Dr. Joseph Riggio, PH.D. - Blognostra

Wow!  Ah Joseph, Advocatus Diaboli, now that I’m climbing down out of the tower and putting away my scope… I think that what drives me the most nuts is that we seem to have a nation of sheeple that will believe almost anything they hear if it happens to fit into their values.

However, strictly from a P&L;perspective.  I believe she may have won the evening, but it was a pyrrhic victory at best. 

My criteria would be that it was her responsiblity to win over independent voters.  The Democrats, and the Republicans already had clearly defined lines.  But if we’re going to define success by the level of results, all you have to do is look at the polling number directly afterwards as well as what as been occurring throughout the country ever since.  Sure enough Conservatives feel more sure about her ability and Liberals feel that she is a condesending, disingenuous, bitch.  But it would seem at this point that independents are breaking mostly for Obama/Biden.  The proof of this is not only in the poll numbers but also in Sen. McCain’s switch to extreme gutter politics in the past couple of days.

One of the interesting things that I’m going through personally (of course it’s interesting to me) is that I find myself going through all my “Graves emotions” coming out.  I find my Graves 4, 5, and 6 showing up at times that I did not expect.

From an influence perspective it’s amazing just how powerful it can be that when someone that intends to connect with an individual or group of people in a particular Graves model does so inside of that values set it’s almost as if they can do no wrong.

So in the upcoming calls as we’re learning what she was doing to connect so strongly, I would be more interested in how to connect with the people that may or may not agree with me in a way that creates a positive result not just for the moment, but so that I can go back tomorrow, or next week, or next year and they still remember and respect me, and are glad that I’m back.

Thanks for the lively discussion Joe.  I’m looking forward to the next call.

Sincerely,
Allen

p.s.  I’m curious if you would want to change your prediction that McCain would win if the economy continued on a downturn.  I believe that after nearly 80% of America wanted nothing to do with the bailout and the prostitu.... er Congress voted it in anyway, sweeteners and all, that we may have hit a leverage point that most Americans are completely fed-up and are just willing to try anything else, but get rid of the party in charge now.

I’d like to stand by my comments as a political economist who knows a thing or two about bailouts and their consequences, at least from what has already happened. There is no economic panacea that will bring everlasting happiness to the world and its inhabitants be that in the US, the world as a whole, or a given nation. It just has not been devised, yet.

What we know of almost two centuries of economic theory, and the millenia before it was called political economy, can lead to some ‘educated guesses’ though. People are not rational consumers, they tend to spend less when times are rough or perceived to be rough on the whole. Except Warren Buffett, and it has made all the difference for him. And he is reputed to have said: what class struggle? there was a struggle; my class won. And he still lives in the same house in Omaha.

It really doesn’t make a difference macro economically if it is one joe that has a six pack, or six joes that have one pack each. Markets are color blind that way. Its all ‘memes’ the same for the market, and yet markets fail.  So far however we dont have a coherent theory of macroeconomics that can take care of rationality and irrationality simultaneously in a way that allows the modeling of that on the scope considerations of a nation and its political processes; let alone its interactions with the world at large. The number of decisions and decision makers that exist is simply to many, so far, for the human brain to model and teach a computer how to do. Humans, economists loavhe to think, are predictably unpredictable animals. Then again behavioral economics needs a few good Mythostudents, perhaps. Or more honest communicators, who knows? My money would be on the person who would get the stuff done, in the best interest of all, and leave me out of it doing so and preferably herself along with it.

That said, the same can be said of predicting elections with some caveats. On the whole, my prediction, is that in elections a lot more emotions are involved than say the buying of cheese on the whole. That was the most mundane thing I could muster: cheese. The American people want change, not just the rhetoric of it. Whether or not they ‘actually’ want it is beside the point, the rhetoric of election preperation mania has lead the public to believe they want change. Sometimes rhetoric is what will get them there...the politicians I mean and even they follow their temptations on occassion. The question I am asking myself is this: is this the best we can do as a species? To let tempted fools lead us into worlds unknown.

Economists are a different bunch. The basic decision remains a political one. A bailout is just making sure less people get hurt at the time of the making, what I suppose you are refferring to as sweeteners. Think about it this way, Allen if you will, how much cash (balls) does the name Federal Reserve Bank still carry in the world economy?

