RE
Jim's:
I'm going to have nightmares about a TV show John Pareto, Economist.
I think the life (and economic theories) of Veblen would make a wonderful TV
series. Perhaps David Duchovny could star in the series.
Eric
Pen-lers,
At my website, http://economics.csusb.edu/faculty/nilsson/nilsson.htm
You'll find a slightly improved version of my free on-line microeconomics
textbook.
Feel free to use as you see fit (as long as credit is given). I use the text
in my intro micro texts.
Eric Nilsson
Economics
CSUSB
Title: labor economics text
RE
is there such a thing as a good labor economics textbook?
Maybe:
Unlevel
Playing Fields: Understanding Wage Inequality and Discrimination by Randy Albelda, Robert Drago and Steve Shulman, Dollars and
Sense, 2nd Edition 2001.
Eric
.
Jks wrote,
You need a common scale of some sort, some ranking mechanism.
Otherwise you can't decide which of two outcomes is more efficient or if
they're indifferent.
This is of course right _if_
you explicitly model how someone decides whether to chose between the vector
[embalmed
Ken writes,
Surely when u come to practical applicatiions in social welfare
theory such as cost-=benefit analysis not only are utilties measured they are
measured in dollar terms.
Even in applied micro you need not posit underlying utility functions:
you can still use preference
Mat wrote,
Is there a basic consensus in the philosophy of science
about where empirical criticisms fit in?
For awhile empirically inclined NC economists wondered if empirical evidence
could be used to select between two different incomparable theories. They
attempted to determine if empirical
Jim wrote,
(this seems to involve interpersonal comparisons of utility.)
I don't think this need be the case. Let's say I value the move from A to B
by -$1. Let's say you give me a $1. This dollar might sadden you but it
makes me as likely to chose B as A (if B comes along with $1). I am
RE
. . . are taking a detour through a computer licensed
to: Government Systems Division, 13221 Woodland Park Road, Herndon,
VA 22071, US.
Well well! Virginia! Government! Interesting!
Sounds scary. But a simple google search reveals the information that this
might simply be a Sprint
tell you how to fix it
Send some duct tape down to Washington and show 'em where to stick it
Eric
Eric Nilsson
Economics
CSUSB
attachment: winmail.dat
Title: RE: "Western Rationality"
Jim
wrote,
...eight separate kinds of
intelligence,
Jim modestly fails to note his own contribution to this
issue: there are also multiple kinds of
stupidities.
Eric
/
Seth wrote,
Hello. When self-employed people go out of business in the U.S.,
how are they accounted for in the official job stats?
Doug responded,
It's based on self-reporting. If people describe themselves as
self-employed and working, they're counted as such. If they describe
themselves
Philip Dick's Minority Report (recently made into movie with many changes)
was based on something similar to the following:
Controversial Police Database Lists 'Future Criminals'
Names, Addresses Of Potential Suspects Listed
Posted: 12:02 p.m. EDT August 26, 2002
WILMINGTON, Del. -- Defense
= Gramsci - Marx?
(4) to what extent is Foucault = Bourdieu / Giddens? (I have no idea what
the latter might mean ;) )
Any thoughts? Thanks.
Eric
Eric Nilsson
Economics
CSUSB
Doug H writes,
. . . one's fellow students are an education in
themselves. Classes were very lively -
I wonder, however, whether this is _still_ true for the elite colleges. The
increased competition now to get into such schools and increased attention
to doing the right things during high
Operation TIPS will be a national system for reporting suspicious, and
potentially terrorist-related activity. The program will involve the
millions of American workers who, in the daily course of their work, are in
a unique position to see potentially unusual or suspicious activity in
public
Title: Rogoff letter
All,
I'm looking for a
short book about Marx's _social_ theory appropriate for undergraduates.
In the past I've
used Berlin's biography,parts of the Cambridge Companion to Marx, and
Wood's KMin thepast but wantsomething different this time.
I've also used KM's
RE
Terrell Carver has an old Oxford book on Marx's Social Theory
that I thought
was pretty good.
