cleanhands posted:
the one reason im glad about having done a science degree is that everyone pretty much agrees what science is, how its done, theres no schools of thought you need to pretend to agree with in order to get a good mark, you either get the right answer or you dont
you're referring to a BA (edit for cultural consideration: or whatever the limey equiv is) right?
cleanhands posted:
the one reason im glad about having done a science degree is that everyone pretty much agrees what science is, how its done, theres no schools of thought you need to pretend to agree with in order to get a good mark, you either get the right answer or you dont
lmao go to a evolutionary biology conference sometime and start talking about kin selection and time how long it takes a plenary session to devolve into a screaming match
shennong posted:
lmao go to a evolutionary biology conference sometime and start talking about kin selection and time how long it takes a plenary session to devolve into a screaming match
a large part of this struck me as pretty transparent hairsplitting. then again 1. i know nothing 2. that's always what intellectuals end up screaming at each other about
littlegreenpills posted:shennong posted:
lmao go to a evolutionary biology conference sometime and start talking about kin selection and time how long it takes a plenary session to devolve into a screaming matcha large part of this struck me as pretty transparent hairsplitting. then again 1. i know nothing 2. that's always what intellectuals end up screaming at each other about
nah it was pretty significant to say "oh btw kin selection isnt a thing, its not even a special case of selection and you still have no mechanism by which relatedness information is propagated" because it pretty much was taking a huge diaharreal shit on about 30 years of work by hundreds of researchers lol
shennong posted:cleanhands posted:
the one reason im glad about having done a science degree is that everyone pretty much agrees what science is, how its done, theres no schools of thought you need to pretend to agree with in order to get a good mark, you either get the right answer or you dontlmao go to a evolutionary biology conference sometime and start talking about kin selection and time how long it takes a plenary session to devolve into a screaming match
i wasnt referring to anything research related, i assumed that went without saying
cleanhands posted:
i wasnt referring to anything research related, i assumed that went without saying
yeah i know, its just amazing how you can get through a 4 year scientific degree and never be exposed to the actual practice of science and how retarded it can get
shennong posted:cleanhands posted:
i wasnt referring to anything research related, i assumed that went without sayingyeah i know, its just amazing how you can get through a 4 year scientific degree and never be exposed to the actual practice of science and how retarded it can get
3 years actually, god save the queen
In the wake of the private sector debt swap agreed last week, European leaders have continued to call for major structural reforms to Greece's economy and society. The current EU-IMF bailout remains conditional on further austerity measures, including reducing pensions, the minimum-wage and civil service jobs. However, one area of the Greek budget doesn't seem to have received much scrutiny: its huge military spending.
The fact that Greece, a relatively small and democratic country with not much in the way of global ambitions, should spend as much on its military as it does is perplexing. In 2006, as the financial crisis was looming, Greece was the third biggest arms importer after China and India. And over the past 10 years its military budget has stood at an average of 4% of GDP, more than £900 per person. If Greece is in need of structural reform, then its oversized military would seem the most logical place to start. In fact, if it had only spent the EU average of 1.7% over the last 20 years, it would have saved a total of 52% of its GDP – meaning instead of being completely bankrupt it would be among the more typical countries struggling with the recession.
...
One major factor is that France and Germany's arms industries have greatly profited from this profligate military spending, leading their governments to put pressure on Greece not to cancel lucrative arms deals. In the five years up to 2010, Greece purchased more of Germany's arms exports than any other country, buying 15% of its weapons. Over the same period, Greece was the third-largest customer for France's military exports and its top buyer in Europe. Significantly, when the first bail-out package was being negotiated in 2010, Greece spent 7.1bn euros (£5.9bn) on its military, up from 6.24bn euros in 2007. A total of £1bn was spent on French and German weapons, plunging the country even further into debt in the same year that social spending was cut by 1.8bn euros. It has claimed by some that this was no coincidence, and that the EU bail-out was explicitly tied to burgeoning arms deals. In particular, there is alleged to have been concerted pressure from France to buy several stealth frigates. Meanwhile Germany sold 223 howitzers and completed a controversial deal on faulty submarines, leading to an investigation into accusations of bribes being given to Greek officials.
