Referencing my comments in an earlier post about the period of mixed signals we now seem to be entering, one potential concern is that, in this age of the 24-hour news cycle, we may be over-reporting on the indicators.
Just as over-monitoring a stock portfolio can pose the danger of losing out on long-term returns by overtrading based on inevitable short-term fluctuations, excessive real-time news coverage of every tiny bit of released economic data could inflict further damage on public sentiment and, in turn, the economy.
For example, if we are in fact bottoming out or starting to move toward recovery, over reporting negative short-term indicators could needlessly prolong collective pessimism and keep consumer expenditures depressed. It could also drive businesses to maintain a defensive posture on their cashflow longer than they need to.
But the coverage is what it is--for reasons that are largely economic. It’s simple supply and demand. Editorial decisions to supply economic news as the main topical thrust are simply responses to what the audience is demanding. And currently, the public remains very hungry for economic news.
People are consuming economic news on a scale unprecedented in recent history. It‘s basic psychology. People seek out economic news because the feeling of being informed gives them a sense of having some level of control over the situation.
The danger, however, is the element of illusion in this sense of control. Without the big-picture context that a seasoned professional in a field like economics or finance might have, a general news consumer absorbing short-term stories may have the illusion of knowing far more than he or she actually knows. This, too, can drive ill-advised decisions.
Yet the 24-hour cycle self-perpetuates. Especially after the incessant bombardment with bad news, week after week, in the early part of the year, the public is so starved for any little morsel of good news that they’re ready to latch onto the smallest little bite. And when they bite, their raised hopes can then be disproportionately dashed by the next nip of bad news.
This is particularly true among those who are out of work, underemployed, facing strained family budgets or trying to keep struggling businesses afloat. And the danger is that the cycle of raised and dashed hopes could perpetuate the downward curve, or keep us treading water at the bottom for a longer time.
The unemployed may become more frustrated every time they hear bad news on jobless claims, and grow less inclined to pound the pavement. Business owners may hesitate to take the risks necessary to drive renewed growth, especially the risk of taking on new staff. This could prolong the crisis of the unemployed.
It’s a cycle that can be broken only by decisive action. And action, ultimately, must start at the individual level. Gandhi once said that, in terms of the cosmos, “Almost everything you do will seem insignificant, but it is important that you do it.” Echoing this idea in a comment on one of my blog posts on healthcare reform, one of my Facebook friends, Cheryl Batoon, emphasized the importance of “the power of ONE” in effecting political change and countering the destructive impact of misinformed negative rhetoric.
The power of one means you, no matter who you are, or what your current situation is. There is a wry sort of joke that has been much repeated during this crisis: if your neighbor is unemployed, it’s a recession. But if you are unemployed, it’s a depression. And for the out-of-work individual or the financially struggling business owner, the resolution ultimately depends on individual action.
Action has to start somewhere. Spending one dollar triggers a ripple of subsequent transactions that raise the impact of that one dollar by many multiples. And the actions of one individual create a similar multiplier effect within society.
From chaos theory we learn that a butterfly fluttering its wings somewhere along the coast of Africa can alter the course of a hurricane. Similarly, the buck-and-change you spend for a cup of Joe from the 7-Eleven could alter the course of the recovery.
So take some action. Take some risks. Spend an extra buck at the store today. If you’re in business and finally finding a bit more room in your operating margin or credit line, hire one more person, even if it’s for an unglamorous, low-paying position, to take one more person off the unemployment rolls and get them spending again. If you’re out of work, hit the Send button on just one more online job application today. It might be the one that ends your depression of one and your still-working next-door neighbor’s recession of one.
Sphere: Related Content
Friday, August 28, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The Cycle of the Storm
For the past several weeks, and often within the course of a given week, the tone of news about the economy has been like a roller coaster. One week housing starts or corporate earnings are unexpectedly up. The public likes it, and so does Wall Street.
Yet another week a surprising uptick in jobless claims hits. The public turns pessimistic again and the Dow takes a dip. Then Chairman Bernanke says there are strong indications that the economy has bottomed.
So we’ve entered a period of mixed signals and ambiguous indicators. Think back to the first quarter of this year, and it shouldn’t be hard to see the difference. After a brief period of collective optimism as the new administration came took over, the stark realities of an incredible tsunami of layoffs set in. The stories seemed increasingly grim as we stumbled our way through a tough and frightening first quarter.
In keeping with the season, the green chutes stories started showing up in the spring, and early in the summer some of the bolder pundits were among the earliest to pronounce the recession dead.
Against the backdrop of the beginning of 2009, the current mixed signals seem, in contrast, to be a good sign. Recovery doesn’t happen all at once, so it stands to reason that at the beginning of a recovery the signals would be mixed.
Just as there was a succession to the tumbling of the various sectors--starting, of course, with the banks and the big investment houses--there will be a sequence to the recovery. The crisis began with the banks, and the recovery seems to be starting with the banks. There’s really an elegant symmetry to the whole thing. A line from Yeats, “A terrible beauty is born,” comes to mind.