Also out of print, but I've used his Cambridge Companion of KM, which he
edited and has some good points.
Eric
.
RE
How about:
Karl Marx by David McLellan, Viking Press, 1975.
I like it but it is out of print!
Eric
Joanna
wrote,
A - you're not going to let them see any original
material
For the economics of
KM I've had students read v.1 of Capital in the distant past, but it
understandably takes us a very long time to work through it.
But, in any case, I
do the KM economics that I'm
Justin wrote,
Best general intro to ME I know of id
Richard Schmitt, Intro to Marx and Engels (Westview); I used to
use that all
the time.
I just checked -- this is out of print too. Clearly a conspiracy is afoot!
Eric
.
Title: RE: [PEN-L:27753] Re: more & more stock options
REjoanna
writes:Problem is, options don't work in a bear market.
But when the stock market does
start to go up--and a huge overhang of stock options are finally cashed in--what
might happen to the stock market?
Eric
.
budgeted. . . . During the 2001 fire season it cost an average of
$1,340 per acre to fight fires on the national forests270 percent more than
it did in 2000.
Eric Nilsson
Economics
CSUSB
Doug Orr wrote,
It is easy to get the number of firms by type. It is easy to get firms
with assets in excess of $250M. What I have not been able to nail down
is total business assets in the US. I have found total Corp. assets, but
I have not found proprietor and partnership assets.
Data
Doug wrote,
I was just citing the convention of the NIPAs. Conceptually, the
people who make up households have to be the producers and recipients
of everything, since corps are just legal fictions, no?
It is a fiction that corporations are quasi-persons. Regardless of that,
corporations are
Ian wrote,
Households are suppliers/producers of labor power, no?
Yes, but this does not mean that your economic theory must underline (or
start with) the role of households.
My starting point for understanding economic behavior in capitalism is the
process of surplus generation within the
Doug wrote,
virus checkers
telling me an email I never sent to someone I don't know was
infected. The identity of the real source is usually in the
X-Sender: field; the address in the From: field is forged.
Checking all the internet headers of the message I got suggests that it
originally
Doug wrote,
Institutions and social structures like classes configure those
people in arrangements that make possible surplus generation
and distribution. But the start and end of any economic activity has to be
human
beings doing stuff together.
True. But this do not imply you have to
Well not quite...
But data I just put in my spiffy text is:
Number of firms with 1-99 employees in the US: 4,800,582 (or 98% of all
firms with employees)
Number of firms with 10,000 or more employees: 936 (or 0.002% of all
firms with employees)
Number of employees working in firms with
For the NIPA aware.
If you want to come up with a crude estimate for the total surplus generated
by capitalist firms within the US economy, is there anything particularly
wrong with simply summing up various data taken from the National Income
data in NIPA (table 1.14)?
To wit:
Doug wrote,
Conceptually and practically, it's difficult to separate the labor
income from capital income components of proprietors' income.
Following the recommendation of Mayo Toruno, I'm multiplying proprietors'
income by the ratio of (corp profits / (corp profits + employee comp)). This
Max wrote,
I would say net interest paid (not personal interest received)
and rent belong too.
I'm not sure about rent as my concern is with surplus generated within an
economic relationship involving wage labor (i.e. capitalism).
The rental income in NIPA is for PERSONS (except for those who
Re Max's
what about a corporation whose business is rental real estate
that includes improvements to the land?
Such an activity would affect general corporate income, I guess.
Eric
.
Doug wrote,
Net interest is figured as what biz pays to households, right? It's
an expense for business and an income for households.
Yes indeed that is the case. I guess such a number doesn't add to capitalist
surplus.
For what it is worth:
Corporate profits + Estimated profit part of
Max wrote,
Part of profits are paid to households too.
I don't see how you can include profits but not net interest paid.
I feel like Reagan, who allegedly was convinced by the last person he talked
with ...
