[today]
Economics Nobel won for studies linking
higher benefits to more unemployment
[The Guardian, 12 October 2010, p. 28]
"[The prize winners'] analysis of why unemployment remains high when
jobs are available has found favour with governments attempting to
create a more flexible environment for employers."
-------------------------------------
[yesterday]
1932 Nobel Prize in Economics Awarded Posthumously
to Jean-Baptiste Say
[Daily Mail 31 November 1932, p. 1]
Despite the controversy that it is the Bank of Sweden (BS), not the
Nobel Committee, making the award, it was announced that the Prize in
Economics for 1932 would go to the late-great French economist and
visionary Jean-Baptiste Say (on the 100th anniversary of his death).
Insiders report that while those making the award were not favorably
disposed to M. Say's opposition to Napoleon's dictatorship (suggesting
that if alive today he might oppose fascism), this was outweighed by
the Frenchman's consistent support for free trade and unregulated
markets.
Indeed, overwhelming all else was M. Say's irrefutable
demonstration of "the mere circumstance of creation of one product
immediately opens a vent for other products" (Traité d'économie
politique 1803, 179), frequently shortened to "supply creates its own
demand". Especially at this critical moment, after the temporary
adjustment in financial markets almost exactly three years ago
(vulgarly called "Black Thursday" by communists and their
fellow-travelers), the BS'ers considered it essential to assert
clearly the virtues of free markets by honoring M. Say posthumously.
Sources close to the BS report that great concern arose
after the defeat of President Hoover by the populist Roosevelt. It is
hoped that the choice of M. Say will help induce the new American
president to keep faith with free markets and non-intervention in
economic matters.
That governmental resolve for free markets might falter in
Europe and the United States is considered a serious danger by the
captains of finance. Their fears arise in part from the irresponsible
interpretations by some of current unemployment rates, 25% in the
United States and 30% in Germany (despite, in the latter country, of
commendable efforts by the Weimar government to balance the public
budget).
Most shocking have been absurd suggestions by the
notorious currency speculator Maynard Keynes (who has personal links
to the degenerate "Bloomsbury Set"), that government action might
somehow reduce unemployment. Having made much of the increase the
number of unemployed from 1.5 million in January of this year to the
present 2.6 million, Mr. Keynes should make himself aware that "the
rise is to a large extent owing to the temporary closing down of works
for extended holidays" [note: actual quotation from The Guardian, 7
January 1931 {*}]. It is difficult to believe that some suggested
Mr. Keynes himself for the Nobel!
So completely mad is Mr. Keynes that his "solution" to the
current "problem" of unemployment is to bury money in coal mines! [See
below] All sensible people have the BS to thank for this selection of
M. Say to remind us that the current "depression" is an illusion
exaggerated by the forces of disorder, and soon to be rectified, as
always, by our vigorous private sector.
-------------------------------------------
If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at
suitable depths in disused coal mines which are then filled up to the
surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well
tried principals of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right
to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the
note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with
the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and
its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater
than it actually is. (J M Keynes, Collected Writings, Book 3, p. 129)
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
{*} This is preminiscent of the work of the economist Robert Lucas,
who used "rational expectations" "theory" to suggest that high
unemployment during the early part of the Great Vacation of the 1930s
arose from voluntary choices by workers. -- JD
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