Remember, the signals were also mixed at the beginning of the downturn. Through 2007 and the first three quarters of 2008, the picture was cloudy and confusing. Unemployment began to rise well before the Bear Sterns and Lehman collapses. There were plenty of signs early on that something was amiss with the economy, but most people didn’t really have a clue what was coming.
There were recurring stories in the news about the subprime mortgage crisis, but people were too distracted by the noise of the energy-price crisis. But the true crisis, already well into its formation behind the scenes, wasn’t about energy at all.
Most people who were starting to feel the pinch of a nascent downturn thought it was all about the gas, until the collapse of the big financial firms in the fall of 2008 brought on a storm of a magnitude that no one was expecting. It was an economic equivalent of getting caught off-guard by hurricane Katrina. Few knew how serious the economic storm would actually be, so most of us were unprepared.
Indeed, one could say that the life cycle of a recession is like unto the life cycle of a hurricane. There is a period of gathering clouds, when no one is sure what course the storm will take and how much strength it will gather at sea before making landfall. This was 2007 and most of 2008. Especially given the behavior of the stock market, it would have been just as easy for the casual observer, entering 2008, to conclude that another boom could be in the making rather than a astronomical bust.
But then the storm struck in all of its wrathful, furious glory, leaving an immediate trail of astonishing devastation. This was the fall of 2008.
Then we went “into the eye,” a period of deceptive calm that gives few warnings of the fury that is still to come. This was the period from around just before the election through shortly after President Obama’s inauguration.
Once we were out of the eye, a second wave of fury ensued with the staggering tumult of job cuts as companies were forced to deal with decapitated credit lines, dreadful year-end results, and abysmal first-quarter forecasts.
In the spring the clouds showed some signs of breaking up and the storm signs of weakening. And through the summer bursts of sunlight have begun to show through gaps in the cloud cover. Is it time to send a bird out of the ark to see if it brings back a sprig of leaves?
Let’s just hope, to follow the metaphor through, that this is the end of the current hurricane season, and that there isn’t a Rita building strength in the tropics to unleash a second wave of fury after the economic Katrina. Sphere: Related Content
Yet another week a surprising uptick in jobless claims hits. The public turns pessimistic again and the Dow takes a dip. Then Chairman Bernanke says there are strong indications that the economy has bottomed.
So we’ve entered a period of mixed signals and ambiguous indicators. Think back to the first quarter of this year, and it shouldn’t be hard to see the difference. After a brief period of collective optimism as the new administration came took over, the stark realities of an incredible tsunami of layoffs set in. The stories seemed increasingly grim as we stumbled our way through a tough and frightening first quarter.
In keeping with the season, the green chutes stories started showing up in the spring, and early in the summer some of the bolder pundits were among the earliest to pronounce the recession dead.
Against the backdrop of the beginning of 2009, the current mixed signals seem, in contrast, to be a good sign. Recovery doesn’t happen all at once, so it stands to reason that at the beginning of a recovery the signals would be mixed.
Just as there was a succession to the tumbling of the various sectors--starting, of course, with the banks and the big investment houses--there will be a sequence to the recovery. The crisis began with the banks, and the recovery seems to be starting with the banks. There’s really an elegant symmetry to the whole thing. A line from Yeats, “A terrible beauty is born,” comes to mind.
Remember, the signals were also mixed at the beginning of the downturn. Through 2007 and the first three quarters of 2008, the picture was cloudy and confusing. Unemployment began to rise well before the Bear Sterns and Lehman collapses. There were plenty of signs early on that something was amiss with the economy, but most people didn’t really have a clue what was coming.
There were recurring stories in the news about the subprime mortgage crisis, but people were too distracted by the noise of the energy-price crisis. But the true crisis, already well into its formation behind the scenes, wasn’t about energy at all.
Most people who were starting to feel the pinch of a nascent downturn thought it was all about the gas, until the collapse of the big financial firms in the fall of 2008 brought on a storm of a magnitude that no one was expecting. It was an economic equivalent of getting caught off-guard by hurricane Katrina. Few knew how serious the economic storm would actually be, so most of us were unprepared.
Indeed, one could say that the life cycle of a recession is like unto the life cycle of a hurricane. There is a period of gathering clouds, when no one is sure what course the storm will take and how much strength it will gather at sea before making landfall. This was 2007 and most of 2008. Especially given the behavior of the stock market, it would have been just as easy for the casual observer, entering 2008, to conclude that another boom could be in the making rather than a astronomical bust.
But then the storm struck in all of its wrathful, furious glory, leaving an immediate trail of astonishing devastation. This was the fall of 2008.
Then we went “into the eye,” a period of deceptive calm that gives few warnings of the fury that is still to come. This was the period from around just before the election through shortly after President Obama’s inauguration.
Once we were out of the eye, a second wave of fury ensued with the staggering tumult of job cuts as companies were forced to deal with decapitated credit lines, dreadful year-end results, and abysmal first-quarter forecasts.
