Time to examine some stuff written by a guy whom some people apparently call an economist:
I hear through the grapevine that the usual suspects at the WSJ have put out something along the lines of “Krugman says that unemployment benefits won’t raise unemployment, but in his textbook he says they will, neener neener.” Are they really that stupid? Probably not — but they you think that you, the reader, are that stupid.
My comment:
I think last part was supposed to be a sentence. I must assume that the guy who wrote this was in quite a rage over some unspeakably mean and cunning accusations pointing out inconsistencies in his “philosophy”. Thus he should be exculpated for such minor typos. This, however, does not in the slightest exculpate him for the actual crapload of “content” he fired off thereafter. I will for the most part not attempt to refute any statements made. For this would necessitate the existence of statements. The author obviously tries to avoid making any. For the most part he neither utters truths, nor falsehoods, but instead indulges is “un-truths”. (An un-truth is a claim that in itself defies the existence of truth. One can accomplish making such statements by using undefined terms. Example. If I say dooory and glooory makes fooory, then I have uttered an un-truth. I was asked by a reader to clarify which terms I consider undefined in this piece.)
But anyway, maybe this is a good time to explain the difference between determinants of the NAIRU — the minimum rate of unemployment consistent with a stable inflation rate — and the determinants of the unemployment rate at a point in time.
MY comment:
OK, since the author uses the term inflation without any further elaboration, I must assume that he has dealt quite a big deal with the phenomenon of inflation and is well aware of the only useful definition of inflation, meaning an increase in the supply of money and credit. I must thus assume that he does not fall prey to the completely arbitrary definition of inflation, namely the average price increase composition of some goods that some bureaucrat decided to consider.
That being said I am not sure what he means by “the minimum rate of unemployment consistent with a stable inflation rate”. He seems to be asserting there is some logical inverse linkage between inflation and unemployment, at least that’s my guess. I hope he doesn’t consider such constructs as the Philips curve in any way supportive of this claim, given that its validity has been long refuted. However, he doesn’t elaborate on it further so this statement of his remains, for now, unexplained and arbitrary.
So: there are limits to how hot you can run the economy without inflationary problems. This is usually expressed in terms of a non-accelerating-inflation unemployment rate; yes, there are some questions about whether the concept is quite right, especially at very low inflation, but that’s another issue.
My comment:
What is he taking about here? Again, I have to resort to guesswork.
What does he mean by “there are limits to how hot you can run the economy without inflationary problems” ?
What are those limits? What, in fact, is the unit in which I measure those limits?
What is “hot”?
Who is “you”?
What does “to run” the economy mean? In fact, what is the economy? Is it the market? But then who is that “you” who “runs” the market? The market is, by definition, not run by anybody, but is a system of multiple elements interacting as an organism, not an organization! So it is not “run” by anybody.
And then he says “there are some questions whether the concept is quite right”. If that is so, wouldn’t it make sense to resolve those questions first and establish the truth of a hypothesis you are applying to fundamentally support your reasoning?
And still I see him use the term inflation quite a lot without ever having told me what precisely it is, what it’s caused by, and what its valid relevance is when talking about unemployment.
Everyone agrees that really generous unemployment benefits, by reducing the incentive to seek jobs, can raise the NAIRU; that is, set limits to how far down you can push unemployment without running into inflation problems.
My comment:
What? Again, who is “you”? Is it the President? The central bank chairman? God? Who “pushes” unemployment. In fact, what does it mean in the first place?
But in case you haven’t noticed, that’s not the problem constraining job growth in America right now. Wage growth is declining, not rising, and so is overall inflation. A wage-price spiral looks like a distant dream.
My comment:
The author is right on one thing: Inflation is declining and has been for a while. In fact there is no inflation, there is deflation. And it is the only thing that can bring about a true and sustainable recovery. The only problem is, those who produce money and to some extent credit are trying to slow down or even stop deflation.
Now, I am unsure as to what this has to do in any way with his assertion that unemployment benefits reduce unemployment.
What’s limiting employment now is lack of demand for the things workers produce.
My comment: This is quite a strong statement to make. I wish this ivy league professor could deign to explain to us what he means by “lack of demand for the things workers produce”. Could he give me some real life examples? Does he actually understand what the purpose of prices is?
If a “lack of demand”, meaning the deliberate desire of some individuals to consume less and thus a perfectly valid choice, were the cause of unemployment, then the solution to this problem would be for those who produce those “things” to drop the prices of the goods offered so as to entice marginal consumers to purchase the goods in question.
If the author refers to the lack of profitability of such measures then it would indeed be better for those workers to stop what they are doing and find occupations that are more useful from the consumers’ points of view. This is the whole purpose of the mechanism of entrepreneurial profit and loss. Unfortunately the author nowhere delves into such annoying questions and thus leaves us nothing but a giant hole of nothingness.
Their incentives to seek work are, for now, irrelevant. That’s why comments by the likes of Sen. Kyl are so boneheaded — anyone who thinks that high unemployment in the first quarter of 2010 has anything to do with workers getting excessively generous benefits must not get out much.
My comment:
And so as a conclusion the author declares that the whole disincentive rooted in the provision of money taken from one person at gunpoint and supplied to another person for not working is simply irrelevant. I’m sorry, but this does not convince me in any way. Are you convinced??
And the truth is that unemployment benefits are a good, quick, administratively easy way to increase demand, which is what we really need. So right now they have the effect of reducing unemployment.
My comment:
How exactly do unemployment benefits “increase demand”. Wouldn’t it be helpful to try and explain the supposed mechanism at work when trying to advance such an argument? How precisely does it increase demand if I tell someone to give me $50 or else I will shoot him and then I hand it over to someone else who needs to prove to me that he is not working? And please don’t you tell me you think that the unemployed person spending the money will increase demand. That money has been taken from another person whose demands will be reduced by just that same amount! What it does indeed do is reduce the output of goods, which is the worst thing you can do for the well being of the people!!
I’m sorry to appear so nitpicky. I was asked to comment on this piece of crap and point out what I consider undefined terms so that’s what I did.
If we want to debate concepts clearly, I could simply sum up Krugman’s main point in one or two sentences and refute it with ease. But that is not how he rolls. He tries to obfuscate his concepts and claims with as many scary and unclear terms as possible and sometimes even just resorts to references to entire papers written by others, so as to make a reasonable debate over real issues virtually impossible.
That’s why I would, in my humble opinion, ask anybody who is genuinely interested in economics and human action to not take his stuff serious. Again, just tune out. There are so many more useful things you can do in your life than wasting your time with articles written by Paul Krugman.
Talk to a friend about truth and epistemology, talk to your mom and dad about your childhood, question people in your life about ethics, concepts, the state, and God, heck … sit in a room and stare at a wall. All these things would be a thousand times more useful than reading one paragraph from this deranged crackpot.