stick up the ass
what is it with “academic” types who have to talk as though they have all-weather titanium rods shoved up their butts? read this:
My colleague Walter Williams has a justified reputation for explaining economics straightforwardly and lucidly. This recent column of his, on the so-called ‘trade deficit,’ is a wonderful example of Walter’s immense genius, insight, and ability.
please! immense genius, insight, and ability? wonderful example of? that article?
get over yourselves! point me to exactly what parts of that article exemplify immense genius, insight, and ability. sheer language abuse.
the article doesn’t begin to cover or explain the complexity of international trade. it denies it, using a ridiculous and wrong example tailored for economics peanut salesmen who can then bring it up at dinner parties and — voi-fucking-lah — they’ve spread this fabled elucidation of walter williams.
“oh, that makes perfect sense! more pinot grigio?”
no, it doesn’t make sense. it pretends to paint a complex and difficult subject into a corner, then runs away while prancing and cooing about what a great job the chicken has done slamming the subject. what preposterous pretense to say that trade deficits aren’t a problem because they involve mutual, voluntary exchange. no, trade deficits can be a problem — just not in the way most people assume, and certainly not in any way that’s debunked by such frivolous child’s play “explanations”. the problem is that people feel they must control the trade of others, for “trade deficits” that usually aren’t trade deficits.
we’re given the example of a grocer exchanging a batch of his product for $100 from williams. williams claims, “The value of my goods account rises by $100. That rise is matched by an equal $100 decline in my capital account. Adding a plus $100 to a minus $100 yields a perfect trade balance.”
no economist should be speaking in such bleh language, regardless of the audience. it’s not a “perfect trade balance”. that’s verbal sleight of hand, confusing perfect trade (what all voluntary trade is) with an accounting balance. the perfect part is that it’s presumably voluntary, and each party is happier after the trade. however, it’s not likely at all that you can take your pristine $100 of groceries and get $100 of something else in return. how can a supposed professor of economics actually use the word “value” in such a way? where’s the “trade balance” in a situation that leaves one party with more buying power than another? in his example he is almost treating those groceries as currency, which they are not. you think you can walk in somewhere with $100 of groceries you picked out for yourself and make an even exchange for something with a $100 price tag? no chance. for more than one reason. in other words, that $100 “goods account” is meaningless; it likely has $100 value only for the person who picked out those goods at that time. immediately, the depreciation difference creates an imbalance (accounting, not liberty) to the rosy, fake situation. that doesn’t even get into the distribution chain, cost, taxes, labor, scarcity, etc.
as soon as the transaction is made, the grocer is in a superior position with regard to flexibility and universal value. that is not the “trade balance” scenario he’s trying to manufacture though. to then take this fallacious foundation and state that “International trade operates under the identical principle” is educational sin.
picking nits? no. that’s just the start of the problems with his example, the most important of which is that he doesn’t address true trade deficits at all. he bypasses it entirely by stating, simply because they’re usually claimed in error, that they don’t exist. he is attempting to educate people, and screwing it all up in the process. the swooning don boudreaux calls this “a wonderful example of Walter’s immense genius, insight, and ability.”
the trade deficit issue is not entirely without logical concern. no, it’s not government’s business, nor do most of the idiotic drudge-style “the japanese are coming” alarms have anything to do with trade deficits. the points to stress — those which williams sidestepped for his crap tidy example — are 1) even the most local economy is almost never simple bidirectional, and 2) it’s nobody’s business how you engage in non-aggressive trade.
in extreme examples, you can bankrupt yourself through trade. connecting the dots between that reality and the hoowah slung by the MSM is quite difficult. few ever deal with it. i haven’t ever dealt specifically with it in an article (even in this one which explains the fallacy of trade deficits far more accurately than williams), nor have i here; it’s ultimately irrelevant to liberty. williams hasn’t dealt with it in his article because… maybe because he doesn’t know that he hasn’t. he’s written such a piece of genius that it fails the supposed subject altogether.
i’ll warrant that if the same piece had been shown to boudreaux without attribution, he wouldn’t have swooned so. yeah, it’s right up his dipshit “educator” alley, and a subject he’s been talking much about recently, but has anybody else noticed the inordinate reaction to walter williams? nothing against wiliams, because it’s probably not his fault in any way, but i think much of the “great guy” talk is because people are so thrilled that there’s a “black” economist anywhere close to the truth. i’m wrong? nah, i’ve been watching this for years. he’s treated differently — far in excess of his material. you’re going to read that article and blush gah gah over it? then you got problems too. it’s a flawed, misleading article, only notable when compared to the swill out there in MSM.
“My colleague”!
get me a smoking jacket and one of those full, magic dumpsters. i wonder if these academic types ever really read the stuffy, poser shit they write. they elevate their poop with some sort of reverse ice cream transmogrifier. pay the price of admission, and you’re on the team. darker skin? “welcome aboard, you goddamned genius! have a column.”
oh, i’m full of shit? read the thing. it’s deadline drivel, yet the “as you say, don” trackbacks have sprouted. spew what you’re told. don’t analyze. don’t question. the great don boudreaux recommended a walter williams article! hooowahhh!
lemmings and slackers. if you’re going to debunk “trade deficit”, giving it a different definition at the starting gate isn’t the way. as usual, feynman was right; it’s far too easy to “simplify” to the point of distortion.
i’ll say it again: deadline drivel. and it’s from an environment in which little that’s said is questioned appropriately. you want to know about trade? there’s only one word that matters: liberty. all these bogus attempts to justify freedom are probably more offensive than the tyrants for which they were supposedly created. start with liberty, and shove the rest — especially when you can’t get it right.
and i just know some fool reading this will construe my position as mercantilist. the world is full of code-wording bleh breathers.
April 7th, 2010 at 04:33
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