In the spring the clouds showed some signs of breaking up and the storm signs of weakening. And through the summer bursts of sunlight have begun to show through gaps in the cloud cover. Is it time to send a bird out of the ark to see if it brings back a sprig of leaves?
Let’s just hope, to follow the metaphor through, that this is the end of the current hurricane season, and that there isn’t a Rita building strength in the tropics to unleash a second wave of fury after the economic Katrina. Sphere: Related Content
Monday, August 24, 2009
More on the Origin of “The Dismal Science”
In an earlier post I promised to elaborate on my research into the origin of the nickname “The Dismal Science” for economics. For the sake of keeping that promise, and for the benefit of those who may not already know, I’ll share my finding that the term appears to originate with the 19th-century British “man of letters” Thomas Carlyle.
However, as some of you also may know already, there is much more than meets the eye behind that deceptively simple citation of historical fact. My exploration of the context in which Carlyle appears to have coined the phrase has taken on such a life of its own that it now appears that the best medium for sharing it will actually be a short e-book rather than a blog post.
Hence, I will take this opportunity to announce the forthcoming e-book Thomas Carlyle, Racism, and the Dismal Science: Clues to Hidden Truths About the Modern Conservative Movement?
I expect to release the e-book sometime in September, and will likely make it freely available to registered subscribers to Undismalization. To reserve your copy, please register per the instructions here.
The release of Thomas Carlyle, Racism, and the Dismal Science may also end up being the debut of the Undismal Press imprint. Stay tuned for further details as the project nears completion. Sphere: Related Content
However, as some of you also may know already, there is much more than meets the eye behind that deceptively simple citation of historical fact. My exploration of the context in which Carlyle appears to have coined the phrase has taken on such a life of its own that it now appears that the best medium for sharing it will actually be a short e-book rather than a blog post.
Hence, I will take this opportunity to announce the forthcoming e-book Thomas Carlyle, Racism, and the Dismal Science: Clues to Hidden Truths About the Modern Conservative Movement?
I expect to release the e-book sometime in September, and will likely make it freely available to registered subscribers to Undismalization. To reserve your copy, please register per the instructions here.
The release of Thomas Carlyle, Racism, and the Dismal Science may also end up being the debut of the Undismal Press imprint. Stay tuned for further details as the project nears completion. Sphere: Related Content
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
On the Profoundly Ironic Illogic of Screaming “Keep Your Government Hands Off My Healthcare!”
When a system has been in place throughout your entire nation since well before you were born, it’s easy to make the conclusion--unwarranted, given a lack of exploration of the evidence--that it's normal and that it makes sense. So it is, it seems, with the opinion of many Americans about our employer-based healthcare system, which is anything but normal among the major economies of the Western world.
It is a natural human phenomenon, one of the faults in our cognitive wiring. Thinking that “the way it’s always been” is normal and sensible is no different than a child who is just beginning to become aware of foreign languages refer to his or her own native tongue as “normal talk.”
To those who, at town hall meetings, are screaming “KEEP YOUR GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY HEALTHCARE,” or brandishing signs with similar messages of indignant protest, I would ask you to take a close, critical look at one very fundamental but largely ignored question.
To indulge, for the sake of argument, in some phraseology that might among some readers get my non-party-affiliated, more-or-less centrist self branded as a lot more Lefty than I in fact really am, I would like to ask: why in the WORLD, out of all the scenarios one could possibly envision, would you want your EMPLOYER’S bottom-line-driven hands on your healthcare?
If you are concerned about a government healthcare plan infringing upon your privacy and your constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I would suggest taking a closer look at whether you might be much more vulnerable to abuses in those areas from your employer.
The right to privacy is all but non-existent in a workplace setting. Once you cross the threshold of your office building, you waive, by implied contract, many of the rights and protections you enjoy when you are out in public. Your employer can archive your e-mails and read them if they wish. Your employer can monitor your activities with hidden cameras, without your knowledge. Your telephone calls "may be recorded for training and quality assurance purposes." And your employer, of course, is involved much more intimately in your daily life than the government could ever be, unless, perhaps, you work for the government.
The potential for abuse may be greatest in small-to-midsize companies, in which the administrative infrastructure for ensuring the protection of employee rights to privacy and non-discrimination may be non-existent, as may the checks and balances to prevent personal and private information from getting into the wrong hands and being misused.
Here is just one of many scenarios. Imagine you work for a small firm of about 25 people, in which, as is often the case in small offices, there is virtually no privacy, and everyone pretty much knows everyone else’s business.
Let's suppose, further, that you or a dependent covered under your plan have had a serious, chronic illness that will require very expensive treatment for some time to come. And everyone in the office knows it, from the owner of the company right down to the guy who comes in to empty the trash at night.
And suppose, for the two years running during which this illness has been an issue, your company's health insurance provider has hit your company with a hefty increase in premiums. In a small office, it wouldn't be hard for the owner, or the operations or HR manager, or whoever else might be responsible for benefits, to put two and two together and figure out just what might be playing an important role in the increasing costs.
