Economics New Zealand: "You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment"

Wednesday 12 March 2014

"You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment"

You're probably familiar with Francis Urquhart's catchphrase from the House of Cards/ To Play the King/ The Final Cut political trilogy.

Unfortunately it has also applied to my blog - most people couldn't possibly comment on it, either, because one of the settings in the Google blogging software wasn't set to allow all readers to chip in with their comments. Sorry about that, but like most bloggers I started with zero knowledge of blogging software and have learned on the hoof.

I've fixed it, and now anyone can post comments (however belatedly) on anything they'd like to react to.

PS If you use the Blogger software, you might want to check people can comment on your blog, too. The place to go is Settings/Posts and Comments/Who can comment?, and make sure 'Anyone' is selected.

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Welcome to my economics blog

“The remarkable thing about economics is that once you've been exposed to the big ideas, they begin to show up everywhere … Economics offers insight into wealth, poverty, gender relations, the environment, discrimination, politics...How could that possibly not be interesting?” - Charles Wheelan, Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science, 2002

"The market system is like democracy. It is the worst form of economy, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time. It succeeds because ... it admits variety and permits criticism. We should cheer it because it solves some all-but-intractable problems, which have been tackled by none of the alternative forms of economic organization. It generates wealth. It alleviates poverty. But it has its limits. There are things it cannot do. It does not necessarily do even what it is supposed to; it works only if it is well designed. Two cheers are enough" - John McMillan, Reinventing the Bazaar: A natural history of markets, 2002

"And if there's one thing we've learned about flawed markets, it's that people flee from them, either physically or by resorting to back channels and black markets. Either way, flawed markets can undermine not just communities but whole nations" - Alvin Roth, Who Gets What - and Why, 2015

"More than ever, the ideals of reason, science, humanism, and progress need a wholehearted defense...Problems are solvable. That does not mean that they will solve themselves, but it does mean that we can solve them if we sustain the benevolent forces of modernity that have allowed is to solve problems so far, including societal prosperity, wisely regulated markets, international governance, and investments in science and technology" - Stephen Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress, 2018

"Economic controversy is generally a thankless task. You cannot hope to make any impression on your opponent. Yet he is the only reader on whose interest you can count" - Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, Economic Journal, 1898

"...microeconomics concerns thing economists are specifically wrong about, while macroeconomics concerns things economists are wrong about generally" - P J O'Rourke, Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics, 1998

"There is some evil genius which sits at the elbow of every economist, forcing him into all sorts of contorted and unnecessary complications" - John Maynard Keynes, letter to Roy Harrod, August 1935

"For the rational study of the law the blackletter man may be the man of the present, but the man of the future is the man of statistics and the master of economics" - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Harvard Law Review, 1897

"We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork" - the philosopher Didactylos, in Terry Pratchett's Small Gods, 1992

"I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business" - the blogger's creed, as foreshadowed by Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

"They acted as their situation naturally directed, and they who have clamoured the loudest against them would probably not have acted better themselves" - advice to Twitterati, as foreshadowed by Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book IV, 1776

Economics New Zealand

Wednesday 12 March 2014

"You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment"

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