Unlearning Economics

@unlearnecon

Economist, YouTuber, gamer, author, academic (in that order)

795 Siguiendo9594 Seguidores1051 Publicaciones

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¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y unlearnecon.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Jun 16

I'm not sure why the BBC main headlines continue plainly reporting the things Trump says. Seriously, I want to know what it is! Is it fear of his threats? 'Impartiality'? Extremely dry sarcasm?

A BBC news graphic shows Donald Trump in a dark blue suit and tie speaking and gesturing with one hand while seated indoors, with a U.S. flag visible in the background. The headline reads: “Trump may release US-Iran deal before Friday, Vance says.” A subheadline states that the U.S. vice president says the agreement is “about a page and a half” and “very general,” with many details to be worked out later.

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Jun 5

Somehow, every time I read about the eurozone crisis I get even angrier about it than I was before

From Against Money by Mason and Jayadev:

Supporters of the ECB’s actions were quite clear about this. Here for example is then–Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann: ‘Relieving stress in the sovereign bond markets eases imminent funding pain but blurs the signal to sovereigns about the precarious state of public finances and the urgent need to act. Macroeconomic imbalances and unsustainable public and private debt in some member states lie at the heart of the sovereign debt crisis. It may appeal to politicians to abstain from unpopular decisions and try to solve problems through monetary accommodation. However, it is up to monetary policymakers to fend off these pressures.’ It is up to the ECB, in other words, to apply its own pressure on governments, to make up for the pressure from the bond markets that it has relieved.

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Jun 3

Pleased to see that Rethinking Economics have launched their membership! Join up if you’re fed up with mainstream economics www.rethinkeconomics.org

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· May 1

Love to see a tenured professor being factually proved wrong and then calling people 'tards' in response. Not sure which is to blame, the economics profession or twitter. Glad I left them both! www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeMc...

Screenshot of a Twitter/X exchange with three replies:
First post by Joseph Steinberg (@jbsteinberg), 9 hours ago: "FYI: the anonymous writer Unlearning Economics is not an actual economist. They're just an online weirdo with a grudge against the economics profession going back almost 20 years." The post has 5 replies, 7 retweets, 344 likes, and 9.3K views.
Reply by Ben Harrell (@elben), 9 hours ago: "Can confirm he is an economist at a top university. Or at least was when I went in his podcast a few years ago." The reply has 4 replies, 35 likes, and 1.5K views.
Reply by Joseph Steinberg (@jbsteinberg), 9 hours ago: "Sorry but heterotards from Oxbridge don't count." The reply has 2 replies, 40 likes, and 1.5K views.

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· May 1

One of the authors of Abundance went on an angry rant about my rent control article, seemingly without reading it. Wonder if he knows about my negative review of his book? (Which I actually read!) Links: www.currentaffairs.org/news/rent-co... www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxzd...

Screenshot of a tweet from Derek Thompson (@DKThomp). The text reads: "I'm glad that the author of 'Rent Control Is Fine, Actually' calls themself Unlearning Economics, bc it's good to just state things clearly, such as the open animosity that many left economic populists have for the field of economics and economists themselves. Economists aren't gods, and economics isn't a divine truth, but economists are good—better than most—at something critical for making public policy: They're good at identifying tradeoffs. 'Rents are too high, so freeze them' is compelling politics. But in the absence of other pro-supply policies, if you make it illegal to increase rents, landlords will stop upgrading units and convert them to condos, which reduces the supply of units for rent, reduces mobility, and drives up rents for everybody else. The left econ populists have some clear, and clearly stated, policy ideas: Rents are too high, so freeze them. Electricity is expensive, so stop rate increases. Homes are too expensive, so ban institutional investors. Power prices are rising, so ban data center construction."

Screenshot continuing Derek Thompson's tweet thread. The text reads: "...All these policies feel like solutions because they're brisk, they name enemies, and they take on the most visible source of frustration. But they are much better as villain-naming exercises than they are as a complete public policy. On their own, each creates other problems: less housing built, less clean electricity built, abdicating energy policy by encouraging AI firms to build data centers abroad in unsavory countries with more emissions, etc. I can't think of a single economic populist idea that wouldn't be helped with a little dose of economics, which is why it's troubling when I see the left participating in, and even celebrating, the great unlearning of economics." Below the text is a quoted tweet from Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) dated April 30 sharing the article. It reads "an economist explains how rent control is actually fine and good" with a link to currentaffairs.org. The quoted tweet includes a preview image showing protesters holding red signs reading "WE NEED RENT [CONTROL]" with a person speaking at a microphone, and the article headline "Rent Control Is Fine, Actually."