And finally, imagine that, after years of glowing performance evaluations, the boss suddenly becomes concerned about some previously undiscussed flaws in your performance, and dismisses you for cause -- or, even more stealthily, promotes you to be head of a new department and then, not long afterward, decides that the new department no longer fits the corporate strategy, eliminates the department and, by extension, the need for your job.
Illegal? Yes. But also difficult, if not virtually impossible, to prove. And even if you could prove it, doing something about it would be very costly--both monetarily and, quite possibly, professionally. Most employees, particularly in small communities, or in smaller industries in which managers in competing companies tend to know one another, would likely rather move on than risk the possible stigma that can follow someone who has sued a prior employer.
Do you think this scenario is unlikely? I don't. I'm sure it plays out in various permutations and combinations all the time, all over the U.S., with its wonderful, employer-based healthcare system. The best healthcare system in the world, say those who are fighting the current reform effort and screaming at the town hall meetings.
Unfortunately, many of us seem to be stuck in a cognitive loop when it comes to seeing the flaws in the most basic attribute of our current system, and to envisioning alternatives. Sphere: Related Content
It is a natural human phenomenon, one of the faults in our cognitive wiring. Thinking that “the way it’s always been” is normal and sensible is no different than a child who is just beginning to become aware of foreign languages refer to his or her own native tongue as “normal talk.”
To those who, at town hall meetings, are screaming “KEEP YOUR GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY HEALTHCARE,” or brandishing signs with similar messages of indignant protest, I would ask you to take a close, critical look at one very fundamental but largely ignored question.
To indulge, for the sake of argument, in some phraseology that might among some readers get my non-party-affiliated, more-or-less centrist self branded as a lot more Lefty than I in fact really am, I would like to ask: why in the WORLD, out of all the scenarios one could possibly envision, would you want your EMPLOYER’S bottom-line-driven hands on your healthcare?
If you are concerned about a government healthcare plan infringing upon your privacy and your constitutional rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I would suggest taking a closer look at whether you might be much more vulnerable to abuses in those areas from your employer.
The right to privacy is all but non-existent in a workplace setting. Once you cross the threshold of your office building, you waive, by implied contract, many of the rights and protections you enjoy when you are out in public. Your employer can archive your e-mails and read them if they wish. Your employer can monitor your activities with hidden cameras, without your knowledge. Your telephone calls "may be recorded for training and quality assurance purposes." And your employer, of course, is involved much more intimately in your daily life than the government could ever be, unless, perhaps, you work for the government.
The potential for abuse may be greatest in small-to-midsize companies, in which the administrative infrastructure for ensuring the protection of employee rights to privacy and non-discrimination may be non-existent, as may the checks and balances to prevent personal and private information from getting into the wrong hands and being misused.
Here is just one of many scenarios. Imagine you work for a small firm of about 25 people, in which, as is often the case in small offices, there is virtually no privacy, and everyone pretty much knows everyone else’s business.
Let's suppose, further, that you or a dependent covered under your plan have had a serious, chronic illness that will require very expensive treatment for some time to come. And everyone in the office knows it, from the owner of the company right down to the guy who comes in to empty the trash at night.
And suppose, for the two years running during which this illness has been an issue, your company's health insurance provider has hit your company with a hefty increase in premiums. In a small office, it wouldn't be hard for the owner, or the operations or HR manager, or whoever else might be responsible for benefits, to put two and two together and figure out just what might be playing an important role in the increasing costs.
And finally, imagine that, after years of glowing performance evaluations, the boss suddenly becomes concerned about some previously undiscussed flaws in your performance, and dismisses you for cause -- or, even more stealthily, promotes you to be head of a new department and then, not long afterward, decides that the new department no longer fits the corporate strategy, eliminates the department and, by extension, the need for your job.
Illegal? Yes. But also difficult, if not virtually impossible, to prove. And even if you could prove it, doing something about it would be very costly--both monetarily and, quite possibly, professionally. Most employees, particularly in small communities, or in smaller industries in which managers in competing companies tend to know one another, would likely rather move on than risk the possible stigma that can follow someone who has sued a prior employer.
Do you think this scenario is unlikely? I don't. I'm sure it plays out in various permutations and combinations all the time, all over the U.S., with its wonderful, employer-based healthcare system. The best healthcare system in the world, say those who are fighting the current reform effort and screaming at the town hall meetings.
Unfortunately, many of us seem to be stuck in a cognitive loop when it comes to seeing the flaws in the most basic attribute of our current system, and to envisioning alternatives. Sphere: Related Content
Monday, August 17, 2009
So Now the Public Option Seems to be Off the Table -- And That's a Crying Shame
President Obama, in the spirit of his reputation as The Great Compromiser--which I do in fact applaud as one of his stronger political attributes that enables him, like Bill Clinton, to at least get SOME things accomplished in the face of stiff opposition from within his party and without--has now backed down entirely on the much and very unfairly maligned "Public Option" for healthcare reform.