Admittedly Greek military spending has been significantly reduced over the last year or two, although not nearly as much as government expenditure on healthcare or social welfare. Nonetheless, Greece continues to spend the most in the EU as a percentage of GDP and remains one of the biggest weapons importers in the world. Recent months have also seen continued pressure from Merkel and Sarkozy on Greece to honour its arms deals amid ongoing negotiations over the current bailout deal.
The importance of the global arms trade was highlighted in a recent report showing that sales have increased by a quarter in the last four years, driven by growing demand in Asia. Amid economic stagnation in Europe and the west, military technology remains one of the key areas in which competitive advantage has been maintained over emerging economies. However, while this growth has benefited major arms-exporting countries such as Germany, France and the UK, it has deepened even further the economic divide within Europe. Interestingly, Portugal – another country currently in the news for its economic woes – is Germany's second largest arms buyer after Greece.
In the current context, it is easy to blame all Greece's troubles on its problems with corruption, tax evasion and its oversized state sector. Yet one cannot help but speculate that if Greece's military spending had been reined in sooner, it would not be experiencing the dramatic crisis it is going through now. And the Greek people, instead of facing austerity measures that have reduced living standards by 30%, might have been able to take a more moderate and sustainable route to reform.
the whole military piece is really interesting because it demonstrates how short-sighted capital has become. of course germany cant allow greece to back out of military contracts because it jeopardizes their immediate bottom line, nevermind that it would be a simple and practical way to help alleviate the crisis without causing the level of recession hard core austerity is sure to. it puts a lie to any genuine concern about the stability of the eu as it stands immediately. so long as creditor nations get theirs right now greece can collapse and be kicked out of the union once its bled dry.
narratives about how scheming greeks tricked the eu into letting them into the fold are already being popularized http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16834815
slothrap posted:
the whole military piece is really interesting because it demonstrates how short-sighted capital has become. of course germany cant allow greece to back out of military contracts because it jeopardizes their immediate bottom line, nevermind that it would be a simple and practical way to help alleviate the crisis without causing the level of recession hard core austerity is sure to. it puts a lie to any genuine concern about the stability of the eu as it stands immediately. so long as creditor nations get theirs right now greece can collapse and be kicked out of the union once its bled dry.
Well if you're out to bleed a country dry it's smart to shrivel their military first.. I'd imagine they'd have to honor arms contracts and defund recruitment, training, veterans affairs, and so on... I'm no expert except for having been the german federal minister of finance since 2005
dm posted:
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/world/africa/using-us-dollars-zimbabwe-finds-a-problem-no-change.html
ok, so this is the monetary semiotics again btw. the focus on physical coins.
here is the background there: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7859033.stm
Zimbabweans will be allowed to conduct business in other currencies, alongside the Zimbabwe dollar, in an effort to stem the country's runaway inflation.
The announcement was made by acting Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa.
BBC southern Africa correspondent Peter Biles says the Zimbabwean dollar has become a laughing stock. A Z$100 trillion note was recently introduced.
Until now only licensed businesses could accept foreign currencies, although it was common practice.
this effectively dismantles capital controls and lays the groundwork for the typical illicit finance and corruption. the capital inflows will probably go to bid up the prices of land and real estate.
it also produces debt deflation. as more hard currency denominated loans are outstanding relative to the ability to earn through exports. anyways, back to the NYT:
Zimbabweans have devised a variety of solutions to get around the change problem, none of them entirely satisfactory. At supermarkets, impulse purchases have become almost compulsory. When the total is less than a dollar, the customer is offered candy, a pen or matches to make up the difference. Some shops offer credit slips, a kind of scrip that has begun to circulate here.
this is misdirection on the transfer problem, not the "change problem".
girdles_gone_wild posted:meh... ok...
So... for my Global Economics course, one of our major projects or whatever was to read an economic related book and then give a 30 minutes presentation or so about it. I chose Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber, because that book fucking owns and the topic is really interesting. Well... today I presented the book to the class. Started from the beginning, talked about the various historical events and ideas and worked my way up to the present and related a lot of the stuff to current events in the eurozone (Greeks burning tax records, for example).
It all went well and then it ended, but then the professor just started kind of ranting and claiming the stuff I was presenting was false, wrong, etc. It was really weird, because I was just like, "uhhh so what exactly is wrong about it?"
