First of all, there is NO Nobel prize for economics. What does exist is a sleight of hand by the Bank of Sweden that created a prize “in Memory of Alfred Nobel”, knowing full well it would be shortened into “Nobel Prize”. A. Nobel never considered economics to be a science.
Linked to that is the pretty funny point about believing in “magical thinking” coming from mainstream economists (the overwhelming majority of the people who won said prize are mainstream economists).
That said, some have written here that this public lettter is useless, while others think it may help defeating Trump. IMHO, it’ll help him, if anything. This is directly linked with what I’ve written above: people in power (might not be true but I’m sure they’re seen as such) oppose him ? It might convince a few to vote for him.
I think the entire problem is citizens united and redistricting, which allowed disproportional influence and handed elections to the most extreme obstructionist republicans. Maybe that’s just me.
This will Deliver the undecided magical thinkers and conspiracy theorists right into Trumps camp! This is also something-ist. I can’t get through a day without thinking magically!
Note that four of these signatories are from Trump’s alma mater, three of them from the Wharton School of Business:
Matthew Grennan, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania Annie Liang, College of Arts and Sciences (Economics), University of Pennsylvania Benjamin Lockwood, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania Ashley Swanson, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania
What really seems to horrify correct-thinking people about Trump, though they don’t realize it, is that he’s unsophisticated. He plays straight on emotion. We’ll expel illegal immigrants and build a wall, which Mexico will pay for. We’ll make companies bring back jobs from overseas and you can all work in factories again.
Any college-educated person can immediately see this is unworkable magical thinking. And it is. No snark intended. What correct-thinking people want is magical thinking we can rationalize. We want our emotions pandered to in the same way, but it has to be wrapped up in a complex web of projections, punditry, and persiflage.
Tell me that we can impose a new surtax on rich people to pay for reparations in the form of educational support programs, but everyone will get richer anyway because all the poor people now wandering around in the inner city and the Appalachian hollows will get PhDs and earn 6-figure salaries as roboticists and the wealth will trickle down.
But make sure it has a CBO score and Paul Krugman has endorsed it and the NYT is full of op-eds debating peripheral details of the program and whether they’ll work as intended. Fill the air with so much “expert opinion” that I can rationalize and hope that maybe, just maybe, this really will work as God and Gruber intended and I can retain my self-image as someone whose politics are reality-based, free of those dismal tribal instincts.
If the purpose of 370 economists signing the letter is to persuade people to Do A Thing, then it has failed at its purpose. Their time would have been better spent apologizing for neoliberalism.
The point being made with the “lol” and “whatever” responses is just that this letter isn’t going to sway his supporters away from him or suddenly convince the relative handful of undecideds that remain to vote against him. Meanwhile, those who oppose him (whatever their affiliation) already know he’s a magical thinker.
One of the more destructive victories of the right over the last few decades has been to convince the press and much of the public that Austrian-style trickle down bullshit is synonymous with “economics”.
It isn’t; it’s a thoroughly debunked minority view even amongst professional economists. But it’s a faction that is highly favourable to the maintenance of plutocracy, so it gets disproportionately promoted by the corporate media.