The fringe contingents of tea-baggers and town-hall-meeting disrupters, spurred on by their deceitful talk-radio gurus, like mustacheoed villains in an old melodrama, appear to be winning the battle.
I think that this is a crying shame, for the following key reasons:
The fringe contingents of tea-baggers and town-hall-meeting disrupters, spurred on by their deceitful talk-radio gurus, like mustacheoed villains in an old melodrama, appear to be winning the battle.
I think that this is a crying shame, for the following key reasons:
- Proposed as the "alternative" to a public option is a seemingly vaguely defined notion of "nonprofit cooperatives," a model that some commentators have argued is virtually untested and has a shaky track record in areas of the U.S. where it has been tested.
- I have a sinking feeling that, without a public option, whatever plan ultimately passes will result only in a very limited change to the status quo. The non-profit cooperatives may not impose sufficient checks-and-balances on the for-profit insurers, with all their clout and public relations, marketing, and lobbying muscle.
- Non-profit organizations that DO become successful usually do so by acting a lot like for-profit organizations. I know that from the experience of having worked for a successful non-profit. And just look at Blue Cross/Blue Shield as a key example from the healthcare industry itself. So the differences between the private insurers and the non-profit "options" may end up being very superficial.
- As I have argued previously, I believe that the biggest flaw in our current system is also its most basic attribute: it is employer-based. Calling any new initiative a "reform" without substantively addressing this basic flaw is, in my opinion, highly suspect.
- The President's backing down on this issue in spite of a strong majority in both the House and Senate--and, for goodness sake, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate--is a testament to just how powerful are the special interests who support the status quo. For example, as I have discussed in a previous post, there is evidence that the one senator who arguably has the most influence on the process may be vulnerable to heavy pressure from the healthcare industry.
Monday, August 10, 2009
No Revisit, This Time, On Employer-Based Health Insurance
In the earliest stages of his administration's engagement with the healthcare reform issue, President Obama made it clear that a "Canadian-type" model won't work for us, at least not now, since we are not starting from scratch.
This makes complete sense from a pragmatic perspective. If we were to try to start from scratch, the likely result would be the same 30-plus years of inaction we have already endured, with the status quo becoming worse and worse.
But, speaking from the North American summit today, President Obama made another remark that made his point on "the Canadian question" a bit clearer. He said that the reason a Canadian model won't work is that "we have an employer based system here," suggesting that he is resigned to the idea that a revisit of the employer-based insurance model is something that simply can't happen now.
This is a shame. Again, from a pragmatic perspective, he is probably correct. Any short-term effort to dismantle the system of employer-based coverage would almost surely be doomed to fail. Not the least among the reasons for this is the level of influence that industries vested in the status quo appear to have on our legislators.
But I hope the administration and its supporters do not lose sight of a revisit of employer-based coverage as a longer-term issue, because I believe that the employer-based model is the single biggest flaw in our current system.
Within the rest of the industrialized world, the employer-based system is truly an oddity. It is a remnant of the so-called "Gilded Age" in the United States, which on one hand is famous for the prosperity achieved by the few but on the other for the abuses of workers that were permitted by a hands-off government.
The fundamental flaw of employer-based healthcare is this: everything can be hunky-dory for your regular checkups, treatment of mild chronic illness, and so on, until you either get very sick, change jobs, or lose your job. When you don't need your health plan all that much, everything is fine. But when you get sick enough to REALLY need your health plan, chances are you will lose it, because you may also be too sick to work and, as a result, will lose your job.
This flaw in the model is so basic and obvious that it goes beyond illogic and into the territory of absurdity and insanity. I challenge anyone to persuade me otherwise with a cogent argument for why this model makes sense.
But until then, I can only conclude that there will be no meaningful healthcare reform until the employer-based model is either replaced entirely or supplemented with a viable, robust system of backup coverage for those who lose their employer-based coverage due to illness, economics, or other reasons. Sphere: Related Content
This makes complete sense from a pragmatic perspective. If we were to try to start from scratch, the likely result would be the same 30-plus years of inaction we have already endured, with the status quo becoming worse and worse.
But, speaking from the North American summit today, President Obama made another remark that made his point on "the Canadian question" a bit clearer. He said that the reason a Canadian model won't work is that "we have an employer based system here," suggesting that he is resigned to the idea that a revisit of the employer-based insurance model is something that simply can't happen now.
This is a shame. Again, from a pragmatic perspective, he is probably correct. Any short-term effort to dismantle the system of employer-based coverage would almost surely be doomed to fail. Not the least among the reasons for this is the level of influence that industries vested in the status quo appear to have on our legislators.
But I hope the administration and its supporters do not lose sight of a revisit of employer-based coverage as a longer-term issue, because I believe that the employer-based model is the single biggest flaw in our current system.
Within the rest of the industrialized world, the employer-based system is truly an oddity. It is a remnant of the so-called "Gilded Age" in the United States, which on one hand is famous for the prosperity achieved by the few but on the other for the abuses of workers that were permitted by a hands-off government.
