Re: How Is This Possible?
From: Robert Vienneau (rvien_at_see.sig.com)
Date: 09/26/04
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Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 05:47:46 -0400
Here is a Web page that Andy is crying about:
<http://www.dreamscape.com/rvien/Fumbles/HowDoYouKnow.html>
At the bottom of that page is a link to a Google thread.
In article <20040925103554.23163.00001024@mb-m12.aol.com>,
aft627@aol.com (Andy F) wrote:
> Robert Vienneau wrote:
> >> Anyone with a basic knowledge of economics could give a long list of
> >> reasons
> >> why your model is unrealistic.
> >Andy demonstrates a lack of basic knowledge of economics, I guess.
> >
> >My model is a canonical model in capital theory. The references
> >in the previously-referred-to thread demonstrate that.
> Anyone with a basic knowledge of economics would know that canonical
> models
> are often quite unrealistic.
Here Andy has, through dishonesty or ignorance, deleted some of my
remarks so he can argue against a position that I did not take.
I do not claim that canonical models are realistic. Nor do I claim
they are unrealistic.
And Andy has still not demonstrated a basic knowledge of economics.
> >Andy insults the intelligence of the reader.
> >
> >Notice that Andy has not suggested any mechanism that is likely
> >to lead to any of these conditions holding. Does Andy think that
> >equilibrium prices are likely to be proportional to labor values?
> This would be unlikely in the real economy. However, in an unrealistic
> abstract
> model it would not be surprising if this turned out to be the general
> case.
As far as I am concerned, that unargued statement is just ignorant.
The dualistic thinking does not seem helpful. Andy doesn't seem to
mean anything by "the general case"; he is just ejaculating "is
not". And he shows no awareness of what special case assumptions
are needed to make the labor theory of value hold - even though
I specify them in the context of the model in the previously
referenced thread.
Maybe I'll add Andy's remark to my Usenet fumbles page.
> >He is too cowardly or ignorant to say.
> Apparently, if I don't answer a question before it is asked, this is
> 'cowardly
> or ignorant'.
No. Andy still has not put forward anything substantial supporting
any of the four special cases I listed. Whether he is too cowardly
to take a position or just ignorant of what is being argued, I
leave for our readers to decide.
> >Anyways, if Andy actually understood what he is saying - he is
> >just ejaculating "is not" without any understanding - he would
> >know that he has conceded he was wrong. Conditions (1) through
> >(4) are particular cases. In general - that is, unless one
> >such special case is true - the interest rate is unequal, in
> >equilibrium, to the marginal product of value capital. I have
> >proven that.
> You merely assert that these conditions are 'particular' cases. Until you
> demonstrate that they could not be general cases, your claim to have
> proven
> anything of substance will continue to be refuted.
A particular case has an additional condition appended to the general
case. For example, one might need to impose another condition on
technology. (Technology is typically among the givens in neoclassical
economics.) I have proven that these are special cases merely by
listing extra conditions.
Given what is at this link:
<http://www.dreamscape.com/rvien/Economics/Essays/Sraffa3.pdf>
Andy's denial that special case (3), in which the equilibrium rate
of interest is equal to the equilibrium rate of growth, is a
special case is particularly amusing in its ignorance.
With that allusion to a closure of the model with neoclassical
assumptions, I turn to this bit of ignorance from Andy:
> >> A neoclassical economist would 'close' the model by making the
> >> standard
> >> assumptions of neoclassical theory, i.e. that investors are rational
> >> profit
> >> maximisers. From this it can be directly inferred that if the marginal
> >> product
> >> of capital is not equal to the interest rate, the economy will not be
> >> in
> >> equilibrium.
> >Andy is simply wrong, as was demonstrated in the first post on the
> >previously referenced thread.
> >
> >My model had profit-maximizing firms. That does not close the model,
> >and Andy's claim does not follow.
> Anyone with a basic knowledge of economics will know that a
> profit-maximising
> investor is not the same as a profit-maximising firm. Vienneau's
> construction
> of economic models is flawed.
If Andy were not ignorant of how to construct an argument, he might
have specified how it matters what sort of agent is profit-maximizing.
Andy simply made a mistake - his specification of a neoclassical
closeure of the model does not close the model.
> >> Vienneau keeps referring to 'price Wicksell effects' but there is no
> >> indication
> >> in his posts of what he imagines that to mean.
> >Andy insults the reader's intelligence. I explained repeatedly
> >what are in the post starting off the
> >thread previously referred to.
Andy has edited the above quote to make it ungrammatical.
> I don't think you explained it very clearly. Perhaps you could explain
> again in
> simple terms, for the benefit of your less intelligent readers, what
> 'price
> Wicksell effects' actually means.
Does Andy state where he finds my explanation in the previous thread
unclear? Does Andy look up any of the references I gave in the
previous thread and comment on where he finds the reference unclear?
Of course not. That would be to say something substantial, and we
cannot have that. So why should I bother restating something I
find quite trivial?
Does Andy have any training in economics? Is Andy some sort of
instructor on economics somewhere? Can his posts be used as data for
the sociology of economics? These seem like trivial questions, but
Andy remains too much a coward to answer them.
--
r c
v s a Whether strength of body or of mind, or wisdom, or
i m p virtue, are found in proportion to the power or wealth
e a e of a man is a question fit perhaps to be discussed by
n e . slaves in the hearing of their masters, but highly
@ r c m unbecoming to reasonable and free men in search of
d o the truth. -- Rousseau
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