A problem of Economics

Out of all my previous posts, this one still rankles the most. Glancing over the comments there can be no clearer case that economics needs to get fluffier and it needs to do so now.

The post set out my reasons why free trade and unbridled foreign intervention might not always be a good thing. The main reason for this is that companies may use their power to manipulate legislation for their own ends but to the detriment of the wider populace (the fate of Sao Tome provides a salient example). Those opposed got on their high horses about how my example contained a fatal error: I had messed up my criteria of national income accounting.

Can there be a stronger example of how many economists are barking up a bloated,
pussy and very wrong tree? A point is made which affects the very lives and welfare of millions and the only thing to point out is that I've messed up my national...income...accounting.

When I started this blog, it was as a crusade against this abstract economics that prizes market efficiency over an economy that provides for real human need. This was clearly wrong. The economics of the mainstream will never be set right until pig headed morons who blindly follow its doctrine realise just how damaging it is. National income accounting is an artificial construct, at best an indicator, not of human welfare, but of aggregate amount of cash flowing through an economy over a period of time. That its calculation has become a measure of human achievement is a thought so depressing as to crush any who stop to think about it long enough.

The wallpaper which the men of science have covered the world of reality is falling to tatters. The grand whorehouse which they have made of life requires no decoration; it is essential only that the drains function properly. (q*)

*The whole Tropic of Cancer online! WTF???!!