I think I now would include net interest--these payments go to persons (as a
Michael wrote,
Thanks for all of your responses. My intuition is that goods with very
small marginal production costs, such as books and television, tend to aim
for mass markets, while other types of goods try to be able to capture
expensive niches, often with the adjective designer
Michael wrote,
. . .the honcho told him
that the book would be unacceptable because the table of contents was not
similar to that of McConnell's book.
Which is why my intro micro text will be self-published (for free!) on the
web.
Eric
.
RE
or with Mayo Toruno's book.
The second edition of Mayo's book, The Political Economics of Capitalism,
will appear in the not-too-distant future. It will be published by Atomic
Dog Press.
http://www.atomicdogpublishing.com/home.asp
Eric
Eric Nilsson
Economics
CSUSB
Eugene C
wrote,
DeLong is doing a new wrinkle now (new to
him, apparently) with the discovery that monopoly and
discriminatory pricing is good for society.
These people cannot be topped or stopped -- only ignored by us.
The topic of price
discrimination--in the context of the
as much of the material
is still in the first draft stage.
Notable parts of this text are (1) the photograph of the corn economy on
page 3 of chapter 1 and (2) chapter 13 which does stuff not done in standard
texts relevant to why firms become large.
Eric Nilsson
Economics
CSUSB
institutionalist
Kazim Konyar (PhD UCR) left wing environmentalist
Eric Nilsson (PhD UMass) confused but well-meaning
regular visiting instructor:
Chris Niggle from Redlands (PhD UCR) radical institutionalist
Bonus fact: we have a BA in Economics (Political Economy track) and a
Political Economy Minor
RE
Wow, Eric, thousands of dollars from alums
to fund scholarships in econ--cool!
Our current scholarship accounts hold about $50,000. We give out 4 small
scholarships each year (about $700, or one quarter's worth of fees). Not too
bad for a very small department in an unknown state school in
Max wrote,
Without doubt, you can spot all sorts of problems in
their work. But I would be willing to bet that you would
not be able to arrive at a better way of doing it, given
the same resources and data that are available to them.
I generally agree with this claim.
One of the main problems
Sabri wrote,
And I worked at money management
firms and other firms that provide analytics to them.
... But, there are those who are dishonest liars. I know it.
I have worked with them.
In my experience private sector data producers--particularly those in the
financial sector--sometimes
Jim wrote,
Didn't Merrill-Lynch financial advisors recently get in trouble
for selling
info that was inaccurate -- but helped the investment-banking side of the
business?
I know the LA Times has covered this at least twice a week or so ago, but I
haven't see much in the WSJ about it.
Eric
.
that the dominant class
gets control of the surplus, but if the concept of the surplus is
logically incoherent what can be saved of such a claim?
Eric Nilsson
JD wrote
at the same time that the IMF pushes them to deflate?
And at the same time the switch to a single currency and a single central
bank was accomplished to reduce the effectivess of (domestic) political
pressure to lead to (potentially) pro-growth, inflationary policies?
Eric
Carrol wrote,
There has been considerable discussion of this already on LBO -- where
the near consensus was that the _leaking_ (presumed deliberate) of this
story might be significant and/or scary, the substance of it was
commonplace.
I wonder if the Bush administration will find itself
RE
It's not easy to read the tenure numbers - tenure could rise in a
weak job market, as people hold on to what they have, and fall in a
strong one, as they feel confident about changing jobs The national
numbers don't show that much of a change between 1983 and 2000
And I believe I read
Jim wrote,
More generally, math by its very nature describes an idealized world. That
doesn't mean that it shouldn't be used as much as that it has to be used
_very carefully_ if one's goal is to understand the world.
I, who has used math in a previous life and am now learning game theory,
Jim D wrote,
I think it's important to remember that the phrase the real world is
redundant.
I guess this depends on one's epistemology, but I don't want to start any
discussion about epistemology. Pen-l seems to have a lot on its plate now.
