alanjjohnstone

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  • in reply to: Piketty’s data #101844
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Another review i got reading. Bit too technical, all that elasticity stuff for me, and Cambridge V Cambridge…i thought that was one of LBirds prizefights but this line made me think. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/05/pikettys-fair-weather-friends/

    "But so what? Suppose it all comes true: growth slows, the r – g gap widens, and both wealth inequality and inheritance balloon. What real difference would that make in a world already swimming in inequality?"[/quote]

    in reply to: Piketty’s data #101836
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    OUCH!…,You-Know-It-All

    in reply to: Piketty’s data #101832
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Oh, you can sum up my view as simply …Piketty is not on our side. He may have scored for us an own-goal but he still plays for the other team and later on in the match, he may well be up front as an attacker, trying to score against us. A suitable crunch tackle now just might put him out of the game!Analogy suited for the World Cup times

    in reply to: Piketty’s data #101831
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    "I really don't understand your picking on him in particular."Similarly, i can't really understand why some are determined to defend him simply because he is a good statitician. Tsk Tsk…a witch-hunt, you say! Me and LBird on a thread devoted to Piketty (and some say i shouldn't be permitted to comment on it since i never read the book) raise issues that weren't particularly being brought to the forefront (granted you yourself invariably do qualify your comments) but a witch-hunt compared with all the glowing tributes…oh , i think you over-egg the pudding a little too much. As you say his solutions are pathetic. I think thats fair enough reason to pick on Piketty on this forum. i have tried to maintain my criticism on his practical politics and its political consequencs, rather than get into depths of what defines Capital and his knowledge of Marxian economics. Why not do the same with Kunkel? I'll be honest ..until i began to read about Piketty, i simply didn't know he existed despite whatever professional standing he possesses. My ignorance, once again. You can add many of the references to others in all the reviews, too, to my lack of knowledge …There are many out there i simply am not aware of much less even read.  If he was receiving the same media coverage…gaining such people as possible presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren to praise him, supported by Krugman, i am sure , he would have appeared on my radar and deserved my ire but by all means start a let's put the knife into Kunkel thread and whoever else you think is misleading and diversionery …a very long list …and i will happily add a few dagger strokes.   Yes, i noted the OECD and Piketty have similar analysis similar solutions and similar possible gloom for all of us in the future. More the reason to try and advocate an optimistic alternative that we can demolish the whole capitalist edifice and not simply endeavour to re-shape it. We have to keep exposing the futility of Piketty (OECD) policies and promoting the viability of socialism. Those who insist he did us a service by providing information must now equally commend the OECD as has the blog.   http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-oecd-gloomy-future.html Raising another point, OECD, suggests the positive case for migration as a tool to ameliorate the economic problems of the future although admitting it raises political problems of implementation, what does Piketty say on the subject of immigration? I don't think i have read any referene to it by him, except perhaps indirectly in his EU manifesto. 

    in reply to: Piketty’s data #101830
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    It may well be on the best sellers list but most people who bought it won't read the book. Every book's Kindle page lists the five passages most highlighted by readers. If every reader is getting to the end, those highlights could be scattered throughout the length of the book. If nobody has made it past the introduction, the popular highlights will be clustered at the beginning. Thus, the Hawking Index (HI): Take the page numbers of a book's five top highlights, average them, and divide by the number of pages in the whole book. The higher the number, the more of the book we're guessing most people are likely to have read. The majority of Piketty readers get to Page 26 and give up and less than 3% actually compete it.http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-summers-most-unread-book-is-1404417569

    in reply to: Piketty’s data #101828
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    The OECD prognosis (as interpreted by Paul Mason) less than optimistic about the future, regardless of Piketty's solutions.http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/07/capitalism-rich-poor-2060-populations-technology-human-rights-inequality

    in reply to: One law for Unions one for the rest! #102372
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    The 1979 Scottish Referendum introduced the 40% rule for the turn-out …and it was called the dead man's vote because often than not the electoral register included the deceased so being in the grave effectively was a no vote. 

    in reply to: Piketty’s data #101827
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    I haven't read the book so my opinion is rather questionable, although i have read several reviews. 