Like... he went off about the origins of coinage. I talked about how coins were originally to pay soldiers and stuff, but he said this was wrong. Sure enough, he posed the whole econ 101 origins of money, "Imagine you own some horses, but you want cows" type bullshit. I was just thinking to myself... "Did you not listen to what I was saying? That shit is a myth." But then again I know he wasn't paying attention during the presentation because he didn't even pay attention to any of the presentations this week or last week sooooooo.
I kept asking him precisely what his critiques were, but he would only reply with stuff like, "Just think about it logically... it's all ridiculous!" He eventually started asking me question that had nothing to do with my presentation.
He kept pressing and asking me, "Is inflation bad?" I was kind of stunned because I wasn't sure what he was getting at and the question is just so inane to begin with. I said, "Well if you tell me the context in which the inflation occurs, I could tell you if it was bad or not."
"No... in theory, is inflation bad?"
"How can I genuinely answer that if it's not set in a certain context or situation?"
"Just tell me... is inflation bad in theory?"
"I would need a situation or context in which the inflation is happening and what exactly is being inflated in order to answer that question. It is basically just like asking me if black cats are bad with the assumed answer that they are by virtue of some superstition or whatever."
"Ok... you clearly don't know the answer and I'm done with this now."
"Ok cya."
I just grabbed my stuff and left the classroom at that point. This same professor was praising Milton fucking Friedman last week.
the theory they use does not account for the existence of social relations, imperialism, investment, capital, credit/debt, among other things so w/e. like when he says inflation, there's nothing he can possibly mean by that because they just ignore the existence of asset prices.
that's why you have Paul Krugman suddenly writing about prisons as if they had emerged yesterday.
shennong posted:cleanhands posted:the one reason im glad about having done a science degree is that everyone pretty much agrees what science is, how its done, theres no schools of thought you need to pretend to agree with in order to get a good mark, you either get the right answer or you dont
lmao go to a evolutionary biology conference sometime and start talking about kin selection and time how long it takes a plenary session to devolve into a screaming match
speaking of milton friedman: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1976/friedman-lecture.pdf
Even the difficult problem of separating value judgments from scientific judgments is not unique to the social sciences. I well recall a dinner at a Cambridge University college when I was sitting between a fellow economist and R. A. Fisher, the great mathematical statistician and geneticist. My fellow economist told me about a student he had been tutoring on labor economics, who, in connection with an analysis of the effect of trade unions, remarked, “Well surely, Mr. X (another economist of a different political persuasion) would not agree with that.” My colleague regarded this experience as a terrible indictment of economics because it illustrated the impossibility of a value-free positive economic science. I turned to Sir Ronald and asked whether such an experience was indeed unique to social science. His answer was an impassioned “no”, and he proceeded to tell one story after another about how accurately he could infer views in genetics from political views.
Edited by dm ()
by 'they' do you mean the chicago school, the ZOG, the unknowable Other, what exactly
uhh, the history on neoclassical economics as an ideological weapon is pretty well documented. its methodology is irrelevance.
i mean even classical political economy was like that too, if a little more honest. check out Theories of Surplus Value
e: and Friedman's reference there is a little subtle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher#Fisher.27s_Genetical_Theory_of_Natural_Selection
pretend i posted that xkcd about how pro each branch of the sciences is with philosophy and psychology at one end and mathematics at the other
idk how you think mathematics developed to oppose it to philosophy
Edited by dm ()
People who think psychology isn't a real science usually also think that they personally aren't susceptible to advertising
depends on which area, but it does get a bad rap. it has a long history wrt labor organization lol
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/mar/13.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
explaining jokeposts is never funny so im gonna post crow emotes instead 
I dont like it when people refer to "psychology" as a unified entity, especially when we're talking about aspects of industrial psych, since the vast majority of psychology, in practice, is an effort to improve individual's lives. i mean thats like saying mathematics has a long history wrt waiters getting shitty tips
i think this is what a lot of people mean when they deny that psychology is a science, though. it is not a unified whole, there are very few (if any) maxims that form a bedrock for the field or even are uniformly accepted--there is no equivalent to the theory of evolution, plate tectonics, or general relativity in psychology. it's a bunch of competing and often mutually contradictory individual systems coexisting nervously under a single vague banner
Support for banks 'more substantial than Canadians were led to believe': CCPA report
Canada's biggest banks accepted tens of billions in government funds during the recession, according to a report released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Canada's banking system is often lauded for being one of the world's safest. But an analysis by CCPA senior economist David Macdonald concluded that Canada's major lenders were in a far worse position during the downturn than previously believed.
