The Nobel Committee may think a lot about MIT economist Peter Diamond, but he is currently blocked as a nominee for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. Sen. Richard Shelby has objected that Diamond is not qualified for the Board because his specialty is not in monetary policy.
The 2010 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science was awarded on Monday to Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A Pissarides for their work on labor markets and other markets where buyers and sellers have difficulty finding each other.
What is curious about the hold on Diamond’s nomination is that three of the five board members are not specialists in monetary economics and one of the Bush appointees did not even have an advanced economics degree.
Source: Washington Monthly
eniobob,
Thanks for the tidbits and for the good laugh. I keep imagining the end of “King Kong” if the the big monkey had climbed the Statue of Liberty instead of the Empire State Building and I must say it makes me giggle.
BIL:
Ooops my bad you said Statue Of Liberty,well enjoy the facts anyway.
BIL:
Off topic but funny you mentioned the Empire State Building,I was saving this for Labor Day but a thread never appeared for that holiday,And I also see the mention of the word innovation being used also.
Hows this for facts and think how long this would take in todays labor market:
“How long did it take to build?
The building was actually completed ahead of schedule, taking only one year and 45 days to build.”
http://history1900s.about.com/od/1930s/a/empirefacts.htm
Byron,
What part of “in absence of stimulus” and “can be other organic causes for them (sleep deprivation, kinesthesia, etc.) or even physical causes (as in physics, not physiology) such as optical illusions caused by parallax or refraction” didn’t you understand?
Or do you think David Copperfield really made the Statue of Liberty vanish?
Buddha:
have you ever thought that maybe the bucket of gas is government? It sure as hell was in the recent economic collapse.
No, I don’t loath government at all. It is required for people to live in a civilized society. What I do not like about government is it’s constant appetite for our money and our liberty. For whatever reason it cannot help itself, it has grown well beyond the limitations desired by our founders.
Byron,
Yeah, innovation doesn’t equal effective self regulation. Try again.
I hope we had a disconnect because as a response to “You just say that self regulation will work.” “There’s been innovation the past 50 years” is nonsensical.
Buddha:
an hallucination is not a sensory event, it is caused by your mind not an external stimulus.
Gyges:
I dont think it will work I know it will work based on that 50 year period after the civil war. Light bulbs, automobiles, airplanes, a cyclone of innovation and wealth creation.
Even Marks calls capitalism a great force. He had to because it was so apparent to anyone who looked at it. I think he even might have understood that socialism/communism couldn’t survive without capitalism-when the workers own the means of production they are, well capitalists.
Byron,
What causes chaos (disequilibrium) is instability. Government intervention is to create stability because if stability wasn’t an issue, there would be no need for regulation. Instability is created by unregulated actions, e.g. anything going beyond the normal operating parameters of the system. For example, you get a whole different outcome operating an engine when you use the systematically regulated fuel flow created by your fuel injection or carb than you do if you simply dump a bucket of gas into the cylinders.
You are arguing displaying outcome determinism based on your general loathing of government.
Byron,
I think we both agree that how a person experiences reality is not necessarily how reality actual is. Which is another way of saying that “sometimes people are wrong.”
So anyway, back to the main discussion. If the government plays umpire, who makes the rules?
“your senses are never wrong, your conception might be wrong but your senses arent.”
Byron,
The simple definition of a hallucination is a perception in the absence of stimulus. Although most people associate hallucinations with drugs or mental illness, there can be other organic causes for them (sleep deprivation, kinesthesia, etc.) or even physical causes (as in physics, not physiology) such as optical illusions caused by parallax or refraction.
Your senses can indeed lie to you.
Gyges:
anyway we already have a rule book, we should just follow it.
Buddha:
“Cyclical is all well and good and a given as a part of normal market functions, but instability – bubbles and such – are not all well and good because they cause chaos.”
I disagree, they cause order if they are allowed to take care of themselves. what causes chaos is the intervention on the part of government. Market chaos is the business cycle and can be prepared for. Chaos caused by regulation is harder or impossible to prepare for due to the dislocation of those same markets. I.e they are not allocating resources properly due to government intervention. Therefore there is no stability and we are seeing that right now. We will be extremely lucky if the Bush/Obama stimulus doesn’t send us into another world wide downturn. The jury is still out on that idea.
Gyges:
your senses are never wrong, your conception might be wrong but your senses arent. Your mind has taken the “illusion” and come to a wrong conclusion. It is your conscious mind that makes the mistake.
So now may be a good time to define sensation, perception, conception, consciousness.
I know what I think they are so I will ask what do you think they are?
Byron,
Hey look, you came up with something that would works because… well because your ideology says it would. Why should I believe your ideology is right, well you’ve got this example that would work.
If the government is simply around to play umpire, that is enforce the rules. Where do those rules come from?
I’m going to put this as kindly as possible, but as someone who’s suffered from hallucinations; as someone who has watched videos of events I recalled with crystal clarity, that were someone vastly different then I remember; as someone who’s understands the need for double blind studies; and as someone who’s been to a magic show: If you believe that your senses can be trusted, then you are wrong. Give me peer reviewed research over common sense any day of the week.
And Rothbard reached the wrong conclusion too despite having the history correct. It was the protections that Roosevelt put in place that allowed the unprecedented explosion of wealth in this country in the late 40’s and the 50’s, not unregulated markets.
Think of a market like a pendulum. Without mechanical stops (regulations) and gravity (actual resources and their constraints) the pendulum is capable of chaotic actions depending upon how much force is applies by the human actors in the market. Cyclical is all well and good and a given as a part of normal market functions, but instability – bubbles and such – are not all well and good because they cause chaos. The market then had more basis in reality than today because it was more closely tied to the realities of physical supplies and the trading of tangible products. Today the problem is even worse because the current bubble was caused by arbitrage instruments – derivatives with only a tangential relationship to reality and little better than playing at a casino shell game.
Buddha:
we didnt need to, it would have self corrected based on the downturn in 1920 and also the huge downturn shortly after the end of the civil war.
Buddha:
http://mises.org/daily/447
Gyges:
I am truly amazed now. Have you ever heard of the arrogance of excellence? I know many professionals and they don’t doubt themselves where they know their subject. But they do understand their limitations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2JnCXvm_Qc
Have you ever thought that the Dunning-Kruger effect is brought about by moral self doubt caused by an educational system that teaches the idea that our mind and our senses cant be trusted? And that people without education haven’t learned that? A properly educated professional doesn’t doubt what he knows and has the confidence to learn new things and take on larger tasks.
Dunning-Kruger need to go get another hypothesis.
Byron,
Government intervention caused the 1929 crash? Oh really?
While I’ll agree there is not a consensus on the precise cause(s), there is one mechanic of the market that is not in question. As summed up by Philip Snowden, England’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, the American stock market had become a “speculative orgy” and that helped weaken margin accounts making it necessary to sell and further depressing prices.
Now what could have contained the rampant speculation and the insufficient margin accounts?
Rules to prevent such practices is what.