 -0500 From: Doug Henwood Subject: Re: stocks not overvalued in 1929!
>>
>>y'see it's all the fault of the government, which did something, we know
>>not what, which removed the incentive to work ...
>Except that he can't specify just what happened. What a >hilarious
>conclusion to the paper.
I've now read the actual one that you cited, which is on his homepage in a
working paper version and it's pretty dreadful too. Basically, he arrives
at the conclusion on the basis of an adventurous valuation of "intangible
capital", on the basis of an assumption that the rate of return on
intangible capital equals the rate of return on physical capital equals the
interest rate. Because ... well, if it wasn't, then firms wouldn't be
acting optimally! Pretty circular and seeming to me that he's got ex ante
and ex post badly mixed up. Though I may have missed something -- I
wouldn't claim to have exactly read it thoroughly. He slags off Brad
DeLong at one point, so maybe BdeL will come back.
>Is this the sort of reasoning that made him a giant of the >profession?
Nah ... his reputation is based on the equity premium puzzle, which is a truly great piece of contrarianism, plus the original central bank independence paper, which has never really been improved on. I frankly didn't know anything about his position as the boy on the burning deck of rational expectations.
------------------------------
Btw, appearing in the other digest is a spat between Chip Berlet and someone else on the subject of definitions of who is and isn't a fascist. This one also came up when I lost my webmail, but I've read the "Oxford Reader on Fascism", and can confirm that AFAICT, Chip is right on every significant point he has made on the subject. In which context, I'd be interested in hearing about his assessment of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party.
cheers and all that
dd
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