Macdonald examined data provided by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions and the big banks themselves for his report published Monday.
It says support for Canadian banks from various agencies reached $114 billion at its peak. That works out to $3,400 for every man, woman and child in Canada, and also to seven per cent of Canada's gross domestic product in 2009.
The figure is also 10 times the amount Canadian taxpayers spent on the auto industry in 2009.
"At some point during the crisis, three of Canada's banks — CIBC, BMO, and Scotiabank — were completely under water, with government support exceeding the market value of the company," Macdonald said.
"Without government supports to fall back on, Canadian banks would have been in serious trouble."
During October 2008 and June 2010, the banks combined to report $27 billion in profits on their balance sheets.
CMHC mortgage program aided banks
One of the most well-known ways in which policymakers helped the banks during the crisis is through a $69-billion CMHC program whereby the housing agency took mortgages off the balance sheets of big Canadian banks. In contrast with other support facilities, all of the funds granted by the CMHC were through selling assets (in this case mortgages) to the housing agency. They were not funds that had to be paid back.
The CMHC has provided the aggregate total of how much was given out, but has yet to release specifics on which banks sold how much to them, and when, the CCPA says.
When asked for comment in reaction to the CCPA report, the Canadian Bankers Association noted that the $69 billion that Canada's big banks sold into the CMHC program is in fact only 55 per cent of what was allocated for the program.
"Many of the mortgages were already insured and therefore, created no additional risk for the government," the CBA noted in an email to CBC News. The CMHC estimates that by the time the program is wound up, it will have generated $2.5 billion in profit as those mortgages are paid off, the bankers' group noted.
Calling the CCPA report "completely baseless," Department of Finance spokesperson Chisholm Pothier noted that the mortgage program has already generated more than $1.2 billion in net revenues for the CMHC's coffers.
But Canadian lenders also dipped into a program set up by the U.S. Federal Reserve aimed at providing cash to keep American banks afloat. CIBC and BMO took almost $3 billion each out of the fund, RBC and TD took out $8 billion and Scotiabank drew down almost $12 billion, the CCPA report found.
That data came from the U.S. Federal Reserve, which released it publicly. But Macdonald's analysis found that Canadian banks got a comparable amount — $41 billion — from Bank of Canada facilities, an agency that has been far less transparent in sharing information.
"Despite Access to Information requests for the data, the Bank of Canada refuses to release it," the CCPA report states.
"The federal government claims it was offering the banks 'liquidity support,' but it looks an awful lot like a bailout to me," says Macdonald. "Whatever you call it, Canadian government aid for the country's biggest banks was far more indispensable than the official line would suggest.
"The support for Canadian banks was much more substantial than Canadians were led to believe," Macdonald said.
The Canadian Bankers Association disputes the notion that the funds in question were any sort of bailout, arguing they were routine transactions aimed at keeping the financial system liquid.
"These funding measures were put in place to ensure that credit was available to lend to businesses and consumers to help the economy through the recession," the CBA said. "These funding measures were not put in place because banks were in financial difficulty."
Since the start of the recession, the CBA notes 436 U.S. banks have failed. No Canadian financial institution went under, but Canada's banking sector was hit by an overall crisis of confidence in the banking sector that caused some of the banks' normal lending sources to dry up, the CBA says.
Canadian banks get about two-thirds of their funding from consumer and business deposits, but the other third comes from credit markets.
"It was these markets that were seizing up. Funding was less available," the CBA says. "Canadian banks continued to lend and increased their lending after some non-bank lenders pulled out of the Canadian market."
While some of the funding came from government sources such as the Bank of Canada, the bankers' association points out that the central bank itself says Canadian banks needed less official central bank liquidity support than their foreign counterparts.
"The credit was extended at competitive interest rates to protect taxpayers," Pothier said. "Financial institutions accepting this credit paid interest on the loans."