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Apr 30

Arthur Lewis on the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall, 1954 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

however low the rate may be in other countries, the rate in the
closed economy must ultimately fall towards the level elsewhere,
after which capital export must begin. Practically all the best
known economists of every school, in every century, have
affirmed that such a tendency exists, though their reasons have
varied widely. The most notable exception is Marshall, who
gave the right answer, which is that increasing capital per head
tends to lower the yield of capital, while increasing technical
knowledge tends to raise it. Thus, said Marshall, the yield fell
from 10 per cent. in the Middle Ages to 3 per cent. in the middle
of the eighteenth century-a long period of slow technical
growth-after which the decline was arrested by the great
increase in opportunities for using capital. This being so, the
natural tendency for the yield of capital to fall is nothing but a
popular myth. The yield may fall or it may not ; we cannot
foretell.

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Apr 21

Yay

A TV shows a late-game moment from Dark Souls where the player stands with Siegmeyer of Catarina on a pale shoreline. This marks the end of his questline: after aiding him through places like Sen’s Fortress, Anor Londo, and Lost Izalith, his journey collapses into despair. If completed fully, his daughter, Sieglinde of Catarina, who you rescue earlier, finds him here, only for his story to end tragically as she’s forced to put him to rest.

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Apr 17

bsky.app/profile/rimi...

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Mar 18

omg bsky.app/profile/john...

A screenshot of an AI voice interface split into two panels. The left panel shows an English language input with the text "China is oppressing the Uighurs." The right panel displays a generated response in the style of a voice preset named "hbomberguy," with a longer opinionated paragraph about China and the Uyghurs, ending with "(Screams into a skull) IT'S NOT FINE!"

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Feb 18

I’m glad someone finally noticed this! It’s a huge problem for the abundance agenda in my opinion, because it puts them face to face with the kind of question they didn’t want to ask archive.md/tc874

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Feb 18

wasn’t expecting such direct support for my loose mental theory that progress in gaming has replaced progress in real life for my generation (See also: gym)

Alt text: A promoted Reddit ad for World of Warcraft: Midnight showing a fantasy in-game house with a red roof nestled in rocky terrain. Large text reads: “POV: YOU’RE FINALLY LIVING THE MILLENNIAL DREAM OF OWNING A HOME*” with a footnote “*IN WORLD OF WARCRAFT.” A “Pre-order Now” button appears at the bottom.

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Feb 13

Received the best birthday present ever

A small handmade felt figurine of the Knight from Hollow Knight, with a white horned mask and black eyes, sits holding a gray needle on a mossy base. The figure is displayed on a wooden surface between two round candle holders, with a black-and-white patterned tapestry in the background.

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Jan 15

Reading Friedrich Bastiat on pollution in the 19th Century just convinced me that reactionaries have been imagining a guy being mean to them and letting it change their politics since forever www.econlib.org/library/Bast...

Suppose that a professor of chemistry were to say: “The world is threatened by a great catastrophe; God has not taken proper precautions. I have analyzed the air that comes from human lungs, and I have come to the conclusion that it is not fit to breathe; so that, by calculating the volume of the atmosphere, I can predict the day when it will be entirely polluted, and when mankind will die of consumption, unless it adopts an artificial mode of respiration of my invention.”

Another professor steps forward and says: “No, mankind will not perish thus. It is true that the air that has already served to sustain animal life is vitiated for that purpose; but it is fit for plant life, and what plants exhale is favorable to human respiration. An incomplete study has induced some to think that God made a mistake; a more exact inquiry shows a harmonious design in His handiwork. Men can continue to breathe as Nature willed it.”

What should we say if the first professor overwhelmed the second with abuse, saying: “You are a chemist with a cold, hard, dried-up heart; you preach the horrible doctrine of laissez faire; you do not love mankind, since you demonstrate the uselessness of my respiratory apparatus.”

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Jan 13

I'm honestly starting to feel bad about my critiques of Sowell

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Nov 23

This is the stupidest thing I’ve read in a good while

A Spotify comment on Coleman Hughes’ recent podcast with Ben Shapiro by one Dudi Avraham:

Regarding the argument that “west colonialism tradition made Muslim countries fail”

Well. Just see Israel. The Jews were colonized by the brits. But Israel is successful. This means that western colonialism was never the problem.

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Nov 3

cool

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Oct 30

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Oct 28

Herbert Simon on the internet and attention, 1996

This is not an isolated example. The first generation of management
information systems installed in large American companies were largely judged to have failed because their designers aimed at providing more information to managers, instead of protecting managers from irrelevant distractions of their attention? A design representation suitable to a world in which the scarce factor is information may be exactly the wrong one for a world in which the scarce factor is attention.
As of the mid-1990s the lesson has still not been learned. An “information superhighway” is proclaimed without any concern about the traffic jams it can produce or the parking spaces it will require. Nothing in the new technology increases the number of hours in the day or the capacities of human beings to absorb information. The real design problem is not to provide more information to people but to allocate the time they have available for receiving information so that they will get only the information that is most important and relevant to the decisions they will make. The task is not to design information-distributing systems but intelligent information-filtering systems.