    pgb wrote:
    …he supports capitalism…he is no apologist for capitalism

    For my benefit could you elaborate on this. How can you support capitalism and not apologise for its existence? i would imagine, many economists both right and left, can bitterly criticise elements of capitalism …such adjectives as "crony capitalism"…"predator capitalism" to name only two, yet accept and defend its fundamentals. Isn't this what Piketty doing, exposing what Ted Heath called the unacceptable face of capitalism ? It seems his past has made him rejects government-owned central planning I think LBird has and i definitely have , accused Piketty of wanting to rescue capitalism from what he considers to be its weakness…inequality becoming patrimonial (dynastic?) The FT headline is "Save Capitalism from the Capitalists by Taxing Wealth"As i said you have the advantage of me but some reviews seem to refute your claim that Piketty is fair-minded about Marx "Piketty scatters dismissive swipes at Marx from the beginning to end of Capital 21. Displaying woeful miscomprehension or propagating deliberate disinformation, he says, "Marx totally neglected the possibility of durable technological progress and steadily increasing productivity" " But as one famous blonde Mandy Rice Davis once quipped…"he would say that wouldn't he" and may be because of Piketty's rejection of state capitalism alternative.http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2014/andrews220314.htmlI think Adam has commented here or elsewhere that Piketty offers a counter to those who store too much value upon Marx's declining rate of profit.There seems to be a bit of confussion when Piketty tongue in cheek claims not to have read Marx. He has…but Harvey reckons not too deeply"There is much that is valuable in Piketty’s data sets. But his explanation as to why the inequalities and oligarchic tendencies arise is seriously flawed. His proposals as to the remedies for the inequalities are naïve if not utopian. And he has certainly not produced a working model for capital of the twenty-first century."http://davidharvey.org/2014/05/afterthoughts-pikettys-capital/Galbraith piqued i think that Piketty got all the attention when he claims to have documented the inequality in 1999 and offers his alternative approach." Raise minimum wages! That lowers the return on capital that relies on low-wage labor. Support unions! Tax corporate profits and personal capital gains, including dividends! Lower the interest rate actually required of businesses! Do this by creating new public and cooperative lenders to replace today’s zombie mega-banks. And if one is concerned about the monopoly rights granted by law and trade agreements to Big Pharma, Big Media, lawyers, doctors, and so forth, there is always the possibility (as Dean Baker reminds us) of introducing more competition."http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/kapital-for-the-twenty-first-centuryI'll let the two of them fight it out in the ring to who protects the system the most effectively."His work also raises issues concerning the real heterogeneity (and fragmentation?) of the working class – something usually obscured in the two-class, owners and non-owners, model of Marx – which has important political implications."Is this really a particularly a new revelation by Piketty. Doesn't it go back to Burnham and others as pointed out by Mattick's reviewhttp://www.brooklynrail.org/2014/06/field-notes/editors-note-much-ado-about-somethingAs i said before, we shouldn't treat Piketty with kid gloves, he is as much a danger as any avowed libertarian of the Ron and Rand Paul type …just different . 

    in reply to: Piketty’s data #101824
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    "I did deliberately aim the book at the general reader," says Piketty as we begin our conversation, "and although it is obviously a book which can be read by specialists too, I wanted the information here to be made clear to everyone who wants to read it.' I think that may well be the trite version, Brian, as Janet says, in the sense he may well put out the information for general consumption but i suspect a deeper motive due to his lack of application of the facts except, as i keep on saying, reforms that he and many other respected reviewer says will be impossible to apply. LBird suggests it is to make the professional economist mend their ways, not for the general reader to mobilise a campaign.As i said Keynes and Marx were very clear on what their readers should do and wrote specifically to support that instigation. I only comment from second-hand reviews but Piketty seems rather unconcerned what we do with his facts and figures other than go "tut-tut, thats awful". There seems to be a dearth real politics in the book. I believe a chapter out of 700 pages and as i said trade unions scarcely a mention …it is apparent that perhaps workers are very secondary to his world view.Adam has linked to Piketty's day to day politics elsewhere – reform of the EU – fiscal union and future poitical union and again a progressive tax…everything that can be done by the political ruling class and again the working class are invisible as any form of active agent in the process. The conclusion i make is that Piketty is very much an elitist who wants to make decisions FOR the people rather than build a system that they are responsible for their own decisions, so the fact he wanted information for all to read …and to his credit many say all his data is published …pity, he never went the whole way and make the book itself open source to be downloaded and read for free…there Janet is correct !!!. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/02/manifesto-europe-radical-financial-democraticI keep returning to the who and why he wrote the book and less on the how he wrote it which seems to be obsessing some commentators i have read.  

    in reply to: Pathfinders: Fracking – A Bridge Too Far? #92207
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    http://rt.com/usa/170552-oklahoma-fracking-wastewater-earthquakes/Now, surely we should worry when we read the following“As an industry, we’ve been saying we need more data and we need to work with regulators and others to help determine what is causing the significant increase in seismic activity,” said Chad Warmington, president of the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association. “But to unequivocally link it to wastewater injections, I think there still needs to be more research.”It seems the frackers concede (since it is not a denial) that no-one knows the actual consequences of what they are doing. 