;)
Also, isn't it more accurate to say tht math
Jim
wrote,
How do we measure the "productive forces," anyway? It seems
that capitalismwould measure their development differently from other
modes of production.(Capitalism might measure them in terms of labor
productivity, which ismarketable output per worker, corrected for
dd writes
I think it would be possible in principle to come up
with a mathematically rigorous definition of the productive forces in
terms of the ability to produce arbitrary physical objects of a given
information-theoretic complexity of structure, and then carry the analysis
on from there.
Melvin
P wrote,
Is not human beings the decisive
element in the production forces?
Certainly an argument can be made that, broadly
understood, human beings are part of the productive forces. Whether it is the
"decisive element," I don't know.
I don't think Marx--not that his opinion is
Charles wrote:
actually the productive _forces_ can be measured to a
certain extent using the physics concept of force, in that
there is at least in the period from European feudalism to
capitalism a leap in the amount of energy capture and ability to
do work ( in the physics sense of
Carrol wrote:
Are you assuming that Marx _did_ have a theory of (universal) history
based on the development of the productive forces?
I am assuming that at one point Marx did have a theory of history in which
the productive forces played an essential role Whether concepts from the
physics of
Carrol wrote
I don't know who started using html formatting on
this thread but it is obnoxious.
Was blue text what you are referring to? If so, it was me: I mistakenly sent
out such a message.
But, for what it is worth, colored text is not always the same as HTML. My
blue text was courtesy
Charles wrote,
CB: He was certainly aware of these physics basics, but I am sure
he did not reduce his productive forces to physical forces
I didn't hope to imply that I merely wondered if Marx's way of thinking
about historical developments was influenced by ideas developed first in
Sabri Oncu wrote,
. . .The main
reason of why I am writing this is to let you know about a book I
found a while ago in a used book store. It is this: The
Mathematical Manuscripts of Karl Marx, New Park Publications Ltd,
1983. The book was edited by S.A. Yanovskaya in Moscow in 1968.
The
Doug Henwood wrote:
I'll bet a lot of PEN-Lers don't approve of makeup or stylish clothes
either.
Hold on. Readers of the WSJ (a few days ago) know that the _newest_ fashions
have rips, tears, and wrinkles and look, in general, very beat up and old.
Because of this fashion development, I am
RE
It's been clear for a long time that the BLS has largely gone along
with the Boskin stuff . . .
I imagine that the behavior of the BLS towards revising (sic) the CPI
changed once Katherine Abraham left as head of the BLS.
Her term expired in about September 2001. I bet no one in the
Ellen writes,
Isn't this ceding too much to the double-taxation position.
I mean yes it' true that the thrifty brother will pay more income
tax than his twin, but he will also earn more income (the interest on
saving in addition to the original income) than his twin.
I agree with you Ellen.
double taxation. Was the phrase double
taxation on savings invented to justify tax cuts for investors? If so, does
anyone know when this idea first appeared?
Thanks for any leads on this.
Eric Nilsson
Economics
CSUSB
Thanks Max for the information and for sharing part of your underground
classic.
Max wrote,
A more neutral way of describing this is to note that
if you earn a dollar and save it, as opoosed to spending
it immediately, you pay more tax in the first case then
in the second.
To help me
, and
3) if the foreign nation retaliates to the government intervention everyone
might be worse off.
These are the reasons that Krugman tends to be a free trader as have those
who have analyzed optimal tariffs.
Eric Nilsson
Economics
CSUSB
on political power--e.g., colonies--and not on markets. And, of
course, lots of trade is really intra-firm transfers across borders by MNCs
and, so, need not follow the dictates of relative price differences.
Eric
Eric Nilsson
Economics
CSUSB
Has anyone read the book in the subject line? It was published in Jan 2001.
I'm thinking of using for a public finance course but only know the name of
the book and that he is a progressive.
Thanks.
