[ht: cnc]
Archive for December, 2010
Got a little ethics?
Posted: 31 December 2010 in UncategorizedTags: academy, economics, economists, ethics
We already know that academic economists don’t have any ethics. The question is, will they try to find some anytime soon? Momentum is building, to judge by an article in today’s New York Times, for economists to discuss ethical guidelines or codes of conduct at the upcoming Allied Social Science Association meetings in Denver. My [...]
Corruption and the hypocrisy of neoclassical economists
Posted: 30 December 2010 in UncategorizedTags: capitalism, corruption, culture, economics, economists, neoclassical, trade
The hypocrisy of neoclassical economists never ceases to amaze. On one hand, everything is supposed to be universal and transhistorical. Individual preferences, markets, prices, and so on all fall under that category. Then, when it suits them, they turn to cultural relativism. The latest example is Jagdish Bhagwati, for whom free international trade is always [...]
Obituaries can be found here, here, and here.
Suicides and luxury cars
Posted: 29 December 2010 in UncategorizedTags: capitalism, cars, debt, luxury, suicide
Only under capitalism are suicides closely related to the purchase of luxury cars. You have to look to India to see the relationship. There, according to P. Sainath, 17,368 farmers killed themselves over the course of 2009—while, in October, businessmen from Aurangabad in the Marathwada region of the state of Maharashtra bought 150 Mercedes Benz [...]
We’re known for a long time that one of the secrets behind Wal-Mart’s low prices is the fact that it pays low wages to its workers. Now, it’s decided to pay its workers even less. David Macray reports that, beginning in the new year, Wal-Mart will discontinue its $1 dollar an hour bonus pay for [...]
Capitalism’s creative destruction
Posted: 29 December 2010 in UncategorizedTags: capitalism, Chicago, history, workers
There’s probably no better example of capitalism’s creative destruction than the changes to the South Works area of Chicago over the course of the past century and a half. The picture above is a rendering of the redevelopment scheme that is now underway. The about 470-acre South Works site juts into Lake Michigan and has [...]
“Thug Life” Karma
‘Tis the season of inequality
Posted: 28 December 2010 in UncategorizedTags: capitalism, inequality, United States
Inequality, it seems, is everywhere this holiday season. It’s a central issue in William Easterly’s review of Matt Ridley’s new book, The Rational Optimist. Ridley also fails to really address inequality and uncertainty. The free market may produce cornucopia, doubters concede. But it also gave Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers $60,000 a day (in 2007, [...]