    in reply to: Piketty’s data #101816
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    And who better to do it than someone who was indeed previously a smug mathematical model idiot…i'm not being libelous as i think he himself describes his early pedegree as such..Yet as someone pointed out , his back book cover has him in front of a blackboard of mathematical equations as he hasn't jettisoned it as a tool as we all know by his now 1st and 2nd Laws. Turning a social science – political economy – into a physical science that. i might be wrong on this but doesn't Marx's only call one thing an actual "law" that he applies it only to a tendency  (declining rate of profit) with plenty of exceptions to ensure it is not taken as a practical rule. Why did he include solutions that he even considers to be extremely unlikely to be turned into policy?This seems to be what his fellow professionals all draw attention to (as i have quoted from) while it is the "lay" commentators who emphasise the bonanza of his tax legislation and proceed to lay great worth by it. 

    in reply to: Podemos in Spain #101638
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/06/pablo-iglesias-indignado-podemos-spainAn update article on Podemos…concentrating on the personality of Iglesias."If people don't do politics, others will do it for you. And when others do it for you, they can steal your rights, your democracy and your wallet." – a good quote.Seems as if the party itself is in the process of becoming more structured. Another good quote – "You can't be scared of democracy. These arguments that participation can be contradictory with efficiency is contrary to the very idea of democracy." He likened it to critics of universal suffrage who argued that it would cause chaos if everyone were able to vote. "We've seen that this isn't true."

    in reply to: Piketty’s data #101814
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    I'm asking this question …Who did Piketty write his book for (rather than why) because YMS eaarlier on the thread pointed out importantly that Marx was one of us. Marx began his study of economics having already taken his stand on who's side he was with and then wrote his Capital to furnish the workers with the theoretical tools to combat the supporters of capitalists and frequently said so.Keynes i think wrote his economic analysis for governments and politicians to set policy, but even he seemed to want to satisfy the needs of the common person through his schemes.So coming to Piketty, if he acknowledges it is unlikely to be implemented and that is seconded by nearly all those reviews i have read by fellow economic writers, his suggestions are not the real politics of Treasury departments, finance ministers and exchequers.From one review i read, it says out of 700 pages he mentions trade unions just only three times and merely in the passing (i wonder just how many of the wrong type of fish he netted he then tossed back into the ocean on this particular subject). No lengthy descriptions or explanation of strikes and wage struggles or demands for better conditions, or descriptions of the sweat shop outsourcing that made Steve Jobs his billions (i noted in one review he approves of Steve Job's remuneration because he was an entrpeneur and innovative …while implies Gates was more of a thief). So it seems the interests of the working class was not in the forefront of who Piketty is hoping to reach out to. Or even particular cares for or have any special empathy with. I don't think he merely wrote it for the sake of providing more accurate statistics purely out of academic interest such as all those facts and figures regularly supplied by central banks. He had a motive and he aimed at a specific audience or as Paddy kept saying in Kids Stuff video …"ideology again". But who is it he wants to convince?Was it all simply to get us thinking about how we can re-distribute wealth for a collective well-being?…To  pay for climate change…dump the question of national debt when it comes to paying for the Welfare State? Are all the small steps he insists we begin to make , stepping stones to someplace else…if so where?Despite the current claims, i'll be curious to know , just how much regard the book will retain in a few years time…much less after the 150 years of Marx Capital. 

    in reply to: Piketty’s data #101813
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Adam, you remarked on the Libcom thread that "If he doesn't think the tendency of the rich to get richer (as opposed to the rate of return growing faster than the rate of growth) can be reversed why does he call for a "tax revolution" to try to do this? After all, he's not a Trotskyist raising this as an unrealistic transitional demand ! If he really believed that this particular tendency couldn't be reversed he would come as an opponent of capitalism but he definitely does not."http://libcom.org/forums/theory/capital-21st-century-piketty-16042014#newI earlier threw in on this thread that i consider him a neo-trotsky for suggesting policies that he thinks are too utopian to achieve but still recommend people politically striving for [ perhaps as a step towards increased democratic accountability that controlling the inevitable tax evasion you talked about with SP ]. Why is Piketty so keen on a policy that he himself considers very remote of being implemented. Again, this is also emphasised by Paul Mattick's review. http://www.brooklynrail.org/2014/06/field-notes/editors-note-much-ado-about-something This review explains why people like McClusky a public sector union leader is enthusedhttps://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/05/a-general-without-an-army/"He argues that the debt could be effectively repudiated without default, by repaying it in a stroke by a large, one-off progressive capital tax, spreading the burden across the wealthy in general (not only bondholders), and abandoning austerity entirely. This logic can be extended to budget “crises” everywhere — the risk of social security “going bust,” of rising health costs, of just plain cramped, stretched, or inadequate public services and benefits."Anyways, that's my question for today…Who is the book actually written for? 

    in reply to: Piketty’s data #101812
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Perhaps, more telling is this review by a trade union leader and how he is using the book.  The international tax is "manna from heaven " for McCluskey.But as i said from early on and as McCluskey also says "a part of me was thinking: "Hang on, this is just telling us what we already know! …"http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/28/len-mccluskey-capital-21st-century-manna-from-heaven

Viewing 15 posts - 11,116 through 11,130 (of 12,551 total)