Economics

Predictably irrational (TED lectures by Dan Ariely)

February 25, 2014
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Dan Ariely is a behavioural economics researcher, most famous for his two books Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, both of which challenge the assumption of rationality at the heart of classical or “rational” economics. As a behavioural economist, Ariely is interested in showing the multitude of ways in which the human mind departs from the norms of rationality. In this series of TED lectures, Ariely uses optical illusions and humorous anecdotes to expose in a vivid way some of the biases of the human mind and the predictable mistakes most of us make in judgement and  decision-making. More…

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The religion of capitalist economics

February 24, 2014
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In earlier posts we mentioned the Oxfam report entitled “The cost of inequality: how wealth and income extremes hurt us all,” which outlined how the annual income of richest 100 people is enough to end global poverty four times over (i.e. while the annual net income of the world’s richest 100 billionaires is about $240 billion, the estimated cost of raising everyone worldwide above the $1.25 a day poverty line is about $66 billion). Recently Oxfam released another report, “Working for the Few: Political capture and economic inequality,” which maps the the general distribution of wealth on a global level.…

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Propaganda (documentary)

July 6, 2013
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The film “Propaganda” purports to be a film smuggled out of North Korea. The narrator claims that she was approached, while on holiday in South Korea, by two alleged North Korean defectors, who presented her with a DVD originating from North Korea, asking her to translate it and upload it to the internet. The film features a surprisingly accurate analysis of contemporary western media and society. It features quotes from many well-respected intellectuals and manages to connect the dots in a very clear fashion. It does not falsify information or statistics or take any text, audio, or video material out of…

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Markets erode moral values (study)

June 15, 2013
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In a recent study, researches from the University of Bamberg and University of Bonn suggest that they have found causal evidence of the corrupting effects of markets on moral values. The abstract reads as follows: The possibility that market interaction may erode moral values is a long-standing, but controversial, hypothesis in the social sciences, ethics, and philosophy. To date, empirical evidence on decay of moral values through market interaction has been scarce. We present controlled experimental evidence on how market interaction changes how human subjects value harm and damage done to third parties. In the experiment, subjects decide between either…

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A creative response to Monopoly

May 24, 2013
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A creative response to Monopoly

Brian Van Slyke is a worker-owner at the Toolbox for Education and Social Activism (TESA), which creates educational resources on social change and cooperative movements. One of his coolest projects is a radical re-doing of the board game “Monopoly,” which has given generations of kids great fun while teaching them all the wrong values. The version of capitalism presented in Monopoly–grab all the wealth, make others pay, and leave them in financial ruin–is in fact a massive social problem, one of the greatest problems confronting humanity. Enter Brian Van Slyke, who wanted to create a fun game that could get…

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How Class Works (animated lecture by Richard Wolff)

May 17, 2013
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The description for this short lecture reads as follows: Richard Wolff is an economist who has studied class issues for more than 40 years. In this animation and audio presentation, Wolff explains what class is all about and applies that understanding to the foreclosure crisis of 2007–2011. He argues that class concerns the “way our society splits up the output [and] leaves those who get the profits in the position of deciding and figuring out what to do with them… We all live with the results of what a really tiny minority in our society decides to do with the…

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Wealth inequality in America

April 24, 2013
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The following short video recently went viral and received more than 5.5 million views on YouTube. Using accurate and easy to comprehend graphs, it showcases the full scope of U.S. income inequality. The video is mostly based on a paper written and published by Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely, titled “Building a Better America—One Wealth Quintile at a Time.” It also references other data provided by a number of mainstream and progressive websites such as CNN, Motherjones and ThinkProgress. The video is receiving interesting responses from conservative and neo-liberals, who either challenge the accuracy of the video or attempt…

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Studying economics increases the tendency to lie

March 9, 2013
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A working paper by Raúl López-Pérez and Eli Spiegelman, from universities in Montreal and Madrid, suggests that studying economics at the university might increase a student’s inclination to lie. The abstract for the paper reads as follows: “Recent experimental evidence suggests that some people dislike telling lies, and tell the truth even at a cost. We use experiments as well to study the socio-demographic covariates of such lie aversion, and find gender and religiosity to be without predictive value. However, subjects’ major is predictive: Business and Economics (B&E) subjects lie significantly more frequently than other majors. This is true even after…

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How viable is Economics? (lecture by Steve Keen)

October 30, 2012
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In the lecture below, Steve Keen, Associate Professor of Economics & Finance at the University of Western Sydney and author of Debunking Economics, questions the viability of modern neoclassical macroeconomics and its premises. His critique not only calls into question what is taught in virtually every economics department around the world, but also casts doubt on the typical policy recommendations made by neoclassical economists.

