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J Is for Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception

Book by Michael Hudson · 3 quotes · Capitalism, Economic Rent, Michael Hudson

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J Is for Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception Quotes

“Mathiness: British economic journalist John Kay defines mathiness as a “use of algebraic symbols and quantitative data to give an appearance of scientific content to ideological preconceptions.” Expressing an idea in mathematical symbols instead of straightforward literary terms helps legitimize it in the minds of many people, thanks to a seeming similarity with natural science. In this respect math is basically a form of numerical rhetoric. “The American economist Paul Romer has recently written of ‘mathiness,’ by analogy with ‘truthiness,’ a term coined by American talk show host Stephen Colbert. Truthiness presents narratives which are not actually true, but consistent with the world view of the person who spins the story. It is exemplified in rightwing fabrications about European health systems – their death panels and forced euthanasia.” Paul Samuelson, for instance, trivialized economics in terms that give the outward appearance of science by being expressed mathematically, even when its assumptions are purely hypothetical (and not all realistic)and there are no quantitative statistics to illustrate its categories.”

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Book:J Is for Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception
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“Surprising as it may seem today, classical ideas of creating a free market were to be achieved by “socialist” reforms. Their common aim was to protect populations from having to pay prices that included a non-labor rent or financial tax to pay landlords and natural resource owners, monopolists and bondholders. The vested interests railed against public regulation and taxation along these lines. They opposed public ownership or even the taxation of land, natural monopolies and banking. They wanted to collect rent and interest, not make land, banking and infrastructure monopolies public in character.”

InterestCapitalismSocialismDebt BondageRentier ClassMichael HudsonEconomic Rent
Book:J Is for Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception
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“When the volume of debt has grown as large as national income or GDP, and when it bears an interest rate (typically 5%) above the economy’s rate of growth (typically just 1% to 2%), then all the growth in national income is taken by the creditors.”

CapitalismDebtSocialismRentier ClassMichael HudsonEconomic RentJunk Economics
Book:J Is for Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception
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