The fundamental flaw of employer-based healthcare is this: everything can be hunky-dory for your regular checkups, treatment of mild chronic illness, and so on, until you either get very sick, change jobs, or lose your job. When you don't need your health plan all that much, everything is fine. But when you get sick enough to REALLY need your health plan, chances are you will lose it, because you may also be too sick to work and, as a result, will lose your job.
This flaw in the model is so basic and obvious that it goes beyond illogic and into the territory of absurdity and insanity. I challenge anyone to persuade me otherwise with a cogent argument for why this model makes sense.
But until then, I can only conclude that there will be no meaningful healthcare reform until the employer-based model is either replaced entirely or supplemented with a viable, robust system of backup coverage for those who lose their employer-based coverage due to illness, economics, or other reasons. Sphere: Related Content
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Identify Yourself!
If you read this blog regularly, I’d like to ask a favor. To ensure that you receive the most timely possible alerts on new postings, as well as information on opportunities to receive supplementary publications or ancillary products that we may announce from time to time, I would like to enroll you as a registered subscriber. To register, please e-mail haywardwc@gmail.com with the minimum information of your first name, last name, and preferred e-mail address for receiving updates.
Additional information, such as your city, state/province, country, mailing address, telephone number, organizational affiliation, job title, etc., may also help us serve you better in the future as this project develops further, but is entirely at your discretion.
Last but not least, enrolling as a registered subscriber will help us meet our objective of achieving a consistent and growing readership base which, in turn, will help ensure the long-term viability of Undismalization as a self-sustaining electronic publication.
We will not share your personal information with any third parties without your express permission.
So please take a moment to e-mail the information requested above. Thank you in advance for considering participation as a registered subscriber and for taking the time to read Undismalization. As always, your comments, critiques, and proposals for guest contributions are welcome.
Respectfully yours,
W. C. Hayward, Editor Sphere: Related Content
Additional information, such as your city, state/province, country, mailing address, telephone number, organizational affiliation, job title, etc., may also help us serve you better in the future as this project develops further, but is entirely at your discretion.
Last but not least, enrolling as a registered subscriber will help us meet our objective of achieving a consistent and growing readership base which, in turn, will help ensure the long-term viability of Undismalization as a self-sustaining electronic publication.
We will not share your personal information with any third parties without your express permission.
So please take a moment to e-mail the information requested above. Thank you in advance for considering participation as a registered subscriber and for taking the time to read Undismalization. As always, your comments, critiques, and proposals for guest contributions are welcome.
Respectfully yours,
W. C. Hayward, Editor Sphere: Related Content
Monday, August 3, 2009
Boring and Interesting at the Same Time
Recently some loosely related fragments of thought about economics were circulating in my mind. They seemed to be trying to find a way to coalesce into some form of higher level connection.
The first fragment was simple enough, on the surface. I was wondering what the origin was of “The Dismal Science” as a nickname for economics. One might think I would have looked into that before deciding to name my blog Undismalization, but I didn’t. So I finally decided to do some research into the question.
But before I began that research, I had already started to form some speculative hypotheses. One was that the name may have emerged as a reference to what some might simplistically think of as a “dryness” of the field compared to some other sciences, due to its focus on money and numbers. I reasoned that this supposed dryness, in the popular mind, might in turn make economists vulnerable to some of the same stereotypes to which practitioners of related fields, like accounting, fall victim.
As it turns out, I will need to deal in a separate post with the results of my investigation into the actual origin of the Dismal Science nickname, since it took me in a very surprising and unexpected direction that is quite different from the relationship that ultimately emerged among the original strands of thought that led to this post.
But meanwhile, as I continued to speculate about the nickname’s origin, my thoughts shifted to current representations of economists in popular culture, namely a couple of television advertising campaigns. One features Ben Stein and Shaquille O’Neil. Another uses actors to portray nerdy-looking economists who are, as they say, “with the government and here to help.” They go house to house and knock on doors--which, predictably, are peremptorily closed in their faces.
So the popular mind thinks of economists as dry, monotone, socially awkward types. According to the stereotype, they are all nerds. And they are all male, a misleading stereotype that in itself is worthy of further study. If you‘ll forgive my own indulgence, for the sake of argument, in a different stereotype, I know of some economists whom I would have to describe as “hot babes.”
I hope this point will be taken from my intended perspective of suggesting respectfully that being both an economist and a hot babe could be viewed as an empowering redefinition of what it means to be either. I approach this issue, of course, from a heterosexual male point of view, but the same principle could just as well apply to male economists who would defy the stereotypes.
But as portrayed in popular culture, economists are guys who probably didn’t get too many dates in high school. Or college. Or grad school. Or as postdoctoral fellows. Or as tenured professors, think-tank scholars, or investment analysts. And so on. So, I wondered, is this stereotype related to the origin of the Dismal Science nickname?
These two strands of thought made me think back in turn on how, years ago, I used to describe my undergraduate economics courses to people who would ask me how I liked them. Usually, the person asking the question seemed to be operating from a preexisting assumption that economics courses were boring.
