I am launching a new video series this morning, on economic truths.
As I note in the video:
Hello, I'm Richard Murphy and I want to introduce a new video series that we're going to be producing on this YouTube channel.
When I asked readers of my Funding the Future blog what they wanted from these videos, the message came back loud and clear that they wanted me to explain some pretty basic economic concepts.
In a sense, they wanted me to myth bust. Now, I didn't like that idea, and I didn't for a very good reason. If you myth bust, you first of all tell people what the myth is, and they remember that, and not why it's wrong. So, that is very definitely the wrong ordering of events when it comes to producing videos.
So, instead, I want to talk about the opposite of myths. I want to talk about truths.
This series is going to be about economic truths. Those things that are actually, in a sense, glaringly obviously correct, and which need to be understood and yet, which the mainstream media, commentators, politicians, and others, all seem to get wrong on a persistent basis, meaning that we are toldcomplete nonsense, on much of the news, and on radio, and in our mainstream press.
So, I will be creating a whole series of videos. There are over forty titles sketched out at present - and that list will grow - addressing these truths that I think people need to understand about how our economy works so that you can put other people right or just shout at the television and say “You got that wrong.”
Whichever way you want to go, this series is going to be for you if you want to understand what is true about our economics.
Thanks for reading this post.
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Let’s hope your “Economic Truths” series has impact in a “conservative” country where “red-team thinking” is in very short supply and “intellectual serfdom” in the ascendancy:-
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/18/covid-inquiry-hallett-prescribes-red-teams-as-antidote-to-flawed-thinking
Thanks
Good luck with this – very brave.
Looking back at economics, it is amazing to me how economic untruths are so robust and an enduring whereas economic truths seems so fleeting…………..
I suppose what I’m saying is that ‘truth’ is subject to change – ‘When the facts change sir, I change my mind’.
So – for example – if MMT delivered on a policy objective – say full employment – then the MMT policy would change as the facts would have changed – which is why you used the MMT tool in the first place. This is also good management.
Contrast that with the use of austerity, privatisation and any number of Neo-liberal policies that get used over and over again even though they don’t work. Well – except for few. That is bad management.
And there is a truth revealed right there.
Maybe the true test of an economics idea is ‘Qui bono? Who benefits?
In this hyper-individualised world, that which favours the minority hoovering up all the output of economics, that is the only measure we can use.
Does the economics idea benefit us all/the largest number of people or does it benefit only a few?
That should be the moral test maybe of all policies?
If it does not benefit us all, then I would call that policy ‘anti-social’.
Just some thoughts from one of the bewildered……………………..
I have fingers crossed for this because getting it right will not be easy.
Bad economics is forced upon us by vested interests which is why it does not change.
Good economics works as long as it is relevant in a context.
Good economics is transformative; bad economics conserves weighted outcomes, the status quo, exploitation.
Good economics changes when it meets its objectives so that it remans relevant and conserves the gains it has made but invites changes because it is sensitive to the dynamics it has created. In MMT for example, you say correctly that you do not print money forever (and yes, you tax too).
Good ideas work up to a point. Then they need other good ideas to keep them going because the dynamics of change are infinite. Bad ideas – Neo-liberal economics for example – are happy with reduced dynamics.
It’s all about joining things up and being pro-active and thinking beyond what you are doing. That’s what progressive economics means to me anyway.
Just some thoughts. You are more than capable of joining things up Richard. This whole blog has been about that which is lacking in the real world so badly.
Thanks
Noted
Perhaps it would be helpful to explain what your is when it comes to economics?
Look at my CV.
What are yours?
You are a retired accountant..
I am not retired
And I have been a professor of political economy and and now anprof3ssorbofvaccountinf practice
That plus 45 years critical appraisal of real world experience really does qualify me
You should stop making a fool of yourself by repeating the drivel Tim Worstall writes
What is this? Appeal to authority? Do you always outsource your thinking to others? Or do you measure the strength of the evidence? Nullius in verba.
Brilliant idea that fits well with the ‘myth busting’ approach taken by John Cook, who is renowned for creating both the website “skeptical science” and his research into the psychology of climate change misinformation and how to counter it. John’s approach is to use make use of ‘Inoculation theory’, as he explains below:
“Inoculation theory takes the concept of vaccination, where we are exposed to a weak form of a virus in order to build immunity to the real virus, and applies it to knowledge. Half a century of research has found that when we are exposed to a “weak form of misinformation,” this helps us build resistance so that we are not influenced by actual misinformation.
Inoculating text requires two elements. First, it includes an explicit warning about the danger of being misled by misinformation. Second, you need to provide counterarguments explaining the flaws in that misinformation.”
https://skepticalscience.com/incoculation-theory-cook17.html
Another very important point John makes is the crucial step of replacing ‘sticky myth’ with ‘stickier facts’, as he explains in this video…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM-zNO02phw
Thanks
I liked the video
Hi Richard,
This is a very good idea, and you are right to avoid regurgitating falsehoods.
Regards
Your CV shows you have no formal qualifications in economics and more have you had any senior positions in the world of economics or banking,
You are an accountant and have some random professorship, which is very much a token gesture, given that you don’t actually do any teaching there.
What point were you trying to make?
There is no formal qualification in economics
You can get a degree in it. I have one.
You can be appointed as a professor because you are good at it. I have been, in two economic disciplines.
You can be elected to the Academy of Social Sciences because you are exceptional in your field. I have been.
And you read Tim Worstall, which is very sad.
There will be no more comments accepted on this.
Ah!
J Samuels………………
Yet another believer in the ‘expert’ I figure?
People like you and John Foxx are just so stupid.
Do you know why?
Because it would not enter your tiny minds that anyone lives consciously in this world and would question anything about their life – perhaps like you do.
Do doubt in your world, everyone knows their place and does as they are told and accepts things as they are. Because to do otherwise is just inconvenient isn’t it?
You want us to be compliant Eloi so that you and your Morlock neo-liberal mates can go on exploiting us unchallenged.
Well, sorry, welcome to reality.
And that makes YOU out of your depth.
No one else.