October 9, 2006
BASEBALL, HOT DOGS, APPLE PIE, & NOBEL PRIZES:
American Wins 2006 Nobel for Economics (MATT MOORE and KARL RITTER, October 9, 2006, The Associated Press)
American Edmund S. Phelps won the 2006 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday for furthering the understanding of the trade-offs between inflation and its effects on unemployment.The 73-year-old Columbia University professor's work showed how low inflation today leads to expectations of low inflation in the future, thereby influencing future policy decision making by corporate and government leaders. [...]
Phelps challenged the prevailing view in the 1960s that there was a stable, negative relationship between inflation and unemployment, illustrated by the so-called Phillips curve.
"He recognized that inflation does not only depend on unemployment, but also on the expectations of firms and employees about price and wage increases," the academy said.
Phelps put together a new model to describe the relationship between inflation and unemployment, known as the expectations-augmented Phillips curve.
He also showed that there is a precise "equilibrium unemployment rate" at which firms raise workers' wages at the same rate as average wages are expected to rise in the economy overall. Those findings have influenced central banks in their interest-rate decisions, the academy said.
"Phelps' work has fundamentally altered our views on how the macroeconomy operates," the citation said, adding his work proved fruitful in understanding the causes of the increases in both inflation and unemployment in the 1970s.
In its citation announcing the award, the academy said that Phelps had advanced the understanding of the trade-offs between full employment, stable pricing and rapid growth, all of which are the central goals of any sound economic policy.
"But policy always faces difficult goal conflicts. How should inflation and unemployment be balanced against each other?" the academy asked in the citation. "What trade off should be made between the consumption of current and future generations?"
Phelps' work advanced the understanding of those trade-offs.
"He has emphasized that not only the issue of savings and capital formation but also the balance between inflation and unemployment are fundamentally issues about the distribution of welfare over time," the academy said. "Phelps' analyses have had a profound impact on economic theory as well as on macroeconomic policy."
Phelps also pioneered the analysis of the importance of human capital, or workers themselves, for the diffusion of new technology and growth in the business and corporate world, the academy said in its citation.
Open immigration is just the free flow of capital.
Posted by Orrin Judd at October 9, 2006 9:13 AM
It is more than that.
Managed correctly, it is an expropriation of capital from the sending to the receiving country.
We aren't just getting people, we are getting people in their peak productive years. Think of it: workers without small children, workers without elderly parents. Sure, the workers send money home, but that's all right, the strain on services and infrastrucxture is there, not here. Sure, some of the immigrants will want to bring families here as soon as possible, after all, they are human beings and crave familial attachments. To counter this, we can pretend we don't want the immigrants, make them technically "illegal," and keep them underground. Works like magic.
Here's a great plan to speed up this expropriation: encourage the citizenry to forego reproduction. Issue false overpopulation warnings, tear down the family, tear down motherhood. Prate about "women's right to 'choose'," push homosexuality as an appropriate alternative lifestyle. Make sure that the rate of population growth is far, far below the demand for labor. Again, it's easy. This way, the market keeps sucking in the cheap labor without much of the human baggage attached to families.
Of course, people will talk about it, so pretend you care. Make pronouncements, build walls. The trick, the con, will go on as before--unless there is a sense of economic sin.
Posted by: Lou Gots at October 9, 2006 10:00 AMSome people do deserve the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE and some dont those who dont deserve it is JIMMY CARTER
Posted by: Wally the bird at October 9, 2006 10:10 AMPretty darn good for a country that can't win at basketball any more. Looks like it'll be a clean sweep when Karl Rove gets the Peace Prize on Friday.
Posted by: Peter B at October 9, 2006 12:04 PMThe peace prize this year may be a harbinger of the future. If there isn't an outrageously partisan selection as Carter was last year and someone actually deserving gets the award, then I think it will bode well for the elections next month.
What I'm afraid of is that the committee will split the difference and award the prize to former presidents Bush and Clinton for their strange bed-fellows traveling road show of charitable fundraising.