Posts by Adam H
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Polity: Behavioural economics and Hekia Parata, in reply to Rob Stowell,
All economics is behavioural: money and how we measure it is not a law of nature, it's a figment of our collective imagination. It is a form of Theology.
The problem is that the "profession" uses Greek when describing it's belief systems, which seems to have fooled people into thinking there are some universal rules.
Repeat after me: "economics is a social science".
Nothing wrong with that, but it shouldn't be confused with Natural Science.
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Let’s face it, when you try to bring rationality to an argument that has been subject to moral bullshit for a hundred years it’s a hard ask. Especially for those who didn’t receive an education founded in critical thinking… we take our post-70’s schooling for granted I think.
I remember when I was at IRD that an Investigator was captured: he’d arranged for a seminar (around 2006) for teams to learn about the ‘risks’ of dealing with people influenced by P. The only evidence cited was the moral outrage of a medical doctor from Nelson, and it ended up being a typical ‘these people are criminals and deserve what they get’ rather than a personal safety briefing.
I called it out for the poorly founded hyperbole it was by asking about signs of use and referral channels , but he had nothing: “it’s not about helping people who can’t help themselves” – actually I believed that was exactly my job as a public servant.
I wonder how about the creeping propaganda like this has? I seem to hear a lot of it from my friends who have National Party connections…
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Hard News: The war is still with us, in reply to Bevan Shortridge,
… and I can’t help but notice who stands behind Cooks right shoulder…
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Speaker: The Government you Deserve, in reply to Caleb D'Anvers,
I fear that we have been insufficiently careful to distinguish “neoliberal global establishment” from “amoral robber barons who will use outright fascists as shock troops if it furthers their interests.”
I like your phrase. I guess I've become cynical. The 'best' ones seem to be very good at manipulating and skirting the balancing mechanisms. Most of the rest are "just following orders". There are some pockets of genuine loveliness, but I notice they tend to be older and on a good financial footing before they let their morals resurface.
It is a systemic problem - what good arises from a system that focuses decisions on individual rationality without the moderating balance of a crowd?
So a currency trader can make a decision that has massive leverage (we've seen banks taken down, and Soros famously broke what was formerly the worlds 4th biggest economy). Single men (yes, so far it's basically been men).
I think this is the fundamental flaw in the neo-lib agenda. It uses the mathematical equivalent of homeopathy to justify focusing these decisions down to a point that our social system struggles to cope with - it ignores the social imperatives.
It's like the branding around 'realism' - people kinda rolling their eyes and while proudly saying they are realists. To me, what they are saying is "I don't understand how people feel so I've going to pretend they are machines"
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Speaker: The Government you Deserve, in reply to Jim Cathcart,
My dirty secret is that I would probably have voted Brexit for that very reason. But I don’t think the majority of the 52% did. I suspect it was much more basic than that: a sense of manipulation perhaps.
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Speaker: The Government you Deserve, in reply to martinb,
I think Shearer would be horrified to hear himself described as like Corbyn.
It was more that I was trying to point out we see these situations where there is a clear distinction: I would pick a humanitarian worker over a currency trader any day, simply because of the innate lack of morality necessary to function in the financial markets.
We were faced with that choice and it seemed to me that Shearer was hounded for somehow not being 'corporate' enough. I think we've had the neo-lib doctrine pushed so long it means people have come to believe it is somehow a fundamental truth rather than a socio-economic doctrine.
I think the Third Way was a response to that: Blair and New Labour tried to occupy Thatcherite ground. It was a sign of defeat. And if there's a good side to what we've seen in the UK is that people seem to feel Blair duped them (even thought it was what they wanted).
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Speaker: The Government you Deserve, in reply to Nick Russell,
If I come across a bit pro-Corbyn it's really meant to be more of a "look if you wanted anti-establishment there was an alternative"...
He could have quite easily played that up. I suspect he was trying not to appear out of kilter with the main messaging from the Stay camp.
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Finland of course...
Actually there's a really good tax reason to do this. It's effectively a tax free allowance: you slice it off the bottom and add it on the tope. One effect is that people join the system who otherwise might not.
It's fundamentally a simplification mechanism, and flattens out all (yes, all) the terrible marginal tax rates that arise in the current mess. It's a bit like introducing a flat tax... so why do some groups rail against it?
I guess it's partly because it eliminates the ability to moralise and penalise lifestyles. How could we target specific voter groups if you can't differentiate...?
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Speaker: The government's Rules…, in reply to Steve Barnes,
I agree: leaky buildings weren't caused by "shonky builders" (to quote Morning Report who should know better). They were caused by shonky Corporates and shonky governance.
A lobby group managed to get a flawed product approved. From then on it was inspected and signed off. All official and to specification.
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Yes, yes, yes, I do see that there is a real dilemma here. In that, while it has been government policy to regard policy as a responsibility of Ministers and administration as a responsibility of Officials, the questions of administrative policy can cause confusion between the policy of administration and the administration of policy, especially when responsibility for the administration of the policy of administration conflicts, or overlaps with, responsibility for the policy of the administration of policy.