And let me add a note of caution to the American voting public. Despite their best training no analyst predicted the precise timing of the cold war, it’s ending and how that would come about. For the past few years the world has been fed a war on terror, and grandiose statements about the free world from an uncompromising public of neoconservatives. Lives have been shattered, maps if not arms are being re-drawn daily in the Middle East, after years of silence nuclear proliferation is still in the works. It is really a lot more reminiscent of the cold war than you think from the privacy of your living room be that in Turkey, Denmark, or the US. And there is an economic explanation for the ending of the cold war (because it is a lot easier to do research on the future than on the past or present, as we like to say where I come from). Basically, Americans (on the decision of their elected politicians) switched doctrines from letting the world borrow their money, to borrowing from the world economy on the credibility of the dollar and spending that at home. And the Russians could not do it so quickly because they had less trading partners. Take away the credibility of the dollar today, and you are in piles of… debt. The American public and hence the world at large, should be wellserved to be thinking about this. As this election is unlike any other one. As my esteemed college from the LSE likes to say, I donno about you.. but this is what I think about in the privacy of my own bathroom. Whatever we can say about advanced capitalist democracy, at least it has given this to us, so far: the conditions of possibility of our freedom in some places more than others. Kant may have had been proud of these.. words! had he been alive today.

Like Heidegger said in his last interview: only a guide can save us now.

regards,
leo.

ps: not all of the above facts, have been checked and referenced, but I’m happy to speeak to the ideas contained therein. For more on the spirit and not the letter of fiscal policy coordination in the EU, see Bob Hancke and David Soskice’s piece of work: Gently Turning, the political economy of EMU. It’s writting style, is a lot clearer than mine.

Just to correct a semantic-typographic error.. I meant to write, it’s easier to do research on the past, whether or not it is the ‘truth’ and come up with a strong argument that sways vote. On the intrinsic value of truth, I suggest you start out with Nietzsche, “On truth and lies in an extra moral sense.” It’s early Nietzsche, so he’s young and not as deranged in body and mind as he would get later on. But, as a literary work, the spark was there, for N, from the beginning…

Thanks, Joseph. I’m glad to be reading your blogs again!
Allison

In the interest of due-diligence. I’d like to recommend a post about heterodox vs orthodox economics.

http://www.chrishayes.org/articles/hip-heterodoxy/

Read it, as you would, any political debate with at least two sides. And I would suggest, humbly at that, that you consider how much of an impact these discussions over what good economics is or is not, and what bad economics is accepted to be, has an impact on the lives of pretty much everyone around the world that has a bank account or depends on a paycheck for their wellbeing. And the people in turn who are affected by that decision (read 6+ billion humans).

That said, I’m inspired by Akerloff in some of my work. His piece about ‘the missing motivation in macroeconomics’ seems to be behind the inspiration for the post quoted above… And, even Akerloff may need revision. There are ideantions above motivations, sometimes, that determine motivations themselves.

Here Christopher Hayes afterthoughts on the more things change in economics:

No one would call Berkeley’s George Akerlof a heterodox economist, but his ideas have always been iconoclastic. Back in the 1960s, he noticed that there was something systematically wrong with the market for used cars. His insight was that the problem was “asymmetric information”; the dealer knew if the car was a lemon, and you didn’t. Initially no journal would accept his paper “The Market for Lemons,” but eventually it was published to much acclaim, and asymmetric information was recognized as a serious breakthrough. He shared the 2001 Nobel Prize for his work on the topic. 

And just to ameliorate the author, asymmetric information is not itself a problem, it is a fact of how the used cars market was/is structured. The seller almost always knows more about the product than the buyer. The real issue at hand is how to best address this with policy, even more so when more vital matters are at hand… One that immediately comes to mind is: Health policy- Medicaid, Medicare!? Never mind, the fact that the value of your money(in the bank or in your pocket) is valued by others in office or in a central bank. And you have no say in it. A spooky thought for you to get dressed to Halloween, perhaps. Trick or treat, anyone?

There are ideantions above motivations, sometimes, that determine motivations themselves.
Thanks for such interesting read !!
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