tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3634628224045926034.post1263367341500326323..comments2023-08-29T01:27:13.772-07:00Comments on Magpie's Asymmetric Warfare: Wren-Lewis and Syll on Prediction.Magpiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07528637318288802178noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3634628224045926034.post-81287833624816301562014-08-27T20:46:57.108-07:002014-08-27T20:46:57.108-07:00I am afraid I don't understand. What does Keyn...I am afraid I don't understand. What does Keynes have to do with what Wren-Lewis and Syll said?Magpiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07528637318288802178noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3634628224045926034.post-19745967099889045122014-08-27T19:11:55.876-07:002014-08-27T19:11:55.876-07:00"In the absence of good answers to those ques..."In the absence of good answers to those questions (and it would be incumbent upon both men to provide them), it seems to me the ultimate implication of their reasoning is that government intervention could be as unreliable and potentially as harmful as the predictions on which it is based on. To me, this seems a pretty good argument for a hands-off government: laissez faire."<br /><br />Let's be careful here. There was no such thing as "macroeconomics" before Keynes invented it in 1936 with his General Theory. And econometric models came still later. Therefore, the question is not whether governments should act, but whether they should look to econometric models to determine whether/how to act, given that governments managed to do so for millenia without the "aid" of such "prediction." It seems to me that the social contract that exists at least implicitly between most Western nations and their citizens requires governments to act in a manner that promotes the general welfare, Doing nothing often is not consistent with that mandate, and doing nothing is exactly what the people do not believe in "the general welfare" are actively promoting.<br /><br />Pilkington had his own discussion on econometrics at NC today:<br /><br />http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/08/philip-pilkington-econometricians-financial-markets-and-uncertainty-an-anthropological-view.html<br /><br />On the limitations of the point probability theory that undergirds the utilitarian econometrics of modern economics, you may want to check out some papers by Michael Emmet Brady: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=1033456Tao Jonesinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10041034009270339963noreply@blogger.com