Eric Nilsson
Economics
CSUSB
Perhaps of relevance are IRS reports:
Page of reports relevant to tax returns of
individuals:
http://www.irs.ustreas.gov/prod/tax_stats/ind.html
Page of reports on tax data by size of income:
http://www.irs.ustreas.gov/prod/tax_stats/soi/ind_
agi.html
Most recent IRS report on tax returns
For those wanting to know how much Bill Gates will
save with the new tax cut over the next 10
years ---
The tax experts at Quicken TurboTax have
developed an easy to use calculator to help you
estimate how your taxes might be affected. Simply
enter the information requested below and we'll do
RE Brad's
It is a
perfect illustration of how
monopolistically competitive markets
with entry do not produce
anything like the social optimum...
It is also a clear example of how firms, seeking
to make profits, shape market structure: market
structure is often endogenously determined by
Brad wrote:
If you wished (although God knows why
you would) to portray your
actions as a gamble by a flinty-eyed
amoral profit-maximizing
academic careerist, you could say that:
Okay, Okay -- you saw right through me.
But you missed one key aspect of my free (sic)
text: while I will not
it).
The text is best described as a mix of
Bowles/Edwards and a standard micro text that
doesn't fetishize mathematics and diagrams.
Why am I doing all this work and, then, giving it
away free? Answer: Damaged DNA.
Eric Nilsson
Department of Economics
California State University
San Bernardino, CA
Jim wrote,
After all, it's the
sovereign consumers who decide what
sucks and what doesn't suck.
But remember one of the key characteristics of the
textbook market--the ultimate user (the student)
does not pick the book. The professor does (and
most often the professor does not have
Jim D wrote,
including (yuk!) Pokemon
You got to get into Rugrats. We don't have cable
so we only see it via rented videos every few
weeks (you also avoid the commercials that way!).
One could argue that Rugrats is a bit
subversive--as much or more so than the Simpsons.
It certainly is very
Jim wrote,
yeah, tastes are a dependent
variable, but that doesn't say that people
don't have bad taste a lot of the time
(and I don't exclude myself from this).
The key is not whether you have bad tastes, but
whether you feel _guilty_ for having bad taste:
that is, whether you have
Brad wrote:
... David Noble's fear of "Digital
Diploma Mills" . . .shows gaping holes in
his ability to construct a
logical argument...
but then we read Brad's 'logical argument'
undercutting the flaws of Noble's writing:
It wasn't pleasant. It
wasn't persuasive. And it
seemed to indicate
At 02:27 PM 3/29/01 -0500, you wrote:
Q: How many neoclassical economists
does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: The bulb would not have burned out in the first
place if not for government regulation.
Eric
.
RE the AP report:
The arbitration law does not apply to employment
contracts for seamen, railroad employees
or any other class of workers engaged in foreign
or
interstate commerce.
Circuit City contended that the
exception from the
arbitration-enforcement law was limited
to workers
RE
Jagdish Bhagwati - who, despite his
free-trade zealotry is a quirky and
open-minded guy - he lamented the
mediocrity of the left candidates. ..
I recollect reading sometime within the past year
from an economist denied tenure are Columbia
complaining about the unusual amount of unfair
Pen-l folks:
Some have argued that certain great depression and
WWII programs that brought US firms together to
help plan industry output contributed to these
firms being able to achieve collusion after the
end of these programs.
Not only did firms in these government organized
industry groups
, might lead to greater Demo success.
Eric
.
Eric Nilsson
Department of Economics
California State University
San Bernardino, CA 92407
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
I initially wrote,
But the bottom line is who do you want--Bush or
Gore--appointing
people to, say, the National Labor Relations
Board?
Some responses have ranged from
1. my question leads directly to fascism (Carrol,
Gar),
2. progressive politics might have been better off
if Dole had become
My Dear Max,
RE
Now now, Eric. My question was much
more focused than that. You said Gore would
provide more
space for progressive
movements. I asked *how* 8 yrs of
Clinton has done so.
Gore would provide a better atmosphere than Bush.
Nader would provide a better atmosphere than Gore.
RE
non-Marxists like Fogel, Engerman, and
Oakes . . . . tries to show that
the plantation system was both
profitable and efficient on capitalist
terms.