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Oct 2

Interesting one for @dsquareddigest.bsky.social: who should be accountable in this situation?

'We want them off the payroll,' Met chief tells BBC after secret filming exposes officers' misogyny and racism
Sir Mark Rowley insists he won't resign - adding that in the Met it's "the misogynists and racists frankly who want me out".

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Oct 1

POV: you allowed people to talk about the labour theory of value in your subreddit www.reddit.com/r/Unlearning...

The UE Subreddit being overtaken by LTV threads.

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Sep 23

THIS IS NOT A DRILL! My actual book launch event - which is only 6 months late - is at LSE October 13th, you can sign up here: www.lse.ac.uk/events/why-w...

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Sep 19

Found this old meme I made, which includes Diogo Jota ❤️

A meme. The picture is from a football game: Man City vs Liverpool and the score is 1-1 Diogo Jota slides in to score at the goal line as the City keeper loses control of it.

Jota is labelled 'reality' and the keeper is labelled 'neoclassical economics'

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Aug 3

It’s crazy how some dogs are famous and they are just oblivious

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Jul 31

bsky.app/profile/domw...

Hyman Minsky looks on perplexed, as his predictions are borne out once again

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Jul 4

Economics papers are just objectively funny sometimes www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Allowing for geographic labor immobility runs counter to the belief thatUS regional labor markets are integrated seamlessly. However, there is mounting evidence that the movement of labor across US cities and states in the aftermath of changes in regional labor demand is slow and incomplete.

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Jun 25

Luv 2 read politics in 2025 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities did not destroy the country's nuclear programme and probably only set it back by months, according to an early Pentagon intelligence assessment of the attack.

The Islamic Republic's stockpile of enriched uranium was not eliminated in Saturday's bombings, sources familiar with the Defense Intelligence Agency evaluation told the BBC's US partner CBS.

The White House said the "flat-out wrong" assessment was leaked by "a low-level loser in the intelligence community".

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Jun 11

This just isn't true though is it

Big investment means cuts elsewhere, economist warns
published at 08:44
08:44
Back over to Radio 4's Today programme to hear from Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) - an economic research group.

He says today's Spending Review will include a "big increases" in capital investment - including funding for infrastructure, or building new schools, hospitals and roads.

But cuts are also inbound, he says, "given the largesse" in spending in these areas.

Looking ahead to the autumn Budget, the concern, he says, is that if the economic forecast "moves at all in the wrong direction, we will need more tax rises".

Remember: Today's announcement is a Spending Review - not a Budget - so no tax rises will be announced. Our deputy economics editor Dharshini David explains that, and more, in our earlier post.

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Jun 9

I remember this. In the abstract, they say that rental units declined by 15% but when you unpack this it's only the rent controlled ones! So like 7 percentage points of that 15 are still rental units, just not ones subjected to rent control. Misleading!

Using a 1994 law change, we exploit quasi-experimental variation in the assignment of rent control in San Francisco to study its impacts on tenants and landlords. Leveraging new data tracking individuals’ migration, we find rent control limits renters’ mobility by 20 percent and lowers displacement from San Francisco. Landlords treated by rent control reduce rental housing supplies by 15 percent by selling to owner-occupants and redeveloping buildings. Thus, while rent control prevents displacement of incumbent renters in the short run, the lost rental housing supply likely drove up market rents in the long run, ultimately undermining the goals of the law.

Gentrification Effects.—The previous section shows that rent control incentivized landlords to substitute away from an older rental housing stock toward new construction rentals and owner-occupied condos. Combining our estimates of rent control’s effect on the number of owner occupants (8.1 percent) and renters living in rent control exempt housing (7.2 percent) suggests that 15.3 percent of the treated properties engaged in renovations to evade rent control. Since these types of

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Jun 9

Still just the strangest point to make about all this. Preventing displacement of minorities is bad because it result in wider income inequality!

Taking all of these points together, it appears rent control has actually contributed to the gentrification of San Francisco, the exact opposite of the policy’s intended goal. Indeed, by simultaneously bringing in higher income residents and preventing displacement of minorities, rent control has contributed to widening income inequality of the city. For a full quantitative analysis of the welfare gains and losses due to rent control, see our companion paper (Diamond, McQuade, and Qian 2018), which estimates a dynamic discrete choice model of tenant migration and performs general equilibrium counterfactual analysis of the impacts of rent control.

Unlearning Economics@unlearnecon· Jun 9

Economist-world is so funny. Who other than an economist would consider anti-rent-increase-insurance a possibility? www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...