Paul Craig Roberts on Economics

Escape from Economics

There are many such examples where economics no longer speaks to the real world.

Two other examples will suffice:

Most intelligent people are aware that natural resources are finite, including the environment’s ability to absorb the wastes or pollution from productive activities (see for example, Jared Diamond, Collapse, 2005). But few economists are aware, because economists assume that man-made capital is a perfect substitute for nature’s capital. This assumption implies that there are no finite environmental limits to infinite economic growth. Lost in such a make-believe world, economists neglect the full cost of production and cannot tell if the value of the increases in GDP are greater or less than the full cost of producing it.

Economists have almost universally confused jobs offshoring with free trade. Economists have even managed to produce “studies” purporting to show that a domestic economy is benefitted by being turned into the GDP of some other country. Economists have managed to make this statement even while its absurdity is obvious to what remains of the US manufacturing, industrial, and professional skilled (software engineers, for example) workforce and to the cities and states whose tax bases have been devastated by the movement offshore of US jobs.

The few economists who have the intelligence to recognize that jobs offshoring is the antithesis of free trade are dismissed as “protectionists.” Economists are so dogmatic about free trade that they have even constructed a folk myth that the rise of the US economy was based on free trade. As Michael Hudson, an economist able to think outside the box has proven, there is not a scrap of evidence in behalf of this folk myth (see America’s Protectionist Takeoff 1815-1914).

Items of Interest, 31 January 2012

Patrick Buchanan, Obama Sandbags the Archbishop
Tom Piatak, The Evil Party Rides Again
Vox Populi: Selective and belated protest

Karen De Coster: Amy Alkon on Homo Barbarus and A Book About Flinching and Fear

Pillars of Agrarianism

Jeffersonian Exceptionalism by Paul Pillar

Brad Birzer's series of interviews with Catholic "conservatives," "Bearers of the Word," can be found here. His interview with Daniel McCarthy. (via Daniel McCarthy; Rod Dreher's post)

Fabius Maximus: Martin van Creveld explains the essence of Airpower Yesterday,Today, and Tomorrow and Some foes of the Republic revealed themselves by sponsoring the Enemy Expatriation Act

NDAA Taking You Back to the 19th Century

State Governments check Federal power

Daniel Larison, What Santorum Learned from Bush-era Foreign Policy Failures, Santorum Still Stuck in 2002: They Hate Us Because of Our Freedom, The Dangerous Idea of NATO Expansion Will Not Die

James Antle on the Republicans behind Obamacare: Now what the doctor ordered.

"The Conservative Believes..." by Russell Kirk

What is a Conservative?

Mark T. Mitchell, Monstanto vs. Family Farmers

Franklin C. Spinney, The On-going Scandal of the F-35

Iran:
The Ongoing War on Iran by PATRICK COCKBURN
Where to go for information about our conflict with Iran, and why you should understand what’s happening
Iranian aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Mexico
Israeli Officials: Attack on Iran Must Come ‘By Summer’
Daniel Larison, Nasr: Iran Sanctions Leading to War
Hormuz-Mania: Why closure of the Straits of Hormuz could ignite a war and a global depression by Michael Klare

Economics:
The Crisis of Civilization reviewed (EB)


Kevin Carson, Why the State Will Fail
Interview with Richard Heinberg on Occupy Educated
Beyond GDP: New Measures for a New Economy by Lew Daly, Stephen Posner (EB)
Capitalism only creates misery – we need a system that puts human wellbeing first
The Price of Growth by Gregor Macdonald
Where Did All the Workers Go? 60 Years of Economic Change in 1 Graph
More reasons why we are reaching limits to growth by Gail Tverberg (EB)
The fallacy of the tragedy of the commons by Marq de Villiers (EB)

Sustainability:
A guide for sustainability advocates by Niki Harré (EB)

Relocalization:
Education and the Way Home by Jeffrey Polet
For Farmers Everywhere, Small is (Still) Beautiful by Robin Broad, John Cavanagh
Meet the New Boss: You
5 Big Ideas For A New Economy
Sharing a Skilled Future (EB)
Is Valpo Ready for Citizen Finance?
My prices are not too high: A farmer fires back by Shannon Hayes (EB)
Brewing Better Local Economies with American Craft Beer

Peak Oil and Energy:
Peak Oil: Yes, Still a Serious Issue (EB)
The Hydrogen Dream (EB)
Oil prices, exhaustible resources, and economic growth: report extract
by James D. Hamilton (EB)