I believe that current mainstream thought on
slavery is that:
1) slave holders wanted to make money but they did
not seek the highest
Louis,
RE
... CP'er Nathaniel West.
West was in the CP? It makes sense to me, but who
has said this?
Eric
Boskin et al)? And, if so, that productivity measures are understated
when using these (too rapidly growing) price indexes.
But little compelling evidence exists that quality improvements are
understated when price indexes are generated.
Eric
Eric Nilsson
Economics
California State Unive
RE
They are difficult, although there is some nice stuff in them. Hard as it
is, there is some pretty language in the cahpter on commodity fetishism.
-- and --
The first few chapters of _Capital_. They *are* turgid and nearly
unreadable, in the standard English
Doug wrote:
The price indexes for computers are truly
stunning, turning nominal increases of 5-10% into real increases of
50%. U.S. GDP growth without computers over the last year is 5.2%;
with, 5.7%. In the GDP accounts, final sales of computers grew $24
billion in nominal terms (99Q2-00Q2),
Doug wrote
No, it implicitly claims that stuff gets 5 to 10 times better over
the course of a year. 5-10% nominal inflates into 50% real.
/ / / / / / / /
This is crazy. This is what price/productivity data published by the
government (implicitly) says?
Eric
.
Doug wrote, first,
In the GDP accounts, final sales of computers
grew $24
billion in nominal terms (99Q2-00Q2), which was
inflated into $131
billion in real terms.
Then,
See the spreadsheet at
http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/dn/comp-gdp.exe.
I looked at this spreadsheet. It is very hard to
follow
Oops.
RE
That is, 115 times 0.8 equals
about 141.
Obviously "115 divided by 0.8" makes a bit more
sense.
Eric
Doug wrote
But why can't I compare the 24 with the
131? They're both aggregates,
and the comparison shows that some
massive inflation of nominal
values is going on to produce the real values.
These things get truly preposterous
over the long term - nominal
spending on computers grew 143%
Jim wrote
In the context of Amherst, a pomotista is a Wolf/Resnick
postmodernist-Marxist (or Marxist-postmodernist). As I understand their
view, it is that (1) there's no way to decide between neoclassical and
Marxist theory except via moral commitment (leaning toward epistemological
nihilism)
Jim wrote
Though this is true, it is very abstract. The phenomenon of the
post-1973 stagnation of wages ...can be explained only at a lower
level of abstraction. ...I would explain it in terms of the end of the
nation-state-based "model" of capitalist accumulation which
Does anyone know what management theories/philosophies and, in particular,
business books were popular during the 1970s?
I imagine that the pre-1973 oil shock theories/books would differ from the
post-1973 theories/books.
Eric
Eric Nilsson
Economics
California State University, San Bernardino
workers.
Also important is the rise in the 1990s of the CULT OF THE STOCK MARKET.
The stock market demands that we
. You see it really isnt our fault it
is the stock markets fault and we are all, after all, now stock market
investors as the mass media tells us so
.
Eric
Eric Nilsson
Michael wrote,
According to the latest available figures from the National Census
of Fatal Occupational injuries, 6,218 workers were killed in 1997,
up from 6,112 the year before.
More recent data (for 1999) now at
http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.toc.htm
LA Times recently (within last 2
'key' industry to other 'nonkey'
industries and on the existence (or not) of an economy-wide "standard" for
wage increases.
I've yet to reach any conclusions.
So, any thoughts on this (mechanism of spillover, how 'standard' set, etc)
would be appreciated.
Eric
Eric Nilsson
age less politically practical.
Further, as management in certain 'trade-impacted' industries becomes more
aggressive in keeping wages down for trade reasons, this aggression might
spillover to affect aggressiveness in other (service) industries.
Eric
Eric Nilsson
Economics
California S
ining industry wages. And, of course, a decline
in the real minimum wage.
But, I've just started thinking about all of this.
Eric
Eric Nilsson
Economics
California State University, San Bernardino
San Bernardino, CA 91711
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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