Friday, September 22, 2017

Merijn Knibbe — Why, to the detriment of the economics profession, MiltonFriedman ignored Hyman Minsky’s advice

I’m talking about the 1962 Milton Friedman/Anna Schwarz article ‘Money and Business Cycles’ (the Minsky comments can be found in the same document). According to Friedman and Schwarz, the government and only the government indirectly creates money mainly via central bank interest and QE like bank-liquidity policies. Period. Which makes the government, and only the government, responsible for these deep depressions. Period.…
The 64 trillion-dollar question is of course: why do Friedman and Schwarz discard modern monetary measurement and why do they stick to their CCA? Why don’t they mention Copeland and why don’t they even mention the Flow of Funds (which, again, is the cornerstone of modern monetary measurement)? Why didn’t they catch up with the developments in modern economic statistics taking place at the most important central banks of the world? Why did the bend over backwards to avoid any data and each author which hinted at, in the words of Minsky “a commercial loan monetary system … consistent with a debt deflation view of how major recessions are generated: a view in which the historically observed changes in the money supply, particularly those associated with deep depression, are a result of business behavior”?\
The more salient question is why anyone took their work seriously when they were clearly in the weeds considering that even the classical economists realize the key role of private credit?

Real-World Economics Review Blog
Why, to the detriment of the economics profession, MiltonFriedman ignored Hyman Minsky’s advice
Merijn Knibbe

16 comments:

Andrew Anderson said...

Why? Because fiat creation makes usury less lucrative in real terms?

Andrew Anderson said...

That is, fiat creation for the non-bank private sector.

Tom Hickey said...

Matt, you are shoe-in for the "Nobel" in Econ when you publish. Goldman will probably offer you Hatzius's job.

Matt Franko said...

Says you...

Matt Franko said...

Why are your looking at CO2 wrt climate change then?

A lot of the climate people are looking at the current upset in the tropical conditions being as a result of CO2 but meanwhile we have had a ten year period of stable conditions...

So you know that as "stability creates instability!" we were going to get instability .... so it can't be the CO2 it is the last ten years of relative stability that is causing the current instability.... CO2 doesn't have anything to do about it...

Tom Hickey said...

That may be but Puerto Rico was just leveled by a Cat 5 hurricane and whoever can explain these phenomena in way that can be predicted and ideally countered will be amply rewarded, unless such events are "acts of God." But that is just an excuse for ignorance.

Scientists may be wrong in their modeling, but they have a rigorous method to follow.

MRW said...

Irma and Harvey were nothing compared to hurricanes that occurred from 1900 through the 1950s. Harvey caused the awful floods because the front to the north prevented Harvey from moving north, which would have weakened it quickly, and forced Harvey to inch east instead with unbelievable slowness destroying the coast with rain. The anti-CO2 crazees have no idea, zilch, what a fucking trough and ridge mean in atmospheric physics, how they affect the weather. ZERO! You get the Snowflake mentality (dummies) calling it all Global Warming.

Just google some of these to see photos, or click on links:
* Hurricane 1938 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938_New_England_hurricane)
* 1900 Galveston hurricane (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2017/08/27/as-terrible-as-harvey-is-the-galveston-hurricane-of-1900-was-much-much-worse/#66e18e2c2594)
* Hurricane Carol (http://www.hurricanescience.org/history/storms/1950s/carol/)
* Hurricane Donna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Donna)

Take a look at these:
* Texas Hurricanes 1950 - 2015 (http://www.scubamom.com/hurricanes/)

MRW said...

I am sure none of you are interested—at least not like me, and I NEVER, not ever, miss them, not once—but every day of my life I watch Joe Bastardi give the Daily Update for US weather, and occasionally, he explains WHY the weather is acting the way that it is. Fucking fascinating. Bastardi is the ultimate weather geek. His father was a meteorologist and started infected his kid at the age of three.

Bastardi is also a wrestler and competes for the Univ. of Pennsylvania. He says that when he was 16 and every one of his friends salivated for the upcoming Sports Illustrated model issue, he was salivating for the pattern-recognition of previous storms that scientists were producing for study. That was his lust.

If any of you are interested—and I seriously doubt anyone here is—go here:
https://www.weatherbell.com
Click on the PREMIUM tab and then click on the Update video in the right panel. Usually 2-5 minutes, but I would listen to an hour because he’s so fascinating. And plain speaking.

MRW said...

Bastardi founded Accuweather in the 80s.

MRW said...

Tom at September 22, 2017 at 4:36 PM

Hurricanes in the Atlantic come off wave trains from western Africa. That’s where they are generated. It’s the troughs and ridges in the Caribbean and the southeastern US that determine how they will be populated and where they will land. If at all.

But even meteorologists and forecasters can’t determine exactly how one of these systems will work and where they will wind up until the last minute (so to speak). For example, Irma was forecast to hit the eastern coast of Florida, then in the middle of the night it changed to hit the western coast.

But it all has to do with the atmospherics. What the wind is doing. How the Jet Stream is impacting the US. And how the tropics are reacting to it. Has fucking nothing to do with CO2.

Tom Hickey said...

I didn't said anything about CO2.

As far as I know, "stability generates instability" has nothing to do with climate or weather.

MRW said...

"I didn't said anything about CO2." I didn't mean to imply that you did. "Stability generates instability" has nothing to do with climate or weather. Agreed.

Six said...

Galveston hurricane of 1900 is believed to have been a category 4 hurricane. Very strong, indeed, but I believe it was more of a storm surge catastrophe than a wind catastrophe. Otherwise, why raise the island and build a seawall?

Six said...

Does this Bastardi character think the energy in hurricanes comes from atmospheric conditions? I think the general consensus is the energy comes from surface heating and atmospheric conditions dictate steering.

MRW said...

Six,

Galveston hurricane of 1900 is believed to have been a category 4 hurricane. Very strong, indeed, but I believe it was more of a storm surge catastrophe than a wind catastrophe. Otherwise, why raise the island and build a seawall?

Had to be both, Six.

MRW said...

Six,

Does this Bastardi character think the energy in hurricanes comes from atmospheric conditions? I think the general consensus is the energy comes from surface heating and atmospheric conditions dictate steering.

No, more than just atmospheric conditions. Listen to his Weekend Summary today. [https://www.weatherbell.com/premium, choose the Saturday Summary to the right under Public Videos.] At around 6:05 min he explains that the cold in the SE USA coupled with the heat in the Caribbean waters created the hurricanes. However, that has flipped. The western US is now very cool and the southeast is much warmer. But it’s going to flip again at the first of October, with the southeast cooler. And the water in the Caribbean is getting much warmer.