Political choice is not a question of what we can afford, it is only a question of what kind of society we desire. After all, as a matter of fact we know that money is not scarce: quantitative easing proved that forever.
…
Charles AdamsProfessor of Physics,
Durham University, UK
Richard Murphy
Professor of International Political Economy,
City, University of London, UK
Two people who know nothing about economics then.
Because it’s not money that is scarce, never has been, it’s resources. Changing the number of pieces of paper chasing the resources doesn’t change the number of resources. Just the number of pieces of paper you need to gain the resources.
Not in their economics it doesn’t. In their economics they set not only the price you pay for resources, but what resources you must buy for the price. With a stress on the “must”. Not choosing to buy, not being an option.
You’re confused by seeing Murphy as a market economist.
Are they REALLY that dim, or just dissembling for their own political ends?
I mean as kid I asked the question I suspect many do – ‘Why don’t they just print some more money and give it to everyone?’ and the answer made perfect sense to my 8 years old brain.
I wonder if Prof Charles Adams also has a perpetual motion machine to sell us?
Here he is:
https://www.dur.ac.uk/physics/staff/profiles/?id=523
Doesn’t he just look exactly how you’d expect a clueless lefty spod to look?
Don’t do physics at Durham.
Letters that talk of “we” are suspect, whatever they actually say.
What they mean is “I’ll decide, you’ll do as you’re fucking well told.”
He bears a slight resemblance to what I would have thought Spud would have looked like when younger.
Or, am I seeing reds under the bed?
If a Professor of Economics wrote a letter which claimed he could float into the sky and that Gravity was a myth, would he be believed because he is a professor?
Argumentum Ad Verecundiam
Strangely, Professors of Physics are notoriously unreceptive to advice from non-Professors of Physics on the question of physics.
But of course, everyone knows that you can just print loadsa money. Funny that the stupid Germans in WWII thought that flooding Britain with fake fivers would destabalise the economy. Fools! they’d have just made us all Professors of International Political Economy.
Do you think Islington Tech advertised for that post or whether they asked Dick what he wanted to be called?
I just realised he’s a PIPE. Some sort of soil PIPE one presumes.
Explain to him why he’s wrong via [email protected]
I think we have to start hitting back directly – though politely – at these people, rather than letting them have the field and leaving them to assume that getting a letter published in the FT means they know what the fuck they’re on about..
Tel, he appears to be missing some letters from his forehead.
Interesting that Prof. Adams’ special interest is quantum physics. It is said that anyone who claims to understand quantum physics doesn’t understand quantum physics. He’s just extending the principle to economics.
‘it is only a question of what kind of society we desire’
When people don’t do what you desire, you eventually have to kill them.The socialists killed 150,000,000 people trying to implement the society they desired. When this is raised, they defend with, “The right people didn’t implement it.” Evil Bastard Obama infamously said, “We are the people we have been waiting for.”
“Political choice is not a question of what we can afford, it is only a question of what kind of society we desire.”
As well as ‘who is “we”?’, there is also the little question of feasibility, given especially that every kind of society (except maybe a Gulag state) is an emergent, rather than a designed form.
Personally, I’d like a unicorn steak, medium rare, with pixie-dust sauce, but I don’t think I’m going to get one.
Were they the only two signatories (in which case it’s surprising that they could only find two) or was this a round robin of the usual suspects?
Tel – lol @ Guardian reader physiognomy.
Look, I’m not prejudiced against spotty geeks. I love geeks, we have the best geeks in this country. Some of my best friends are geeks.
But we’ve got to stop these speccy noodle-armed swots before they destroy us all with their low-T manginery.
Take Enoch Powell, for example. He looked like he could eat your liver while reciting the Iliad from memory. That’s the kind of rock-carved patrician face I’d take advice from.
Professor Charlie has the neotenous look of a startled lesbian.
Bonnie Tyler was right.
Charles Adam is one of Murf’s new Progressive Pulse website buddies.
Another forum for Murf’s fuck twattery, by proxy.
See the thread – he now says this letter is about electoral reform (ie voters get decide what levels of inequality are satisfactory, but at the moment, they are giving an answer he doesn’t like).
Have you got a link to the thread Adrian?
Unless you mean FT in which case sorry!
Cheep up, lads.
