05 Dec 2012

Potpourri

Climate Change, Economics, Federal Reserve, Inflation, Market Monetarism, Potpourri, Scott Sumner 6 Comments

==> Tyler Cowen jumps in on the side (?) of Sumner and Rowe (HT2 Max R.), regarding Cantillon effects. (Here Sumner is much clearer–to Austrian readers–about what his position has been all along.) Gene Callahan makes what seems to be a modest point, but it actually is the equivalent of Luke Skywalker’s shot into the Death Star. Incidentally, Sheldon Richman’s actual article (which so upset Sumner) is now online; I have no problem with his discussion whatsoever. At some point I will write up a post-game show.

==> So you know how Bruce Bartlett has been receiving sympathy from his new friends on the left, for getting blacklisted by the WSJ and Fox News, especially when his book critical of Bush came out? (Remember Bartlett had praised the wisdom of the Murdoch empire for ignoring his book, thus ruining his sales.) Try to think of the most awkward link I could possibly give in this context. Merry Christmas. (HT2 Teqzuilla for this article laying out the he-said-she-said, as well as Bartlett’s explanation. And don’t miss this either.)

==> Chip Knappenberger uses the IPCC scenarios to estimate the effect on global temperatures in 2100 from a draconian but unilateral US carbon tax. I ran it by a progressive economist who is an expert on this stuff and a big fan of carbon taxes. He didn’t dispute Chip’s numbers but said one of the mechanisms through which a US tax could help, is to stimulate development in low- or zero-emission technologies. Thus China and India would switch to “green” energy not because of their own carbon tax, but because it would become more efficient even looking at private costs and benefits.

==> This Ed Feser post on Nagel is great. (HT2 Gene Callahan) It is incredibly pedagogical. Even if you hate what he’s saying, I think you will appreciate his laying out of the issues. An excerpt (and I’m retaining the italics from the original):

Thus, as common sense understands color, sound, heat and cold, etc., the reductive method ends up treating the world as essentially colorless, soundless, devoid of temperature, etc.  What the methodcalls “color,” “sound,” “heat” and “cold” is in fact something different from what the man on the street thinks of when he hears these terms.  The “red” that the method says exists in the material world is just the tendency of an object to absorb certain wavelengths of light and to reflect others.  The “red” that the man on the street thinks exists in the object does not really exist in the object itself at all but only in his perceptual experience of the object.  The “heat” that the method says really exists in the material world is just the motion of molecules.  The “heat” that the man on the street thinks exists in the object does not really exist in the object at all but only in his perceptual experience of the object.  And so forth.

Now, Nagel’s point is not that there is something wrong per se with overthrowing common sense in this way.  It is rather that whatever value this method has, it cannot coherently be applied to the explanation of conscious experience itself.  If the reductive method involves ignoring the appearances of a thing and redefining the thing in terms of something other than the appearances, then since our conscious experience of the world just is the way the world appears to us, to ignore the appearances is in this case just to ignore the very phenomenon to be explained rather than to explain it.  Consciousness is for this reason necessarily and uniquely resistant to explanation via the same method scientific reductionism applies to everything else.  For the application of the method in this case, writes Nagel, “does not take us nearer to the real nature of the phenomenon: it takes us farther away from it.”  To treat the appearances as essentially “subjective” or mind-dependent is precisely to make them incapable of explanation in entirely “objective” or mind-independent terms.

6 Responses to “Potpourri”

  1. Bob Roddis says:

    This is a good example of the fallacy of composition. In aggregate, the total level of nominal purchases is constrained by the amount of currency in circulation. But not at the individual level. Hence being the first to get the new money doesn’t confer any advantage at all–as the new money has no more purchasing power than the existing money. A dollar is a dollar—and a $100 bill is a $100 bill.

    What a dishonest load of crap. The people who get the new money first get to spend it before it filters through the economy raising prices. The gist of Sheldon Richman’s article was how we are looted by the elite via money dilution. You would never know this reading the responses of the “market monetarists” (what a garbage term). And all to solve a problem that does not exist, the alleged failure of the market, with a “solution” that is the cause of the problem, wealth transfers and price distortions.

    http://tinyurl.com/abyfsfd

    • Major_Freedom says:

      Yeah that Sumner comment was a bad one.

      Apparently, counterfeiters are not benefiting themselves, because when they print $100 million, they’re just diluting the value of money, so they are no better off. Even if they go out and spend it on mansions and yachts, still they are no better off. And those sellers who receive the $100 million are also no better off, because the value of money is still diluted. Even if they go out and spend it on capital goods that are used to earn profits, they are no better off.

      And those at the end of the line, who experience this no better off phenomena with rising prices, are no worse off either, even if they have to pay higher prices for everything.

      So inflation doesn’t benefit the initial receivers and it doesn’t harm the late receivers. And this passes for economics?

      • Bob Roddis says:

        And don’t forget, the whole purpose of money dilution in the first place according to the MMers is to RAISE PRICES.

        So clearly, there is no possible advantage for wealthy people just because they are able to borrow and purchase assets with funny money loans before the price of those assets invariably rises .

    • Matt Tanous says:

      No, Bob, you totally are missing the point. “It makes no difference who gets the extra money from the Fed, because the recipient is no wealthier than before (money is swapped for bonds) and hence they have no incentive to spend any more.” The point is that if I go to the store, I can totally buy things with bonds. Surely, I can go to Walmart and purchase a TV with my holdings in bonds. Selling them is just like giving up five dollar bills for a $5 bill.

  2. Major_Freedom says:

    Ed Feser writes (paraphrasing Nagel):

    If the reductive method involves ignoring the appearances of a thing and redefining the thing in terms of something other than the appearances, then since our conscious experience of the world just is the way the world appears to us, to ignore the appearances is in this case just to ignore the very phenomenon to be explained rather than to explain it.  Consciousness is for this reason necessarily and uniquely resistant to explanation via the same method scientific reductionism applies to everything else.  For the application of the method in this case, writes Nagel, “does not take us nearer to the real nature of the phenomenon: it takes us farther away from it.”  To treat the appearances as essentially “subjective” or mind-dependent is precisely to make them incapable of explanation in entirely “objective” or mind-independent terms.

    Wait, the argument “since our conscious experience of the world just is the way the world appears to us” is an argument that needs justification. It is not self-evident. It seems to be the very issue being questioned.

    For what if I argued that my conscious experience includes not only the way the world appears to me, but how I understand myself, and thus why the world appears the way it does to me, then we must not merely assert that conscious experience is only how the world appears to us.

    Furthermore, even if one does treat experience as mind-dependent, thus preventing one from considering reality independent of mind, that does not imply that mind-dependent experiences are not objective.

    I submit that it is impossible to arrive at “mind independent” conceptions, since, after all, all conceptions reside in my mind. This isn’t something to fret about. Just because all conceptions are mind-dependent, it doesn’t mean they aren’t saying anything true about the objective world. There exists an overlap between my subjective mind and objective reality. Not all of my thoughts correspond to external reality, and not all external reality corresponds to my thoughts. But in between, my experience of self, connects to objective reality. And that is all I need and have. I could never know reality that is not mind-dependent, no less than a monkey can never know reality that is monkey mind independent. However as mentioned, this doesn’t mean my thoughts are cut off from objective reality. It just means I can only know objective reality that is also mind-dependent.

    Didn’t Mises show that action is a bridge between the mind and reality?

  3. Daniel Kuehn says:

    I do not like that Ed Feser post at all. It seems very wrong on a number of counts. I think I’m going to write on it tomorrow

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