It's a thought-provoking topic. In a way, we can't be too hard on social scientists. The phenomena that physicists, chemists, and biologists study have been with us since before civilization, but those sciences didn't achieve the sort of progress that makes us say "I wish X was rigorous, like physics" for 57 centuries. Meanwhile, if a political scientist is studying "political parties" or an economist is studying "monetary policy", they're studying something that has only been in existence for a century or two, tops. (I mean, we would hope that insights about modern society would clarify the "political parties" of Peisistratid Athens, or the "monetary policy" of the Hapsburgs, but the past is a different country.) Indeed, social scientists are often in the awkward position of studying something (like market economies, or constitutional democracies, or normal psychological development) that their own discipline first invented, and then disseminated. A laboratory without walls, if you will.

It's also worth remembering that people have pretty good instincts about physical objects, so the parts of physics that they're likely to come into contact with in their lives don't seem strange to them, and the parts that they wouldn't, don't. When otherwise smart people become fixated on some dumb physics problem (airplanes on conveyor belts, anyone?) you can see how deep respect for the rigor of physics has actually seeped into our common culture. Our lives don't give us any special insights into magnets, or quarks, or inertial frames of reference. Our lives also don't give us special insights into society as a whole. The questions that get raised in the social sciences intersect with our lives in more and more interesting ways (or perhaps I should say, more interested ways), so we get to see the poor fit between people's intuitions and the world on a more regular basis.

I disagree 100%. The airplane on a conveyor belt problem is actually an example of how little intellectual rigor has seeped into common culture. To me, it is a no-brainer. When I first encountered it, I didn't understand what the issue was. It was obvious: the plane takes off. I had to read other's comments to even appreciate how it could be misunderstood. I read them, and I was appalled. People are trying to solve the problem with anything but intellectual rigor.

And that was a simple problem. Take that set of people and ask them to understand money supply, Gresham's law, and other economic issues, and it is an intellectual train wreck.

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That's nothing. A majority of graduating Harvard seniors, as of a few years ago, thought that the reason that summer is hotter than winter is because the earth is closer to the sun.

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Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

What I said was perhaps ambiguous.

To wit: not very.

Perhaps you mean "a majority of graduating Harvard seniors in a (edited) video clip from 1988"? Or do you have a more recent source?

I think that it was 'Harvard graduating seniors who had never been in the southern hemisphere'.

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Joaz, perhaps we all just have very different lives. I happen to have inside information that you have an airplane and a conveyor belt in your back-yard, but most of us are less fortunate.

Edit: silly 'are'/'our' mistake.

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Occupy Babel!

Necroing an old topic, but today I finally a long piece by Scott Sumner that's relevant to the question of why you want some inflation. His piece is actually about Nominal GDP Growth targeting, but since Nominal GDP Growth is Real GDP Growth + inflation, there is plenty about inflation in there. It's long, but worth the read.

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Occupy Babel!

Just as amention, they made a whole episode about bitcoin on the series "The Good Wife". Cant tell which episode.

Its like a US Treasury law-suit against Bitcoin.

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Finally got around to reading this, it's very interesting.

His idea about basically using prediction markets to do the actual adjusting seems like the first step in setting up some sort of btc-like currency with decentralized automated supply increases. However, it sounds like it still requires an organization to calculate the NGDP and settle contracts after the fact.

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Just read that hackers have obtained tax information on presidential candidate Romney and demand 1 million dollar in Bitcoin from interested buyers (potentially Hustler founder Larry Flynt).

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To quote myself:



I just ran across this: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012 ... udy-finds/

It seems like only 22% of bitcoins are in circulation. (Gresham's Law). And last year bitcoins lost 90% of their value. (Lack of backing).

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

The 90 percent drop was a brief spike. Btc traded at 1/6th of its max for quite some time and is currently at 1/3 of its all time high. I'm not saying you're wrong (I have no idea), but you shouldn't use that figure.

My guess is that at this point btc is driven by speculation (example: the spike and crash) much more than currency effects, though I expect those to dominate in the long run.

_________________
That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
--
My (sadly neglected, but not forgotten) project: http://dailyjoseki.com