That he co-authored that letter with a physicist isn’t the important thing, it’s that he couldn’t find a real economist to do the same… That’s the important thing.
It’s enough to put a spring in my step for the rest of the day.
But we’ve got to stop these speccy noodle-armed swots before they destroy us all with their low-T manginery.
Where you are? Good luck with that.
Interested – it is here:
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/06/21/political-choice-is-not-a-question-of-affordability/
He gets into a bigger muddle over whether he wants democracy ‘reformed’ or democracy ‘preserved’. Either way, to give him the result he wants, despite the fact he knows most people are pretty much happy with the levels of inequality/distribution that we have.
Good Lord, it’s Gussie Fink-Nottle.
“….it is only a question of what kind of society we desire…”
Who is this “we”: Messrs Adams and Murphy I presume?
History shows that when “we” desire a particular society, the rest of us get Fascism.
The problem with this kind of stuff is that people believe it, and it sways their opinion. The left are not interested in having rational discussion with informed people on the opposite side, only of broadcasting a message of injustice as loud as possible so that stupid people are influenced. There are more stupid, spiteful, jealous and vindictive people than clever, balanced people and this is what they rely upon.
It is not helped by the fact that brains on the right completely fail to show up and argue ideological points. It is as if they acknowledge that believing in markets and freedom is somehow horrible, and that being called a racist is the worst thing that can happen.
This country is going down a very dark path. It appears that the grown ups have just decided to let the idiot children fuck things up, rather than trying to convince them in the abstract how foolish they’re being.
The problem is that Corbyn and McDonnell can create stagflation and capital flight, and all the media wiseacres will be blaming it on Brexit.
Of course they will. If Corbyn wins then time to leave the country I think
@ Fred Z
Gussie Fink-Nottle teamed up with Lord Sidcup? There’s an unlikely pairing!
The FT’s not what it was, but it’s probably the best of what remains.
One potential positive outcome here is that a letter in the FT may just expose Murphy to a wider world, in all his sweaty, suppurating, cretinous glory. I can’t remember if letters get published in the overseas editions (presumably not)? it would be wonderful if Murphy started to acquire a worldwide reputation as one of the prize cocks in academic “economics”.
I desire a society where no one has to work. Please QE print me that.
A physics prof who thinks complex molecular structures can be instantly magicked into existence by adding numbers to a computer screen.
An economics prof who denies the first lesson of economics: scarcity.
And a newspaper editor happy to print this nonsense.
I don’t know if Adams is an expert in his field, but either way I’ll bet Richard Feynman is spinning in his grave.
I wouldn’t want to be Richard Feynman in his grave – unbelievable how much shtt is going on.
He might be spinning in his grave, but he’ll only be changing direction, not speed.
I’ll get my coat…
I desire a Society where children are encouraged to be civilised (but not automatically subservient to obviously stupid ideas), where hard work is duly recompensed, where those unable to work are protected, but the lazy are not treated as deserving the same as the hard-working or disabled, where the police are not focussed on prosecuting the victims of crime instead of the criminals, where “conduct liable to cause a breach of the peace” is prosecuted before some poor woman is killed or some vulnerable guy commits suicide, where Christians and Muslims are not persecuted for the behaviour of political extremists which is condemned by the Bible/Koran, and where I do not have to listen to the rants of a self-important incompetent in Ely.
Lest we get too paranoid about Comrade Corbyn, remember that after what was one of the most hapless campaigns ever, Theresa May still got 11 more seats than Cameron did in 2010 and Corbyn only got 4 more than Broon. Make students vote from home not ‘uni’ , clear up the postal voting scam and the party of the tax payer might not get a huge majority but will remain the largest. The conservatives should give up trying to be the party of the big state and get back to representing the private sector.
Durham used to be one of the finest universities… However, according to the latest ratings published in the BBC website it now only rates as “silver”… The same as Spud’s employer!
’nuff said.
“Theresa May still got 11 more seats than Cameron did in 2010”
But in this election there were millions of UKIP voters coming back to the main parties, which wasn’t the case in 2010. And Cameron didn’t even win in 2010.
Tel
UKIP didn’t get 4 million votes in 2010, only 1 million or so. More than in 2017, but not millions more.
@ Tel, depends on your definition of “win”.
Managing to overturn a New Labour majority built on their gerrymandering of constituencies, so that we could have an honest boundary commission strikes me as a “win”.