To show the scale of the funding, the CCPA report contrasted the total value of the support Canadian banks took against the bank's total value at the time. Under that comparison, CIBC received $21 billion in support — almost 1.5 times the value of the company at the time. BMO maxed out at $17 billion or 118 per cent, Scotiabank peaked at $25 billion or 100 per cent of its value, while TD and RBC maxed out at $26 billion and $25 billion — good enough for 69 and 63 per cent, respectively, of the total value of those companies at the time.
"It would have been cheaper to buy every single share in these companies," Macdonald said.
But the CBA disputes those numbers too, saying comparing a bank's value to the level with which it participated in a liquidity program aimed at boosting confidence in the market is "an apples to oranges comparison as the two factors are not at all related."
"The Oxford dictionary defines bailout as 'financial assistance to a failing business or economy to save it from collapse," the Canadian Bankers Association noted.
"That definitely was not the case here: not one bank in Canada was in danger of going bankrupt or required the government to buy an equity stake under taxpayer-funded bailouts."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/04/30/bank-bailout-ccpa.html
myth busted
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6vQiB98e0A
Just in the introduction: The workforce not seeing any gains in the recovery may cause the current model of capitalism to "not have public assent, public confidence" which could lead to a "challenging" political environment, oh no! A lost generation of Europeans is bad because it's "socially and politically dangerous"
It's funny how sometimes it seems like a vital part of economic is the creation of the obfuscatory bullshit language allowing big important men in suits to discuss things very seriously without ever having to say anything meaningful, or think about people starving or whatever. You can say things like the payrolls retracted 10% in a very short period and this can lead to instability in blah blah blah projections without ever having to think about what those words actually represent in the real world
edit: and of course the speakers don't actually address anything said in the intro anyway
What is this 'capitalism' you're protesting against?
Posted by Jon Talton
Today is supposed to see an "anti-capitalist" march in downtown Seattle. There's just one problem: What we have witnessed in recent years in America is not capitalism.
The American capitalism that built the greatest middle class in the history of the world, as well as the greatest wealth, depended on competition, fair play, widely enjoyed benefits, a ladder up for those who worked hard and played by the rules, a mixed economy including government investment in infrastructure, research and education, and regulation to ensure healthy market forces. It was pluralistic with balanced power, including that of unions, to, among other things, keep greed in check and channel it productively. That's capitalism. In the end, as Adam Smith observed, it depends on virtue on the part of most of the capitalists.
What we've witnessed is cronyism, shredding the rule of law, tax dodging, political control by the moneyed elites and looting the wealth it took us a hundred years to build. The results have been anti-competitive consolidation and control of supply chains -- one big casualty has been local business, which is essential to civic health. And repeated bubbles with increasingly destructive busts. And regulators doing the bidding of the regulated. And collapsing middle-class wealth along with the end of widespread good jobs with benefits. And gambling with wealth and making money by moving money around rather than investing in our future. And the banksters, who got away with it. That's not capitalism. It's not a free market but a gamed market. It is behavior that will kill capitalism.
So the anger is understandable. But it has yet to be translated into a serious political program, a la the Tea Party (which admittedly was heavily subsidized by the moneyed elites). Not one status quo member of Congress fears for his or her seat because we won't reinstate Glass-Steagall or provide the universal health care that is a given in other advanced nations. Millions who have been trampled by crony plutocracy see Occupy merely as a curiosity, or a "radical" threat, instead of a movement that coincides with their interests.
One last thought: Why are you protesting downtown? Downtowns represent the physical and architectural manifestation of the commons, a "we" society rather than a "me" society. Disrupt and, God forbid, trash a downtown and you're just playing into the hands of the people you're supposedly protesting against. The toffs are out in places such as Darien, Conn. Go protest there.
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http://chrissmith.house.gov/UploadedFiles/2012-04-17_US_Africa_Trade.pdf
Some have expressed concern that such an expansion of U.S. exports to Africa could flood African markets and damage their economies. However, many of these U.S. exports, such as in the agriculture sector, will enable African producers to become more efficient and profitable and create jobs for their workers as well. In trade, the best situation is one of observing the principle of comparative advantage: countries sell what they make most efficiently and buy what another country makes most efficiently. In this way, both buyer and seller countries benefit from trade by meeting each other’s needs.