The question always made me chuckle to myself, because my feeling about the issue was somewhat two-sided. The best way I could answer was to say that the courses were “boring and interesting at the same time,” or that they were “interesting but could still put you to sleep.”
I’ve mentioned this before in this blog, but I’ll repeat it for the benefit of newer readers: I’m not an academically credentialed economist. My formal training in economics is limited to an undergraduate minor. So I only got so far into advanced level coursework, and I have little doubt that if I had gone further in the field the courses would have become more stimulating.
But “boring and interesting at the same time” was only a slight indulgence in hyperbole for the elementary- to intermediate-level courses I took. On one level I was attracted to the elegantly pure logic of the process of thinking through how the basic market forces of supply and demand play out in scenarios at the macro and micro levels, ranging from the determination of energy prices or mortgage rates to the formulation of urban land use policies.
Yet I’d still often find myself dozing in class, or paying a lot more attention to unrelated distractions, such as how some fellow student a couple of seats away was crossing and uncrossing her legs (who knows -- maybe she went on to get her PhD and is now one of those “hot babe” economists I mention above!), than to the professor’s lecture.
Maybe this was all a random function of the personalities of the professors whose courses I happened to select. They were a notch above the Ben Stein stereotype in personality and charm, but not a very big notch. So, I wondered, is this further evidence that observations about common personality traits among some economics practitioners may have something to do with the Dismal Science nickname?
But I then thought about how engaging and unboring some of the most noted economists are--to me, at least. I’ll leave it to others to judge whether the fact that I consider the likes of Paul Krugman, Larry Summers, and Austan Goolsbee to be interesting people may simply mean that I am boring.
And then I thought about how ironic it is that Ben Stein, the figure whose public persona arguably embodies most closely the “nerdy economist” stereotype, has, to the best of my understanding, only a shaky claim to being an economist. Trained as an attorney, he holds only an undergraduate degree in economics.
Do these stereotypes discourage some bright and talented people from becoming economists, just as the nerd stereotype, in general, discourages some people from taking up other sciences? If so, that’s a shame--because the current crisis, and the dumbed-down, reduced-to-soundbites character of so much of the media dialogue about it, demonstrates just how much need there is for engaging, passionate economics experts who can communicate authentic, innovative ideas to the public on how to solve our problems and move forward constructively.
Yet the debate that is trickling down to the “man on the street” level seems to still be frozen in a language that dates, at the latest, to the Cold War, and that has limited relevance to complexities of the global, interdependent, technology-driven world we live in today. The language of this debate is simply inadequate to the task of helping the constituents of our elected officials make informed decisions on what policies and rules of the business playing field they should support. Yet maintaining this outdated language seems to help the cause of those whose interests are best served by conserving the status quo.
In some cases, conservative commentators seem to be deliberately perpetuating stereotypes about economists as part of their rhetorical strategy. Rush Limbaugh, for example, has verbally caricatured Austan Goolsbee as “one of those eggheads, those Ivy-educated economists,” in the Obama administration.
I know that there are professional economists among the readers of this blog, and I intend no offense to any of them. I am not suggesting that there are not plenty of economists who are among the best and brightest in intellect and who have personality, passion, and social and communication skills to match.
But given the fact that my undergraduate experience partially reinforced the negative stereotypes, and given the prevalence of those stereotypes in popular culture, it may be worth a pause to ask whether the so-called Dismal Science is doing a good enough job at selling itself for what it in fact really is: a very important and most Undismal science that focuses on one of the most fundamental ways that human beings in organized societies navigate their relationships to one another: through the medium of money. As such, it’s a science that should inspire excitement rather than a fear of being bored to death. It’s a science that should matter a lot to everyday Joes and Janes as well as intellectuals.
And, who knows -- maybe a Web gallery of “The Sexiest Economists Alive” would be a lighthearted yet empowering way to start breaking the stereotypes. Sphere: Related Content
The first fragment was simple enough, on the surface. I was wondering what the origin was of “The Dismal Science” as a nickname for economics. One might think I would have looked into that before deciding to name my blog Undismalization, but I didn’t. So I finally decided to do some research into the question.
But before I began that research, I had already started to form some speculative hypotheses. One was that the name may have emerged as a reference to what some might simplistically think of as a “dryness” of the field compared to some other sciences, due to its focus on money and numbers. I reasoned that this supposed dryness, in the popular mind, might in turn make economists vulnerable to some of the same stereotypes to which practitioners of related fields, like accounting, fall victim.
As it turns out, I will need to deal in a separate post with the results of my investigation into the actual origin of the Dismal Science nickname, since it took me in a very surprising and unexpected direction that is quite different from the relationship that ultimately emerged among the original strands of thought that led to this post.
But meanwhile, as I continued to speculate about the nickname’s origin, my thoughts shifted to current representations of economists in popular culture, namely a couple of television advertising campaigns. One features Ben Stein and Shaquille O’Neil. Another uses actors to portray nerdy-looking economists who are, as they say, “with the government and here to help.” They go house to house and knock on doors--which, predictably, are peremptorily closed in their faces.