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Affluent people and trickle-down economics

October 29, 2012
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When the latest republican president, George W.Bush encouraged people to go shopping and introduced massive tax cuts on corporations and the wealthiest he acted as perfect role model for conservative economic politics. Mitt Romney is now running for president by promoting the same ideas and further tax cuts.  These conservative policies are often justified by recourse to “trickle-down economics,” the idea that tax breaks or other economic benefits provided by the government to businesses and the wealthy will result in further investment by the rich, leading to more jobs and hence benefiting the poorer members of society. But does money really trickle down? The…

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Upward mobility in the U.S. is a myth

October 8, 2012
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Robert S. Strauss used to say that every politician wants you to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself. Republicans in particular never tire of emphasizing the unparalleled opportunities that exist in US, where hard work and determination can propel anyone out of humble beginnings into the White House, or at least a mansion on a hill. But is this really the case? A recent international study examined the relationship between wealth, heritage and inequality across generations. Here’s the abstract: We study the role of parental wealth for children’s educational and occupational outcomes across three types of…

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Julian Assange interviews Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali

October 6, 2012
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The official description of 10th episode of The World Tomorrow reads as follows: A surprise Arab drive for freedom, the West’s structural crisis and new hope coming from Latin America. That’s the modern world in the eyes of Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali, two prominent thinkers and this week’s guests on Julian Assange’s show on RT.

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Criticism of The Spirit Level

September 29, 2012
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Earlier this year the RSA hosted a debate on The Spirit Level, the highly influential book by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson. That book and the subsequent TED lecture by Wilkinson provided what seemed to many like an extraordinarily strong case for the idea that income inequality is the driving force in social dysfunction and that reducing income inequality will benefit virtually everyone in wealthy societies, even those at the top of the economic pyramid. The sobering RSA debate presents evidence and arguments to the contrary, from Christopher Snowdon and Peter Saunders. The main critique that Snowdon and Saunders advance, a…

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Iceland Was Right, We Were Wrong: The IMF (by Jeff Nielson)

September 5, 2012
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Jeff Nielson has published an article well worth reading on the global financial crisis and its economic consequences. Originally published in The Street, the article explains the alternative strategy Iceland implemented to combat it’s dire situation after the financial meltdown and concludes that Iceland was not only different but right, which in turn suggests that everyone else was wrong. The following is a selection of paragraphs from the full article, which can be found here: Now in what may be the greatest economic “mea culpa” in history, we have the media admitting that this government/banking/propaganda-machine troika has been wrong all along. They have…

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Taxing the wealthy (TED lecture by Chuck Collins)

June 30, 2012
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The Program on Inequality and the Common Good, run by Chuck Collins at The Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, focuses on the dangers that growing inequality pose for U.S. democracy, economic health and civic life. In this TEDx lecture Collins gives a moving and illuminating talk on the moral justification for reducing income inequality by increasing taxes on the rich. Collins’s privileged background lends to his credibility on this subject, but what really impresses in this talk are the stories of the wealthy people across the US who are actually willing to dramatically increase their tax rates. This talk…

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Stiglitz on economic inequality

June 30, 2012
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The issue of economic inequality has been receiving quite a lot of attention in the past few months–at least in the progressive media. This is no doubt due in part to the Occupy movement and to the anti-austerity protests in Europe, which have really thrust the issues of inequality and economic justice into the spotlight. More so than at any point in the last several decades, there is a real public thirst for understanding the causes and consequences of economic inequality and what can be done to reverse it. The Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz is one of several academics who have…

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Alternatives to capitalism?

June 28, 2012
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In this brief article first published in the Guardian, Richard Wolff, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts and New School University, discusses the amazing success of the Mondragon Corporation of Spain and its potential as a model of social organization in a post-capitalistic economy. Key differences between businesses working within the MC framework and typical corporations are (1) the democratic nature of the decision-making process within the organization and (2) the limits on income inequality between workers. Imagine all businesses in a country working within the MC framework and you have a realistic and intriguing alternative to capitalism. Here…

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Recent thoughts on the climate crisis

June 27, 2012
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A small sample of some the important things that have been said recently on the state of the climate crisis and the failures of political leaders to address the root causes or even acknowledge the seriousness of the problem: 1. Democracy Now interview with Bill McKibben (environmentalist, author, founder of the remarkable grassroots climate campaign 350.org) 2. Approaching a state shift in the Earth’s biosphere (ground-breaking article in Nature written by over 20 environmental scientists) 3. Is humanity pushing Earth past a tipping point? (a simplified, less technical summary of the aforementioned article in Wired magazine) 4. Democracy Now interview…

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The corrupting influence of money in politics

June 19, 2012
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While it’s no secret that concentrated wealth negatively influences the political system, most people are probably unaware of the extent and the details of the corruption. One good source of information on this subject is the American writer Thomas Frank, who recently published an interesting article in Harper’s, appropriately titled “It’s a Rich Man’s World: How Billionaires Pick America’s Candidates.” Here he is, on the same topic, in interview with Bill Moyers. 

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Julian Assange interviews Rafael Correa (The World Tomorrow)

June 3, 2012
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In the sixth episode of RT‘s The World Tomorrow, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador discusses the media, government corruption, and his country’s relationship with the United States. The interview opens with the circumstances surrounding the attempted coup in Ecuador in 2010, during which the president was taken hostage. Following the attempted coup, Correa embarked on a furious and controversial counter-offensive against Ecuador’s media. In this interview he explains the media’s role in the events of 2010 in terms of the vested interests of media corporations. He claims that corporate owners of the media “disguised as journalists, are trying to do politics,…

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