Gene Epstein
@GeneSohoForum
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Director and Moderator of @TheSohoForum, presented by @Reason. Former Economics & Books Editor at Barron's.
Manhattan, NY
Joined December 2017
Tickets selling out fast for THIS COMING Wednesday Nov 19 Soho Forum debate between Paul Frymer @pfrymer & Jason Riley @jasonrileywsj on the issue of affirmative action, moderated by me on my 81st birthday! https://t.co/h1MVUnukWv
mailchi.mp
Paul Frymer vs. Jason Riley — Wednesday, November 19, at 6:30 PM ET
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I'd no idea that @NoamChomskyF maintained such a close relationship w/Jeffrey Epstein until hearing @ggreenwald recount it in shocking/painful detail. As a libertarian, I parted ways w/Chomsky decades ago, but remain grateful for his deep influence on me. https://t.co/UroKkN2k1z
open.spotify.com
System Update with Glenn Greenwald · Episode
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"free, lifetime education"? Already available via the Internet, aided by 1000s of reading clubs & free or inexpensive lectures, courses, podcasts. Gov't provided "education" is more aptly called Indoctrination.
As I've said before - provide free, lifetime education to your citizens if you want a healthy, robust economy. And, might I add, citizens not so prone to conspiracy theories and dangerous nonsense.
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Keynes was confused & inconsistent, but @RelearningEcon should've dealt w/his enthusiasm for Stalin's socialism in this rave 1936 review of Webbs' celebratory The Soviet Union: a New Civilization: “One book there is which every serious citizen will do well to look into—the
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"Recent oil & gas deals in Europe suggest that the growing demand for energy may be leading companies to adopt a more pragmatic approach."-NY Times. Can climate alarmists possibly absorb this dire news without forecasting doom within a decade?!
After Climate Push, Energy Companies Return to Fossil Fuels in Europe - The New York Times
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Since "Everything" logically covers Friedman's popular classics, CAPITALISM & FREEDOM; FREE TO CHOOSE, w/most chapters making no mention at all of money supply, this jibe from Solow is about as obtuse as the review he wrote of Piketty's empty book, CAPITAL IN THE 21ST CENTURY.
"Everything reminds Milton Friedman of the money supply. Everything reminds me of sex, but I try to keep it out of my papers." -Robert Solow AEA Panel Discussion (1966)
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Now take the current cost & capacity of batteries & calculate how much it would cost for batteries to provide for all US electricity needs in the quite plausible case of five straight days in which intermittent & unreliable solar & wind fails.
@GeneSohoForum We also use the word 'battery' to store renewable energy. Investing in renewable energy includes investing in storage. Type 'renewable energy storage systems' into Google for examples.
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When might advocates of solar & wind energy stop using the inappropriate term "renewable" to describe this energy? Given human needs, they are more appropriately called INTERMITTENT & UNRELIABLE energy. Hydro is renewable & (mostly) reliable, but not solar & wind.
@GeneSohoForum I guess you are not saying they shouldn't be investing in renewable energy? If you spend your own currency it costs you nothing: if the resources are there to be purchased in that currency they should do it: towards replacing fossil fuels.
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See below a fairly succinct summary of MMT: Modern Monetary Tyranny.
A deliberate failure to understand that there is only one limit for government spending - availability of real resources and ZERO FINANCIAL LIMITS!
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Re those "currency issuing gov'ts" w/the "finance to combat global warming," hopefully we're excluding the poor nations of South America & Africa, along w/India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia....all w/urgent needs for more fossil fuels?
Currency issuing governments have the finance and the private sector has the knowledge to combat global warming. But governments aren't going to spend because they think there's a 'black hole in the finances'. Ignorance kills. Us all.
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Culture matters: German, Danish & Swedish US residents live at least as well as residents of these nations. If this "socialism" (really capitalism w/large welfare states) works well, then don't cherry pick & exclude Italy, Greece & most recently Germany, where it works badly.
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The term "mobilize" came into the language as a military concept having to do w/gov't organizing for war. Those who apply it to a peace-time economy are in effect referring to greater gov't control of the economy's resources, which brings misallocation & even contraction.
@DavidMcNab17 @GeneSohoForum I would much rather belong to a civilization that mobilizes resources better and is committed to such constant improvements of producers' goods.
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W/Oxford-style before-&-after voting, if the initial vote goes 100% in your favor, you can't gain votes from there, you can only lose. That afflicted @BobMurphyEcon in a debate I witnessed which he recalls "losing" in this stimulating talk w/@Rerazer. https://t.co/KhfzUZmrfy
bobmurphyshow.com
Adam Haman returns to assess clips a recent ZeroHedge debate between Keith Knight and Jim Holland, on whether the Allies should have entered World War II. Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of...
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It's also exactly what Walmart does successfully. And Walmart is banned in NY. How about yes to government run stores and also yes to Walmart and others, and let's see who can deliver food cheaply?
Mamdani's proposals for groceries include supply chain management, large volume purchasing, and vertical integration into warehousing -- Good things, but just what the Robinson-Patman Act set out to condemn.
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"they're perfectly clear that large deficits will be inflationary without a corresponding mobilisation of real resources." By mobilisation, a military term meaning assembling & organizing, NOT EXPANDING real resources, THE KEY GOAL, MMT-ers have no clear way to expand resources.
More ignorance from a mainstream economist. I'm not a paid-up #MMT advocate, but they get a lot right and I have made an effort to understand their position. In fact they're perfectly clear that large deficits will be inflationary without a corresponding mobilisation of real
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Amazed by the relatively uncritical support of Adam Smith by many free market colleagues, since there is so much in Smith that gives aid & comfort to socialists, as I pointed out in this debate w/Smith expert Mark Skousen. Also at The Soho Forum Podcast. https://t.co/5DGmZF3pHy
Smith never said it. In fact the nearest thing to labor constituting wealth was slave ownership—which was also the only component of the wealth of nations Smith hoped to see eradicated.
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