So the popular mind thinks of economists as dry, monotone, socially awkward types. According to the stereotype, they are all nerds. And they are all male, a misleading stereotype that in itself is worthy of further study. If you‘ll forgive my own indulgence, for the sake of argument, in a different stereotype, I know of some economists whom I would have to describe as “hot babes.”
I hope this point will be taken from my intended perspective of suggesting respectfully that being both an economist and a hot babe could be viewed as an empowering redefinition of what it means to be either. I approach this issue, of course, from a heterosexual male point of view, but the same principle could just as well apply to male economists who would defy the stereotypes.
But as portrayed in popular culture, economists are guys who probably didn’t get too many dates in high school. Or college. Or grad school. Or as postdoctoral fellows. Or as tenured professors, think-tank scholars, or investment analysts. And so on. So, I wondered, is this stereotype related to the origin of the Dismal Science nickname?
These two strands of thought made me think back in turn on how, years ago, I used to describe my undergraduate economics courses to people who would ask me how I liked them. Usually, the person asking the question seemed to be operating from a preexisting assumption that economics courses were boring.
The question always made me chuckle to myself, because my feeling about the issue was somewhat two-sided. The best way I could answer was to say that the courses were “boring and interesting at the same time,” or that they were “interesting but could still put you to sleep.”
I’ve mentioned this before in this blog, but I’ll repeat it for the benefit of newer readers: I’m not an academically credentialed economist. My formal training in economics is limited to an undergraduate minor. So I only got so far into advanced level coursework, and I have little doubt that if I had gone further in the field the courses would have become more stimulating.
But “boring and interesting at the same time” was only a slight indulgence in hyperbole for the elementary- to intermediate-level courses I took. On one level I was attracted to the elegantly pure logic of the process of thinking through how the basic market forces of supply and demand play out in scenarios at the macro and micro levels, ranging from the determination of energy prices or mortgage rates to the formulation of urban land use policies.
Yet I’d still often find myself dozing in class, or paying a lot more attention to unrelated distractions, such as how some fellow student a couple of seats away was crossing and uncrossing her legs (who knows -- maybe she went on to get her PhD and is now one of those “hot babe” economists I mention above!), than to the professor’s lecture.
Maybe this was all a random function of the personalities of the professors whose courses I happened to select. They were a notch above the Ben Stein stereotype in personality and charm, but not a very big notch. So, I wondered, is this further evidence that observations about common personality traits among some economics practitioners may have something to do with the Dismal Science nickname?
But I then thought about how engaging and unboring some of the most noted economists are--to me, at least. I’ll leave it to others to judge whether the fact that I consider the likes of Paul Krugman, Larry Summers, and Austan Goolsbee to be interesting people may simply mean that I am boring.
And then I thought about how ironic it is that Ben Stein, the figure whose public persona arguably embodies most closely the “nerdy economist” stereotype, has, to the best of my understanding, only a shaky claim to being an economist. Trained as an attorney, he holds only an undergraduate degree in economics.
Do these stereotypes discourage some bright and talented people from becoming economists, just as the nerd stereotype, in general, discourages some people from taking up other sciences? If so, that’s a shame--because the current crisis, and the dumbed-down, reduced-to-soundbites character of so much of the media dialogue about it, demonstrates just how much need there is for engaging, passionate economics experts who can communicate authentic, innovative ideas to the public on how to solve our problems and move forward constructively.
Yet the debate that is trickling down to the “man on the street” level seems to still be frozen in a language that dates, at the latest, to the Cold War, and that has limited relevance to complexities of the global, interdependent, technology-driven world we live in today. The language of this debate is simply inadequate to the task of helping the constituents of our elected officials make informed decisions on what policies and rules of the business playing field they should support. Yet maintaining this outdated language seems to help the cause of those whose interests are best served by conserving the status quo.
In some cases, conservative commentators seem to be deliberately perpetuating stereotypes about economists as part of their rhetorical strategy. Rush Limbaugh, for example, has verbally caricatured Austan Goolsbee as “one of those eggheads, those Ivy-educated economists,” in the Obama administration.
I know that there are professional economists among the readers of this blog, and I intend no offense to any of them. I am not suggesting that there are not plenty of economists who are among the best and brightest in intellect and who have personality, passion, and social and communication skills to match.
But given the fact that my undergraduate experience partially reinforced the negative stereotypes, and given the prevalence of those stereotypes in popular culture, it may be worth a pause to ask whether the so-called Dismal Science is doing a good enough job at selling itself for what it in fact really is: a very important and most Undismal science that focuses on one of the most fundamental ways that human beings in organized societies navigate their relationships to one another: through the medium of money. As such, it’s a science that should inspire excitement rather than a fear of being bored to death. It’s a science that should matter a lot to everyday Joes and Janes as well as intellectuals.
And, who knows -- maybe a Web gallery of “The Sexiest Economists Alive” would be a lighthearted yet empowering way to start breaking the stereotypes. Sphere: Related Content
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